Brain Works 2023 Episode 9

Episode 9 of Brain Works starts when Myung-se falls off a cliff after So-jeong’s confession. Luckily, it was not an actual fall but a trip just some centimeters onto the rock beneath. At the same time, Ha-ru is still mesmerized by lady Han Yeon-hee. They seem to know each other. She is a prosecutor. He tells her that he was thinking about love for the first time in his life and she showed up. She asks him out for some tea but he turns her down since he was busy. Yeon-hee seems to be in love with the doctor.

The captain and the detective are still on the cliff. The captain asks interrogatively whether the detective’s answer to her confession is a yes or a no. she tells him she is impatient since she is not sure when she would revert to her old timid self and hence had to make use of her confidence. He wonders why she likes her and she says she likes his smell.

When So-jeong was unconscious, she could not hear or see anything but she could smell. Whenever someone walked in, she smelled something nice and warm which made her feel at ease. She could feel that the person liked her. She gives him a week to think about it. The ex-wife gets ready to seduce detective Geum but he is called in to work on his off day.

A woman is seen banging on a door asking her son to stop playing video games and eat something. The son does not respond and so she cuts the electricity. On her way to a hike, a hooded person is following her. The hooded person kills her with a knife.

The police arrive at their home and the prime suspect is her son Joon-young. He had called the police and confessed that he killed his mother. Joon-young is in his room playing video games with headphones on so he does not hear the police knocking on his doors. He is wearing a hood with blood splutter. He is a recluse who has not left his room for five years. The case is referred to the neuroscientific investigation team.

CCTV cameras show a person who looks like Joon-young on his way back home. The murder weapon is missing and the suspect’s brain condition complicates the case. He claims that he is 17 years old but his documents show he is 22. Also, he suddenly seems to forget he is in a police station. He asks about his younger brother and wonders when he got so old. They need Dr Shin back on the team.

Dr Shin is trying to work in his home office but he finds it boring. Dr Hwang calls him and asks about the progress in handling the reclusive case to which he responds he quit being a consultant. Dr Hwang tells him that working for the police gives him access to an array of repositories for neuroscience but it’s his decision. He reminds Dr Shin of their upcoming meeting. After hanging up, Dr Hwang declares it’s time for him to get down to business.

Detective Geum goes to Dr Shin’s house to convince him to help the team. He agrees to donate his brain to the brain hub as a gift for Dr Shin’s help. They take Joon-young for a brain scan and the results show that he suffers from anterograde amnesia where his brain fails to form any new memories. It is like time stopped for him after a certain incident and his brain keeps resetting after every 30 minutes and the only thing he can clearly remember is his younger brother Ho-young.

Joon-young’s last memory is of an incident when he was 17 when he was scolded by for missing a swimming lesson. The detective and the doctor question the younger brother to try and understand what happened that day but Ho-young is not very forthcoming. It is revealed Jung-yoon is Joon-young’s stepmother. Ho-young says he does not remember his brother being hit on the head or being pushed to a wall which might have been the reason for his condition. Ho-young has a strange scar on his hand which he claims he got when trying to cook ramyeon but Dr Shin is not convinced. His verbal clues show that he might be lying.

The team is divided on who might be the killer. The detective and the captain think it might be Joon-young but Dr Shin thinks it might be the younger brother who frames the elder one since he knew he had memory loss. However, they find no motive for Ho-young murdering his mother but there seems to be a possibility that Joon-young had a motive.

Dr Shin thinks the timeline between the murder and the call does not match since Joon-young’s brain resets every 30 minutes. The captain thinks his brain might retain some memories of memorable incidents so they decide to test this theory. They do something disgusting to his food and ask him to eat after 30 minutes reset and he refuses which the captain thinks is proof that he remembers some things.

The witness seen on the CCTV camera is found. She does not remember much other than a tall hooded guy passing him. Under hypnosis, she reveals that she saw blood on him and smelled blood, a restroom, and alcohol. She seems scared and they pull her out of hypnosis. The subsection chief tells them to hand him over to the prosecution since they did not gather additional evidence. Nothing beat a confession and Joon-young had already confessed.

Dr Shin is still not convinced he is the suspect. A chitchat with detective Geum brings the conversation to why captain Seul likes him and he mentions it is because of his smell. Ha-ru’s mind goes into overdrive and he figures that smells are connected to memories and emotions.

They call in the witness again for hypnosis. They make her believe that the cup in her hand has a similar scent to what he smelt before although the cup has just water. She remembers the smell of water, the smell of bleach, and a swimming pool. She also remembers that the person had blood on the back of his hand and a scar. Elsewhere, Ho-young checks on the bloody knife in his locker.

The Episode Review

Ha-ru’s instincts that the suspect is not guilty helped push the team to keep investigating. The rest of the team was convinced he was guilty. Ha-ru has changed even though he might not know it. He has become more compassionate and is growing attached to the team just as the team is getting attached to him.

The bickering is still music to my ears. Looking forward to more about the case in the next episode. Did Ho-young kill his mother? Why? Did Joon-young call to confess? Given that his brain resets every 30 seconds, how was he able to do it? In the last episode, we had love wheels turning but they seem forgotten in this episode.