For most of its run "The Village - Achiara's Secret" has veered between being a thriller about a woman who moves to a town with terrifying secrets and a melodrama about the power struggles between one prominent and unlikable family.
Sometimes the drama felt like a horror film by Alfred Hitchcock. Other times the plot focused on who might have slept with whom.
But the most recent episodes (spoiler alert) have taken the story in a new direction, transforming it into a tragedy and turning some of the often uncooperative and hostile characters into the pitiable victims of that tragedy.
While the identity of the serial killer has been revealed, his crimes seem almost secondary to the emotional damage done by the rapist. The rapist ruined so many lives in this village and the damage continues decades later.
The victims of the killer are anonymous but the rapist's victims are almost all of the main characters. Many are characters previously thought of as hostile and uncaring, but in the light of their experience, they now seem traumatized and broken.
Shin Eun Kyung and Jang So Yeon play sisters who could never be described as nice and they are not even nice to each other. And Shin Eun Kyung is awful to her own daughter. But it's hard to blame them when viewers learn the truth. As young girls they both witnessed the traumatic birth that emotionally crippled their mother. The shame and horror of it ruined their lives.
Park Eun Sook's character seemed heartless but now viewers know the shame he feels because of his father and what his real relation is to Ga Young, he's not so bad. And Ga Young's mother who refused to divulge what she knew is not cold-hearted but rather frightened that her daughter will be ridiculed should the truth be revealed. It's a small village. She's ashamed and blames herself. She just wants to live quietly with her daughter. She prefers to let the monster who raped her get away.
Both rape victims suffered silently rather than report the crime and their shame and self-blame created a twisted thread of relationships with the potential to strangle the village.
They are not pretty.
When Moon Geun Young's character attempts to find out the truth about her adopted sister, her investigation forces several of the characters to face memories they have locked away for years.
As the secrets were revealed this week, the drama's ratings rose slightly, up 0.2 percent to 5.9 percent. The drama unfortunately remained in third place.
Meanwhile "The Merchant: Gaek Ju 2015" rated 11.7 percent and the new MBC drama "Sweet Savage Family" rated 7.2 percent. Both were lighter fare in comparison, but despite the lack of viewer interest in "The Village - Achiara's Secret," this dark drama has something to say.
