It is unlike a K-drama to leave so many loose ends untied, especially one that they started just an episode or two prior. While the creators or the streaming service hasn’t made any official announcement so far, another season of Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 is very likely. It feels impossible that the makers decided that Moo Young needed to be alive to neatly pack up the audience’s unresolved feelings for him, but the original mountain god was pretty much forgotten about as Lee Yeon goes back to 2023 with the guardian stone.
There are so many gaps in the story of the original mountain god. Let us call him Ho Young for now since that is the body he is occupying. Taluipa starts his story by saying that there were one and not four mountain gods. We know that the three of them were Ryu Hong Joo, Lee Yeon, and Cheon Moo Young. Who was the fourth? We did not hear a mention of him before this. Then there were the four treasures that carried the power of the god. The ruler and stone were two of them, but what were the other two? A bit of research on our part says that the “fox bead” of Lee Yeon, K-dramas’ most famous gumiho, is one of them. In that case, why wasn’t it brought up even once? It should have had a mention, at the very least. These questions about mountain gods and powerful relics weren’t explored as much as they should have been. Taluipa said that the relics needed to be in different “eras” so that they would never come into contact with each other and bring the danger of restoring the original mountain god. In that case, since Lee Yeon is back in 2023 with the guardian stone, the danger can be considered temporarily delayed for now. But he is certainly still alive.
Next comes the question of Moo Young himself. What was the purpose of reviving this misled and well-meaning villain? Whoever turned him back from stone wanted him to try and revive Ho Young, aka the original mountain god. At this point, we are not sure whether we misunderstood something in the series or if it is just deliberately causing confusion. When Taluipa talks to the God of Five Paths, she says that he “had Moo Young’s back.” Does this mean that he is the one who turned him human, or is she referring to the support he has been giving Moo Young to help him completely heal and move forward in his mission? Either way, it implies that he is not acting alone and has an accomplice, or rather, a boss. Is having “one’s back” a translation mistake, or did it really mean just that? There are so many questions relating to the mountain god. When he first possessed Ho Young, back when Yeon had been forced to kill him, how did that happen? Did Ho Young come into possession of some relic that invited the mountain god?
In Tale of the Nine Tailed (2020), we saw that Yeon had been forced to kill Ah Eum to put down the Imoogi in her body. Did he kill Ho Young for similar reasons? Throughout Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938, there was a constant pattern of people blaming Lee Yeon for “abandoning” them when, in reality, he claimed that he was always around. What else has been hidden by Yeon’s habit of secrecy?
Going back to 1938 had two purposes—for the story, that is. One was the presence of the golden ruler in that era, and the other was the Korean independence movement. At the end of The Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938, we saw that Ryuhei had died at the hands of Lee Yeon, and the trio of friends had started taking part in Korea’s fight for independence. That has to mean that the next season of Tale of the Nine Tailed will not actually be set in 1938. There would be no point in it.
Finally, this series has really neglected the effects of time travel. There is no Yeo Hee in Tale of the Nine Tailed, so what happens to her? These two series cannot be watched independently, and we have to assume that they are connected. Additionally, a lot of the events in the 2020 series were motivated by Rang’s abandonment issues. If they are getting resolved here, what is the future story anyway? Maybe Taluipa would have known, but she has lost her eyes to the original mountain god; therefore, she cannot tell what is going to happen now. Here is another continuity issue. If Taluipa 2020 had her eyes intact, does that mean that the sequel to Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 happened before that? While we can understand how Yeon’s memories of 1938 did not color his present, it wouldn’t make sense that his fight with the original mountain god has had no effect on his present unless there was a case of memories being wiped out. That would explain why Rang had abandonment issues in 2020, even after finding their answers in 1938. To some degree, it would also explain why Yeon was so flippant about them for so long in the 2020 series.
Honestly, of the whole lot, only Hong Joo had a decent ending in Tale of the Nine-Tailed 1938. Does that mean we won’t see Hong Joo again in the sequel? She was one of the best parts of the story, so it would be disappointing to see her missing. We can’t say we missed Ji Ah in this series, but if she has a part to play and Hong Joo also makes an appearance, we are not looking forward to them fighting over Yeon. It was weird watching something similar in Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938, and we are not looking forward to repeating the experience. It is not nearly as funny as the shoddy writing of this series has imagined it to be. The Tale of the Nine Tailed 1938 started out very promising and fun but quickly devolved into this barrage of questions that would be very disappointing if not answered with a proper sequel. We hope to see that soon.
