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The difference between life and death gets confusing to differentiate as the living is able to see the dead and the dead can control the living. Yeo-wool is well aware of this as she works with Da-il to investigate the truth behind her sister’s death. While some others struggle with this distinction, Yeo-wool herself is easily able to tell the difference.

The Ghost Detective: Episode 2 Recap

Ga-ram and Ha-eun manage to escape safely and to get help. Meanwhile, Sang-seob receives a call from the CEO’s lawyer who delivers him some important news.

Yeo-wool wakes up from a nightmare and interprets it as a sign of bad news. She fails to get in contact with Da-il so she hurries to the daycare where she assumes Da-il is. There, she asks Detective Jung-dae about Da-il, but he too is clueless about Da-il and where he is. At that moment, Sang-seob interrupts the two and takes Yeo-wool away. He explains that Da-il must be in hiding since he saved the kids without reporting to the police and probably doesn’t want to get into any trouble.

After discovering the kindergarten teacher’s dead body and rescuing Eun-yool, Detective Jung-dae and his colleague explore the rest of the daycare. They also find Bori’s corpse in the basement. Jung-dae ponders whether there was someone else present with the kids and the kindergarten teacher, but he tries not to think about it too much.

Yoo-weol continues with her investigation behind Ga-ram and Ha-eun’s kidnapping. There’s no telling how the two kids in particular were kidnapped. Maybe there might have been an accomplice who was at the daycare earlier the night before and attacked Da-il. Sang-seob doesn’t buy into Yoo-weol’s theory and adds that Da-il isn’t the type of person to be abducted so easily.

However, the wait for Da-il’s return gets to Sang-seob and even he begins to grow doubtful. While waiting for Da-il, Sang-seob shares with Yoo-weol how he first met Da-il two years ago. Sang-seob was the one to approach Da-il and offer him the idea of starting a detective agency as business partners. They can do something different for once since detectives aren’t highly respected in Korea. Da-il doesn’t need or want the recognition; all he asks for is a place to sleep, his privacy, and the ability to call the final shots. Sang-seob easily agrees with him and that was how the two created the agency and are now able to work on Ha-eun’s case. More so than focusing on the story, Yoo-weol traces the details back to Ha-eun. Ha-eun must remember Da-il since he was the one who saved her and urged her to go get help.

Da-il is well and alive as he manages to escape the paddy field that he was trapped in. However, he is still no where to be seen and Yeo-wool’s attempts to find him are futile. The CEO nor his lawyer allow Yeo-wool to meet with Ha-eun as she still needs time to recover from the incident. The CEO’s lawyer adds that Da-il must still be continuing with his solo investigation which is why he hasn’t returned yet.

Just like with Ha-eun’s case, Da-il also conducted an investigation when he was a sergeant in the military which eventually lead to his dismissal. The CEO’s currently lawyer used to represent him during his court case and that’s how the two came to knowing each other. Five years later and the lawyer notes that Da-il hasn’t changed one bit. He probably took on Ha-eun’s case, because he felt the need to also find Ga-ram and Eun-yool along with Ha-eun.

When asked why Yeo-wool is adamant on finding Da-il, Yeo-wool answers that Da-il had made a promise with her during their first meeting. Though Yeo-wool doesn’t reveal the promise to the lawyer, she recalls the conversation she had with Da-il during their meeting where she expressed interest in working with him. Yeo-wool wants Da-il to help her find the person behind her sister’s murder whose death was ruled a suicide.

Detective Jung-dae and his colleague discuss about Yeo-wool in their office. Though his colleague admires Yeo-wool’s persistent and bright personality even after losing her sister, Jung-dae expresses that she has no other choice but to be bright and persistent. He admits that he doesn’t want Yeo-wool to stop by the officer any longer; her requests to have them help her solve her sister’s case has become tiresome. Instead, Jung-dae stops by forensics to resume the investigation on the kindergarten teacher.

At the forensics office, Jung-dae has a talk with Gil Chae-won (Lee Joo-young). She shares with him that the kindergarten teacher cut her own ears and wrists before hanging herself. She also shows him the bite marks on Bori’s neck and adds that the person in the same room with the kindergarten teacher and Bori must have bit into the dog’s neck. Da-il hides in the corner of the hallway and manages to escape from the room after listening in on the conversation.

Yeo-wool visits Ga-ram in the hospital and takes a look at his drawings. Upon watching him color his drawing of a lady in a red dress, she desperately asks him questions about his drawing. This scares Ga-ram so Yeo-wool is kicked out from the room. Da-il also stops by the little boy’s room to visit him, but he leaves without saying a word or being seen.

Detective Jung-dae researches information about Da-il and finds articles about his former military background plus joint collective agency with Sang-seob. Meanwhile, Yeo-wool grows paranoid on her walk back home that night. When she arrives at her apartment, she attacks a stranger who suddenly approaches her. However, she realizes that the person isn’t a stranger, but is someone she knows. It’s Da-il.

Yeo-wool invites Da-il into her apartment so that they can talk about her sister’s case. Da-il reaches the conclusion that Yeo-wool must have seen the lady in the red dress since she asked Ga-ram about his drawing of her earlier in the hospital. Yeo-wool admits that she saw the red dress lady with her own eyes and predicts that the lady must be somehow related to her sister’s death. In an effort to keep Da-il, Yeo-wool shares with him how she first saw her.

The drama takes us back to a month ago on the day that Yeo-wool’s younger sister Yi-rang passed away. While at work, Yi-rang kills herself in the restaurant after suffering a panic attack. When Yeo-wool arrives, she finds her sister laying on the ground in a pool full of blood. She also catches sight of the lady in the red dress standing not too far from them and is asked by the lady if she feels angry. Seconds before her death, Yi-rang communicates with Yeo-wool a few words via sign language and then passes away.

Yeo-wool shares with Da-il that the last words her sister communicated with her was a warning to stay away from the lady in the red dress. While Yeo-wool was well aware of the lady’s presence, everyone else in the restaurant on that day didn’t see her. She also wasn’t recorded in the security camera footages. The police ruled Yi-rang’s death as a suicide and assumed she probably just wasn’t happy with her life. Yeo-wool knows that wasn’t the case though.

Da-il advises Yeo-wool to use Yi-rang’s phone to send a text to everyone who was there in the restaurant on the day Yi-rang died. Someone has to respond and say something out of guilt.

The guilt gets to Yi-rang’s restaurant manager and he recalls the day of work where he reprimanded Yi-rang for using her hearing aide. He threatens to report her to upper management for keeping it a secret unless she is to listen to his demands. Thankfully, nothing happens to Yi-rang as the two are interrupted by an employee, but Yi-rang is still put in a difficult spot. The restaurant manager returns to the present and is questioned by his son on why he killed Yi-rang. The restaurant manager is so shocked and occupied by the random question that he doesn’t pay attention to the road in front of him. He gets into a car accident and both he and his son dies.

The employee who caught the manager and Yi-rang in the same room together responds to the text and meets with Yeo-wool. She claims that despite spreading some gossip and rumors about Yi-rang, it wasn’t enough for Yi-rang to want to kill herself. Yeo-wool grows enraged at the employee for not having done anything to help her struggling sister. It seems like they won’t get any answers from the employee so Da-il and Yeo-wool decide to meet with the restaurant manager next.

However, they are informed of the news about the restaurant manager’s car accident by his wife. Instead of going to the police or to the hospital, Yeo-wool and Da-il decide to retrieve the dash cam footage inside his car first. When they discover his car, they watch the dash cam footage together. Sure enough, the lady in the red dress makes an appearance in the footage. Da-il decides that their next move will be to visit the restaurant manager.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Da-il and Yeo-wool discover that the restaurant manager has escaped. They catch him running away from the hospital so they chase after him and into the restaurant where he worked. They run up the stairs and to the rooftop of the building, just in time to catch him before he was to leap over to his death. Though Da-il reaches out to him first, it’s Yeo-wool who eventually grabs onto the restaurant manager’s arm and saves him.

Yeo-wool reveals to Da-il that he was unable to touch the restaurant manager because he’s dead. The camera pans out to show us the scene and sure enough, only Yeo-wool and the restaurant manager are on the rooftop of the building.

My Thoughts:

NOOOOOO. NOOOOOOOOOO. This wasn’t how things were supposed to end. Da-il wasn’t supposed to die so early into the drama!!

We’re only two episodes in and he’s dead. He CAN’T be dead. It can’t be possible. I don’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it and I won’t. Gosh, it just sucks that Da-il is no longer alive. Technically, it makes sense because there was no way he could have survived after getting hit by the hammer and being dug into a muddy field in the last episode. But still, I don’t want to believe that he’s dead. He has to have survived somehow. Please!

This episode was a little bit less chaotic than the first episode and eased in on the investigation with Ha-eun. However, it was way scarier (omg all the hallucinations got me shaking in my pants!) than the first and things got a lot more complicated. Whereas the first episode focused on the three missing kids, this episode was dedicated to Yeo-wool and her fight to discover the truth about her sister’s death. I’m assuming that Yeo-wool can see ghosts since she was able to see the lady in the red dress as well as Da-il since he’s now dead. Now you have two ghosts working against each other and Yeo-wool caught in between all of this to uncover the truth behind her sister’s death.

I’m glad that we received more context on our characters in this episode and this is one of the things that the drama improved upon in this second episode. With the first episode, we dived right into an investigation with the three missing kids so we didn’t receive much context and insight on our characters. However, now we learn more about Yeo-wool and her motives in joining Da-il and Sang-seob’s agency as well as the two guys themselves and their reasons for starting it. We even learn a little bit about Da-il’s military background which was interesting. He’s always been the type of guy to investigate corruption and incidents and this still rings true many years later. Da-il hasn’t changed one bit. Of course, I want to learn more about Detective Jung-dae because he seems like he’s the typical hard-working and righteous type of person, but a part of me also gets mysterious vibes from him and something tells me that he’s not as decent of a person as he seems.

The plot with the lady in the red dress is so confusing and granted, we’re only two episodes in so there’s not much that can be revealed to us just yet. It seems like she goes after those who committed some kind of sin or crime such as with the restaurant manager or the teacher, but we’re not entirely sure if she’s a good spirit or a bad spirit. We’re also not too sure how she chooses her targets and why she ultimately chose Yi-rang. Also, there’s no saying who exactly sees her and who doesn’t as well. All I know is that she’s one scary and powerful spirit and has the ability to create hallucinations. She’s not someone you would want to mess with, lol.

I’m just so bummed by the shocking news that Da-il is no longer alive. He can still interact with Yeo-wool as we saw in this episode, but he’s no longer physically present and it’s so saddening to know this. A part of me was hoping to see more of him and Sang-seob work together (who I wished the drama would show us more of!) and to watch more interactions of him with Yeo-wool as a live person. As unfortunate it is, this was something that he faced for being the kind, caring, and calculative person that he was. There were many hints that these personality traits would lead him to danger. Da-il risked his life to save the kids and died in the process. While no longer alive, he still possesses the same intelligence, skills, and talents needed to help solve cases and there’s no doubt that he’ll help Yeo-wool solve her sister’s case. It’s a shameful, heart-breaking, and regretful plot twist, but a logical one nonetheless so there’s not much we can do about it. Here’s to hoping that maybe this is all just a dream and that Da-il is somehow still alive even after all that he’s gone through. He has to be. Please.