The powerful just keeps getting more powerful, and the weak continues to get more weak. Though no longer physically present, Da-il works hard with Yeo-wool to learn more about Woo-hye and to possibly take her down once and for all. However, the ghost is no easy feat as our two lead characters will eventually learn themselves.
The Ghost Detective: Episode 4 Recap
Da-il manages to make it outside of the house and onto the yard. After searching for Yeo-wool, he finds her holding onto the wrist of Woo-hye nearby and watches as Da-il takes her away to another room. Once inside, Yeo-wool begins to hallucinate an appearance of Yi-rang who begins to blame Yeo-wool for their parent’s fatal car accident. Once Yi-rang disappears, Yeo-wool realizes the situation and knows that Yi-rang would never say those things to her.
Unable to injure Yeo-wool, Woo-hye decides to use the principal who was hiding in the room the entire time to attack Yeo-wool. Yeo-wool escapes the principal’s deadly jabs and breaks a window in the room using a chair. It’s then that Da-il is able to make his way into the room and save a petrified Yeo-wool at the last minute. Unfortunately, the principal stabs herself after Yeo-wool is saved. Da-il questions Woo-hye’s intentions behind the murder, but Woo-hye doesn’t say much. She warns him that he won’t be able to save Yeo-wool next time.
Jung-dae encounters Chae-won outside of the forensics office. He wants the autopsy results about the dog, but Chae-won doesn’t want to give it to him yet. A few minutes later, Jung-dae receives a phone call from Yeo-wool who she wants to talk to. With the advice of Da-il, Yeo-wool decides to report about the incident to Jung-dae and the police.
While Jung-dae and Yeo-wool head outside to talk, Chae-won stays behind to study the corpse of the principal. Unlike Jung-dae, Chae-won can actually see Da-il and encourages him to stay behind with her while the other two talk outside. Jung-dae worries that Yeo-wool will be linked as the primary suspect for both the death of the restaurant manager and the death of the principal. In an effort to protect her, he’ll take care of the situation somehow and cover up for her. Meanwhile, Chae-won confronts Da-il and explains to him that yes indeed, she can see him. Just like with Bori, she has a vision of Da-il and concludes that he was the one who bit Bori in the neck. Before she can say anything further, Jung-dae and Yeo-wool return to the room. Chae-won will proceed with the autopsy of the principal back at the forensics office.
Yeo-wool hopes that by contacting Jung-dae, he’ll find evidence of Woo-hye and begin to believe of her existence. While looking around the crime scene, Jung-dae finds the kindergarten teacher’s journal laying next to the principal’s body, documenting notes about Woo-hye. Yeo-wool also explains to Da-il about the little girl she found outside of the daycare who was covered up in scars and scratches. Da-il finds it suspicious that he couldn’t see the little girl.
Back at the hospital, Woo-hye’s body begins to shake uncontrollably and doctors are rushed in to save her. After calming down, a tear falls from her eyes.
Yeo-wool stops by Sang-seob and Da-il’s office the next day to continue the investigation about Woo-hye. They search online for any news articles about her dad’s suicide and learn that her dad killed himself after attempting to kill his daughter. At that moment, Sang-seob informs Yeo-wool about his visit to the police station. He wants to talk to them about Da-il and the death of the principal. Da-il then reaches the conclusion that they need the help of Sang-seob in order to learn anything about Woo-hye. To get rid of Sang-seob’s worries about Da-il, Da-il will show his business partner his dead body.
Yeo-wool and Da-il catches up to Sang-seob outside in the parking lot of their building. The lawyer from Ha-eun’s case greets them with a brand new car which the CEO has gifted them for successfully finding Ha-eun. Though Sang-seob declines the offer at first because he wants to wait for Da-il, Da-il communicates to Yeo-wool to accept the new car. Sang-seob needs it and plus, Da-il won’t be coming back to drive the car anyways. Yeo-wool then takes Sang-seob and Da-il to the outskirts where Da-il’s body was last seen.
Once they arrive, Yeo-wool attempts to explain to Sang-seob the tragic details behind Da-il’s death. He died while trying to save the kids at their daycare, and it might have been because of a strange woman (Woo-hye). Though Sang-seob refuses to believe in Yeo-wool at first, he eventually gives in and agrees to seeing Da-il’s corpse for himself.
Da-il leads Yeo-wool and Sang-seob to the location where he was buried. Upon hours and hours of digging, they fail to find his body. However, Sang-seob does find Da-il’s military necklace with his name carved on it in the dirt.
The trio head to a Subway restaurant afterwards to grab some food (LOL AHHHH IT’S THE EVIL SUBWAY PPL. NOOOO). The reality begins to hit Sang-seob and he grows more and more depressed at the thought of losing Da-il. He offers Da-il’s sandwich to him by calling out his name and sticking a fork and knife upright into the sandwich. It’s only until Sang-seob does this that Da-il is able to successfully grab the sandwich and eat it! Yeo-wool and Da-il are fascinated and amazed and attempt the same trick using the drink. To their surprise, Da-il is able to feed himself and the two are happy. However, Sang-seob isn’t so happy and he tears up upon accepting the fact that Da-il is no longer alive 😦
While looking over the kindergarten teacher’s social media accounts, Jung-dae comes to the conclusion that the woman in the red dress (aka Woo-hye) was involved in both the teacher’s death as well as Yi-rang’s. Woo-hye’s appearance was documented in the teacher’s journal and Jung-dae recalls Yeo-wool talking about her when she first discussed with him about Yi-rang’s death.
Jung-dae heads to the forensics office to discuss about Bori’s autopsy. The bite marks on the dog’s neck must have belonged to a man’s. Plus, there was someone else in the daycare other than the teacher, Da-il, and Bori on the day Da-il disappeared. Jung-dae questions how Chae-won was able to reach these assumptions, but Chae-won jokes around that it’s all because of her ability to talk to the dead.
Yeo-wool makes it clear to Sang-seob that they need to find Woo-hye first in order to discover where Da-il’s body is. With that established, the trio get to work on learning more about Woo-hye and her father’s suicide. While Woo-hye’s dad didn’t survive, Woo-hye was able to and was found with scratches all over her arm. Da-il and Yeo-wool realize that the little girl that Yeo-wool interacted with at the daycare nights before also had scratches on her arms. This little girl could have been a younger version of Woo-hye.
The drama then takes us back to the moment when police discovered Woo-hye trapped in her house along with her deceased father and brother. Upon being discovered by the police, she fervently scratches him in the face and causes his face to bleed.
To figure out whether the little girl in the article is the younger version of Woo-hye, our trio decide to visit the hospital where the girl was transported to after she was discovered. They can gain more details on who her guardian was and when she was discharged. Sang-seob volunteers to take the lead on this next move so Yeo-wool heads home to rest.
Da-il bids farewell with Yeo-wool and warns her to be careful. Yeo-wool too is worried about Da-il and questions whether he’ll be okay by himself. He reassures Yeo-wool of his safety and watches her enter her apartment safely. She must be safe, cautious, and alert at all times. When Yeo-wool enters her apartment, the loneliness gets to her and she reminisces memories of her and Yi-rang when they lived in the apartment together. They had bickers and arguments as all sisters do, but Yeo-wool misses her sister dearly.
To give herself a sense of peace, Yeo-wool packs the mini-tent that she had set up in the apartment which was originally her bed and places it inside a cabinet. At that moment, Yeo-wool hears a knock on the door so she carefully approaches the door. Instead of a person, she’s greeted by a bag stuffed with gifts that Yi-rang wanted to give her before she died. The gift was sent by a man named Kim Gyeol which triggers Yeo-wool to run after him.
Yeo-wool desperately chases after Kim Gyeol who was once Yi-rang’s boyfriend. She follows him into a cafe, but he’s no where to be found.
Da-il waits outside the agency building, but he’s unable to enter because Sang-seob’s closed and locked the front door. Da-il finds it a bit suspicious, but he makes his way around into the parking lot to check. As he enters the parking lot, Da-il’s haunted by the security guard who comments that he’s angry at Da-il. A random lady also approaches Da-il afterwards and questions why he didn’t just die along with his mother.
Petrified and confused, Da-il finds Woo-hye following after Sang-seob as he leaves the agency building. Da-il wants to know the reasons for Woo-hye’s actions, but she herself isn’t so sure what it is she wants. However, what she does know is that she’s going to kill everyone who loves Da-il.
Meanwhile, Yeo-wool waits patiently at the same cafe for Kim Gyeol. However, she’s greeted instead by the same nurse who takes care of Woo-hye’s body at the hospital.
My Thoughts:
NOOOO, LEAVE YEO-WOOL ALONE. She didn’t do anything to you! DON’T HURT HER.
Watching this drama is so scary not only because of all the hallucinations and ghosts and whatnot (like at the end of this episode with the possessed security guard), but also because you never really know what’s going to happen next. You don’t even know why Yeo-wool is being targeted. You don’t really know why any of these people are being targeted and killed. While it seems like there might (and should be) a reason for Woo-hye’s killings, another part of it also seems like she’s just on a killing rampage because she wants to be and has the power to do so. We learn that her father tried to kill her so this could have sparked some kind of anger inside of her, but we have to wait for more to understand Woo-hye.
Right now, we’re just getting a lot of deaths and not so much answers about Woo-hye. I have to remind myself that this is only the 4th episode, and that we’re not going to receive answers right away. Maybe it’s just me being impatient, but I also feel like the drama is taking its sweet time with the investigation about Woo-hye. I figured the reason for this could be because the plot with Woo-hye is the only thing that’s driving the drama right now. Woo-hye is the central factor in everyone’s death so the drama revolves around her and that’s all the drama is consumed with right now. There’s no other sub-plot or arc in the drama which explains why I feel so impatient and frustrated with the drama at this moment. I remember mentioning in my first episode recap of how I wished this drama wouldn’t be procedural and instead focus on just a few select cases. Now I’m wondering what this drama would have been like had there been other cases alongside the ones we’re already exposed to. Now we’re primarily just focused on Da-il and Yi-rang’s death and that’s not to say that it’s not interesting.. but having cases that aren’t related to our leads would make for an interesting change.
Despite my frustrations and issues with the drama so far, I have to say that the drama does some things really well such as showing us Sang-seob grieve over Da-il. It was finally something that wasn’t directly related to Woo-hye, and it honestly hurt watching Sang-seob try to accept the fact that his business partner and colleague is dead. He waited patiently for Da-il’s return and was confident that he would return. Hell, that was the reason why Sang-seob rejected the car at first. It was sad watching Sang-seob not believe Yeo-wool at first, but eventually give in to the reality that Da-il is dead. The scene at Subway (yes, even if it’s the dreadful and awful Subway) where Sang-seob cried while Yeo-wool rejoiced with Da-il had to be the most obvious in showing us Sang-seob’s true emotions. He’s not happy. He’s not okay. He just lost his friend and he’s unsure as to how to cope or manage his emotions.
Da-il’s body is gone which then raises the question of who took the body and where it’s now located. While our trio is treating Da-il’s disappearance as a death, I believe (and want to believe) that Da-il is simply just in a coma similar to Woo-hye. His body must be hidden somewhere, but he actually isn’t dead and is simply wandering around like Woo-hye is. It’s good that even as a ghost, Da-il’s able to work with both Yeo-wool and Sang-seob and the three of them are cooperating in finding the truth about his death. However, a part of me sincerely hopes that he’s not actually dead like he (and we) assume he is. Maybe this is just me being naive, foolish, and hopeful, but I don’t want to believe that Da-il is dead. He can’t be!
Bonus: Extra screenshots from this episode! 🙂
MaryMeKpop 