Who’s Pulling The Strings?
Episode 11 of Alice begins with Hyeon-Seok running into Jin-Gyeom, who also happens to be investigating the basement too. As Jin-Gyeom heads down, Professor Seok is nowhere to be found. However, his ID card is there which Hyeon-Seok happens to have. After a fruitless search around the area, Jin-Gyeom heads back to the station. In a meeting, the dash cam footage is brought up, prompting Hyeon-Seok to look around shiftily. Only, Jin-Gyeom vouches for him and mentions how he didn’t see anyone suspicious. Tae-Yi arrives not long after, confronting Jin-Gyeom about the drive he threw out the window. Holding it in her hand, she refuses to pass it over and knows that Captain Ko was at the hotel that night When she returns to Jin-Gyeom’s home (after a brief trip to visit Da-Woon), Tae-Yi finds Hyeon-Seok waiting for her. She mentions the scar and how suspicious he is, prompting the man to start stalking toward her… until Jin-Gyeom shows up. Seok returns to his lab seemingly unharmed, much to Jin-Gyeom’s surprise. After visiting him, Jin-Gyeom encourages the man to revisit the basement to see if it jogs any memories. Jin-Gyeom is understandably suspicious around what’s going on. As we soon see, Seok’s actually working alongside Hyeon-Seok. The police chief is coming to the end of his tenure at the station, prompting him to bring everyone out for food to celebrate his retirement. It’s at Tae-Yi’s parents’ restaurant no less, but Jin-Gyeom remains conflicted over what to do about him. At Alice, Min-Hyuk learns from his associate the details of what Jin-Gyeom is up to. Given this organization are supposed to know a lot, they’re quite far behind on finding this out to be honest! On the back of this revelation, Min-Hyuk visits Tae-Yi, who tells him not to go near Jin-Gyeom again. When he leaves, he instead stops by Hyeon-Seok at his apartment. As the two face each other, Jin-Gyeom receives a call from Hyeon-Seok’s wife, who’s struggling to get through to her husband. He’s a little busy though, especially with Min-Hyuk beating him down. Hyeon-Seok grins, telling him he knows the Alice operative is trying to be Jin-Gyeom’s Father. Just before striking him again, Jin-Gyeom shows up and stops Min-Hyuk from hitting the guy he’s called a Father all this time. With Hyeon-Seok safe for now, Jin-Gyeom tries to work out what connection “the teacher” has to all of this. Min-Hyuk does the same too, telling Cheol-Am back at Alice not to report what he’s doing to the corporate office. Only…it turns out Cheol-Am is the one working as the rogue agent. He encouraged Se-Hoon to take a deadly poison at the hotel, demanding to see the last page of the prophecy. When he finds out the man doesn’t have it, Cheol-Am lets him die. He then turns his attention to Hyeon-Seok whom he summons there that night and gave instructions to carry out. This same occurrence takes place in the present too, as Cheol-Am tasks Hyeon-Seok to kill Jin-Gyeom. Too many people know he’s a time traveler and given the prophecy (the one born in time can control time) he wants to eradicate the man before it’s too late. Haunted by what he needs to do, he invites Jin-Gyeom out to go night fishing, fingering a gun while remembering Cheol-Am’s warning. If he doesn’t do this, he’ll not only be evicted but his wife will be in danger – most notably by erasing both of them from history. At the lake he holds Jin-Gyeom up at gunpoint…as we jump forward to the year 2050. Mourning the loss of his wife, Hyeon-Seok was approached by Cheol-Am who offered him a chance to see his wife again. In order to do that, he needs to jump back to 2010 and watch Tae-Yi. Only…midway through he notices himself and his wife together and ends up following them. Knowing they’re both safe for now, Hyeon-Seok races to help his younger self after being stabbed by the arsonist. Only, this version of Hyeon-Seok dies right there prompting Hyeon-Seok to bury him in the woods. From here onwards, Hyeon-Seok is forced to adopt his own identity and relive these segments up until this very moment by the lake in the present. This cuts us back to the stand-off, where Jin-Gyeom refuses to believe Hyeon-Seok is the real killer. Given his promise in the past, Hyeon-Seok changes his mind and decides to go after the real killer – Cheol-Am. As he leaves Jin-Gyeom handcuffed at the lake, he rings Cheol-Am and asks for a meeting. He fools the man into believing Jin-Gyeom is dead and waits anxiously at a nearby church. Unfortunately he’s been deceived and Alice know what he’s got planned. Professor Seok is the one in control and he arrives at the lake, holding Jin-Gyeom up at gunpoint. Just as he’s about the fire…Tae-Yi shows up, which is where the episode comes to a close.
The Episode Review
So it appears Seok is working with Alice and in collusion with Cheol-Am, who’s running around making sure Hyeon-Seok is kept in check. Knowing exactly why he’s been so interested in Jin-Gyeom all this time is a nice touch and the show is certainly gearing up for a dramatic second half to come. After last week’s hiatus, it’s good to see this drama return even if it does have a few plot holes and a slower pace. There’s certainly something endearing about this time travel series and now that we’re back to the main plot, this one is all the stronger for it. The ending certainly leaves the door open but given we know Jin-Gyeom can stop time when his life depends on it, it’s not much of a cliffhanger. Still, quite what will happen to Jin-Gyeom now remains to be seen, as we gear up for the third act of this drama!
