All that crying over 2016’s dramas seems to have worked, and Korean dramas are currently going through a high phase right now. But See You In My 19th Life would have benefited from airing on a different date from King The Land. While it continues to be fantastic, it is just not giving us the same feeling that the latter drama is giving. That is because King The Land is purely a love story, whereas See You In My 19th Life has a slightly more complicated narrative. We suppose it was a matter of what people were more starved of, and this is how it plays out in the recap of this episode.
Spoilers Alert
Does Seo Ha Find Out Who Killed Ju Won?
When Seo Ha goes to meet Bang Ho Sik, he runs into some people wanting to beat him up, which is odd since Bang Ho Sik was the one to call him there. That should have been Seo Ha’s first clue that someone had killed Ho Sik and it wasn’t a suicide. Thankfully, Yang Sik pulls through for Seo Ha and delivers the box of evidence to his doorstep, leaving a note saying that Bang Ho Sik did not kill himself but was murdered. Seo Ha goes through the documents in the box, and can we say that, in true K-drama fashion, he finds another connection between himself and Ji Eum. It was Ji Eum’s father who was the driver of the truck that killed Ju Won. Seo Ha figures out that his debt must have been forgiven in exchange for driving the truck. Seo Ha is aware that Ji Eum doesn’t talk to her father, but he is still uncomfortable with their connection. However, he is desperately trying not to let it affect him. That is why, when Ji Eum calls him and gets all romantic, he asks her to keep going. He definitely wants to judge her and carry forward his feelings for her without the shadow of her father’s crimes.
As for Ji Eum, she asks Min Gi about the visions of her first life and wonders whether they were involved in some capacity. Though Min Gi denies it, he remembers looking fondly at Ji Eum at that time. Maybe this is a love triangle that has carried forward through the centuries. It makes for a great story that two lovers have found each other across time and distance, but we agree more with Seo Ha that it is better that there is no cosmic reason for them to have met and they have simply fallen in love. That is because the weight of the stories often complicates the emotion, and these two don’t need that. Great love stories come from having lived very hard lives, and something simpler is always preferable.
When Seo Ha sees Ji Eum the next day, she immediately senses the difference in his energy. But before she can do anything about it, her father comes to the hotel and creates a scene. A furious Ban Ji Eum drags him out and puts him in a cab. Seo Ha witnesses the whole thing, and his faith in Ban Ji Eum is restored. These two are as good as dating, looking at all the time they spend together and the space both of them are in. When Ban Ji Eum goes to Seo Ha’s house, she looks for a spot to place his gift, a wooden pony, which is when she stumbles upon the papers that Seo Ha had gotten from Bang Ho Sik. When she goes through them, she immediately understands the reason for Seo Ha’s distant behavior in the morning. She knows that they are now connected in more ways than she could have imagined.
Ji Eum immediately goes to meet her father, and he reveals to her that he had taken up the job in return for his debts being forgiven. While he doesn’t sound too guilty about it, we doubt there’s more to it. He yells out that his brakes had not been working when he tried to stop the truck. This means that someone made sure that the job would be done no matter what. We don’t know whether Ji Eum heard this bit, but she asks to never see him again. Right now, all she wants to do is investigate the accident from all those years ago.
Why Does Ji Eum Reveal Herself As Ju Won?
Ji Eum immediately meets Hanna, who was Seo Ha’s mother, Sang Ah, in her past life. Earlier that day, she had delivered flowers to Ms. Jang without saying who they were from. The only message she got was that they were someone’s favorite flowers. This scares Ms. Jang because those flowers were Sang Ah’s favorite. Ms. Jang does not like reminders of her. We know that Seo Ha’s mother was unwell in the past, but looking at her grudge now, it feels as if her death was not entirely due to natural causes, and Hanna knows and remembers it. She also tells Ji Eum that Ms. Jang could have been the one to try and kill Seo Ha. Ji Eum has always been aware of their affair from her past life itself. The Chairman had tried to give Ji Eum money to not talk about Seo Ha’s investigation into the accident, and his nonchalance had made her suspicious. Ji Eum thinks that he might be protecting Ms. Jang, and she confronts her about it right away.
Ms. Jang is already on edge due to everything that is happening, and we don’t doubt that when Ji Eum says this to her, she connects some dots. But she clarifies to Ji Eum that the Chairman would never protect her since his feelings for her just don’t run that deep. That is when Ban Ji Eum wonders who the Chairman would try to protect—Seo Ha’s uncle, Lee Sang Hyeok. Ji Eum questions whether he could be the man, but it doesn’t make sense yet. Lee Sang Hyeok was Seo Ha’s maternal uncle, and he had always been very affectionate towards his nephew. This makes us think that if Sang Hyeok could try and kill Seo Ha, maybe he had something to do with his sister’s death as well if it was indeed a murder. Since the Chairman is covering up for them, maybe it was for her property, or it is about something related to the hotel that is yet to be discovered.
On the other hand, Seo Ha is listening to a cassette left behind by Bang Ho Sik, and it has the recording made by Ho Sik and the man for the orchestration of the accident. Seo Ha recognizes the voice as being that of his uncle and is completely devastated. When Ji Eum comes to meet him, he is drowning in guilt due to the belief that Do Yun’s father and Ju Won’s death is his fault. At the end of episode 8 of See You In My 19th Life, unable to see his plight, Ji Eum finally decides to reveal her truth. She plays the same melody on the piano that Ju Won had in their childhood and says the exact same things as her. This is proof that she is Ju Won.
Final Thoughts
We don’t think that Seo Ha will be able to deny for long that Ji Eum is Ju Won, but what he had thought of as moving on from his childhood love is just him coming back to it. This realization might give him some difficult feelings to deal with. Ji Eum will also have to reveal that she knows all of her past lives. It cannot be said whether she will reveal their first life connection yet because that might be too much for him, but still, Seo Ha’s plate is going to be full for a while because nothing is as it seems. Additionally, there is the question of who his third confession is going to be for: Ji Eum or Ju Won? Past connections and all are fine until they give rise to such questions, and we have to see how these two deal with that.
