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As much good as Hae-joon and Yoon-young wish to accomplish, they can’t do everything and they can’t save everyone. They come to realize that some things are just out of their control and this journey to finding the culprit and discovering the truth is a lot more difficult. The two will have to work their way around certain rules and events in order to best navigate the known’s and unknown’s.

My Perfect Stranger Episode 8 Recap: The Turning Point

Hae-joon and Yoon-young arrive at the site of the murder scene where Joo-young’s body is tied up and found on the rocks by the river. The two are horrified at the sight and Hae-joon demands for answers from a baffled Beom-ryong who is also present at the scene. Hae-joon wants answers from Beom-ryong but Beom-ryong denies any wrongdoing. He repeats that he didn’t kill Joo-young. So why does he have Joo-young’s black ring? Beom-ryong answers that Joo-young merely gave it to him after they met the day before and when he saw her again, she was dead. While Hae-joon interrogates Beom-ryong, Yoon-young checks Joo-young’s purse and discovers a box of matches inside of her purse from none other than Bong Bong Teahouse. It seems as if Joo-young never left the town and Detective Baek arrives on the scene shortly afterwards.

The next day, Hae-joon rushes to the murder scene of the second victim: Kyung-ae (NOOOO). She’s also found dead, tied up with a red rope similar to Joo-young. And sure enough, the box of Bong Bong Teahouse matches is also at the scene. Yoon-young arrives shortly afterwards and she learns from the villagers checking out the scene that her aunt was the one who died. She breaks down into tears upon learning the information.

It doesn’t take long for the news to spread and Soon-ae’s family is notified about Kyung-ae’s death. News reporters also show up to the scene to cover the incident. When Grandpa arrives at the site, he reacts in disbelief and shock. Oh-bok sheds tears while watching his sister’s body be taken away by officials. Hae-joon and Yoon-young leave the scene and head back home together. Detective Baek remains suspicious of the two housemates but he gets swept up in something else instead. When Hae-joon and Yoon-young arrive back home, Hae-joon emphasizes the urgency in returning back to the present. The victims will die regardless of time and place. Kyung-ae died at an abandoned house that he had never seen or known about before. They can’t change the future and there’s nothing they can do to save anyone. The only thing they can do is go back to where they came from. Hae-joon enters the garage where the red time-traveling car is parked and he explodes in anger. He feels completely powerless and confused.

Hae-kyung, Eun-ha, and Yu-ri check in with Mi-sook about the victims. Hae-kyung seems nervous about the deaths and Mi-sook points this out to her. Mi-sook suggests that Hae-kyung relax a bit because she’s making it too obvious (hmm). Detective Baek arrives at the site of Joo-young’s murder scene and he also notices the small box of matches from Bong Bong Teahouse lying by the body. It’s the same one that he found at Kyung-ae’s murder scene and he reads the small note inside of the box that states “women who read are dangerous.” While his colleagues treat it as any other incident, Detective Baek can’t help but notice these small details. Mi-sook, Hae-kyung, and Hee-seob also show up to the scene and it doesn’t take long for Mi-sook and Hee-seob to notice each other. Hmm, suspicious.

Soon-ae attempts to get Hae-joon’s attention by knocking at his entrance door. It’s Yoon-young who answers instead and she hugs her mother given the news about Kyung-ae’s death. Yoon-young accompanies Soon-ae to her house to watch out for Grandma who’s acting a bit strange. Soon-ae’s mom washes the dishes and continues to mumble to herself. She isn’t crying, she’s rather angry and upset at Kyung-ae for not listening to her, and she imagines that the home phone keeps ringing even though it’s not. Soon-ae’s mom accidentally cuts herself with a knife so Soon-ae takes her mom to the hospital. Yoon-young returns to the car garage where Hae-joon is located and she wants to know more about her grandma’s death. Did it happen that day? Does Hae-joon know anything? Yoon-young wants to be able to save her grandma’s life if she can. She bursts into tears out of guilt and pain; all Hae-joon can do is listen and feel dejected. Yoon-young refuses to believe that this is the end for them and that they’re back to square one. It can’t be.

Principal Yoon arrives at the airport to pick up his son, Yeon-woo. The two catch up with each other and Principal Yoon reveals his plans to introduce Hae-joon to Yeon-woo. While driving home, they witness an accident involving the police. Soon-ae’s mom is also brought back home after her incident and Yoon-young watches as their family goes home together. She receives a surprise visit from Yeon-woo who invites himself into Hae-joon’s house with his special rubik’s cube that he enjoys playing with. He had heard from his dad that Hae-joon needed his help with fixing something so he’ll help Hae-joon if Hae-joon manages to solve the rubik’s cube. With that, Yeon-woo leaves the item behind before leaving.

Grandma watches a news station report about the deaths of Kyung-ae and Joo-young so she decides to watch clips from the Miss Korea beauty pageant from 1987 instead. She recalls her last interaction with Kyung-ae where they had breakfast as a family talking about her dreams of becoming Miss Korea. Kyung-ae once again brought up the beauty pageant to Grandma before leaving for school that morning. It was clear that Kyung-ae cared about her mom and was determined to succeed but Grandma regrets how cold she was towards her daughter. She should have been more caring and thoughtful.

Later on that day, Soon-ae searches for her mom in the house but Grandma is nowhere to be found. Yoon-young overhears Soon-ae and her family calling for Grandma’s name so she and Hae-joon join them in their search. They trail after Hae-joon who runs up to the mountains to stop Grandma from jumping over the cliff. He pleads for her to think about Soon-ae and Oh-bok so Grandma changes her mind and she accepts Hae-joon’s help back to safety. She’s reunited with her family a few seconds later, alive.

Yoon-young and Hae-joon head home together that night after a long and chaotic day. Hae-joon suggests that they give each other a hug after all that they’ve witnessed and experienced for the day so Yoon-young immediately hugs him. Since Kyung-ae’s death as well as Grandma’s emergency situation was personal for her, it’s clear that Yoon-young went through a lot. Though they might have failed in protecting Joo-young and Kyung-ae, they vow to not give up and to instead keep going. After sharing a brief hug, Yoon-young updates Hae-joon about the rubik’s cube to which Hae-joon doesn’t seem so surprised. He shares that the strange man, Yeon-woo, is his dad and he’ll ask for his dad to fix the red time-traveling car.

Hae-joon and Yoon-young recollect their details and information on the serial murder case investigation and remove two suspects from the list. Min-soo was hurt after falling over the bridge and breaking his wrist so there was no way that he could have tied the red rope that was found on Joo-young and Kyung-ae’s body. Beom-ryong was more worried about getting arrested for not reporting Joo-young to the police as a “commie” and not because he killed her. Plus, it seemed as if he didn’t know about Kyung-ae’s murder so that rules him out. That then leaves Hee-seob left as the only suspect who Hae-joon and Yoon-young don’t have any excuses for. There’s also Mi-sook who seems to know more than she’s letting on. She originally blamed her brother for the murders since they didn’t get along and she knew enough to write about the deaths in her upcoming novel. Though Hae-joon and Yoon-young are suspicious of Mi-sook, they have to worry about Hee-seob first who’ll be suspected by the police in half an hour.

So the two head over to Detective Baek’s house where Hee-seob resides and they enter the house to search for some kind of clue or hint. They’re also curious as to where Yoo-seob is. Though Yoo-seob isn’t at the house, they discover a piece of white shirt with blood splattered on it. Hee-seob claims that the t-shirt is his and he admits to doing everything. Hee-seob had met with Mi-sook two hours prior at Bong Bong Teahouse and she pitched an idea of them working together. There’s someone Hee-seob wants to protect while there’s someone who Mi-sook wants to get rid of. They can work together to accomplish their respective missions. She also hands him back the blue cap that he threw away before. This could explain why Hee-seob confessed to Hae-joon and Yoon-young.

Detective Baek continues to examine the two Bong Bong Teahouse matches that he found at the sites of the murder scenes. Meanwhile, back at his house, Yoon-young imagines the 2021 version of her dad standing in front of her in the bedroom and it’s in this moment that she realizes just how pathetic her dad was. She didn’t understand who he was nor did she want to understand him. 1987 Hee-seob begins to imagine voices in his head but he refuses Hae-joon’s advice or help. He urges that they run away or else more people will die so the two prepare to exit the house. But before they leave, Detective Baek shows up to the room and he arrests his own nephew who he heard confess to doing everything. Before taking Hee-seob away, Detective Baek warns Hae-joon to not get too involved or else.

Yoon-young and Hae-joon end up at the village river and Yoon-young breaks down into tears. She apologizes over and over again to Hae-joon. He ended up in this situation because of her father. Now that her father’s confessed, her father will be punished for his actions and her mother won’t marry him. Then Yoon-young will disappear. But Hae-joon doesn’t feel great about the plan. He doesn’t feel good about any of it, especially because he doesn’t believe that Hee-seob is the culprit. He walks away, determined to continue the work to find out the truth. Yoon-young glances back at Hae-joon, confused at his comment.

My Thoughts:

It seems as if the drama heard my thoughts because it finally did what I was hoping it would do, which was give us some kind of hint or clue as to who wasn’t the culprit. This entire time, we watched as Hae-joon and Yoon-young investigated the three suspects so you were equally just as suspicious of all three of them. Then in this episode alone, we were able to eliminate two of them with three other individuals remaining. Beom-ryong and Min-soo might be out of the picture but what about Hee-seob, Yoo-seob, and Min-sook? The culprit has to be one of them, right?