The Truth About Yun-ji
Episode 4 of Siren's Kiss begins with a flashback of Yun-ji watching Seol-ah from her secret apartment. At present, Woo-seok realises what Yun-ji was doing. Additionally, he finds a burner phone inside the little toy house. At the police station, Eun-hye tells the detectives that she saw Seol-ah coming down the stairs from the rooftop, looking scared.
Meanwhile, Seol-ah organises a charity auction for emerging artists where a man named Park Min-cheol, the owner of Taemyung Art Centre, bids on five pieces. A quick flashback shows that Chairwoman Kim advised him to buy those pieces. At present, it becomes clear that Chairwoman Kim has planted someone in the audience to compete with Park and make sure he raises his bid. However, at the end of the event, the detectives arrive and arrest Seol-ah for Yun-ji's murder.
Woo-seok watches this as well. He's given the burner phone to a hacker (a young man he caught trying to commit insurance fraud), who tells him he found spyware on it — Yun-ji was spying on Seol-ah. At the police station, Seol-ah admits to going to the roof but says Yun-ji was already dead by the time she got there. She ran away because she was scared. However, Seong-il makes it clear that her lack of alibi is an issue. Elsewhere, Jun-beom sees a news article about Seol-ah getting arrested and smiles.
Eun-hyuk visits Seol-ah and asks her if she saw anyone else on the rooftop. She whispers something to him and Woo-seok takes a video of this from outside the interrogation room. Later, Eun-hyuk rushes to a gallery at the auction house but Woo-seok has beat him to it. Turns out, he got a lip reader to interpret Seol-ah's conversation with Eun-hyuk and then followed her instructions till he found a memory card.
The memory card holds video footage from an artwork by an artist named Hwang. It's the same passage with the one-way mirror that Woo-seok first saw Seol-ah in. The video footage shows Seol-ah walking through the passage at the time of Yun-ji's death. After seeing this, the detectives' higher-ups tell them to close Yun-ji's case as a suicide. Seol-ah is let go!
Woo-seok meets the hacker, who sends him the audio files he found on the burner phone. Woo-seok then asks him to find Hyun-su (his sister's boyfriend). The audio files reveal that Yun-ji was listening in on Seol-ah's daily life. Woo-seok goes back to the apartment and notices the toy house has figurines of a woman and a man, and the man is a doctor.
Meanwhile, Seol-ah is unable to sleep and visits her doctor. She says she can't prescribe more tranquillizers for the insomnia and asks her to go to a psychiatrist. Seol-ah says she had a bad experience at a mental clinic and a few quick flashbacks show Choi Young-ho inappropriately touching her.
Woo-seok meets with the nurse from Choi Young-ho's clinic and she confirms that Yun-ji was his girlfriend! He broke up with her soon after Seol-ah started her consultations but she took it badly. After two months of sessions with Seol-ah, Young-ho stopped them. The nurse thinks this is because he wanted to be in a relationship with Seol-ah.
Elsewhere, Park Min-cheol meets Seol-ah and tells her that Chairwoman Kim's advice worked out well for him. At a gallery, Woo-seok meets Seol-ah and tells her the truth about Yun-ji. But this isn't an act of consideration; he still wants to know why her three exes had to die. She says she didn't gain anything, she only lost. As she's walking away, Seol-ah suddenly passes out. At the hospital, the doctors say she's taken too many tranquillizers and needs rest.
But she wakes up and leaves without a word to Woo-seok. She goes straight to Jun-beom's office, where a painting of flames triggers her childhood memories. We see a young Seol-ah, a burning house, and what looks like the dead bodies of her parents. Jun-beom refuses her proposal for the Stiller and says he's more interested in her. She tells him off for mixing personal and business issues and he pacifies her, saying he'll stick to business talk.
One of the audio clips Woo-seok hears is a conversation between Seol-ah and Sook-ji. The latter berates Seol-ah for bottling up all her pain. Seol-ah says she doesn't deserve to be in pain since she survived but her parents didn't.
Woo-seok approaches Eun-hyuk and asks him about Seol-ah's parents. He stays vague about it but Eun-hye arrives and tells Woo-seok that Seol-ah's parents died in a fire when she was 15. He looks through the official report, where it says the fire may have been started by someone wanting to commit suicide.
The next day, Seol-ah goes to Seung-jae's enshrinement ceremony, where Seung-jae's mother blames Seol-ah for his death. Seung-jae's brother corners her as well and demands to know why Seung-jae took out an insurance policy. Turns out, he overheard Yun-ji warning Seung-jae about Seol-ah and the insurance policy. When he grabs Seol-ah and asks her if she killed them, Woo-seok (who has been watching for a while) intervenes and makes him stop.
Seol-ah throws the engagement ring Seung-jae gave her off the side of the mountain. Woo-seok approaches her again and asks her if she really is innocent. She steps back and begins to fall over the cliff but he pulls her back. She begs him to let her die and asks what he wants from her. He says it's her. He wants to know more about her.
The Episode Review
Well, Siren's Kiss is definitely a slow burn and we might need some patience with this one. At the same time, Episode 4 includes some nice twists and turns, more tension and suspense, and a splash of drama. It's a mix of different elements that keeps things gripping and draws up enough mystery to make us want more.
With Chairwoman Kim and Jun-beom's suspicious behaviour, there are suspects everywhere. Seol-ah goes from cool indifference throughout the suspicion and police questioning to suddenly breaking at Seung-jae's memorial ceremony and attempting suicide. A plausible break for someone who has been tightly wound for a long time? Or a red herring?
While the questions persist, this episode in particular seems to side with Seol-ah. But this might also be because we're watching her a lot from Woo-seok's perspective and the episode nicely traces the way his opinion of her seems to shift as he learns more about her past. A bit too easy an explanation, yes, but Wi Ha-joon makes a convincing case of the doubts entering Woo-seok's mind.
The reveal about Yun-ji and the fact that she's really Choi Young-ho's ex-girlfriend is a particularly nice twist as well, since we spent all this while thinking she had something going on with Seung-jae. It's unexpected and fills in some blanks as well, explaining why Yun-ji had so much animosity towards Seol-ah.
On the other hand, it is a bit convenient how Woo-seok just shows up everywhere that Seol-ah is. The splash of drama comes in here as well, since we are obviously meant to just overlook the way he's breaking laws in the process of his investigation while berating others for doing illegal things at the same time. The Kopiko inserts are a bit distracting as well, taking away from the show's darker mood.
Speaking of, there is some delightfully sinister background score here but the show could definitely use more of it. We also don't fully get an explanation on how Yun-ji has bugged Seol-ah to be able to listen to her everywhere but hopefully future episodes will shed some light on this.
Episode Rating
3.5
Expect A Full Season Write-Up When This Season Concludes!
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