Circus
Episode 15 of Tomorrow starts with us in the past, seeing Joong-Gil’s pained reaction to finding his wife dead. After slitting her wrists, she’s brought to the temple, where Joong-Gil apologizes and sobs for her, pleading with Ryeon not to go. But she does, and of course her suicide means she needs to start anew with her memories erased. As for Joong-Gil, his memories of Ryeon are stored away and locked, never to be accessed again. This wound runs so deep that this was the only way to stop that. As we find out later on in the episode, it was Joong-Gil himself who actually made this promise to the King of Heaven. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here! Backtracking a bit, the RM Team receive a new case to deal with, which comes from a woman named Ryu Cho-Hui. She’s an actress now, after originally starting off as a singer. She’s really popular but she speaks her mind, which does tend to offend a good number of people. Because of that, she ruffles feathers and causes many people online to start hating on her. Even worse, malicious rumours online soon spread, with Cho-Hui set up and made to seem like a married man’s mistress. She’s not, of course, but photos snapped from the time don’t help. Cho-Hui is on the verge of releasing a new album but nasty comments online look set to derail that. Even worse, Cho-Yeon, her sister, rings with bad news from back home. Their father has been there, threatening to kill them if they don’t pay him. Cho-Hui reassures her, as the stress continues to pile up. With Jun-Woong and the other Reapers adopting the alias of being Cho-Hui’s bodyguard and management, they see all the stress she’s under first-hand. Cho-Hui’s father eventually does ring, where we learn he’s blackmailing her, demanding she pay up to satiate his wild gambling addiction before he goes to a reporter and tells them how rude she is. It’s such unbearable stress but through it all, Cho-Hui continues to press on like always. Only, this time she passes out on stage from sheer exhaustion. Ryeon eventually catches up with Cho-Hui while she’s resting, giving her encouraging words of wisdom. She wants to help her and that comes from Jun-Woong being used to look after her. In his absence, Ryeon comments to Ryung-Gu how this is their last case together as a team. Jun-Woong helps get Cho-Hui some food to restore her energy. Unfortunately, Cho-Hui’s ex and his new girlfriend scheme and decide to make up a story about her bullying him. And that’s before mentioning the situation with Cho-Hui’s dad. It’s all too much and it pushes Cho-Hui over the edge. The album is on hold and her contract is on the verge of being cancelled completely. So as a result, her suicide rating skyrockets. Back in the afterlife, Joong-Gil overhears a couple of Reapers discussing Ryeon and how she commit suicide in the past. He heads off to see the King of Heaven and demands she tell him the truth, promising to open the lock on the Book of the Deceased. After many centuries of hard work, he wants the truth. It’s here the King of Heaven brings up the promise she made to Joong-Gil himself, locking away the memories and allowing him to forget everything. Joong-Gil is not standing for that though and believes enough is enough. Cho-Hui looks set to step out into traffic but Ryeon stops time just as before and tries to save her. Only, Joong-Gil arrives and questions what she’s doing. He decides to use the Reaper’s Guarantee of Responsibility that she promised him beforehand, forcing her to watch helplessly as Cho-Hui is hit by a car and bleeds out on the floor. While she’s taken to hospital, Ryeon goes on the warpath to avenge Cho-Hui. She slaps Song-I around, showing off a recording she made of her interaction with Cho-Hui. It turns out she was actually paid off to spread these lies. Ryeon continues to do the rounds, while Jun-Woong tries in vain to get the articles taken down. Ryung-Gu has even more bad news, including uncovering a cyber wrecker online, a guy who puts all his energy into taking down an individual. In this instance, he’s set his sights on Cho-Hui. Right on camera, Ryeon is spotted showing up and beating the man to the ground before eventually disappearing. Articles spread all over the place and because of this, she’s seen as violating the rules of the Living; getting involved in human affairs. In the afterlife, Mr Ha shows up to see the King of Heaven. He’s been sent from the Senior Board of Directors. Unfortunately, Ryeon’s actions have caused quite the stir and because of this, she’s going to be taken down to Hell for her crimes.
The Episode Review
Tomorrow returns with its penultimate episode, one that sees Ryeon fly completely off the handle and start intervening in human affairs. While I do appreciate they’re making this a big deal now, it still doesn’t explain why she wasn’t stopped previously from getting involved in human affairs, including that man who’s forced to have stomach problems for the rest of his life when he belittles others. And what about reversing time and stopping all this? Could Ryeon not just go back and do thing differently? These sort of questions have plagued Tomorrow right the way through its run-time and now that we’re getting up to the business end of the season, it’s hard not to question the skewed moral compass the afterlife seems to have. This case has been an interesting one, shedding light on the issues idol stars have, and for poor Cho-Hui, she’s been dealt a rotten hand and the stress is too much for her to bear. This obviously hits home for Ryeon too, given she recognizes the woman, and it adds up to make for a really tough watch. The ending hints that we’ve got lots more drama to come in the finale, so we’ll have to wait and see what that chapter has in store for us.