"Black" Episode 9 recap

Major story breakthroughs and a ruthlessly packed plot make episode nine of "Black" quite the exhausting, but also exhilarating ride. The big revelation we have been waiting for regarding the children's identities has dropped and as expected from this series, it complicates things further. Several identities are exposed, but sadly so is Ha-ram's impending doom to someone who can harm her. Our heroes have enemies everywhere, but romance waits for no one.
The identity revelations might explain a lot soon, from the different mothers to 444's (Song Seung-heon) frustrated heart upon seeing Soo-wan (Lee El). As expected, the little boy is Moo-gang and Joon being so pivotal to this story means that it makes sense for him to be Black. I still do not know how Seung-cheol (Lee Joon-seo) comes into play, however. Was he a first, failed transplant for Moo-gang before Joon came along? The doctor's recollection has to mean something.

We also have the surprising twist of Clara's fate and her past, although someone else may have landed the finishing blow. I wonder if she was already managing the teenage prostitution ring at the time when she was in a relationship with Gwang-gyeon (Kim Won-hae). She could have lied to him, but her empathetic words about the necessity of sex work for her peers sound genuine. If this was the case, who sparked her change as a person after Gwang-gyeon left? The timeline is starting to become clearer.
The series continues to build on the details of the crime plot, but we get more on the supernatural aspect as well. Aside from knowing who our Runaway Reaper (Park Doo-sik) has gone into, we have the whole capsule issue to worry about. It never occured to me that the capsule is something which can be handled by anyone and we are still not sure what Ha-ram (Go Ara) dying without a designated Reaper would do to her, but I imagine it is not pleasant. Perhaps wandering souls simply go mad.

The mysterious man with the watch continues to be elusive and I am beginning to wonder if he is a Reaper as well. I am still checking facial features whenever I remember, but we will know eventually. We also have other intriguing mysteries, such as the fact that Leo (Kim Jae-young) is hiding something about his reactions to Tiffany's (Oh Cho-hee) incident. Could he be Watch Man's son and could he share Ha-ram's gift?
The romance is progressing, but quite clumsily. An accidental kiss during blunt force trauma fits the show's dark humor, but it is still not a good basis for a serious romance. And it does have to be serious, because our doomed heroine is in love with a fairytale and our hero is possessing the corpse she thinks it belongs to. Show me how this could end "well", series.
"Black" is directed by Kim Hong-seon-I, written by Choi Ran-I and features Song Seung-heon, Go Ara, Lee El and Kim Dong-jun.
Written by: Orion from 'Orion's Ramblings'

Copy & paste guideline for this article
Always put a link back to the source and HanCinema permalink