Recap Korean Drama "Jirisan" Episode 14

Episode 14 of Jirisan starts with Gu-yeong and Il-hae arriving at Magpie Hill and finding no one there. They figure out that a false report was made to separate them from Yi-gang.

At Black Bridge Village, Hyun-jo finds Yi-gang. She can see him and asks what happened to him last summer.

We jump back to 2019. Hyun-jo is waiting at Black Bridge Village when he spots someone through the foliage. They run and he gives chase, eventually tackling them to the ground and revealing their identity – Sol.

Hyun-jo confronts Sol about the murders, but Sol only acts confused. Hyun-jo changes the direction of his questions, asking why Sol is even there. Sol pulls out his phone, showing Hyun-jo a message identical to the one Jin-ok received. The sender is Woong-soon, though Sol doesn’t know why Woong-soon wanted to meet or why he hasn’t shown up. Sol discloses that Woong-soon also grew up in Black Bridge Village.

We flash back to 1991. Jae-gyeong leads a village discussion, asking who is for or against the cable car. Nam-sik, Se-wook’s father, and Woong-soon’s father are openly against it along with Jae-gyeong. Some of the other villagers consider opting for the compensation payout.

In the present, Hyun-jo is now at Sol’s house looking at old photos of the village kids who include Sol, Hyun-su, Yang-sun, Se-wook, and Woong-soon. Sol says he was too young to remember what happened in 1991, though he does tell us that the third death was Se-wook’s father. He also has no explanation for the goblin lights.

When Hyun-jo asks about Se-wook, Sol says that Woong-soon knew him best. Sol left for Seoul after the village was demolished. Hyun-su and Yang-sun also left the mountain. That left only Woong-soon and Se-wook together all these years.

The next day, Hyun-jo delivers the daily log from the flood to Woong-soon, using it as an opportunity to ask Woong-soon about why he stood Sol up. Woong-soon says he had an urgent matter to attend to. Hyun-jo spots a pair of muddy hiking shoes, though Woong-soon says he’s too busy with work to go hiking. After Hyun-jo leaves, Woong-soon pulls up the list of Black Bridge Village residents.

On another visit to the police station, Hyun-jo questions Woong-soon’s junior about the investigation into the bus incident. The officer explains that Woong-soon sent in the report and ruled it off as an accident.

Hyun-jo goes to find Jin-ok after she became unreachable and missed their meeting. Jin-ok’s neighbour explains that her pancreatic cancer worsened, and she has been hospitalized. Another old resident won’t cooperate with him, and Yang-sun’s grandfather has moved away.

During a patrol, Hyun-jo tells a group of rangers that he’s been searching for military dog tags lost on the mountain. They say they saw some in the Black Bridge Village cave before it was cleaned out. Hyun-jo mentally goes through the items in the cave and pieces together that they were all used in the murders.

Hyun-jo later checks with multiple ranger stations but none of them were tasked with clearing the cave. We flash back to the culprit entering the cave after the rangers left and taking all the items, including Hyun-su’s dog tags.

Hyun-jo is sure that the culprit would not have been able to take the items off the mountain or throw them out. He begins searching for them but keeps coming up short.

Yi-gang messages Hyun-jo, asking to meet up. As he leaves to see her, he gets a vision of a sign pointing to Deokseoryeong, blood-soaked snow, and glimpses of a motionless person. An announcement for heavy snowfall plays on the radio in the background.

We skip forward to 2020 again. Hyun-jo follows Yi-gang, Gu-yeong, and Il-hae down the mountain, though only Yi-gang can see him. He’s stopped at the man-made bridge.

That night, Yi-gang explains the connection between the murder victims and Black Bridge Village to Il-hae and Gu-yeong. She asks them to trust her and install a video camera at Seokyi Cliff in Dowon Valley before 5:30pm the next day.

We flash back to Hyun-jo’s spirit telling Yi-gang that Woong-soon is the culprit and that he had another vision. In an extended version of the vision, we see the culprit’s watch displaying the date and time.

As the flashback ends, Yi-gang asks Il-hae and Gu-yeong to keep this all a secret from Woong-soon, reasoning that he’s a prime suspect because he’s an ex-resident who knows the villagers and the mountain.

Elsewhere, Woong-soon meets with Jang Hak-su, the illegal herb collector who saw Hyun-jo. Woong-soon asks Hak-su for illegal herbs and Hak-su says he’ll have them by tomorrow.

At 11:36am the following day, Gu-yeong and Il-hae head to Seokyi Cliff while Hak-su is stalked by the culprit on a restricted trail.

At 12:01pm, Hyun-jo has a vision of the culprit pushing Hak-su down a different drop. The watch in the vision now reads 2:01pm. Gu-yeong and Il-hae are two hours away from Seokyi Cliff.

At the station, Yi-gang reviews the video footage of herself at Black Bridge Village. It shows the culprit watching her from behind some shrubbery.

It’s now 2:01pm. Hak-su is about to secure himself using a rope when the culprit comes up behind him. Hak-su turns, recognizing the culprit and asking why he’s there.

Gu-yeong and Il-hae are close enough to hear Hak-su’s scream and change course in his direction. When they reach him, he’s already dead. Yi-gang deduces that the culprit heard her talking to Hyun-jo and changed the time and location of his next kill.

Hyun-jo also arrives at the site of the murder and thinks back to when Hak-su told him that everyone who sees him dies. He realizes that this has proven true.

Knowing Yi-gang can see him, Hyun-jo finds the radio Da-won dropped and bashes his hands down onto it until he can finally touch it. He radios Yi-gang, urging her to leave the mountain and live happily. Gu-yeong and Il-hae only hear static.

At the hospital, the machines Hyun-jo is hooked up to start glitching. His spirit disappears from the mountain. By 2:42pm, his vital signs go flat.

---

The Episode Review

All signs now point to Woong-soon as the culprit, but Sol isn’t in the clear yet either. It makes no sense that he ran from Hyun-jo in Black Bridge Village if he’s innocent. He could still be the culprit, leaving Woong-soon as another false lead, or maybe they are accomplices.

This episode confirmed that Hyun-jo knows – or thinks that he knows – who the killer is, cementing the plot hole that arose when he failed to use Seung-chul to relay this information to Yi-gang sooner.

Interestingly, Hyun-jo’s first vision of Hak-su’s death included a scene with a snake that came to pass even after the culprit changed his plan. If the first vision had also shown him the new time, perhaps it wouldn’t have even mattered whether the culprit changed anything – his new plan was already written in his future. The mountain certainly likes to skimp on the details.

While it’s not explicitly stated in the episode, it’s unlikely that Hyun-jo marks people for death in the way that Hak-su believed he did. Instead, it’s possible that those who are already close to their time of death can see him because the veil between life and death becomes thinner for them.

This is an ominous sign for Yi-gang, and Hyun-jo was willing to give up his life to warn her away. Unfortunately for him, it’s unlikely that telling her to leave and live happily with no explanation will get the job done.