With one crisis averted another one takes its place, as there is apparently no rest for the wicked and also Bong-hee. Her memories paint a picture of Tae-ho playing Whack-A-Survivor on the island and it feels like the body count will only keep rising. Relationships of the past change forever and more survivors pop up in the present, which means we will have other perspectives to consider in the future.
I have already characterized Tae-ho (Choi Tae-joon) as "not the poster boy for mental stability", but in retrospect this feels like an understatement. I know the series has to pull the merciful hero card with Joon-oh (Jeong Kyeong-ho) in order to keep him righteous and create dramatic conflict, but I wonder just how many funeral floats he will have to send off before someone realizes that maybe a member of their group is forcefully sending people to their maker.
The inaccuracy of Bong-hee's (Baek Jin-hee) memories is a far more interesting topic to me, however. It brings me back to my statement about not knowing what to believe and therefore not guessing based on unreliable information. Why did Bong-hee imagine So-hee (Ryoo Won) falling if not to cope with the shock of witnessing her murder? Why are all of her other memories truthful, but this one was not? Is Tae-ho's little slasher film adventure on the island as we see it?
The only thing we really have to go by at the moment is Bong-hee's memories, since President Hwang's (Kim Sang-ho) story remains hidden. For now I rely on Dramaland's predictability and believe Bong-hee's intentions, even if not her memories. It would be fun to see Bong-hee pulling a "Keyser Söze" and turning out to be the killer who fabricated her story, but while they still tease a possible mean streak in her at times, I doubt the series would really go there.
Leaving my active imagination aside for now, Tae-ho's reappearance brings the fight for survival to the present. Investigator Jo (Song Ok-sook) chooses wisely during the press conference and Tae-yeong (Yang Dong-geun) will probably be willing to support Bong-hee now, so we may be in for a face off between innocents and killers in the present. I imagine and hope that we still have plenty of secrets to discover.
As for our current survivors in the past timeline, I am glad the series takes a break to show them bond and to develop some of the relationships. I do think showing more bonding before now would have made their impending destruction as a group more impactful, however. At this point, I will simply enjoy the mayhem through a more sadistic mindset due to this lack of attachment.
"Missing 9" is directed by Choi Byeong-gil, written by Son Hwang-won and features Jeong Kyeong-ho, Baek Jin-hee, Oh Jeong-se and Choi Tae-joon.
Source:HanCinema
