Recap Korean Drama "Mouse" Episode 15

Episode 15 of Mouse begins with a return to Moo-Won’s death. Flashes of Jae-Hoon interject around Ba-Reum as he holds his hands out and smiles. As he looks up, he marvels at the strung up corpse of Moo-Chi’s brother.

We then cut back one year. Han-Kook is on the sofa in Ba-Reum’s basement. “Those who do not envy are sinners,” He says chillingly, confirming his part as the Seven Deadly Sins killer.

Through time, we see all of Ba-Reum’s murders and also how he planned to meet Moo-Chi when he did. He wanted to portray himself to be kind and compassionate. This is, of course, all a complete fabrication.

The post-operation Ba-Reum mistook all of these memories as real rather than fake, in essence deceiving himself.

Back in the present, Ba-Reum receives a call confirming Chi Kook has woken up. Given Ba-Reum stabbed him, he finds himself conflicted over what to do.

At the same time, Moo-Chi examines the evidence with his fellow officers and believes that the murders must have been committed by an officer from inside the station. Moo-Chi is tasked with checking through the CCTV footage from around the time of Duk-Soo’s murder.

The footage is strange, seemingly spliced together and missing segments. After calling on the help of a video expert, Moo-Chi manages to bring together the full footage, which includes a man heading around the corner and holding a piece of paper. Zooming in, he sees “OZ” on the man’s finger and a written statement in his hands.

Meanwhile, Ba-Reum’s memory continues to throw up awful memories from the past. In particular, we see the full scene with Chi-Kook play out. They were at prison together, and Ba-Reum stabbed the boy in the stomach multiple times. Ba-Reum took his watch and threw his finger down. Ba-Reum was the one who planted all the evidence himself and even had a shower to wipe the blood off after.

Back in the present, Ba-Reum meets Chi-Kook who gives him a hug in the hospital room. It seems like he may have amnesia. According to the doctors, Chi-Kook is incredibly traumatized which explains why he doesn’t remember what happened.

Well, Ba-Reum remembers much more from those nights than his former colleague. In particular, what happened with Bong-Yi’s grandmother. She had pictures that could incriminate him so Ba-Reum killed the woman. He felt no remorse in doing so either. In fact, he actually thrived on this conflict.

Back in the present, Ba-Reum charges back to his building, desperate to find Han-Kook before the site is demolished. The barrels are nowhere to be found. Ba-Reum gets nowhere with Dr Lee either, who acts just as clueless as he is. According to him, Yo-Han was the one who moved the body. As we know, this is not true.

Back at the hospital, Moo-Chi heads in to check on Chi-Kook. He has bad dreams and mentions someone stabbing him. He’s too afraid to answer the questions but claims he was attacked from behind in the showers. When Moo-Chi mentions Ba-Reum, he notices the boy tense up and wonders whether the two are linked in some way.

With Ba-Reum unable to find Han-Kook, he notices the boy’s Mother giving flyers out in the street. As he approaches to tell the truth, news suddenly breaks about Han-Kook. He’s been found dead in an abandoned factory.

Ba-Reum is shocked when he finds out too and races up to the scene. There, he finds barrels that are identical to those from Ba-Reum’s basement. Could he have done this without remembering?

Well, back in the basement with Daniel Lee we receive more details of the past. Lee recalls receiving his package with the mouse inside. It took 30 days for this brain-swapped mouse to die. This failed surgery links to Ba-Reum to. Apparently he’s on a limited time window and he too is going to die. Back then, Daniel Lee arrived in Korea and noticed Yo-Han exhibited signs of being a psychopath, believing he was the culprit.

Back in the present, Lee convinces Ba-Reum to once again go after other psychopaths – and also prove Yo-Han’s innocence. Given the way he’s flip-flopping between ideas and states, Lee is pretty suspect and acting a bit out of character here.

Meanwhile, Bong-Yi finds out some shocking news. Hong-Ju’s baby is actually Yo-Han’s. This child is called Eun-Hyeong, and we cut to Hong-Ju singing to her to soothe the child down.

This brings back memories of the past as we see Hong-Ju is actually Hyun-Soo. She was kidnapped along with her brother in the middle of the night. Hyun-Soo led her brother outside and managed to get away. She told her brother to stay put while she used herself as bait.

On the back of this, Bong-Yi heads over and confronts Hong-Ju, believing that she only got the job because Yo-Han murdered her grandmother. That is, of course, completely false as we now know. As she walks away, Bong-Yi throws some horrible threats toward Hong-Ju’s child. Ba-Reum watches from afar.

Ba-Reum writes himself a note, confirming that the serial murders were conducted by him and not Yo-Han. Just before jumping off the rooftop, he recalls moments from the past where he came face to face with Yo-Han on the night of his death. Yo-Han actually told him to free Han-Kook from the basement. Yo-Han launched himself at Ba-Reum with the intention of killing him. He died trying to stop Ba-Reum.

Back in the present, Ba-Reum receives a call just before jumping to his doom. As he glances over, a message accompanies it. It’s from Chi-Kook and he wants to meet.

As Ba-Reum heads into his room, Chi-Kook confirms he knows Ba-Reum was the one who stabbed him. He just wants to live a happy life and pleads with Ba-Reum to hand himself in.

As Ba-Reum walks away, we cut to Moo-Chi heading into the hospital room. Chi-Kook clutches his chest and goes into cardiac arrest. With the heart monitor flatlining, Moo-Chi confronts Ba-Reum in the hallway.

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The Episode Review

Mouse has been a really turbulent ride to say the least. This show has been a rollercoaster of emotion, jumping up and down between excellent revelations and shocking twists through to muddled and confusing timelines. Now we’re starting to get somewhere but Daniel Lee remains one of the biggest points of contention here.

It’s unclear what happened to him in the past or who tried to kill him. However, it now seems clear that the writers are gearing up to reveal Ba-Reum as the Head Hunter’s son.

The classical music he was listening to is the same that Seo-Joon listened to all those episodes back which could be a vital clue here. At the same time, this would back up Daniel Lee’s theories that a psychopath is born that way. We’ll have to wait and see what the writers have in store for us next week.

Who killed Chi-Kook? Ba-Reum seems a little too obvious but then it could still be him given his unreliable narration. At the same time, it could also be this Mr Oz, the man we saw on the CCTV cameras.

Mouse is incredibly unpredictable but these last two episodes have been really good at revealing crucial clues surrounding the past. This episode in particular really starts to piece everything together in the best possible way. Roll on next week!