"Everyone here is a player..."
Before I get on to the episode, I have a bone to pick with Netflix as a hard of hearing person who prefers to watch in Korean with English subtitles: the VIPs speak English, and there are no subtitles available unless you're watching it dubbed. Not cool, Netflix.
However, this gripe aside, this is a powerful and moving episode, as those in-between games often are. Plot threads are advanced- suspicions increase surrounding Captain Park; Jun-ho locates the island where he was shot; No-eul arranges her exit; Min-su gets his satisfying revenge against his tormentor in drug withdrawal.
But the real meat of this episode is the character stuff between Jun-Hee, Mrs Jang and Ji-hun. Mrs Jang, fresh from killing her son, focuses on looking after Jun-lee and the baby, helping the new mother and begging everyone, fruitlessly, not to vote for the games to continue. Then there's her deep and fascinating conversation with Ji-hun, begging him to look after the baby (which the baby's father is notably disinclined to do). And then, shockingly, after she confides her guilt about her son, she dies by suicide. And Ji-hun decides to look after Jun-lee and the baby, giving him a sense of purpose and bringing him out of depression.
Meanwhile we have the VIPs, rather over-the-top in manner and utterly, gleefully amoral, as a kind of Greek chorus. It is they who suggest the baby be considered a player, having to take part in the game... which is particularly evil. Ji-hun is positively heroic... but another player, right at the end, most certainly is not.
This episode may not quite match the last one, but it's bloody good.
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