Red Moon Blue Sun: Episodes 23-24

by odilettante

You always hurt the one you love — at least, if you’re an abuser, you do. We’ve been focused on abused children, but what happens when they grow up, having endured that abuse all their lives? Who do they become? What do they live for? Are they still able to be saved? Or is their fate grimly sealed?

 
EPISODES 23-24 RECAP

After being beaten by Red Cry on the rooftop, Ji-heon wakes up in the hospital. He recalls a vague memory of Red Cry’s face, shocked to realize that it was a mask of someone called “Good Person” from a children’s show. Well, Ha-na wasn’t wrong — if Red Cry was wearing this mask, then he really was a “Good Person.”

But now the detectives are back to square one, since Red Cry took down the horror site after realizing that the police had discovered it and created a trap.

At the nursing facility, Se-kyung is back in her regular room, having overcome her pneumonia attack. Woo-kyung’s decided to try a new, more experimental treatment, since she wants to do more for Se-kyung than merely hope for the best.

Woo-kyung particularly wishes Se-kyung to be able to wake up so that Se-kyung and Mom can resolve their conflict. Mom doesn’t seem too thrilled by this prospect, since she knows Se-kyung never liked her in the first place, plus Mom admits she wasn’t much of an affectionate parent, anyway. But Woo-kyung continues to live in optimistic hope, pointing out that Mom did her best to raise the two girls.

At the children’s center, Eun-ho works on his art projects in his room, startled to be interrupted by the director. Eun-ho cautiously greets his guest, and the director genially muses that Eun-ho is a lucky kid — except he uses his luck in all the wrong places.

Then he slaps Eun-ho upside the head, knocking him down as he angrily tells the young man that it’s only because of his money that Eun-ho is able to eat, sleep, and live a good life. Grabbing Eun-ho by the collar and hoisting him in the air, the director demands to know why Eun-ho stabbed him in the back.

Despite his injuries, Ji-heon checks himself out of the hospital. He calls Woo-kyung, keeping her up-to-date on the detective’s findings about the Good Person mask and Red Cry closing the website. As Woo-kyung studies the footage from the children’s show, she’s distracted by a lightbulb burning out above her desk.

She heads upstairs to the maintenance room, horrified to discover the director brutally beating up Eun-ho, who cowers and tells the director that he didn’t do anything. Eun-ho repeatedly insists that it was a “Mr. Yoon” who talked to the director’s father.

Still not satisfied, the director repeatedly kicks at Eun-ho, yelling at him to die. Woo-kyung rushes in, grabbing the director and ordering him to stop. As the enraged director staggers out of the room, Woo-kyung worriedly tends to Eun-ho’s wounds.

She gently cleans and bandages the cut on his check, telling Eun-ho that he should report this incident to the police. Eun-ho thinks that it’s pointless, and begs Woo-kyung to forget she saw anything — he can’t report someone that’s like family to him. Woo-kyung asks if he’s been regularly abused, and Eun-ho simply tells her not to worry about it.

Watch the video

They’re my family. They don’t mean harm.

Ji-heon’s team are surprised to see him to return to work so soon, but his injuries won’t prevent him from doing his job. But now that the website is gone, they’ll have to wait and hear about a new case in order to track down Red Cry.

Eun-ho fixes Woo-kyung’s broken lightbulb, explaining that the director is basically like an older brother to him since they grew up together. Woo-kyung is still concerned, but Eun-ho reassures her that although the director has a short temper, he’s not a bad man — he’s just worried about running the children’s center and making his father proud.

Even so, Woo-kyung’s determined to find out how long Eun-ho has been abused, but Eun-ho tells her that she only saw a small moment of anger between the two men — there’s much more to their relationship than that.

A new murder means a new case, and Ji-heon — still in his neck-brace — arrives at a takeaway shop where the owner was found dead. Captain Hong is there, and explains that he called in Ji-heon because the shop owner used to work at the children’s center — and a book of poetry was left near the body.

Further investigation reveals that the deceased, Yoon Hyung-pyo worked at the children’s center until last year. He also cancelled the adoption of a child a few years ago. Chan-wook realizes the case sounds familiar to one of the anonymous cases from Red Cry’s Judge’s Room, where an adoption was cancelled due to a seemingly nice couple actually turned out to be abusers.

Ji-heon follows up with Woo-kyung, showing her the print-out from the Judge’s Room regarding the cancelled adoption and explaining how it matches Hyung-pyo. Woo-kyung doesn’t believe it’s the same case, since she knows Hyung-pyo and his wife first adopted the child when they believed they couldn’t have kids of their own.

But when his wife got pregnant, the adopted child became jealous and actually started to hurt the wife, which resulted in a miscarriage. It was for both the child’s and Hyung-pyo’s wife safety that they decided to cancel the adoption. Woo-kyung was one of the witnesses during the cancellation, and there was no sign of abuse on the child.

Ji-heon asks why Ha-jung invited Woo-kyung to join Red Cry’s website, and Woo-kyung confesses that it’s probably because she feels the same fury as Red Cry when she sees children being abused. Ji-heon asks if she thinks that people should take the law into their own hands, like Red Cry does, and Woo-kyung hesitates to answer before admitting that, even though she might feel the same way, she wouldn’t be able to actually commit murder.

Back at the takeaway shop, Ji-heon and Soo-young carefully study the crime scene. Ji-heon muses over how the murder seems more like an impulsive act than carefully thought-out revenge.

The killer grabbed a nearby kitchen knife, stabbing the man in the back — only one stab wound, allowing Hyung-pyo to bleed out. Then the killer wiped the knife but left the bloodstains behind. The killer was smart enough to remove the CCTV memory card, but clumsily broke the camera while they were doing so.

It’s too awkward and messy, unlike Red Cry’s previous work, which was very deliberate and calculated. Soo-young points out that a book of poetry was left behind, but Ji-heom dismisses it — it’s just a book, not a specific poem. Any one of Hyung-pyo’s customers could have accidentally left the book.

But when the forensics team reports that Eun-ho’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon and the book of poetry, Ji-heon seems somewhat surprised. He goes to the children’s center to find Eun-ho, who’s busy helping to repair some of the children’s toys.

When she hears that Eun-ho’s been arrested, Woo-kyung hurries outside, where she sees Ji-heon escorting a handcuffed Eun-ho into a police car. She sees Eun-ho staring at someone, and her gaze shifts over to where the director is standing. She eyes him suspiciously.

At the police station, Ji-heon and Eun-ho stare at each other from across the interrogation room table. Aw, they have matching injuries, which they both say came about because they tripped and fell. LIES!

Eun-ho admits he went to see Hyung-pyo, but that he didn’t kill the man. Eun-ho explains that he got along well with Hyung-pyo when he worked at the children’s center, and that he’d stopped by to give the man a New Year’s gift.

But when he arrived at the shop, he saw the body on the floor. He’d accidentally knocked off the knife from the table, and the book fell out of his bag. Ji-heon demands to know why Eun-ho fled a crime scene without calling the police, and Eun-ho says that he learned his lesson from the arson case.

Eun-ho knows that he’d be a prime suspect — an orphan without money or education. Clenching his jaw, Eun-ho says it’s better to run away and not get involved. After all, Ji-heon already suspects him just because he enjoys spending time with children, despite the fact that Eun-ho did nothing wrong.

But Ji-heon still finds it strange that Eun-ho’s only friends are children, pointing out that it’s not normal. Eun-ho takes umbrage at the concept of “normal” — what, indeed, can be considered “normal?”

Watch the video

The police taught me to never get involved

Unfortunately for Eun-ho, Soo-kyung’s search of his room revealed a pair of shoes with a sliver of plastic hidden in them — a sliver of plastic that perfectly fit the broken piece from the CCTV camera. Not only that, but the shoes are a perfect match for the tracks left at the dog farm — although the shoes don’t have any traces of mud or blood on them.

Ji-heon tosses the shoes aside, pointing out that it’s a common brand of shoe and doesn’t get them anywhere. But the broken CCTV piece is definitely interesting, and he goes back into the interrogation room, demanding to know how it ended up in Eun-ho’s shoe. Ji-heon’s determined to not be fooled by Eun-ho’s sweet and innocent act, but Eun-ho stubbornly insists that he didn’t kill Hyung-pyo.

Woo-kyung and Mom anxiously monitor Se-kyung’s new treatment, which uses magnetic force to try and stimulate the brain. The doctor asks what Se-kyung’s favorite song is to play while the treatment is going, and both women realize that they don’t know Se-kyung very well. She had been living in America for ten years before returning to Korea and ultimately getting into her accident.

What Woo-kyung does know is that Se-kyung hated the fact that Woo-kyung would always side with Mom instead of her own flesh-and-blood sister. Se-kyung refused to look Mom in the eyes, terrified by Mom’s cold look. Sighing, Woo-kyung asks Mom that, when Se-kyung is better, they be nicer and warmer to her. Mom grumps that she can’t exactly change her personality.

A nurse wheels Se-kyung back to her room after the treatment, and Woo-kyung believes that Se-kyung will be able to talk soon. As Mom preps Se-kyung’s bed, Woo-kyung notices that Mom’s wrist is all bruised.

Mom dismisses it as nothing — she bruises easily now due to old age. Besides, it’s nothing compared to the hardships Woo-kyung has gone through in the past year. Woo-kyung’s eyes grow wide when she suddenly sees the little girl in the green dress standing next to Mom.

Woo-kyung tries to hide her reaction to the little girl as Mom says that they should focus on Se-kyung’s recovery, since she believes that Se-kyung will wake up soon. Woo-kyung watches as the little girl goes to stand next to the still-vegetative Se-kyung, who’s wide-open eyes seem to stare at Woo-kyung as much as the little girl does.

Ji-heon and his team follow up every little lead from Hyung-pyo’s case, but so far it’s all been a dead end. Even though on the surface this seems to be one of Red Cry’s murders, it just doesn’t feel right.

Looking further into Hyung-pyo’s file, they discover that he still worked at the children’s center a year after being accused of embezzlement. Ji-heon visits the director to get more information, and the director explains that he trusted Hyung-pyo to take care of the center’s finances, even after the embezzlement claim since there was no proof of any wrongdoings.

The director assumes that Hyung-pyo must have gotten into an argument with Eun-ho about money, since Eun-ho used to let him money every so often. That surprises Ji-heon — after all, Eun-ho doesn’t exactly seem like the type to have a lot of extra money to lend to anyone.

But the director insists that even a small amount of money can ruin relationships and cause one man to stab another. Ji-heon’s surprised that the director knows Hyung-pyo was stabbed since Ji-heon never mentioned it, and the director stutters that the center is filled with gossip about the murder.

Ji-heon seems to accept this, but finds it difficult to believe that someone as seemingly gentle and sweet as Eun-ho would be the type to kill. The director insists that every human is capable of killing.

The director definitely seems suspicious, even more so when Soo-young pulls up his record and reveals that the director has multiple records of violent acts. Ji-heon also finds out that Hyung-pyo received a hefty severance pay after leaving the children’s center, which was enough to buy a new house as well as open up the takeaway shop.

At the children’s center, the director begs Woo-kyung to visit Eun-ho where he’s still being held at the police station. He wants her to give Eun-ho some money so get can get some food and warm clothes while he’s in jail. Woo-kyung rightly points out that, since the director is like Eun-ho’s family, he should be the one to visit Eun-ho.

Frustrated, the director angrily yells at her to stop asking questions and just go. Then he dials himself back down, reminding her that she saw that he and Eun-ho got into an altercation a few days ago, so Eun-ho probably doesn’t want to see him right now.

He tells Woo-kyung that he’ll hire a good lawyer, and for her to ask Eun-ho to confess to the crime, since that will be the best solution for all of them.

Eun-ho is genuinely pleased to see Woo-kyung, even though she explains she tried to get the director himself to visit. Eun-ho doesn’t mind, since he knows the director tries to avoid uncomfortable situations.

Woo-kyung still can’t believe that Eun-ho is the killer, and he pleadingly insists that he didn’t do it. But his eyes start to fill up with tears as Woo-kyung gently explains that the director asked her to convince Eun-ho to confess to killing Hyung-pyo.

Wipinga away his tears, Eun-ho repeats a phrase that Woo-kyung once said: “If you think that way, you’ll end up living that way forever.” His voice grows louder and angrier as he continues to quote Woo-kyung’s statements, that it doesn’t matter if they’re family, if they’ve brainwashed and tried to use you.

Struggling to contain his emotions, Eun-ho goes back to his placid poker face as Woo-kyung asks if the director was involved with Hyung-pyo’s death. Eun-ho says it doesn’t matter — if he tells the truth, then the senior director will be angry.

Furious on his behalf, Woo-kyung points out that Eun-ho will be considered a murderer, just to prevent the senior director from becoming angry. Hesitating, Eun-ho explains that he found the CCTV memory card in one of the director’s pockets after he picked up the director’s dry-cleaning.

It clearly showed the director killing Hyung-pyo, and when Eun-ho saw Ji-heon at the children’s center that day, Eun-ho hid the memory card in one of the children’s toys that he was fixing.

Eun-ho explains to Ji-heon that his first instinct was to hide the memory card, since he knew that the senior director would be furious if his son caused more trouble.

Ji-heon can’t believe that Eun-ho would risk his own life to protect a murderer, and demands to know what’s really going on. Eun-so sadly says that a relationship that has been cemented together never changes, even if you wish it could.

Eun-ho says that Ji-heon won’t understand, but he was more afraid of the senior director finding out than fearing for what would happen to him if he was accused of murder.

Ji-heon struggles to understand Eun-ho’s mindset, and Woo-kyung explains that, just like Ha-na couldn’t talk about her father out of fear, so, too, Eun-ho is afraid. Woo-kyung can’t say if Eun-ho was abused, but he was definitely put under a lot pressure by the senior director while he was growing up — and he still lives under that pressure today.

The director is shocked when Soo-young shows up at his office to arrest him, and Woo-kyung watches as her boss is escorted away in handcuffs. Ji-heon shows the director the CCTV footage, and the man breaks down in sobs. He explains that he didn’t mean to kill Hyung-pyo, but he was so afraid of Hyung-pyo telling his father about the money being embezzled, that he lost his mind.

The director pleads with Ji-heon not to tell his father about the money he stole from the company, since he’s terrified of what his father will do. Annoyed, Ji-heon says that the director is going to prison — it’s not like his father will follow him there.

Ji-heon also demands to know why the director didn’t seem sorry for forcing Eun-ho to take the blame for Hyung-pyo’s death, and the director seems genuinely confused, explaining that it’s not like he was going to completely abandon Eun-ho. He was going to pay for the boy’s lawyer!

Realizing the director isn’t the brightest bulb in the box, Ji-heon goes back to Eun-ho’s interrogation room, wondering how the heck a guy like the director can run his own life, much less an entire business. Eun-ho defends the director, saying the man has some mood swings, but he means well.

But Ji-heon is more curious about the senior director, since he wants to know what kind of man can cause such terror in both Eun-ho and the junior director. Eun-ho continues his placid defense, insisting the senior director always looked after them with lots of love.

Ji-heon warns Eun-ho that they’ll still continue their investigation, even though they’ve arrested the director. He suggests that Eun-ho should leave the children’s center and find a job elsewhere, even offering to introduce him to a few people who might help. The main thing is that Eun-ho should get away from the senior director.

Once Eun-ho’s released, however, he immediately goes to see the senior director, who is ominously polishing his hunting rifle. The senior director swings it at Eun-ho, berating the boy for failing at the one thing he’d always asked Eun-ho to do — which was to make sure his idiot son didn’t get into any trouble.

Later, Eun-ho calls Woo-kyung, thanking her for all her help. He reassures Woo-kyung that the senior director didn’t yell as much as Eun-ho thought he would — so everything’s fine. Eun-ho adds that it’s thanks to her that he survived.

At the police station, Chan-wook is going through the director’s laptop, and for a man who said he can barely use his computer except to access gambling sites, Chan-wook’s found some interesting things — namely, that not only was this laptop used to access Red Cry’s horror website, but that this laptop was the one that deleted the site, too.

That means the director is now suspected to be Red Cry, and the detectives search the man’s apartment. They find a pair of dirty shoes, just like the ones that they found in Eun-ho’s room and that match the treads found at the dog farm. But most importantly, they find a Good Person mask.

The senior director tells Eun-ho that he needs something comforting, and Eun-ho looks through the shelves of poetry books until he finds one that’s clearly a favorite — “The Leper.” Oohhhhhhhhh.

Meanwhile, Woo-kyung sits by Se-kyung’s beside, also reading poetry. But she stops in shock when she hears gurgling noises coming from her sister. Se-kyung’s eyes open and she stares at Woo-kyung, gasping out, “Unni.”

Watch the video

Back to consciousness

 
COMMENTS

Well, well, well. I’ll admit I was momentarily distracted by the sudden introduction of the senior director, who gave me Red Cry vibes just, well, because (and if the show thinks they can convince me that the selfish idiot junior director has the wherewithal to actually be Red Cry, then they must think I’m as dumb as he is). But remembering Woo-kyung’s assessment that Red Cry’s poetry is something he hates, now I’m swinging back to Eun-ho being Red Cry — or at least a very active member in Red Cry’s mission. It seems like he’s grown up reading poetry to the senior director, so he’s undoubtedly got hundreds of poems memorized whether he likes it or not. I, too, would hate poetry if I were forced to read it to a selfish old man who only sees me as a tool to use and not a human being worthy of love and affection.

I get the impression that the senior director only kept Eun-ho around because Eun-ho could help fix his son’s mistakes. Which means Eun-ho’s essentially been brought up in slavery — technically, I suppose he could leave any time he wanted, but there’s nothing out there for him. No job, no home, nothing if it weren’t for the directors. Maybe Eun-ho’s has indeed been brainwashed, maybe he’s got some sort of bizarre Stockholm syndrome — but he can’t leave the only people who ever gave him a home. His mission in life is to protect the junior director from the wrath of his father, and he must fulfill that mission no matter how much he may hate it.

This really was Eun-ho’s episode, though. He’s spent so much time in the background, popping up here and there as needed, but mostly just being a figure who seemed suspicious but not really suspicious (I mean, just look at that angelic face!). But now we’ve got a better idea of who he is, as well as his background. Which seems like a horrible background and if Eun-ho really is Red Cry, I fear for both directors’ lives. How could two such atrocious men be in charge of something that’s all about healing children? No wonder there’s a vigilante determined to take control and make things right.

I also have to give a lot of love to Cha Hak-yeon. I haven’t seen him in anything else until this show, and I hadn’t really noted his acting skills because Eun-ho’s character has been predominately one-note. There might be flickers of something here and there, but he’s generally just appeared with that sweet smile. Yet those scenes in the interrogation room were incredible. He did an excellent job of allowing dozens of emotions to be expressed in just a few seconds — it was viscerally raw yet also somehow understated. He’s definitely proven he can meet the level of more experienced actors, like Kim Sun-ah.

Finally, I’m still clinging to my belief that the little girl in the green dress is Se-kyung — or at least somehow connected to Se-kyung. So it’ll be interesting to find out what happens to the little girl in the green dress now that Se-kyung is coming out of her comatose, vegetative state. Will the little girl continue to exist? Or does she still have another purpose to fulfill? What secrets has Mom been hiding all these years that would make Se-kyung hate her so much?

RELATED POSTS

• Premiere Watch: An Empress’s Dignity, Red Moon Blue Sun, SKY Castle, Priest
• Behind the scenes with Red Moon, Blue Sun
• Tragedy and intrigue in Red Moon, Blue Sun teasers
• Mystery-thriller Red Moon Blue Sun releases new stills
• Cast additions announced for MBC drama Red Moon, Blue Sun
• Kim Sun-ah, Lee Yi-kyung tapped for MBC drama Red Moon, Blue Sun