Behind Your Touch falls into that category of shows that are entertaining but waste their potential. It feels like the heart of the writers just wasn’t in it. It is so evident that this series could have done and been so much more, but someone in the whole process had stopped caring about it. Anyway, for the invested audience, here is the recap of Behind Your Touch episode 13.
Spoiler Alert
How is the shaman’s innocence proved?
First of all, it felt really random the way the shaman’s guilt was established. Gwang Sik behaving suspiciously out of the blue feels like an attempt by the Behind Your Touch writers to create another filler plotline before they get to the crux of the matter. We don’t have filler subplots, but it is an important consideration to keep in mind when the narrative starts getting tired. Frankly, a well-developed love story between Ye Bun and Jang Yeol would have made things a lot more interesting than anything else. It would have been great if we had seen more friendship between them, the kind that is a little more openly expressed than what the two are doing right now.
Jang Yeol immediately proves that Dr. Jung is not the murderer by revealing the truth about his Parkinson’s disease. A man who had difficulty walking and picking up a spoon could not have stabbed someone. Since the case has been handed over to the Violent Crimes Unit, the person in charge wonders whether the case of Cha Ju Man is separate from the entire serial killing case. However, the similarities are far too many, and the gradual connection between the victims is also visible. Dismissing Dr. Jung as a suspect means that the police once again don’t know who the killer is.
Meanwhile, Gwang Sik has started acting jumpy and suspicious. He rushes out of the funeral of Dr. Jung, and for reasons we don’t understand, he tries to touch the leg of the shaman, Jong Bae. Gwang Sik probably suspects Jong Bae because he saw Ye Bun’s memories when he touched her leg. But his proactive interest was certainly odd. He tells everything to Jang Yeol, and their conversation is overheard by the officer, who immediately arrests Jong Bae. The problem is that Jong Bae cannot prove his innocence because he doesn’t remember what happened that night. This was practically unnecessary, which is why we keep saying that the series needs better storytelling.
As for Jang Yeol, he and the other officers group up to continue the investigation on their own terms. They all suspect Seon Woo since he is missing, but the man shows up eventually for Dr. Jung’s funeral. He claims to have gone to check a lead on his missing mother and has returned disappointed. But before they can prove that he is the killer, they need to prove Jong Bae innocent, and that can only happen with the help of Ye Bun. If Jong Bae cannot remember his whereabouts, Ye Bun needs to remember them for him. Since Jang Yeol cannot avoid it anymore, he tells the officers about her power and how she has to be a part of the plan. They sneak her into the interrogation room, and when Ye Bun touches Jong Bae, she sees that he was at Seon Woo’s workshop and had fallen asleep there. Jong Bae provides his alibi to the police, and he is finally removed as a suspect.
How Does Gwang Sik Become A Suspect?
It is imperative to establish whether Seon Woo is guilty or not. Jang Yeol has been hung up on him as a possible murderer for the better part of the show, and he needs a conclusive answer. While retracing Seon Woo’s path on the night of Cha Ju Man’s murder, Jang Yeol finds that he would have had enough time to murder the Assemblyman before coming back to find Jong Bae sleeping in his workshop. As expected, he once again asks Seon Woo the questions, and this time, the man reveals that he has long suspected Dr. Bong of having psychometric powers. Unlike others, when he saw Ye Bun and Jang Yeol hanging out together, he did not think that they were dating but that they might be cooperating for an investigation. That observation slowly diverted to the eccentric behavior of the two, which probably culminated with the chair he had to make for the prawn festival. Seon Woo knew what Ye Bun could do, and he agreed to offer himself up for checking. As expected by the audience, Seon Woo did not kill Cha Ju Man. He was helping Dr. Jung walk to where he needed to go. But if Seon Woo did not kill Cha Ju Man, it meant that he did not kill any of the others, and Jang Yeol does not have a suspect anymore, bringing them back to square one.
Meanwhile, life goes on for Ye Bun, and she is off to make some house calls. While returning, Ae Ran invites her to the house for some fruit. We suppose we can see why Koreans have such glowing skin. People coming to the house are offered fruits instead of dairy and confectionery. Talk about good skin being a lifestyle! Either way, Ae Ran asks Ye Bun to touch her to find out where she may have lost her ring, but before Ye Bun can do that, Gwang Sik comes there and freaks out about it. His absolute fear about what Ye Bun might see is certainly suspicious, and the doctor is left with a lot of doubts. When she talks about it with Ok Hui, she is told that perhaps he did not want her to get a look at their honeymoon, but something strikes Ye Bun just then.
At the end of Behind Your Touch episode 13, Ye Bun tells Jang Yeol that it is likely that Gwang Sik is the person behind everything. When she touched Seon Woo, she saw that he wasn’t where Gwang Sik had said the third person was. But they had only suspected a third person because Gwang Sik had said so. What if he had lied about that? After all, Jang Yeol first suspected Seon Woo because he saw that his height was as Gwang Sik had described. The man is at the center of everything that Jang Yeol and Ye Bun have been thinking of. Therefore, they start wondering whether Gwang Sik is the killer to begin with. He certainly had a grudge against Si A and against his wife’s friend for killing them. And everyone in the town old enough to remember had a grudge against Cha Ju Man. Gwang Sik also knows about Ye Bun’s powers, so it explains why he would avoid them. This firmly establishes him as a suspect.
Final Thoughts
It is obvious that we don’t believe that Gwang Sik is the suspect, simply because he is not menacing enough for that. There has to be some element of blackmail and Ae Ran may have been an innocent witness to whatever he is doing which is why he was so insistent that Ye Bun not touch her. We suspect that the next episode will be about clearing his name, and Behind Your Touch finale week will focus on finding the real killer.
