Revenant – K-drama Episode 2 Recap & Review

Denial is a River in Egypt…

Episode 2 of Revenant picks up where we left with Hae-sang trying to sneak into Hyun-Woo’s house. He is stopped by Hyun Woo’s parents though, who arrive at that moment and start acting strange after a young girl is heard crying inside.

A scared San-Yeong and Jin-Wook rush out of the house to flee from Hyun-Woo’s ghost. She takes Jin-wook near a mirror to see if Hyun-Woo’s ghost is still following them. Luckily the ghost is gone but San-Yeong remembers that Hae-sang said that until they figure out why, the ghost will return.

She asks Jin-Wook about Hyun-Woo’s death and learns they didn’t bully Hyun-Woo. Hyun-Woo is worried about his family and had asked for their help. Unfortunately, they ignored him and he jumped to his death. San-Yeong calls Hae-sang and informs him that Hyun-Woo is worried about a sibling but there are no records of him having one. After the call, San-Yeong spots Hyun-Woo’s ghost again. They start running, San-Yeong asks Jin-Wook to return home but he insists on following her.

Back to Hae-sang, he tries to peek inside the house and spots a young girl curled up in the basement crying. He assures her that he will save her but he is spotted by Hyun-Woo’s parents and captured before he can do anything.

Elsewhere, the police are investigating the death of the young boy who died and they learn that Hyun-Woo’s dad was present. Hyun-Woo’s dad swears that he didn’t kill the boy, he tripped by himself and fell to his death. He tells Hyun-Woo’s mom that they will have to kill the girl and figure out what to do with Hae-sang. He mentions that they never registered the girl’s birth so no one will know if they kill her.

As discussions of his fate go on upstairs, Hae-sang frees himself and convinces the little girl, Jung Hyun-Ji that Hyun-Woo sent him to rescue her. He asks her to escape through the window as he holds the door. San-Yeong shows up at that opportune time and helps him rescue  Hyun-Ji as the police arrive and secure the scene. Hyun-Woo’s ghost is pleased to see his sister rescued and he can finally rest in peace.

After everything is settled, San-Yeong is still in denial that she is possessed by an evil spirit. She thinks that everything happened because of human’s evil nature. She leaves and tries to blame stress on everything that happened. She visits a therapist and is given some medication because her stress levels are high. The therapist thinks there is no such thing as a ghost and she just needs to treat San-Yeong’s hallucination. Life returns to normal and she leans on her friend Se-Mi who has normal worries such as her financial burdens.

Hae-sang holds a rite to send off Hyun-Woo and gets a visit from Woo-Jin. Woo-Jin is concerned about the evil spirit latched on San-Yeong. We learn that it is the same spirit that killed Hae-sang’s mom. He also questions why Gang-Mo wrote to Hae-sang before his death asking him to take care of San-Yeong, yet they had never met. Woo-Jin thinks that Gang-Mo knew about the evil spirit and worries that Hae-sang will get hurt in his quest for answers.

The next day, Se-Mi convinces San-Yeong to go to an engagement party of an old classmate because she wants to reunite with one of her crushes. It turns out Se-Mi’s crush is Officer Hong-Sae but he is clueless about Se-Mi’s feelings. He is more curious about San-Yeong. He tries to follow her when she abruptly leaves the dinner party but misses her.

The next day, San-Yeong gets a job as a mover and encounters a young, privileged kid who cries if she doesn’t get her way. The kid is looking for her beloved doll but it turns out the evil spirit in San-Yeong took it to punish the spoilt brat. This is the first time San-Yeong realizes that she sometimes loses track of time and ends up in places she didn’t plan to be. She freaks out, throws the doll away and runs away.

While San-Yeong is at work, Hae-sang visits her home and talks to Gyeong-Mun. Gyeong-Mun is scared to hear that San-Yeong might be in danger. She tells Hae-sang about the hair ribbon that Gang-Mo left for his daughter. Hae-sng quickly rushes out to meet with Gang Mo’s mother, Seok-Ran. After Hae-sang leaves, Gyeong-Mun texts San-Yeong asking her if she knows the professor and why he stopped by.

San-Yeong is still reeling from the shock of what happened to the doll. She runs until she gets to the middle of the streets. She stops to catch her breath and this is when she sees her two shadows and her reflection on the mirrored wall talking back to her asking her to guess her name. She is then possessed and shown her grandmother’s house so she decides to go there.

Hae-sang gets there first but is unable to save Seok-Ran. He was only able to talk to her briefly before she went to fetch for him some of Gang-Mo’s research into the red hair ribbon. Hae-sang has so many questions including why Gang-Mo had the ribbon, why he never agreed to meet him and so on. Seok-Ran couldn’t answer them because she opens the door to the ghost and hangs herself. The book of research on the ribbon is also set on fire.

By the time San-Yeong gets there, the room is starting to catch fire and Hae-sang is trying to save Seok-Ran. Unfortunately, he is unable to save her and she is declared dead by the police when they arrive. Hae-sang calls Mun-Chun to ask him for help in restoring the partially burnt book. Mun-Chun is concerned to see that, once again, San-Yeong is involved in a suspicious death. He thinks that San-Yeong might have killed Seok-Ran to inherit her wealth but Hae-sang assures him that she is innocent.

The death of her grandmother is too much to bear so San-Yeong tries to kill herself by running into oncoming traffic. The evil spirit starts mocking her and Hae-sang steps in and saves her. He asks her to come with him and they go to his house. Here, he shows her all his research and the letter her dad left.

San-Yeong questions why her dad would leave the cursed hair ribbon for her if he knew what it would lead to. Hae-sang questions how Gang-Mo got the ribbon because his mom was holding it when she died. At this point, she can clearly see the shadow and it is getting bigger.

On the other side of town, Mun-Chun ropes in Hong-Sae to help him solve these mysterious cases, including his first case. He lures Hong-Sae with talk of promotion and asks him to see the bigger picture. They start with the case of Hae-sang’s mom. At the time, the latter was young and the police didn’t take his statement seriously. They believe that she was killed and staged like a suicide. Mun-Chun is sure that the suspect got away and is linked to other cases.

His mom died in a small bed and breakfast in 1995 right after his father died. After the funeral, Hae-sang got sick but his mom didn’t take him to the hospital. She kept driving east and only stopped to bury a mysterious object. They then spent the night at a bed and breakfast. Hae-sang woke up and heard a knock on the door but couldn’t find his mom. He opened the door and saw the ghost.

The next thing he remembers was waking up in a hospital and his grandmother telling him that his mom committed suicide. He is sure that his mom was killed while running away from the ghost, given he witnessed it himself. His mom’s last effort to save herself was burning the red hair ribbon in her hands.

As Hae-sang and San-Yeong talk, she realized she witnessed her grandmother’s death from the ghost’s point of view. She can remember what was in the research book, and she draws the map and they start working on finding the area drawn. The map is old so they will have to go through old books to identify the area.

After working nearly all night, they find the location mentioned on the map, Jangjin-Ri. In a flashback, we go back to 1958 in Jangjin-Ri itself, where a group of women are holding a ritual led by a shaman. She is carrying the red hair ribbon in her hands, and it seems she is looking for someone among the people who are part of the ritual.

The scene then cuts to her bringing raw meat to someone hidden under a blue sheet. The minute the person under the blanket moves to grab the food, the shaman stabs them and blood spills on the red hair ribbon lying nearby.

The Episode Review

Revenant delivers another intense episode that makes us shake in our boots but unable to turn away! So far, each episode ends with suspense and it makes us curious to know what will happen next. All we have right now are theories about what could have possibly happened and so many questions. We will have to tune in next week to find out more about the shaman.

The only thing I would suggest when watching this show is not to watch it alone at night! This is one chilling K-drama and there are some really great scenes in this, and it’s shaping up to be a must-watch K-drama from this year’s list!