Secret Forest S1 ep 10

When Eun Soo called Si Mok while on the back of the lorry, I guess I wondered, how long (and how did she find him) was she on the truck before she called.

One of the miraculous consequences that Yoon-gwajang was behind them, or did he go with Eun Soo? Why would he, since Eun Soo is not on the team. Did he know, or just assume that the person Eun Soo called for Si Mok?

On the other end of the information scale, despite the hints that Yeo Jin keeps dropping, Choi-teamjang doesn’t catch on, believing in the best of his own organisation. To be used without knowing that he’s being used.

His self-talk reveals only to the audience that he is truly in the dark, while Yeo Jin continues to suspect him.

–

In that silent car, even if Chang Joon doesn’t reply, I’m sure Yeon Jae would have heard the police chief.

Dong Jae, lying between his teeth. The way he survived and would continue to, keeping his head down in abject apology. I wonder if that is what real life is like.

My heart stopped when the nurse called out and Detective Kim looked. Our little junior Sun Chang trusts Yeo Jin – in most other scenarios though, wouldn’t you worry about where the patient is being stolen away to?

He trusts her, the person who radiates a goodness. I hope that I will find more people like that.

The nurse is still carrying the transfer papers, to what end? And are convulsions normal in a patient like that? This nurse who has been by her side, I would have worried more about her.

–

Yoon-gwajang looked a lot softer without his jacket. But the way that Kim Tae Gyun commented that he was extremely strong, next to Eun Soo who couldn’t carry even the books, was a planned hint, I thought, in a rewatch.

I also thought that the actor for Kim Tae Gyun looked oddly familiar. Can’t place him right now.

With the reveal that Eun Soo’s been after this guy for about a day, that places Yoon-gwajang there too, for a day. Si Mok’s slight frown and Eun Soo’s chastised face while he speaks to Kim Tae Gyun.

Since they both know that Eun Soo is not in the right state of mind. Desperation is probably a good word. Unlike Dong Jae, Eun Soo is at least, sympathetic. Nevertheless, I’m not sure I like watching her scenes.

–

Yeo Jin’s scene next! I’ve always seen the way she twisted her tone to be an attempt at pretending Sun Chang was cowed and blindly obeyed her. Since that’s the only way to protect him from Detective Kim.

She helps herself to his table the way she did at the beginning, finding that stolen laptop. Her frustrated yell of “He’s not giving it to me!” and the way the other officer seems to sigh. It must be my bias, but he actually seems to take Yeo Jin’s side with ah-here-we-go-again.

–

Kang-bujang, reliving his high school dreams of being a basketball player? His expression is the same as his ball of paper, scruched up and pouting, though he’s sitting in Si Mok’s chair and probably trashing his papers.

Considering Si Mok ran out to Ga Young, and then drove all the way to Eun Soo, one can imagine how long he’s been sitting there. Knowing the way he is, though, I am surprised that he didn’t set up shop in the room, start reviewing files and helpfully T-posing over the room.

Or, as I like to imagine, he did all that before playing ball and calling up Si Mok. I also liked, the difference in the way Si Mok and Dong Jae’s apologies look and sound.

Si Mok respects Kang-bujang more than he does Lee-geomsajang, one of the feelings you get. I will enjoy my Won Cheol-Si Mok scene.

And even then, he only gave him half the reason, this joker. Won Cheol lets it go really fast, with a simple “Injong”, ‘I accept’, which when translated sounds much longer.

Kang-bujang’s exasperation is palpable when Si Mok does the reveal of Kim Tae Gyun. I wonder how hard that case hit him, for him to remember the name of a witness who sealed the deal.

Much like Junior Officer Sun Chang, Yeo Jin believes in gut feelings and in the people they trust.

Though I’m afraid I didn’t like very much of Eun Soo’s father, if Kang-bujang trusts him, I would have, too. I didn’t see him at the height of his kindness and honour, only the burnt out, bitter and silent man crippled by the weight on him and his family.

Part emotional and part logic – Si Mok doesn’t have the first half. He called his Division Head in not because he suspected him of being bribed by Park Moo Sung, but because he knew he could be trusted, that he knew more about one of the intertwined stories.

An odd show of trust from Si Mok.

–

Excited detective Yeo Jin on the trail!

Also the way Detective Jang’s face changed when he looked up and saw the golf course – that said, are police chiefs golfing every week something quite normal? And positions coming with a driver is the norm, it seems. Then Yeo Jin’s station must be pretty important.

I enjoyed the reveal, though Eun Soo’s father really isn’t doing anyone any favours.

Though I remember the secret behind Sungmoon Daily, I’ll wait for Si Mok to tell us. And also to see Yeo Jin speak to Yeon Jae.

She got angry at her father, and they must all be cranky from the back-forth flights. Again, the cowed son-in-law, what shall we do with him.

I liked the fact that even though Yeon Jae was revealed by the phone call, the phone call was meaningful, not a mere plot device.

–

Even as Si Mok has a field day, running about catching even the First Division Chief, he looks uncertainly at the phone call from his own bujangnim. Yeo Jin too, finds her own battles even here.

Ms Choi is part of the great plan! The way Se Won laughed and joked with Investigator Kim, after the way they settled Jung Bon. I’m not sure about my mixed feelings.

Yeo Jin on the verge of tears – why would she cry for someone like him? Had he even been a good boss? I wonder.

Denying it until those pictures came out, perhaps that broke her heart.

–

Won Cheol-Dong Jae-Si Mok team assembles.

If that was one weakness, Won Cheol wants his juniors to trust him. Look at the way he spilled those secrets. Dong Jae – don’t trust him.

And he had a prior appointment, a promise ‘yak-sog’ he says. Don’t trust that. Si Mok-Won Cheol, watch him well.

What was the link between the minister and the bribery scandal? I can’t remember. By the way, is that how Blue House Secretaries are appointed? Over the news, out of the blue? Where is his predecessor?

Won Cheol has the right mindset, Dong Jae really should go…

–

Lee Chang Joon is not a good person. I think it’s important to remember that over time, because he looks so pitiable.

Many people liked his character in the first season, he’s one of those redeemable villains, and at any rate more reedeemable than even someone like Seo Yul from Good Manager Chief Kim. When it comes to him, the way that he hurt Si Mok and destroyed the trust over and over, for ‘his sake’ for the ‘country’s sake’, words like that, I don’t believe in them.

The road to hell paved in good intentions and so much pain. To sacrifice himself, to benefit from the process and suffer at the same time. Would it be a sacrifice?

Since he died. In many ways that was also his choice to escape. Since suicide compounds guilt for the living. Ideally suicide ends things for the person who dies, if they aren’t reborn and can leave the consequences and suffering behind, they choose it, an active choice.

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It’s been a while since I watched Secret Forest. I watched the entirety of Medical Examiner Dr Qin’s second season – The Catfish / Scavenger. I’ve written before that the third season of that is difficult for me to get through. Since each season, changing the actors and giving Qin Ming another dead lover is really breaking the continuity for me.

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Tonight, let’s post this first, before the holiday ends and we haven’t completed even the first season.

(breathing gently)

There were many things I wanted to do this holiday and there are many things that we have done – it’s important not to devalue what has been completed.

But there are so many things that I also wanted to do that I won’t rush in the remaining 10 days.

Like complete the Excel or Korean course – write more and sleep more.

Sleep more, watch more shows, read more manga and more books irrespective. Buy more books off thryft – reminded of the cart that I never checked out because the week that I wanted to, I would have been out.

(with a trembling breath)

The impulse to clear out things that don’t bring joy, and sending off letters which should have been sent long ago like they are pieces of you.

It’s almost mid august, one of the starting places for letters and also school.

I put in my order for a semester of education, please lay it down over it.

Every night, and every day.

–

It’s odd to think that we would not last it out.

Not that we would want to, really. But also that we couldn’t – since it’s been so draining.

To lay down our twenty-one demands.

“You must change,” and I thought, only if it changes you for the better;

or if it has no bearing on us.

“You must change, you can’t just stay the same and expect to get ahead,” and how I hated those words.

those words, that I could not accept.

But I would not dramatise and say that was the moment I knew I would not be able to take it anymore.

I had been ready to bury those words and mature another cask of vitriol.

But was I worn from the exchange? Or from the hopelessness of knowing that the

deep set tentacles

are far older than whatever I can bring?

I cannot linger around this sensation that makes me sick.

How could I then bring people into this sick miasma?

I will take one step away from where the miasma lies.

Could I be a veil that keeps the miasma away? Without absorbing it into

myself?

While still smiling?

(the breath is choking me.)

I don’t have that confidence, but I know that I would not abandon those who have stood with me all this while.

While I am ill and I will take a pill to kill this sticky and repulsive feeling

inside my chest –

I will stand on the edges so that I can at least watch.

Watch and watch.

Please, do not allow that sickness seep into you.

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