Recap Korean Drama "Blind (2022)" Episode 5

Episode 5 of Blind starts back in the Hope Welfare Center. The kids continue to be pushed to the limit and forced to work hard. Sung-Joon and the other kids find small moments of happiness, namely when cleaning the bathroom and splashing water at each other.

They soon stop though when Sergeant Choi appears. He immediately grabs one of them and forces the kid to clean everything with his tongue. If not, then he’s going to have his skull broken in half.

Moon-Kang arrives next, pacing around the room and telling them that they have a visitor coming soon and he doesn’t want a repeat of an incident that occurred 3 years back. Here, one of the kids passed a note on asking for help. Crazy Dog takes Yoon-Jae’s (Sung-Joon?) necklace so instead, Number 11 gives Yoon-jae his.

In the present, a battered and bloody Sung-Joon finds a phonebooth and contemplates just who to ring. He can’t phone the police as they’re in collusion with Moon-kang. So who? Well, Eun-Ki.

Sung-Joon still has her business card in his pocket and he shakily produces it and decides to give her a ring. He tells her to be discreet and gives her the address of the payphone. When she arrives though, it’s covered in blood. Sung-Joon is hidden under a tarp, exhausted. She takes him into the back of her car but there’s a problem. A black car approaches. It’s Moon-Kang.

Thankfully, Eun-Ki thinks fast and pretends to hide herself n the backseat, acting drunk when Moon-kang opens the door and searches her. Given Moon-Kang has a knife, Eun-Ki realizes Sung-Joon is in trouble.

Anyway, when Yeom finds out that Sung-Joon has slipped through Moon-Kang’s fingers, he’s not happy. Asa result, Moon-kang doubles down on trying to find Sung-Joon, circling back to Eun-Ki’s car which happens to have the Children’s Center logo advertised all over. Why did she take her work car? Anyway, it doesn’t look good for Eun-Ki, while she’s oblivious to what could happen as she tries to patch up Sung-Joon.

A parcel from “Man-Chun” is sent to Sung-Hoon, which happens to be a knife with a message attached. Opening it up, Sung-Hoon notices that it reads “Murderer who made an innocent man guilty.” This only raises the stakes further, as the police work to find Sung-Joon, whom they believe is responsible for killing Man-Chun’s family and is the real Joker killer. Not only that though but Won-Woong has also been killed.

When Sung-Joon reads about the boy’s death online, he’s shocked. He rings Seok-Goo – one of the officers working – and asks for the cause of death, which happens to be asphyxiation. He can’t ring the guy again though, as his superior almost finds out about the secret call, but it’s at least something to work with.

The most important thing right now is for Sung-Joon to try and clear his name and Eun-Ki is a key part in that. However, there’s evidence incriminating Sung-Joon at the crime scene, including a strand of hair and fingerprints on the murder weapon. There’s also a button from Sung-Joon’s sleeve by the railing on the roof too, which we now find out did actually belong to Sung-Joon.

Did the pair wrestle for control leading to Man-Chun being pushed off the roof? That’s certainly the theory that Sung-Hoon is currently wrestling with.

Moon-kang shows up at the Children’s Center, determined to find Sung-Joon. He’s not alone either and while Sung-Joon hides, Moon-kang begins rooting around. Eun-Ki shows up and immediately phones the police. They don’t find Sung-Joon, thankfully, as he’s up in the attic but its definitely touch and go for a while.

Alone, Sung-Joon admits to Eun-Ki that he’s adopted by Sung-Hoon’s family and he actually overheard them talking about how they regretted this decision. Their public image is more important to them than the welfare or wellbeing of Sung-Joon, which is something we’ve seen first-hand.

Eun-Ki agrees to try and help and at the courthouse, bumps into Sung-Hoon. She hands over a note from Sung-Joon, asking him for help and to meet at 7pm, imploring him to believe his brother that he didn’t kill anyone. Unfortunately, Sung-Hoon hands over the note, which gets back to Moon-Kang and the officers. They have a lot of police on the case and at the meet, he makes sure the area is surrounded by officers.

Sung-Joon walks right into the trap and he’s forced to flee from the police. Thankfully he does so and make it back to the Children’s Center attic. Sung-Joon hangs his head, realizing he truly is alone and his brother isn’t going to help him… or is he? Sung-Hoon shows up after all, without the police around.

The Episode Review

An interesting and somewhat subdued episode of Blind seems to show that Sung-Hoon isn’t the Joker killer after all and that he’s going to help Sung-Joon. At this point I’m thinking he may actually be Boy 11 from the children’s center. Sung-Joon clearly looks up to him and it may well be that he allowed Sung-Joon to come into his family and perhaps something happened to sour their relationship. Either way, it’s a tantalizing mystery.

There’s not a whole lot of plot progression this time around but what we do get is a reminder of how alone Sung-Joon truly is. This is obviously a very personal case for whoever this killer is, especially given the way they’re targeting Sung-Joon. Or it could well be that Sung-Joon is  suffering from multiple personality disorder. We’ll have to wait and see!

For the time being though, Blind sets things up beautifully for the next episode which should be quite the intriguing watch.