"While You Were Sleeping" drama: episodes fifteen and sixteen recap

 Air Dates: September 27th to November 16th on SBS, airs Wednesday and Thursday nights at 10:00 pm, two episodes per night

 Ratings(Nielsen) for the two episodes- 7.9% and 8.9%

Main Cast:

Bae Suzy as Nam Hong-Joo

Lee Jong-Suk as Jung Jae-Chan

Lee Sang-Yeob as Lee Yoo-Bum

Ko Sung-Hee as Shin Hee-Min

Jung Hae-In as Han Woo-Tak

Shin Jae-Ha as Jung Seung-Won

Hwang Young-Hee as Yoon Moon-Sun

Park Jin-Joo as Moon Hyang-Mi
Kim So-Hyun as Park So-Yoon
Lee Yoo-Joon as Oh Kyung-Han

 Let's get right to the action as quite a bit happened though there's no true cliffhanger for a change, usually the second show on Thursday leaves the viewers with one. The previous episode ended off with Woo-Tak's long time friend Hak-Young popping up at his apartment one night in trouble.
Hak-Young is being pursued by the police as he's the prime suspect in the killing of a gold medal archer who was named Yoo Su-Kyung.
 Hak-Young is an internet technician and had been called to her apartment many times to fix the connection. On the day of her death Hak-Young was the only person seen coming or going from her residence, he's the main suspect because there is no one else. He's fled to Woo-Tak's place and pleads for help, Hak-Young tells him if he won't help him he'll reveal a secret to the police and what it is we don't know nor did we find out in these two episodes.
 That's because Woo-Tak does want to help his friend, after the pair talked for a while Woo-Tak believes in his innocence. But he asks Hak-Young to do an odd thing which is to turn himself into the police. He's an officer himself and says if he's innocent the only way to prove it would be by turning himself in which is what Hak-Young eventually did. Above we see Hong-Joo talking with Woo-Tak, she had warned him of danger that she had seen in a dream but to him Hak-Young wasn't dangerous and he had never told her he knew Hak-Young though she had her suspicions.

 The following day Woo-Tak reveals to Jae-Chan and Hong-Joo that he's been a friend of Hak-Young for many years and the pair had also been roommates. Jae-Chan has been assigned the case of prosecuting Hak-Young, it appears it should be such an easy case as there's only one suspect but things don't go according to the original plans.
 The more Jae-Chan investigates the case the more confused he is about it, the evidence against
Hak-Young just doesn't add up. He was only in Su-Kyung's apartment for thirteen minutes on the day she died, that death happened right after he had fixed her internet and left. Thirteen minutes thought Jae-Chan wouldn't have been enough time to commit the murder, draw a pentagram and clean up. Hae-Young was taped by a pair of CCTV's when he had left the apartment and there wasn't any blood on him.
 Hong-Joo is covering the case for her SBC station, for some reason she's already made her mind up and thinks that Hak-Young is guilty. Bit of a strange twist thrown in as Yoo-Bum has been hired by Su-Kyung's family to represent them in the trials. Two trials as they want to sue Hak-Young and his family for their daughter's death. If a person is found guilty of murder that means the defendant and his family can be sued for compensation.

 Yoo-Bum being hired by Su-Kyung's family means that he'll be working loosely with Jae-Chan, the family can only sue if Hak-Young is found guilty. Yoo-Bum naturally has some tricks up his sleeve but will only use them if necessary, he thinks Jae-Chan should have no trouble winning the case even without his help.
 All of Jae-Chan's colleagues at the prosecutor's office also thought the case would be such a piece of cake but soon their minds would be changed. Jae-Chan has been working extremely hard on the case, he went in thinking Hak-Young wasn't innocent or guilty as he'll let the evidence speak for itself. But when it spoke the evidence against Hak-Young added up to virtually nothing, the majority of it was presumptions plus the fact he may have been a scapegoat as there were no other suspects.
 Jae-Chan had called in Woo-Tak as a witness, he knew Hak-Young the best and perhaps could shed some light on the case. But Jae-Chan had called him in for another reason as he had also invited his
co-workers including his supervisor to the interview. They were behind a glass partition so they weren't seen, Jae-Chan wanted them to witness the interview as he had a feeling what Woo-Tak said would prove Hak-Young's innocence.

 Jae-Chan's colleagues plus us viewers were very impressed with the style of Woo-Tak, the prosecutors watching the interview were wondering why he wasn't an attorney. Woo-Tak told
Jae-Chan everything he knew about Hak-Young and the case, he gave some reasons why he thought his friend had committed the murder. But Woo-Tak gave ten times as many reasons that should prove Hak-Young's innocence, those answers he gave were what Jae-Chan wanted to hear.
 He couldn't go to his supervisor and tell him that they shouldn't prosecute, he needed to show him why the case was unwinnable. After viewing the testimony of Woo-Tak the supervisor also came to the conclusion that Hak-Young was innocent and started the process to get the case dismissed. He really didn't want to though as there was much public pressure to convict Hak-Young but there's no way the prosecutor's office could put an innocent man on trial and soon Hak-Young was released.
 But that leaves the question of how did Su-Kyung die, if she wasn't murdered what mysterious force was there that killed her? It wasn't noticeable via the autopsy but Jae-Chan had discovered that
Su-Kyung had suffered from a disease known as otolothiasis. It's a condition in your ears which can affect your vertigo, on the day of her death Su-Kyung had an attack and passed out. When that happened she hit her head on the edge of a kitchen table, hard enough to kill her.

 The death was then explained and for sure it's a very rare way to die, but what about the pentagram drawn in blood? In an unbelievable scenario right after Su-Kyung died and was laying on the floor her automatic vacuum cleaner started it's duty and it ran through her blood. Though the machine's route was haywire it formed the pentagram by pure accident which had made the authorities think it may have been an occult killing.
 The case is settled and everyone seems happy that an innocent man wasn't falsely charged. Oooops, there is one irate person in the crowd and that's Yoo-Bum. He was going to collect a hefty fee if he could have sued Hak-Young and his family, with his innocence Yoo-Bum's dream of a hefty payday has been thrown out the window. 😤 Before the charges were dropped he tried to get Hong-Joo on his side and said he had some important info about Hak-Young.
 Back when he was about fifteen Hak-Young had a participated in a few illegal activities, nothing major but just some things many teens do. Yoo-Bum said if the info was released to the media then so many people would be talking about Hak-Young and what kind of devil he's been for a decade.
Hong-Joo called it 'media manipulation' which happens too often and it ends up making a good person look evil in the eyes of others. Even though it would be a big story for Hong-Joo she refused to go along with the plan and even told her boss at SBC why she couldn't do it.

 Don't think these recaps are getting shorter and bet they're not. But after writing up those two mega length ones for the "Black" drama these seem much so much easier than before. We've almost hit the end of the sixteenth episode as the case against Hak-Young took up the vast majority of these two shows and no new story has been introduced for the next episode.
 One event did happen and we'll be seeing more of it in the future. It wasn't an actual event but from another recurring dream that Hong-Joo has been having. In that dream she sees Jae-Chan buying her an engagement ring(!), these two have been getting closer and wouldn't be surprised if it really does happen in the show. Shortly after purchasing the ring Jae-Chan is on one side of a street while
Hong-Joo is on the other side and he's prepared to give her the ring.
 As both are waiting for the signal to change a thuggish looking man bumps into Jae-Chan just as the signal changes to walk. Before Jae-Chan can cross the street the man has thrust a knife into Jae-Chan who slowly slumps to the ground. He was wearing a heavy coat so you wouldn't think a knife could have penetrated too far. Hong-Joo rushes over to him as Jae-Chan lays there with blood pouring out of his stomach, that's where Hong-Joo's dream ends and that's also the conclusion of this episode.

 For some reason this series has been a quick one to date, this recap marks the halfway point for the drama. So far I'm really enjoying it and seems Korean viewers are too as the ratings have steadily crept up. Have seen a few comments though from viewers who aren't too impressed with Suzy's acting, to me she's been solid in this show and really like her with the shorter hair.
 This is the first drama I've seen her in so perhaps should check out another one she's been in when this series is completed. Looked at her older dramas and none stand out though, not a fan of those lighthearted romantic shows but will find something worthwhile I'm sure, her first drama was "Dream High" which kind of appears to be interesting. Will be back around the same time next weeks with the recaps for episodes seventeen through twenty.