I Remember You: Episode 9

by dramallama

While Hyun pieces together his past and present with a pinch of denial, our heroine takes on our new case like a boss. We’re given a real stalker, who surpasses Ji-an’s stalker level of curiosity and poses significant threats to his targets. But Ji-an is nothing short of a badass when it comes to doing her job, willing to face the filthiest of humans. Her dedication to investigating doesn’t go unnoticed, especially by an observant profiler aka her childhood frenemy turned reluctant roommate and partner.

 
EPISODE 9: “Stalkers”

Hyun confirms with Il-joo that he had an accomplice, but Il-joo only recognizes his accomplice by his voice. As Il-joo is escorted out, he recognizes this voice, the voice of Lawyer Jung.

In the interrogation room, Hyun drops the beads symbolizing Il-joo’s victim count and thinks to himself, “If this is Min’s doing, if it really is Min, what do I do?”

Myung-woo sees Hyun talking to Chief Hyun and attempts to eavesdrop out of curiosity. But he’s caught by Deputy Chief Kang, who orders him to scurry on his way. Then Deputy Chief Kang peeks inside and tries to do the same. Ha.

Hyun confronts Chief Hyun about Min’s death. She had told him with certainty that Min and Lee Joon-young were dead, but Hyun doesn’t quite believe it. Deputy Chief Kang enters the office and realizes Hyun’s relation to the case. He answers for Chief Hyun, confirming that she searched the whole nation but couldn’t find any traces of Lee Joon-young or Min.

But this isn’t enough for Hyun. He vows to return with more questions that will demand more answers. Deputy Chief Kang stops him and asks if Hyun still believes that Min and Lee Joon-young are still alive. Hyun turns around and nods, “Possibly.”

As Hyun walks through the office, he adds that these two are probably in his immediate vicinity. He passes Lawyer Jung, who then stops him to ask if he’s okay — he doesn’t look too well.

Hyun responds by offering to treat him out to thank him for helping Lee Jung-ha. Hyun adds that he wants to be closer with him, and Lawyer Jung takes the offer with a cold smile.

At home, Ji-an joins Hyun in watching a movie and comments that this isn’t a bad way to spend her last night here. She requests captions, since the movie is in English, but he ignores her. Ha, typical.

Ji-an later asks about Hyun’s interrogation of Il-joo, and he responds with a question: Does she believe that her father is still alive? Ji-an likes to think he is, and she asks if this is about her brother. Hyun looks surprised at her insight, and she continues by encouraging him to stay hopeful. “I like to think that the stronger you believe, the more likely it is to come true.”

Taking a swig of his beer, Hyun thinks, “No. Now, I’m afraid that he’ll be alive and that my hunch will be true.” Then he stands up and tells Ji-an to stay here until they catch the intruder. She asks what he’ll do if they never find him, but he just leaves it at that.

A woman goes on a morning run and suddenly stops to look behind her. She looks afraid as she sees a man run towards her, but it’s just Joon-ho followed by Hyun.

Joon-ho comments on how nice it is to have a running partner and shares his prediction about today being a busy day. On damp days like this, many bodies find their way to him. Hyun notes the chill in his phrasing.

The woman turns around again, sensing a presence behind her. But she ignores her suspicion and runs off, though it does seem like someone is stalking her.

The camera pans to below a bridge, where a dead body lies.

Ji-an wakes up, wondering where Hyun went, and decides to explore his bookshelf. She finds the drawings from his childhood and recognizes the double eye signature.

When she hears Hyun return, she quickly throws the sketchbook back and pretends to stretch on the bookshelf. She continues to distract him by asking what breakfast is to hide her new inkling of suspicion.

While doing the dishes, Ji-an thinks back to all the clues and Hyun’s confession at the harbor. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and he might not want to know. “No way,” she thinks aloud, and Hyun pokes her face with soap to wake her out of her daze.

Hyun tells her to voice her thoughts, but she continues to stare at him keeping her thoughts to herself. He pokes more soap onto her face, telling her to spill her thoughts, but she reciprocates by wiping some soap onto his face. Cute.

Lawyer Jung addresses his new client, Il-joo, and accusingly asks why he opened the boxes without his permission. Il-joo squirms back in his chair and squeaks out an apology. Lawyer Jung asks what Hyun asked him, and Il-joo tells him about confirming his last victim as Prosecutor Shin.

Flashback to the day of Prosecutor Shin’s kidnapping. Lawyer Jung enters the room and knocks Hyun unconscious. “Sorry, hyung.” Ahh it’s Min for real.

In his basement, Hyun looks at Il-joo’s hidden account and notices that the dates of the deposits are around the same dates he had returned to Korea. Could this be a coincidence? Hyun drops the account book into a box and convinces himself to forget about it.

Myung-woo goes on a blind date and shifts uncomfortably. He admits that he hasn’t been on a blind date for three years and offers to make her laugh. But the woman (the same person who was going on the morning run), Ji Hyun-sook, asks a more serious question about how to deal with a stalker.

Indebted Friend scoffs from behind when Myung-woo promises to protect her with all his power, and then he recognizes him from the pictures the Hyun gave him. Wondering if this guy is the murderer, Indebted Friend sneaks looks at him, and Myung-woo notices.

Myung-woo follows him to the bathroom and accuses him of having a criminal record. He demands a form of ID, but he comes out clean. When he returns, Hyun-sook decides that Myung-woo isn’t her best resort and leaves. A man trailing after her goes unnoticed by Myung-woo.

Hyun’s desk ends up right across from Myung-woo’s, and the two stare each other down. A murder gets reported, and finally, the team can get to work. Having been rejected, Myung-woo decides that work is everything in his life now.

At the crime scene, Joon-ho seems smug in his prediction about finding bodies today. He points out the ligature mark on the victim’s neck and how unusual it is that the blood seems to be cleaned off the body. Hyun deduces that the killer wanted to wipe away the evidence or was regretful of his crime.

Joon-ho and Eun-bok confirm seeing similar crimes, and Hyun gets excited at the possibility of a serial killer. Ji-an shushes him, warning him to stop saying things that would characterize him as a psycho. Sure enough, Team Leader Kang and Eun-bok stare at him curiously.

In the office, the investigative team piece together the clues. They gather the similar murder cases, all of which included women discovered dead a week after their kidnapping.

Hyun-sook watches TV at home, and when she goes to reach for the remote, she notices something in the drawer. It’s a camera, and she immediately calls the police. While she waits outside, she decides to call Myung-woo. But before he picks up, she hangs up and gets kidnapped into a black van.

Myung-woo seems offended that Hyun-sook would hang up on him, but then he realizes her concern about being stalked. He finds her whereabouts and searches her home for any sign of stalking.

Hyun reviews the killer’s M.O. as kidnapping women and then killing them a week later. The team notices that the time between each killing has decreased significantly. They confirm evidence of stalking in Hyun-sook’s home and prepare themselves to find the killer before their time limit of one week.

Ji-an suspects that the stalker must be the killer, and Hyun makes a snarky comment that the stalker herself should know better. Team Leader Kang wonders what this is about, and Ji-an assures him that she’s just an idol fan while forcing a smile.

Hyun-sook wakes up injured and tied to a chair in a dark abandoned site. She screams for her stalker to come out, and someone walks down the stairs. It’s a woman, innocently telling Hyun-sook to be quiet.

Ji-an takes a break with Hyun and asks why he’s working so hard all of a sudden. He admits that he’s running away from his thoughts. Team Leader Kang finds them and deflates at the sight of them together.

Myung-woo and Seung-joo interrogate the owner of the building for any information on a possible suspect. But the owner lady rejects any possibility of her involvement.

Eun-bok finds more information on the residents of the building, one in particular striking our interest: a sex offender. The owner lady makes a call to her son, asking if he took her keys again. Our investigators overhear the call, so the owner lady yells at her arriving son to run away. They chase him down and search through his apartment for evidence of stalking.

In the interrogation room, the son, Park Soo-young, claims that Hyun-sook was his girlfriend. Hyun shows him pictures of the other woman, all of which he claims were his girlfriends. But now, they’ve disappeared.

Hyun explains that Soo-young must be suffering from de Clerambault’s Syndrome, with which one falls obsessively in love with another. He believes every small gesture is one of love, so if he did harm these women in any way, he would only remember as an expression of love.

There must be an accomplice, but Soo-young won’t tell. Ji-an volunteers to interrogate him, since our suspect may be more vulnerable in front of a woman. Team Leader Kang considers cross-dressing Eun-bok (ha), but Ji-an takes one for the team so they can find Hyun-sook as soon as possible.

Ji-an enters with a drink for Soo-young and a friendly smile. He sees right through her act and accuses her for trying to seduce him. Ji-an admits to this, and he tells her to stop because she’s not his type. But Ji-an powers through and brings her seat next to his. Holding his hand, she asks for his help, since his girlfriend’s life is at stake.

After some hesitation, Soo-young grabs Ji-an’s hand and contradicts his previous statement: She is his type. Ugh, ew. Ji-an asks where Hyun-sook is, and he claims that she’s in his room. He tells her that when he brags about his girlfriends, they’re taken away in a black van by a man with a star on his head. When he hesitates to tell her more, Ji-an reaches out to tilt his face towards her to continue.

Ji-an washes her hands in the bathroom with soap and then with soap again. Hyun waits for her outside, and she admits that she can’t seem to wipe the grimy feeling off her hands. So he takes her hands from behind and holds them in his. “It should be a bit better now.”

The investigators search through Soo-young’s files and find a folder for each of his victims, except for the first one. They find upload records, and we find out that Park Soo-young had uploaded video files of these women online. So it’s possible that Soo-young merely uploaded the files, and the real killer is a viewer.

Unfortunately, the website belongs to an overseas server and there are thousands of members, meaning all the members would become suspects. It would be impossible to find our killer.

Lawyer Jung thinks back to Hyun’s invitation for dinner and decides to make the first move. He calls and suggests somewhere quiet, like Hyun’s place. After a moment of hesitation, Hyun agrees to the arrangement, and they hang up. Both brothers tap their fingers in anticipation.

While everyone sleeps in the office, Hyun and Ji-an continue to work on the case. Hyun has figured out the general area that our killer resides based on the trail that the women are left in. The killer must pass by these sites en route to work, and probably has a second car so the SUV is hidden away.

But from a profiler’s perspective, Hyun finds the killer’s M.O. unusual. All these victims suffered a blow to the head, which isn’t characteristic of the rich confident person — like Yang Seung-hoon — they’re searching for. Something feels off, but Hyun needs to leave to prepare for his guest.

Hyun cleans and prepares food for Lawyer Jung while Ji-an tirelessly works in the office. Team Leader Kang asks if she’s found anything, and Ji-an discusses the possibility of their first victim’s boyfriend as their killer. He matches the description in Hyun’s profiling, so Team Leader Kang suggest that they go pay him a visit with the excuse of paying their respects.

On their way, Team Leader Kang shares his embarrassment because of all of recent violence towards women. He’s ashamed of all the men who have injured women and of himself for not being able to catch the intruder that harmed Ji-an.

He promises to find him as soon as possible, but Ji-an — thinking back to Hyun’s offer to let her stay in his home until the intruder is caught — assures him that it’s no rush. He calls it nonsense and vows to capture this suspect.

Team Leader Kang and Ji-an gawk at the boyfriend’s large estate and confront him about the serial killings. He refuses to cooperate, having dealt with the grief and misery of complying with the police when his girlfriend was first found. He tells them to contact his lawyer for future reference.

Lawyer Jung arrives at Hyun’s home and takes a moment to take everything in. Hyun watches from behind as we see Lawyer Jung’s cold façade melt and transform into Min. Min’s eyes fill with nostalgia, and he watches his hyung prepare food. He imagines little Hyun smiling at younger Min.

Ji-an seems deflated at their flat rejection, but she notices the license plate of a van peeking out from a half-opened garage. Team Leader Kang makes a call to check this license plate, and Ji-an sneaks inside the garage. She notices the star at the top of the window and recalls Soo-young’s statement about the man with the star on his head. This is it.

Just as Lawyer Jung offers to help with preparing the meal, the doorbell rings. Joon-ho enters, but he stops in his tracks when he sees Lawyer Jung. Hyun craftily explains that he invited them both since they know each other and he had an abundance of food. Joon-ho and Lawyer Jung icily stare at each other, unsettled by this unexpected meeting.

Team Leader Kang calls for back up, but the garage door starts to open. A large man attacks Team Leader Kang, and Ji-an joins the fight. They’re both thrown to the ground, but Team Leader Kang gets back up. Just as the attacker skillfully takes out his knife, Ji-an finds the gun in Team Leader Kang’s bag and shoots an empty in the air.

She points the gun at the attacker, but someone from behind smacks Ji-an on her head. It’s the lady who shushed Hyun-sook in the abandoned building. Team Leader Kang yells for Ji-an, but he gets stabbed and falls to the ground. Ji-an is carried into the car while an injured Team Leader Kang reaches out helplessly.

 
COMMENTS

I freaking love Ji-an. She’s perceptive and intelligent in her own way, with an independence that I think so many heroines could benefit from. She jumps into a situation, a fight at her own expense. Ji-an is acutely aware that she’s responsible for herself, and that awareness shows in her assertive behavior. With the creepy stalker, the attacker who was twice (or three times) her size, and previous cases, Ji-an doesn’t hesitate to execute her role to the best of her ability. The depth and strength of her character shines through in this episode, and I do hope that she continues to receive proper recognition.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the cute, yeah? The bickering and blatant ignoring are now just staples in the relationship, which given other characters wouldn’t be that exciting, but these two make the disrespect into some fun chemistry. Not going to lie, I cringed when Hyun took Ji-an’s hand to get rid of the stalker grime because it was so unlike them. But again, not going to lie, I rewatched that scene a couple times. I think it just means a lot more coming from Hyun, who has high standards when it comes to emoting and caring. While this episode didn’t capitalize too much on the roommate situation, the soap was a hopeful foreshadowing of what’s to come. More cute everyday things and inconveniences from the roomies please!

The show did a quick job at acknowledging Lawyer Jung as Min, which I prefer over dragging out the reveal when most of us have figured it out already. This also means we get more time looking into Min’s transformation into Lawyer Jung, who now seem like completely different people. And to some extent, they are. The environment that Min supposedly grew up in starkly contrasts with the world Hyun grew up knowing. I do wonder how much Min’s murderous tendencies were influenced by Lee Joon-young, and if his misunderstanding that his hyung abandoned him was self-taught. If so, it’s a very simple and tragic reality to live in.

I won’t argue that Min’s perspective on Hyun’s abandonment is unrealistic, since I believe that Min has ingrained this fact in his reality, and reality is relative. He’s brainwashed this reality into his mind, erasing all the complexities of their situation. The brothers were victims of circumstance, one simply luckier than the other. I see their abnormal tendencies being paralleled every so often, which makes me more sympathetic towards Min. I think it’s this guilt that Hyun is struggling to overcome — that it easily could have been him in Min’s shoes. But Min isn’t the little boy Hyun knew from his childhood, and I don’t see either of them cutting any slack when pitted against each other. Let the tragic bromance begin.

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