Forest of Secrets (Episode 11-12)

Heck yeah I’m going to make this a weekly thing! To anyone reading these, I actually write about an episode after I watch it, then wait until the next one to jot down thoughts (never retroactively change my opinion)… this week I couldn’t wait for Dramafever, so I just watched the Netflix version (which is up immediately after it airs).

Episode 11

• I understand the squad chief’s disappointment at being left in the dark when their own chief of police as arrested, and that evidence was hidden from him. From what I recall, the squad chief hasn’t actually done anything wrong and he seems like a stand-up guy. I also understand that there was a reason they couldn’t share intel/the two agencies couldn’t work together because of the sensitivity of the situation… I understand the WHY, the end result just sucks! It just feels so unfair for Yeo-jin to get shit from her colleagues for doing the right thing. That doesn’t make her a backstabber or disloyal at all. In fact, the only thing she needs to be loyal to is the TRUTH.

• Love Eun-soo, but I thought barging into ✨ Chief Secretary ✨ Lee Chang-joon’s office was not the right move to make. It’s one thing to be up in Shi-mok’s business, but with Lee Chang-joon in the Blue House and Hanjo Group/Lee Yoon-Bum basically running the show and the economy, I don’t want her to fall into something she won’t be able to get out of. However, is worth noting that even Lee Chang-joon seems to be cowed in Young Il-jae’s presence (knowledge, respect) so I wonder if he himself had a hand in having the retrial rejected. As he mentioned, there are a lot of people who wouldn’t sit still at being proven wrong — people who would potentially harm his family. If that’s the case I wish he would, y’know, tell his daughter instead of letting her be. Does he not know how persistent she is? He raised her! At any rate, her disappointment was incredibly heartbreaking to me. I’m sure it broke her faith the system a bit, and I’m sure she won’t sit still.

• Loved that both Shi-mok (“You thought your ex-boss was the killer.”) and Lee Chang-joon (“Aren’t you putting [Ga-young] in danger by telling me that she woke up?”) are able to see right through Seo Dong-jae’s attempts at deceit, something that most others haven’t been able to do thus far. Self-preservation is the name of his game and he wouldn’t have gotten as far as he has without being resilient or intelligent. He also showed a different side to himself to Eun-soo today — surprising! I’m just not sure if he’ll use her anger to help himself or to right a wrong and find the actual killer. I feel like he’s been a little MIA these past few episodes, so I’m glad to have him back and bringing some ~drama, LOL. He’s so messy.

• To the second part of Shi-mok’s earlier statement: was he questioning Dong-jae (it is true that he is now working under someone he just accused of murder) in order to get him to dig around Lee Chang-joon? It’s certainly something that Shi-mok can no longer do himself, especially since being in the Blue House makes Lee Chang-joon almost untouchable. The most they can do is question his wife. And who better to look into him than someone who has made his way inside? If so, that’s manipulative as fuck. But I like it. Damn.

• (And this is not the first time he’s done this! I’ve mentioned before that he can be just as manipulative and cunning as some villains. Think back to episode 8. After he and Yeo-jin caught Dong-jae trying to throw away Ga-young’s phone, Shi-mok implied (to Eun-soo) that he thinks Dong-jae is the killer and that she could have missed evidence pinning him down as such. Shi-mok isn’t an idiot. There’s a reason why he asked for a weapon after she left the office. He also knows that if you give Eun-soo an inch, she’ll take a mile… which resulted in the near-fatal showdown in the alley. SAME TACTIC!)

• Earlier I said that Yeon-jae’s appearance in the hospital was a red herring and I was right! I’m still very curious about her involvement in just about everything, because it’s clear that she knows more and can (potentially) do more than the show is letting on.

• I feel like Section Chief Yoon is involved in Ga-young’s case in a way I don’t particularly care for, because her gaze in the hospital just didn’t sit right with me — like she was staring past the picture and right at him. It didn’t feel like a symptom of all the stress she was going through. It was almost as if he was watching her very closely, as if to see how she’d react… I could be overthinking it though.

. . .

Episode 12

• I’ve grown to like Section Chief Kang a lot between this and last week; he may not be fond of Shi-mok, but he is a man with principles.

• I liked that (again!) we saw another side to Dong-jae; maybe he legitimately is looking out for her as her sunbae, and maybe he really feels apologetic for having hurting her even though he’ll never actually apologize. This is Seo Dong-jae we’re talking about. I do wonder why Ga-young was so alarmed by his appearance. I mean it’s true that she saw his face as he was chasing after her in front of the bar. I just don’t feel like he’s the one who tried to murder her and I don’t think it was Lee Chang-joon either. I think he was complicit in that he KNEW about what was going on, but I think he’s very much loyal to his wife if his words from earlier (“I would have left your father a long time ago”) mean anything… which sort of brings me to my next point:

• FRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK. OH MY GOD. SECTION CHIEF YOON. I was wracking my brains thinking that “07”, flipped upside down looks like eyeglasses on a face with one side obscured. Maybe that’s why he wasn’t rocking the glasses anymore because it would out him as a would-be murderer! But nah. I thought I was being crazy. NEVER IN MY WILDEST DREAMS did I suspect Yoon as the one, especially not one with a tattoo. Why!!!! I’m so upset!!! HOW COULD YOU? (I’m so afraid for Eun-soo! I feel like the moment she puts two and two together is the moment she is officially in danger. EFF)

• I’m definitely thinking the man in Shi-mok’s apartment was Lee Yoon-bum’s assistant or whatever.

• How cute was it that Yeo-jin invited Eun-soo over to the “garden party”? :’) This is the burgeoning friendship I needed! Aside from the invitation being an act of goodwill (I’m sure it cheered up Eun-soo a lot), it looked like she was trying to be ~matchmaker in her own way, haha.

• Saw next week’s preview and I’m like yes. Young Il-jae and Hwang Shi-mok finally meet again, and hopefully this conversation will be way more fruitful. I’ve had enough for Hanjo & Friends suppressing the special investigation team.

. . .

Another Eun-soo related thought to chew on for the week: she’s been called “pushy”, and apparently that’s enough for her to be highly despised. How much of that disdain is just annoyance at the fact that she’s getting too close to Shi-mok and getting in the way of their ship (Shi-mok/Yeo-jin)? It’s almost as if she’s being treated as the interloping second lead, when I don’t see her doing any such thing. Or they hate her because her mission is completely selfish; while it does come from a personal place (and her execution is flawed in a lot of ways), is wanting to uncover the corruption that unfairly disgraced her father not a noble act by a filial daughter? She doesn’t have a lot of weapons at her disposal, so she has no choice but to be as insistent as she is. A lot of heroes in dramas get the revenge edit, and guess what? They grow up. They take off the blinders. They start helping others. It’s fortunate that Forest of Secrets penned by a very talented writer, so I have no doubt she’ll mature. The fact that despite all that’s happened, she chooses to go about her business using mostly legal means is proof that she is not as morally corrupt as people make her out to be.

tl;dr I need to stop reading the Soompi forums. Dramabeans discussions are so much better. LOL