K-drama Nine Puzzles tells the story of two unlikely people partnering up in order to find a notorious serial killer who leaves puzzle pieces as clues. Just like the Zodiac Killer, this person seems to take pride in evading the cops and, in my opinion, is trying to taunt the cops by dropping these puzzle pieces as clues with E-Na specifically. The show begins in 2013, when a high schooler named E-Na finds her uncle, a police superintendent, dead in his home along with a little puzzle. Soon after, when she’s questioned as the only witness in the case, she can’t remember what happened. This makes the rookie cop on the case, Hansaem, suspect that she’s the one who killed her uncle. However, the case has remained unsolved for 10 years, making it the only case he’s never solved. In 2023, E-Na is now a criminal profiler and finally finds the chance to work with Hansaem. When a young woman is murdered, E-Na receives a new puzzle piece, one that connects directly to the one she found at the scene of her uncle’s murder. Will the two be able to solve the case, or will the killer get away scot-free? Let’s find out in Nine Puzzles.
Spoiler Alert
Who Killed the Young Boy?
In the first episode of Nine Puzzles, a young boy is found murdered in his room. Meanwhile, it’s the 10th anniversary of E-Na’s uncle, Dong-Hoon’s death, and Hansaem learns from E-Na’s former roommate that she called her an alibi on the night of her uncle’s death. The young boy that’s been murdered has an older brother, who is clearly not the family favorite. This makes him the prime suspect, but why would such a young child kill his own brother? E-Na uses her trauma, i.e., the fact that she’s lost her memory, as a tool to solve her cases. So, it becomes especially easy for her to help out in this case because the boy pretends to lose his memory. E-Na goes to question him and tells him that she’ll tell him one thing she remembers, and he can tell her one in return. It starts off fine, until the boy messes up by mixing up tenses, making it very obvious that he’s lying about having forgotten what happened and is making up a story on the spot. Unfortunately, he is the one who killed his brother.
The awl that was used to kill E-Na’s uncle belonged to her. She also goes to therapy now, and she’s socially unusual as a person who loves bungee jumping and finds it easy to put herself in the shoes of a killer. E-Na is possibly a psychopath. It’s kinda funny that E-Na says she’s the one who’s been stalking Hansaem for 10 years, because he continues to lurk around her uncle’s house. At the end of the first episode, E-Na receives a parcel out of the blue. This parcel contains a new puzzle piece featuring two women, with the first woman’s tongue passing through the other’s ear.
How Did Miyoung Die?
In episode 2, E-Na visits Hansaem’s mom, who lives in an apartment complex by herself. It turns out Hansaem isn’t there at the time she visits, so she leaves but can’t remember where she’s parked her car. While looking for her car, E-Na finds a bright red car with the engine running. She realizes that there might be someone inside. Turns out she’s right, and she finds a woman’s body in the car. She’s been choked by a rope, and E-Na immediately calls Hansaem. At the same time, she’s quick to realize that the puzzle piece she received is connected to Miyoung’s death, and hence it’s a serial killer who killed her uncle and Miyoung.
Meanwhile, Hansaem doesn’t suspect just E-Na of Miyoung’s murder. Turns out a lot of the cops at his precinct are connected to Miyoung’s whiskey bar. But E-Na isn’t able to find any connection between Miyoung and her uncle. On the other hand, Hansaem questions all his colleagues, leaving them sour about him, but he’s just being meticulous, and Chief Yang is understanding of him. E-Na holds a seminar about criminal profiling and uses it to help her figure out a connection between Miyoung and her uncle. This is the only way she can solve the case, but she comes up empty-handed. At the end of the second episode, E-Na’s left home alone after her house help leaves. But her house help leaving and the door locking behind her suddenly triggers a memory from E-Na’s uncle’s murder scene. E-Na remembers that she saw a dark reflection in the window when she found her uncle’s bloody body. Does this mean she interacted with the killer?
Who Is The Next Victim?
In Nine Puzzles episode 3, the investigation into Miyoung’s death continues, and E-Na makes another connection between her uncle’s case and Miyoung’s, so she decides to tell the cops at Hansaem’s precinct that she thinks they’ve got a serial killer on their hands. However, nobody except Hansaem believes her theory. At the same time, a fingerprint is found on the car, which leads to a man named Kang Chimok. Chimok is a married man, but he apparently helped Miyoung financially with the bar. But the waitress at the bar tells Hansaem that, a month earlier, Chimok entirely changed his personality and started harassing Miyoung. This makes him the prime suspect in the case.
On the other hand, Hansaem and E-Na end up visiting Miyoung’s father, who has dementia and has been estranged from his daughter for many years. E-Na dresses like a young Miyoung and pretends to be her to get some information out of her dad. Turns out Miyoung dated Chimok for 7 years back in the day, but her dad didn’t like him at all. But ultimately, when Hansaem and the cops go looking for the man, he’s nowhere to be found.
What’s In The Red Suitcase?
In episode 4, Hansaem and his team’s investigation leads them to a Y Hotel, a place where people go to have affairs. When they go to the room he was meant to have booked, Hansaem doesn’t find anything out of the ordinary, but it’s revealed that there was loud music coming out of there, irritating the staff and the other customers. Additionally, Chimok was seen leaving wearing red pants and holding a red suitcase. Hansaem immediately goes to the waterbody nearby and has it searched for the suitcase, and lo and behold, that’s where it’s found, with the torso of a man inside it. E-Na is quick to realize that the body in the bag is Chimok himself, and he was killed by someone else. When the DNA test is done, the results indicate the same, but who killed Chimok?
E-Na suspects the wife and goes to talk to her. Turns out they’re quite alike and even have matching fingernails. This makes the wife pretty comfy with E-Na, and they get talking. At the same time, they learn that the wife’s family died in a fire when she was really young, and a boy went missing after that. But Hansaem quickly realizes that these two people must be suspects who worked together to get rid of both her family and Chimok now. Turns out the wife wanted her own space and preferred to spend time alone, only using her marriage for convenience, but Chimok started to smother her, which made her annoyed, so she ended up killing him with her lover’s help. Suppose E-Na having a matching bag with Chimok’s wife was just a coincidence. Though this seems unconnected to any of the serial murders, at the end of episode 5, E-Na has another puzzle piece, which has been drawn on with a red pen. This means that Chimok was going to be the serial killer’s next target, but their work was done for them.
Who Killed Choi Young-Han?
In Nine Puzzles episode 5, the show changes course and sends us off on a different case. I think this is specifically to have E-Na and Hansaem begin to trust each other as partners and realize they work well together. The case involves an old man who died from poisoning, but there are 3 suspects. It’s actually E-Na’s therapist who suggests she stop looking at the suspects and look at the victim instead. It turns out that Young-Han lost his son a little while back at the factory, when three of his friends left him unsupervised. Young-Han didn’t want to kill the 3 men; he wanted them to be caught and suffer. This is something E-Na can’t understand, because she thinks from the point of view of a killer, rather than an emotional father. But Hansaem explains it to her. But, ultimately, this makes E-Na realize that the same theory could be used in the serial killings. What if all three people who were murdered committed a crime together, and someone is taking revenge now?
Who Is The Last Victim?
In the 6th episode, Hansaem and E-Na start working together to solve the case. I suppose you can say that the former doesn’t suspect the latter anymore. Additionally, E-Na is also able to sleep at Hansaem’s house, meaning she trusts him. In episode 6, Chimok is connected to Do Yonsu, the president of DH Constructions. E-Na visits the man, and he says he has no idea who Chimok or Miyoung are. However, she asks his assistant if Chimok ever made an appointment there; her reaction makes it clear that he did visit. Meanwhile, Hansaem learns that Chimok and his wife had asked Yonsu to officiate their wedding, but he was offended. It seems they had “good times” a long time ago, but Chimok’s wife doesn’t know what that means. But, despite E-Na’s warning, Yonsu ends up dead. Yonsu was killed by an insulin overdose.
E-Na gets another puzzle piece, and this time there’s a clown on it. Seeing the 4 pieces together, E-Na realizes it leads her to an amusement park. This amusement park is due to shut down, though. But Hansaem believes that the killer sped up the process of killing Yonsu because she caught on to him. At the same time, it’s becoming more evident that there’s an inside man at the station, because somehow the killer knew how Chimok was killed. Captain Yoon seems quite suspicious.
At the end of the episode, the rookie cop San realizes that a handkerchief is missing in the forensic images, meaning somebody tampered with the evidence after the cops started their work. Finally, E-Na makes the connection between the 3 victims, Miyoung, Chimok, and Yonsu. Turns out they all owned the house Miyoung lived in at some point. So, what happened at this apartment, and how is Dong-Hoon connected to it? We’ll have to wait and find out.
