Amnesia
Episode 11 of Kairos begins with Chairman Yu confronting Song-Ja in hospital and telling her she needs to keep her promise. She bites back, telling him she doesn’t trust him. Their conversation is brief, but one that sees the Chairman eventually walk away and tell Taek-Kyu that Song-Ja doesn’t have long to live. When he leaves, Ae-Ri and the others show up and decide to take Song-Ja home. She settles in but still refuses to tell Ae-Ri exactly what’s going on. Ae-Ri meanwhile, agrees to protect her Mother and promises that at some point she’ll tell her everything that’s been going on. In the morning, Ae-Ri makes her some breakfast but after hugging, she casually mentions Kim Yoo-Suk which causes Song-Ja to immediately freeze up. As Ae-Ri mentions the accident, Song-Ja quickly changes the subject and tells her they should get her a new phone. In October, Kim finds out that Seo-Jin had drugs in his system and the car accelerated before it crashed. Apparently the brakes weren’t even used when the car crashed.. On the back of this, the officers contemplate whether Seo-Jin’s delusions could have caused him to commit suicide. Unbeknownst to them, Do-Kyun happens to be listening to this whole conversation from out the door. Eventually he takes an opportune time to sneak in and steal Seo-Jin’s phone. Just as he does, Detective Park takes him aside and asks some questions about the accident. He doesn’t get much information out of Do-Kyun but as he walks away, Seo-Jin starts stirring and awakens. Unfortunately he can’t remember what happened in the accident. He does, however, remember that he didn’t take the medicine and there’s no way he’d enact a suicide pact. Now the police (and Seo-Jin) realize there’s something more going on here, prompting the police to head off and try to work out who’s responsible. Back in September, Do-Kyun decides to meet with the residents who are against the Town Project. Only, that’s easier said than done when all the residents continue to hang up on him. Instead, Do-Kyun heads there personally but the man at home isn’t very enthused to see him. Ae-Ri has more luck though, as she receives a call from the men involved asking her for help in their upcoming yearly brochure. While Ae-Ri is out, Hyun-Chae shows up at her house asking to speak to Song-Ja. She invites the woman in but it’s clear there’s no love lost between them, especially when Song-Ja realizes the connection she has to Chairman Yu. Seo-Jin meets the man responsible for bringing details about the illegal materials to light. He mentions Chairman Yu and how he bought shares cheaply after Banyoung Construction’s collapse. It certainly doesn’t look good and now he’s starting to realize that the chairman is involved in all this. On the 18th October, Seo-Jin receives a note from the nurse telling him to head out to the west parking lot. There, he gets in a car with Do-Kyun and speeds away from the scene. Do-Kyun tells our protagonist to stay at his for the time being and admits that he knows about Ae-Ri and the calls back to September. Only, Seo-Jin has amnesia and he can’t remember exactly what happened. Do-Kyun tells him to contact Ae-Ri when he can, but it’s clear Seo-Jin is still dumbfounded and unsure what to do. As we cut back to December 2001, we see Song-Ja handed an envelope full of evidence from Yoo-Seok, who tells her that he can’t allow Tae-Gil to die in vain and wants to expose Chairman Yu. He tells her not to look inside for the time being and promises to return soon. For now, he has proof to confirm Yu is the one responsible for the collapse. In September, Ae-Ri finds out about the meeting from the victims of the building collapse and casually mentions that they met up a day before Yoon-Seok passed away. Seo-Jin eventually receives the report about the building collapse and starts looking into it. As he does, Jin-Ho receives a parcel at the hospital. At that same hospital, Ae-Ri shows to print out the patient files but it turns out they’ve already been printed by Taek-Kyu, who was obviously with the Chairman. Now she starts to understand that Chairman Yu is linked to her Mother. Back in October, Seo-Jin finally remembers what happened. He was driving along at night with Hyun-Chae in the front. Taek-Kyu was driving a truck on the opposite side of the road and almost ran him down. Seo-Jin swerved to avoid him and fell off the side of the road. Hyun-Chae and Seo-Jin survived the crash but Taek-Kyu injected both of them with a sedative. Irate, Seo-Jin grabs Do-Kyun and demands Taek-Kyu show up. Instead, he’s convinced to phone Ae-Ri back in the past. Finally they talk properly and Seo-Jin admits that his memory is spotty. He needs her help but she admits that it’s useless given it won’t change anything. After their call, Seo-Jin heads up to meet Taek-Kyu and runs him down with his car. Afterward, he grabs a rope and starts choking the man out out…until Taek-Kyu mentions Chairman Yu is responsible for all this and was being blackmailed by Hyun-Chae. Hyun-Chae wasn’t directly involved after all and Yu had a recording of… something incriminating. In September (62 hours ago), Ae-Ri phones Seo-Jin who’s only just recovered from his accident. It turns out he was pretending to have amnesia all this time. In fact, he actually did remember everything that took place. With this crucial puzzle piece composed, all roads now lead to Chairman Yu as the one responsible for everything that’s transpired thus far. Alas, the plot thickens as we see a final scene in October with Ae-Ri taken away on a stretcher.
The Episode Review
As we near the business end of this twisty-turny thriller, Kairos continues to deliver the goods with another solid episode of drama. It’s clear now that Chairman Yu was the one directly responsible for everything that’s happened so far and it seems the evil Chairman trope strikes again! Kairos has done a great job building him up to be a credible threat though and Taek-Kyu’s cool, icy demeanor – including being swayed by money – is enough to make him a pretty slimy character. Seeing Do-Kyun and Seo-Jin working together in our October timeline is certainly an intriguing turn of events too, and it leaves the door wide open for where this one may go next. For now, Kairos bows out with a decent episode and thankfully we don’t have to wait too long to find out what happens next. Roll on tomorrow’s episode!
