Recap Korean Drama "Link: Eat, Love, Die" Episode 12

Link: Eat Love Kill (링크: 먹고 사랑하라 죽이게) is a fantasy-drama series directed by Hong Jong-chan and starring Yeo Jin-goo and Mun Ka-young in lead roles. The series consists of 16 episodes and will be taking over tvN’s Monday and Tuesday 10.30 PM KST slot, previously occupied by Military Prosecutor Doberman. The series will air from June 06, 2022, to July 26, 2022. 

Eat Love Kill episode 12 has a runtime of 63 minutes and is titled The Premonition.

– Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12 recap contains major spoilers –

As a terrible realisation washes over Da-hyun in Link: Eat Love Kill episode 12, she rushes out of the creepy basement and immediately goes back home just as Yang Dong-sook walks out, confused about seeing someone going down there. As Da-hyun walks down familiar roads, she remembers leaving the injured Gye-young on the road and running away after, presumably, the two had escaped and Gye-young was recaptured.

The realization of her past actions makes her break down on the road while Gye-hoon is still beating the shit out of Jin-geun. The latter asks him that if Gye-young didn’t make it out, how did Da-hyun? When Gye-hoon asks him who this mystery person is, he appears behind him, and Jin-geun looks like he’s about to pee his pants.

Still From Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12

 

A scuffle ensues in which the mystery person tries to strangle Gye-hoon and Da-hyun feels this intense feeling within her. She immediately calls him but gets no response as he has been left unconscious in that bridge/alley. As Da-hyun continues to look for him, Gye-hoon finally wakes up and asks her to not worry and to just go home.

 

After talking to Won-tak and Min-jo and asked to go straight home, Gye-hoon comes across Da-hyun who immediately hugs him and asks him to never meet Jin-geun like this again. He thinks back to what Jin-geun had said about always thinking about Gye-young, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for him. However, things do seem a little tense between the two now that they know more about the past.

In spite of Da-hyun and Gye-hoon’s feelings for each other, however, the realization of what they learnt that day hangs heavy between them, and although it’s clear that they do want to clear things out as soon as possible, both find it difficult to get these difficult feelings across. The fallout from such an explosive conversation might just be a lot.

Still From Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12

 

Anyway, the next morning, Da-hyun has tons of questions about her family now that she remembers everything. After a little nudge, she almost asks them about her abduction but chickens out at the end and runs off. Meanwhile, Gye-hoon and Won-tak have a conversation about the attacker from last night, and no, he hasn’t been able to figure out who that is yet.

On the other hand, Jin-geun is getting whipped around by the mysterious attacker from the night before. From how they showcase things, it doesn’t seem like a good time for him. At work, it’s a busy time for our four restaurant workers as it’s time to do a deep clean right before they open the shop. But things between Da-hyun and Gye-hoon can’t progress without the conversation.

 

Da-hyun brings it up first as they go out for grocery shopping – no, she does him one solid, she gives him the address to the red door (now blue) house. Gye-hoon rushes there, having heard the story from his girlfriend, and looks like he’s reliving his own trauma as he walks to and then down the basement.

Still From Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12

 

Once down there, he looks around and finds the place where his sister once was and breaks down. He finds the sticker that he had once given her when they were young, and the look on his face is enough to make anyone feel some sort of way. However, his heartbreak takes a backseat when Cho Dong-nam asks him when he moved to the house.

Unfortunately, he moved a year later (or at least that’s what he says) and, as such, doesn’t know the person who owned the house before him. However, although he says he doesn’t know anything, it seems like there’s more to this story than what he is letting on.

Back at the restaurant, Gye-hoon shares his findings with an anxious Da-hyun but seems sympathetic to the trauma that Da-hyun and his sister went through. She, in turn, tries to remember what the person who abducted them looked like, but Gye-hoon asks him to take it easy and not feel guilty about not remembering everything. In the back of his mind, however, he does desperately want to know how she got out, and Gye-young didn’t.

 

Still From Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12

That night, Da-hyun tells her mother that she has regained a big chunk of her memories and asks her mother whether she has anything to say about the traumatic incident from the past. Bok-hee refuses to tell her anything about it but breaks down in front of Chun-ok, indicating that they might have done something terrible 18 years ago to save their daughter.

 

Da-hyun, meanwhile, is followed by Dong-sook on her way back from the grocery store. Eun-jung saves her from being ambushed at the nick of time, but Dong-sook, obviously, refuses to have any sort of a conversation with her. On the other hand, Da-hyun and Gye-hoon’s unsaid feelings seem to be pulling them apart.

Still From Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12

 

Well, guys, it turns out that fish seller Lee Young-hun is the mysterious man who abducted the girls and bribed a young Jin-geun. Or… is he? Because he doesn’t admit to it when Jin-geun mentions it. There’s a cat-and-mouse discussion between these two people is deranged – which results in, it seems like, Jin-geun realizing that he might just die at Young-hun’s hands that night. Meanwhile, Da-hyun gets invited to the market the next morning, much to her delight.

Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12 Ending

The morning after at the market, however, Da-hyun and Gye-hoon wonder about all of the things that they have left unsaid, and although it’s a good time with a lot of laughs, there’s a distance between them that seems like they won’t come together without them talking things out. Won-tak, meanwhile, is also not able to open his heart up to his father.

 

Still From Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12

At the precinct, Min-jo finds something shocking inside Gye-hoon’s old fridge, and Da-hyun finally asks him why he is not asking her the reason she came out of the ordeal alive. Gye-hoon finds himself in the awkward spot from where he has been trying to escape for so long, and in a flashback, we see a daring escape, at the end of which Da-hyun finally tells Gye-hoon that she left his sister behind while they were running away.

 

They actually have a fight where Gye-hoon insists that he is ok with what he learned, and Da-hyun insists that it can’t be true. In the end, Da-hyun proposes that they should break up. Meanwhile, the police precinct is shocked to find Jin-geun stuffed inside Gye-hoon’s fridge, presumably dead. Young-hun, meanwhile, looks spent, mentioning that he can’t hold himself back anymore.

Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12 Review

What an emotional episode, and the plot thickens! Da-hyun and Gye-hoon go through some intense emotions in this episode, both surrounding their feelings for each other, the guilt of losing Gye-young, the fear of finding out who it was and Da-hyun’s helplessness at her inability to figure out who it was that harmed her friend.

And although I do agree that it wasn’t Da-hyun’s fault for running away because she herself was literally a child, you understand Gye-hoon’s complicated emotions surrounding this. He doesn’t blame Da-hyun; he’s a mature and rational person, but there’s an added layer of dislike that will obviously be present in his life for her. In the end, she did get out, and Gye-young didn’t – an incident that resulted in his family’s destruction. It’s not a simple black-and-white situation, and that is presented just well.

 

Still From Link: Eat Love Kill Episode 12

Meanwhile, Da-hyun has her own feelings to juggle. The hatred that you might feel for each other when you remember some things but not others when someone else’s life is at stake must be a tough feeling to go through. And let’s not even get into the guilt – we see that throughout the episode, her trying to come to terms with not only what happened to her, but what she did thanks to that horrible incident as a result.

I do, however, have a gripe – I don’t think I really believe Young-hun to be this criminal mastermind who bribes and abducts kids. Although the least suspecting person is usually the one who turns out to be evil, for some reason, I want there to be more than what meets the eye. Also, Jin-geun’s death comes at the perfect moment, his impact would’ve really lessened if he overstayed his welcome. It was honestly great to watch Shin Jae-hwi on-screen.

Either way, this is an enjoyable episode and pushes the story forth quite well.