The Suicide
Episode 12 of Kairos begins in October as Ae-Ri’s body is taken away while Seo-Jin overhears what happened. Song-Ja is in hospital and they arrived home to find Ae-Ri dead. Seo-Jin sees this and heads off to try and understand more. Meanwhile, police officers show up at hospital and break the news to Song-Ja that her daughter is dead. After seeing Ae-Ri’s body, she collapses on the floor and is rushed back into hospital. Anyway, he waits for 10.34 and phones Ae-Ri, telling her she’s going to die in a month’s time and she needs to be prepared for that. However, just before she hangs up A-Ri tells him about the incident with Chairman Yu and how he’s involved. Back in September, Seo-Jin learns that the building materials were changed. He’s deep in work too and unfortunately this causes him to neglect Da-Bin who falls off her stool while trying to place stickers on the ceiling above her bed. She tries her best not to cry but this scene is eerily similar to what we saw in the past before she was taken away. After her phone call, Ae-Ri breaks the news to Song-Ja that in a month’s time she’s going to die. After, she heads in to see the victims and asks them about Banyoung Constructions and their connection with Yujung. This brings the association into believing Yu is the one responsible. Meanwhile, Seo-Jin heads in to see the Chairman and realizes that one of the police officers is in collusion with him. This makes more sense now given Seo-Jin’s prying questions about the Taejung Collapse that were never addressed. Unfortunately this also rubs Yu up the wrong way too when Seo-Jin brings his concerns to the boss. Yu simply brushes these aside and when Seo-Jin leaves, calls the police and tells them to investigate who gave the files to Seo-Jin in the first place. While Jin-Ho receives a call from someone which visibly spooks him, Hyun-Chae heads out with her friends but her Father shows up. She tells him to keep quiet but obviously he’s not going to do this, especially as more of Hyun-Chae’s past is divulged. He even mentions how she wronged other people too. This completely rattles Hyun-Chae, phoning Taek-Kyu and telling him to make passports so she can leave the country. Seo-Jin takes Da-Bin to hospital after finding out she twisted her ankle. As she’s bandaged up, he takes her back home while questioning why she didn’t say anything before. Da-Bin sadly mentions how he and Hyun-Chae are always fighting so she just kept quiet. After hearing this, he makes a promise to be there for her from now on. Seo-Jin continues to investigate, working hard to find out the truth surrounding his father’s suicide. The police found partial fingerprints there and Seo-Jin continues to talk to Detective Park about this. We’re up to the 21st October now, as Seo-Jin heads into the familiar convenience store and begins asking questions about Ae-Ri. After though, he receives a message from Gun-Wook whom he talks to on the phone. It turns out Ae-Ri was suffocated and there was a plastic bag over her head when he found her. Seo-Jin eventually rings Ae-Ri from the past and tells her he’s working with Gun-Wook. He promises that things will work out okay and as the call ends, Do-Kyun rocks up at Ae-Ri’s house and sees the police tape himself. Now he realizes that Ae-Ri has been killed. Seo-Jin heads into hospital and speaks to Song-Ja, pleading with her to open up and admit everything that she knows about Yu and his despicable acts. In order to do that, he makes her phone Ae-Ri at 10.33pm and it’s an incredibly emotional minute for them both. This then ends with Ae-Ri telling her Mother that they can change the future. Do-Kyun meets up with a battered Taek-Kyu and asks about Ae-Ri’s death. He chuckles after Do-Kyun asks if he was responsible (is this a yes or a no?) and eventually goes on to admit the painful truth that Hyun-Chae was only using him – she never cared about him. Seo-Jin learns about the recording and how it incriminates Chairman Yu and Yujung Constructions over the collapse. Seo-Jin’s father definitely didn’t die from suicide and now it becomes clear that Yu had him killed. Park Joo Young happened to be working with Chairman Yu and killed Seo-Jin’s father over this evidence. Back in September, Gun-Wook fixes up Ae-Ri’s father’s watch from her past but tellingly, the two hands on the watch face happen to be stopped at 10.33pm. Could this be a sign? Anyway, as she looks at this Seo-Jin shows up at her place. It turns out before he was rescued from the collapse, Seo-Jin was with her Father in the wreckage. Now it becomes clear that these two are inexplicably linked.
The Episode Review
There is a lot to unpack in this episode and some of this is made more confusing than it perhaps should be by the constant jumps back and forth between September and October. Of course, that’s needed to quicken the pace but it can be a little confusing at times. Thankfully the use of colour is excellent with warm oranges and yellow tints for September while cold, unforgiving blues and greys dominate October. This extends beyond the two timelines though, especially when you consider that orange and yellow symbolize hope; hope that the people in September can change the future and bring Yu to justice. While the evil chairman trope is a little predictable, the case itself is interesting and with only 4 episodes to go, it looks like we’re gearing up for quite the finale to come! For now, Kairos bows out with another decent episode.
