Chasing Ghosts
Episode 16 of Mouse begins with Moo-Chi following Ba-Reum into the main hall of the hospital. Chi-Kook has passed away. He seems to have died from a heart attack and Ba-Reum is shocked this has occurred. On the ground, Ba-Reum spies a muddy footprint and immediately charges off, intent on finding the culprit. A chase ensues, leading Ba-Reum right the way up to a hotel rooftop. As he grabs the man by the throat, he asks why he killed Chi-Kook. However, another attacker arrives and begins beating the perpetrator down with a pipe. Ba-Reum sees this happen and drops the attacker off the roof. Only, when he heads down to the ground level, there’s no one there. This case becomes even more spooky when Moo-Chi arrives and joins him in talking to the receptionist. No one is staying in Room 802 and and there’s no sign of a fight in the room either. The only thing Moo-Chi believes is the registration plate Ba-Reum recites, which he remembers from the CCTV footage. As the pair continue searching, it seems like the room has been cleaned up. Upon closer inspection, the pair find evidence of this in the form of broth Ba-Reum threw. There are still traces of this hidden in the cracks of the floorboards. This still doesn’t account for Chi-Kook though, with the bloodwork returning to confirm no signs of poison. The doctors believe Ba-Reum is losing his mind, and eventually convince Chi-Kook’s Mother against signing the consent form for an autopsy. Ba-Reum eventually heads up to pay his respects to Chi-Kook, but things take a turn for the worst when the other victims’ families show up too. Ba-Reum starts to lose control and even Bong-Yi can’t help calm him down. Eventually he lashes out and heads outside to cool off. Moo-Chi is also there and he learns that Yo-Han was a Father. The Mother, of course, is Hong-Ju. Outside, Ba-Reum composes himself long enough to walk with the coffin and say goodbye to the officer. As he’s placed tentatively in a car, Ba-Reum notices that there’s another funeral that day – Lee Pil Seung. Only, this guy looks like a family member, which confuses Ba-Reum as he has a different name and family. Just to make things more spooky, when Ba-Reum heads outside he’s almost hit by a car. The car in question happens to be the one that hit him before. Meanwhile, Sung Ji-Eun heads over to see Hong-Ju, answering the advert for a nanny. Hong-Ju agrees to take her on, as she hurries off to answer a call from one of her victims – they’ve agreed to do an interview and be on her latest show. When she leaves, Hong-Ju comments how the child “has his eyes” which is in reference to Yo-Han. At the police station, Moo-Chi checks the footage regarding the Duk-Soo statement. There’s a two hour window unaccounted for between the statement being handed over to Detective Lee and him relaying that on to the police. Moo-Chi immediately suspects he could be involved, having killed Duk-Soo and also Chi-Kook. Could we have been duped all this time? Moo-Chi is smart though and starts to doubt the validity of Yo-Han killing the victims in the past. While he searches, Ba-Reum conducts one of his own and realizes that the man he threw off the rooftop is real and not an illusion. He also happens to be his Uncle (the same man from the funeral earlier in the episode) and whoever is covering their tracks must be a pro. The crime scene has been completely wiped clean save for a spatter of blood that Ba-Reum manages to find. It seems Ba-Reum has been lied to his whole life as his Mum never had a sister. In that case…who is his Aunt? During flashbacks, we see Ba-Reum as a child sitting outside his house. He was approached by a woman who introduced herself as his Aunt. She decided to adopt him and allowed Jae-Hoon to choose his own name. He settled on Ba-Reum. However, could it be that the documents were never registered officially? This could well be the case as the next scene we witness shows that the registry has no record of his family ties. As we jump back to the present, Ba-Reum continues to retrace his childhood, heading to the elementary school he attended. Bong-Yi meanwhile, catches up with Soo-Ho’s Mother and tries to convince her not to do the interview. However, she’s adamant about this and wants to project a message. That message? Yo-Han isn’t the real killer. Ba-Reum continues to retrace his steps, heading back to his old home and seeing flashes of his Mother being killed. Believing he’s killed everyone in his family, he slumps back in despair. However, another flash sees a big reveal come to light. Soo-Ho was the one who killed his Mother. Could it be that Jae-Hoon killed Soo-Ho as revenge and that’s what started his murderous rampage?
The Episode Review
Mouse returns after that two-part stop-gap last week with an intriguing episode that explores more of Ba-Reum’s fragmented memory. His unreliable narration continues, with it hinted that the brain surgery is causing hallucinations as a side effect. Despite that, the reveal surrounding Ba-Reum’s Aunt is a good one and now explains why she’s so scared and adamant about getting away. It seems like she may well have adopted him without realizing what he’s capable of. The situation with Dr Lee is still another talking point though and seeing him just hanging out in the basement all this time leads me to believe he’s also a hallucination. We’ll have to wait and see if that holds any weight though. The preview for tomorrow’s episode seems to hint that Ba-Reum and Moo-Chi are growing closer to finding another kill so we’ll have to wait and see how that plays out. Meanwhile, Moo-Chi does some investigative work of his own, now suspecting that Yo-Han really isn’t the Seven Deadly Sins killer. Will Moo-Chi manage to piece everything together and figure out the truth about Ba-Reum?
