Recap Korean Drama "Blind (2022)" Episode 9-10

As the clock counts down, Tae-ho resigns himself to his fate. After apologizing for betraying the other kids, he kicks the chair out from under himself. Sung-hoon arrives not long after, and he and Sung-joon scramble to save Tae-ho. Sung-joon pulls on the cable attached to the noose until his hands bleed, but by the time they get Tae-ho down, it’s too late.

Before they can fully process Tae-ho’s death, they’re accosted by Moon-kang and his minions. Sung-joon puts up a good fight, but once Sung-hoon is overpowered, he’s quickly subdued as well. Wanting to torment Sung-joon as much as possible, Moon-kang wraps a gigantic chain around Sung-hoon’s neck to strangle him.

Though Sung-joon manages to break free, what really saves them is the arrival of the police. Moon-kang doesn’t try to escape or resist arrest. Neither do the brothers, but while Sung-joon is handcuffed, Sung-hoon isn’t, and the other detectives avoid meeting Sung-joon’s eyes.

We soon learn why: it was Sung-hoon who tipped the police off. Sung-hoon lets Eun-ki chew him out for betraying Sung-joon, but he had his reasons — he knew Moon-kang would kill them both if the police didn’t intervene. Unfortunately, the result is that both Sung-joon and Moon-kang are detained at the same police station. Which is exactly why Moon-kang let himself get arrested.

Sung-hoon, it turns out, has been sitting on the CCTV footage of Man-chun’s murder, but now he turns it over to the detectives. The footage clearly shows Moon-kang pushing Man-chun off the rooftop. As for Man-chun’s son, since Sung-joon resuscitated him from Moon-kang’s murder attempt, Police Chief Ki-nam’s lackey finished him off. Now Ki-nam orders that same detective to let Moon-kang take Sung-joon out and then do away with Moon-kang, too.

Feeling conflicted, the detective tries to double-cross Ki-nam by telling Moon-kang the plan and offering to help him escape. But Moon-kang just bashes his head in against the bathroom sink and goes looking for Sung-joon, who’s been left alone in the interrogation room. Before Sung-joon can react, Moon-kang wraps an electrical cord around his neck.

By the time Sung-hoon and the detectives get word of Moon-kang’s murder spree, Sung-joon has already tricked Moon-kang by pretending to pass out and reversed their positions so he’s the one doing the strangling. They have to wrestle him off Moon-kang, but there’s enough evidence to clear him of all charges and reinstate him as a detective.

That done, the investigation continues. While poring over Moon-kang and the detective’s call logs, Sung-joon finds one frequently dialed number in common: Ki-nam’s. His superior distracts Ki-nam so Sung-joon can swipe his phone. That’s how they find the video of Hye-jin’s murder, which tells them the killer is targeting family members of people associated with Hope Welfare.

Meanwhile, Eun-ki tracks down a nun who remembers sending three children to Hope Welfare: A boy named Gabriel (whom we know as #11), Yoon-jae, and Yoon-jae’s older sister. The girl’s whereabouts are unknown, Gabriel was adopted… and Yoon-jae died. His unclaimed ashes were buried with others in a mass grave.

Eun-ki takes Sung-joon to the gravesite, where troubling memories resurface. All this time, he’s remembered wrong — Yoon-jae was never his name, but a couple of other boys did call him that, around the time of his memory-wiping fall from play equipment. This identity crisis is extremely distressing for Sung-joon, and hearing him mumble about it in his sleep is just as distressing — if not more so — for Sung-hoon. He runs straight to the bathroom and reaches for a razor… oh. That explains so much.

Since several jurors have had ties to Hope Welfare, Sung-joon and his team question the remaining ones for more connections. First, there’s news PD BAE CHUL-HO (Jo Seung-yeon), who once shut down a journalistic investigation into Hope Welfare. We know what the detectives don’t: Chul-ho found #11, #12, and Yoon-jae locked in their cells. He’s secretly kept the footage of them begging for help all these years.

Sushi chef CHARLES (Oh Seung-yoon) had a brother who disappeared 20 years ago. Though his parents didn’t visit Hope Welfare personally, Ki-nam had “investigated” on their behalf. Then there’s shaman KWON KYUNG-JA (Choi Ji-yeon), who witnessed Mad Dog dragging #11 and Yoon-jae through the woods. When she confesses this to Sung-joon, she receives the same prophetic word she did back then: if someone doesn’t kill Yoon-jae, they’ll all die.

Lastly, computer whiz JUNG IN-SUNG (Park Ji-bin) was adopted by Americans as a child. When Sung-joon tries to ask about his parents and whether he was adopted from Hope Welfare, tears stream down In-sung’s face — his parents are both dead. But that’s not all. In-sung also lost his memory in an accident, and it surely can’t be a coincidence that the restaurant ajumma’s missing son was also named In-sung, can it?

Once Sung-joon learns that Eun-ki’s mom was a nurse at Hope Welfare, he realizes Eun-ki could be the next target and races to the children’s center. There, he finds a photo of the three Hope Welfare children, which stops him cold. Gabriel — #11 — is Sung-hoon. Who is currently ambushing Eun-ki in the dark while wearing a black cloak.

I really appreciate the way Blind sets up and reveals its mysteries. Was I surprised that Sung-hoon was #11? No. But all the things I wasn’t quite expecting — like the self-harm and the wooden figures — clicked right into place in a very satisfying (if saddening) way. Instead of trying to throw crazy twists at us for the sake of being unpredictable, Blind withholds just enough to still surprise us even when we guess correctly. The reveals feel like a reward, almost, instead of the rug being yanked out from under us.

That said, we’ve had a lot of misleading cliffhangers, so I’m not taking this one as proof that Sung-hoon is also the Joker Killer just yet. Given everything we now know about him, I see two alternative possibilities: 1) he really has, as he said, tried to live a normal life until the Joker Killer appeared and he realized it was one of the kids from his past; or 2) he’s been working on his own revenge plot, which the Joker Killer made more complicated.

Either way, I can’t help wondering if him getting Sung-joon and Moon-kang detained in the same place could have been intentional to get Moon-kang caught in the (murderous) act. We’ve seen plenty of instances where, as #11, he didn’t hesitate to cause a small amount of harm to the other kids if it meant saving them from something worse.

On another note, we now have multiple missing kids and/or people with vague childhoods. Sung-joon, In-sung, Charles’s brother, Yoon-jae (did he die, or was someone else’s body labeled as his?), and the yet-unnamed #12. I have my guesses for how some of those connect, but with six episodes left, there’s plenty of room for more shifts in perspective.