No Tail To Tell has returned with an exciting second episode that jumps 9 years into the future. The ending of the last episode gave us a clear indication that something is the matter with Eun-Ho after her interaction with Si-Yeol. The first episode was exciting from Eun-Ho’s point of view, but the second episode shifts focus to Si-Yeol. After witnessing his friend’s near-death experience, Si-Yeol’s life changes entirely. Not just because he was witness to a near-death situation, but because it gives him the same lifeline that Woo-Seok, his friend, was meant to have. But what does this mean for Si-Yeol? I was under the impression that when we saw the grandma, she’d either die on the screen or Si-Yeol would use his wish to keep her alive. Of course, a 9-tailed fox also can’t win against death, but I genuinely believed there would be something to do with the grandma, so I guess that’s the trope this show has subverted. Anyway, with that said, let’s get into episode 2.
Spoiler Alert
How Does Eun-Ho Balance The Scales?
Episode 1 of No Tail To Tell ended with Eun-Ho realizing that she’s somehow switched the fates of Woo-Seok and Si-Yeol, but that’s supposed to be impossible; once she sees a vision, it is of a future that is guaranteed to come true. At the start of this episode, she stumbles out of the hospital room where she’d collapsed into Si-Yeol’s arms, but not before he sees her nine tails emerge and surround them, glowing with heavenly energy. Eun-Ho’s flustered, but she’s determined to put things right, especially given she’s felt some of her power fade away, leaving her weakened.
She goes to a temple and tries to demand answers from the deities, but when they fail to respond, she starts smashing up the place, starting with the idols. This is when Lord Paigun shows up and stops her, calling her out for her faults and pitying her for how low she’s fallen. The scales come up again, and when she finally gets tired of Paigun, Eun-Ho walks away and decides to figure out how to regain the balance she’s apparently lost. She decides to go track down Si-Yeol, who’s sitting at a bus stop, but he doesn’t want to talk to her, especially after she makes him miss his bus, meaning he’d have to walk 4 hours late at night if he wants to get home.
So Eun-Ho decides to dazzle him with her magic, using something she calls “earthfolding” to teleport him home. He’s so amazed by all this that he ends up caressing her hand (she asked him to hold her hand to teleport), and Eun-Ho seems to like it until she realizes what’s happening and snatches her hand back. Finally, she asks him to make a wish, because she can’t meddle in human affairs unless one of them makes a wish, and she wants him to wish for the man who ran Woo-Seok over to be brought to justice.
So he does just that, and next thing you know, the CCTV footage that had mysteriously vanished (when Lee had wished for it to vanish, along with Si-Yeol’s memory of the event) reappears while Lee Yoon is still at the police station being interrogated. He quickly rushes to the bathroom to burn one of Eun-Ho’s business cards and summon her so he can wish for an easy way out of this mess, but she doesn’t show up, no matter how many cards he burns. After the interrogation, he gets in his car and starts being driven away, but the news on the radio reveals that the body of Lee’s former chauffeur has just been found in the mountains.
This is when Eun-Ho shows up in the car and says she got so annoyed by his constant business card spam that she figured she might as well uncover the body for the press. After Lee Yoon had been disappointed by the driver’s lackluster false testimony, which meant he got called in as a witness in the investigation, he’d struck him in the back of the head, killing him. Clearly, he didn’t expect the body to be found so easily, but now he’s going to be in even more trouble. Eun-Ho gets Lee’s assistant to turn the car around, and they head back to the police station, all while Eun-Ho tells him how much trouble he’s going to be in and that he’s not going to be a client of hers anymore. When he gets out of the car in front of the cops and the press, Eun-Ho forces him to confess to not just the hit and run and the murder, but also the numerous cases of embezzlement and money laundering he’s engaged in, meaning he’ll be looking at the inside of a prison cell for a good long time. Maybe 9 years? Also, Eun-Ho smiles to herself as she looks over a set of spectral scales and sees that they’ve returned to balance.
How Have The Last 9 Years Treated Eun-Ho & Si-Yeol?
9 years later, things have changed for everyone. Right after granting his wish, Eun-Ho had shown up to greet Si-Yeol with a massive yellow suitcase, telling him he was going to need it. Though Woo-Seok was going through physical therapy, his spot in the youth national side had been given to Si-Yeol for the moment, and it was like Eun-Ho had seen it coming ahead of time. Si-Yeol goes from one high to another, and next thing you know, he’s the most valuable player at Thames FC, a London-based Premier League team. He’s a harsh captain, even denying ketchup and mayo to his teammates and calling off celebrations until the end of the season, but you can’t deny he’s dedicated. His name’s on all sorts of brands, and he has brand deals on everything from chocolate bars to steamed buns, and his face is on the cover of every magazine.
Meanwhile, Woo-Seok, who was once considered a better player than Si-Yeol, hasn’t found the same success. We see him living in a messy, cramped house, and he’s woken by the sound of his dad, who’s come around to clean the place up for him. When he asks Woo-Seok to help, he hands him all his football trophies and tells him to throw them out too. Father and son reminisce over a meal about how close they were to success and how neither of them had it in them to make it big. But then, it starts raining, and almost like one unit, they realize the trophies (even though they’re stashed in trash bags) will get wet outside, so they rush and get them back. Guess the past isn’t that easy to let go of. Funny how “Idol I” had a “memories left out on the curb in a trash bag” thing last week too.
When we see Eun-Ho, she seems to be living the good life. We find her on an island, where she’s being shown around by a realtor. She ends up taking a liking to the island and says she’d like to take it and live there alone, and the man tells her that’ll cost her about 12 billion won, though that could be haggled down to 11 billion, and she scoffs at the idea of a discount. But when the payment fails to go through, she starts sputtering and says she’ll get her hands on the money as long as they give her a discounted rate of 10 billion won. Looks like she’s burned through all her savings over the last 9 years of not taking any wishes. When she gets back to the Korean mainland, she starts seeing Si-Yeol’s face all over the place, and she realizes he must be made of money at this point, meaning the seed she’d planted all those years ago has finally ripened to give her the perfect fruit to pluck. Finally, when narcissist Si-Yeol returns to Korea, reading his own autobiography, Eun-Ho has the idea to try to reach out to him. Additionally, he tries to get in touch with Woo-Seok, who continues to avoid him.
What Does Si-Yeol Wish For?
In No Tail To Tell episode 2’s ending, Si-Yeol finally gets to meet Woo-Seok. Turns out he was dropped by his team and didn’t want to tell Si-Yeol because it’s embarrassing. This happened right after Eun-Ho showed up while he was doing some sort of bath thing in his living room? That was a bit strange. He remembers her, probably because she said she was a fox? Surely it’s not so easy to remember faces. Now, Eun-Ho asked him if he had a wish for her, now that he’s rich and all. But he turns her down. However, when Woo-Seok shows up and tells him his sad story, he asks him if he has a wish. We don’t hear anything from them, but at the same time, Yeon-Soo, Si-Yeol’s manager, learns of some shocking news that might change the course of his life forever. The next morning, Si-Yeol wakes up in a cold sweat, having dreamt that Woo-Seok has taken over his life and now he’s got nothing again. But when he does wake up, he’s in a new place with a new environment. It turns out that dream is now his reality, and he didn’t even know he made this wish. All Eun-Ho says is that she decides what kind of wish she can grant, and that’s that. Now Woo-Seok might be rich, but will he help his friend? Will Si-Yeol be able to get famous again? Would he need Eun-Ho’s help now? Guess we’ll find out next week.
