Episode 3 of The Uncanny Counter finally gave us something that we had been craving to see since the first season itself: a better uniform for the Counters. There are too many red tracksuits on television, and they have gained a tacky quality. Thankfully, the makers of The Uncanny Counter have recognized this, and our counters are looking smarter than ever in their new uniform. On a different note, Ms. Mae Ok’s hairdo is growing on us, and Mun is looking sweeter than ever, though Mo Tak’s doubts are making us uncomfortable because he is our favorite character without a doubt. Until these people discard their self-doubts, let us look at a recap of the episode.
Spoiler Alert
What does Hwang Pil Kwang want?
The most powerful evil spirit comes to Eonni’s noodles for no other reason than to check out the competition. Our impression of these three spirits so far is that they only want to wreck havoc, so it makes sense for them to want to see what could get in the way of that. As Pil Kwang had noticed before, So Mun is the most powerful of them all and has enough strength and powers to counter his own. We suspect that they don’t know it yet, but their silent battle has taken a toll on both of them. They get nosebleeds from using their powers, and they can take it to mean that they are evenly matched or that the other is stronger than them.
Pil Kwang’s visit to the noodle shop has raised a new problem for the counters since their cover is blown, and they now need to change their hideout. As for Mun, he is agonizing over the fact that he didn’t kill the man right away as revenge for what he did to the firefighter and his wife. The others tell him not to worry about it too much, and Mr. Jang Mul takes them to his company, where he has prepared a special place for them to live. This is also when they get their new uniforms, though we get the impression that So Mun and Jeok Bong are going to bicker a lot. Frankly, they are both sweet, but Mun might just be having fun with another guy close to his age who he can have fun with. Additionally, So Mun was the junior-most member of the team so far, but it is Jeok Bong now, and he can finally pull seniority on someone.
Jeok Bong is having trouble being a Counter, as he doesn’t seem to be that sharp, and his physical abilities are not good either. Mo Tak even suspects that he may not be connected to the Yung like others are because he is so ordinary. But that changes when Jeok Bong finally discovers his secret power. Ha Na meets an old crush, and Jeok Bong starts getting an awful smell from his music studio. Ha Na is obviously embarrassed, and even we suspect for a second that it is just Jeok Bong being petty because he had asked Ha Na out on a date. But when they are waiting in the studio, they run into a repairman, and Ha Na understands that he is an evil spirit. After she takes care of him, the group and Ha Na figure out that Jeok Bong’s power is being able to smell out the spirits. This comes at a time when the evil spirits have understood that they need to avoid the territory, so there is no other way of tracing them out. Jeok Bong’s power is a Yung-send, and he finally feels comfortable having some standing of his own in the group.
We must also address Ju Seok here, who is grief-ridden after the loss of his wife. He hijacks the fire truck and tracks down Seong Uk’s police van, hell-bent on taking revenge on him. But when Seong Uk says that he does not remember killing Min Gi or even swindling them off the money, Ju Seok’s anger just grows. Thankfully, Mo Tak arrives just in time to knock some sense into him. Our takeaway from this scene is that if Seong Uk doesn’t remember stealing the money, then his memory must have been erased by the spirits. In that case, what was holding him back from escaping or talking about the entire fraud and the spirits? Or it could be a manner of speaking, and Seong Uk had simply been flippant two years ago when he said that he did not know about the money.
For now, Ju Seok is sent to jail, where some inmates try to pick on him, and Ju Seok loses his cool and beats them up. He is sent into solitary (if we are not wrong), where he decides to take his own life, not being able to deal with the grief. Right when he is in the middle of it, an evil spirit makes him its host. This spirit detects Ju Seok’s anger and pain and knows that it can feed off them. However, it also says that Ju Seok is different from others. It is important to remember that Ju Seok is not a murderer. Even if Mo Tak had not come in the way, we don’t think he would have killed Seong Uk. This will create an interesting dynamic in the future because the spirit will naturally side with Pil Kwang and others, whereas those are the very people who killed Ju Seok’s wife. For the first time, there is going to be a terrible conflict between the host and the spirit, and we have to see how that turns out.
Does So Mun Save Jang Mul And Mae Ok?
Jeok Bong is sweet as he irritates the other counters, but then he gets a strong smell, indicating that a spirit might be nearby. The trouble is that he has not learned to narrow down the source of the smell yet, and he leads the Counters to a place where there are no spirits. However, Ha Na senses two spirits in the vicinity, and the group divides into two to chase each one of them. Mae Ok and Jang Mul go in the direction of the supposedly weaker spirit while the others chase the stronger one, except that Jeok Bong feels that the stronger smell is coming from the west, where Mae Ok and Jang Mul have gone.
Mun decides to trust Jeok Bong and goes there with him, only to find Mae Ok and Jang Mul fighting for their lives. The spirits there are Pil Kwang and Wang. Ha Na probably did not pick on them because they were avoiding the territory, but she sensed the spirit in the petrol pump security guard, leading her to believe that only the weaker spirit was there. At the end of episode 3 of Season 2 of The Uncanny Counter, right as Pil Kwang is forcing Mae Ok to stab Jang Mul, So Mun arrives at the scene and takes over the fight. This is going to be the real showdown between Pil Kwang and So Mun, which we only got a glimpse of at the beginning of the episode.
Final Thoughts
Other than the upcoming deadly fight and Jeok Bong’s battle to come into his own, we can already sense the tragedy of The Uncanny Counter Season 2 that is going to happen with Ju Seok. He is going to go on a rampage, and when the Counters have to fight him, their emotions will get in their way. We suspect that Ju Seok’s wife’s spirit is still trapped with Pil Kwang or one of the others. She will be the one to ask Ju Seok to fight his evil spirit and save his humanity. We predict this scene happening. Other than this, does anyone else feel that something is off with the pacing of the series? We don’t quite know what it is, but it feels like that. However, we are still interested in knowing what happens to our Counters.
