"My Perfect Stranger" drama: Episode fifteen of sixteen recap

 

 Air Dates: May 1st until June 20, 2023 on KBS 2, Monday and Tuesdays nights at 9:45 pm

Director: Kang Soo-Yeon, episodes are 65 minutes in length and subs done by iTs

Rating for this episode: 4.4%, not high ratings as KBS2 is a cable network which means the numbers are actually very respectable and were very consistent.

Main Cast: This drama was originally scheduled to air in the Autumn of 2022 but got pushed back twice. Have been looking forward to this series as it stars my second favorite Korean actress who is Jin Ki-Joo and hasn't seen her in any show for two years. Writing much of this up after viewing the first episode, there will be a lot of editing to the characters and more of them will be added in. This is a time travel drama, it began off in 2021 when the main male star Hae-Jun found a car that can travel in time either forwards or backwards! But think most of the drama will be set in 1987 and it could be nostalgic for any older K-drama fans who may visit here. 

**** When Yoon-Young was transported back to 1987 it was the evening of May 9th, dates will be important as a serial killer murders his first victim on May 14th.... or will he be stopped????

Kim Dong-Wook as Yoon Hae-Jun.... 32 year old KSBC anchor who one night happened to find this time travel car at the entrance to a tunnel! He believed in only facts but thought why not read the user manual to see if this car could travel in time... it could as Hae-Jun went to the year 3089! Shortly after returning to the year 2021 Hae-Jun took another trip and this time to 2037, what he found out is one of the main stories to this series. Hae-Jun discovered he was murdered in 2022 by a serial killer and went to visit this killer in prison upon returning to 2021. This man Go wasn't the true killer of many people way back in the year of 1987 but had been framed for the killings, Hae-Jun believed this man and to clear his name and also to save his own life Hae-Jun went back to the year 1987 to find out who the killer really was and to possibly stop the murders. The location will be the smallish country city of Woojung.

**** Did learn in the 14th episode that in Korean Hae can mean Greeting while Jun can mean Happiness. 

 Jin Ki-Joo as Baek Yoon-Young.... Editor in chief for a very popular woman author of murder novels though Yoon-Young seems to do most of the work. In the first episode she was fired by this author who was named Mi-Sook and it had to be a relief to be fired! Right around the time of Yoon-Young being fired her mother killed herself and she blames herself for the death, also her alcoholic father. A few days after her mother's death Yoon-Young was wandering near a tunnel when the time travel car driven by Hae-Jun came close to hitting her, at the time the machine was set to travel to 1987 which is where the pair ended up at. Of course Yoon-Young thought it was a dream but when she realized she had travelled back in time she was thrilled! The second main story will be of  Yoon-Young stopping her parents from meeting each other and getting married, if so what will happen to her???? Like Hae-Jun's story it will be set in the smallish city of Woojung. In the third episode Yoon-Young began to impersonate as a high school student to get closer to her mother. Yoon-Young is around thirty in age but claimed to Hae-Jun she could pass for being 22, she told everyone she had to stay back a few years because of family problems.

**** The above two are from the year 2021 but most of the action will take place in 1987, here are the main characters from that year. The location is a smallish city named Woojung-ri.

Seo Ji-Hye as Lee Soon-Ae.... In 1987 she was 18 in age and the top girl in her senior high school class. However she had no true friends and spent her time writing stories as she was such a fan of novels. Soon-Ae is actually Yoon-Young's mother and now that she somehow ended up in the year 1987 she's trying to prevent Soon-Ae getting married to Baek. So you have to wonder if Yoon-Young is successful would that mean she never existed?

 Lee Won-Jung as Baek Hee-Sub.... Yoon-Young's father though he too was only eighteen in 1987. He was a bit of an innocent lad and actually was quite nice back in 1987, Hee-Sub loved music but never began a band. He eventually became such an alcoholic and that was one of the reasons for Soon-Ae committing suicide in 2021. Hee-Sop is also a new transfer student at Woojung high school, he began on the same day Yoon-Young did.

Hong Seung-An as Baek Yu-Sub.... Hee-Sub's older brother who attends college in Seoul where he lies in a boarding house and also works PT at a leather factory. He does visit Woojung on the weekends to see his brother and is another suspect in the killings, the pair of brothers have quite a colorful past.

Park Soo-Hyung as Hyung-Man.... Soon-Ae's father who owns a combination tea shop, general store and bus stop for travelling to and from Seoul.

Kim Jun-Young as Ok-Ja.... Soon-Ae's mother and has two other children.

Hong Na-Hyun as Lee Kyung-Ae.... Soon-Ae's 22 year old sister who works at a hair salon. She loves to party and for so long had dreams of being in the Miss Korea pageant! In the seventh episode Kyung-Ae was supposed to be the second victim of the still unknown killer but that was thwarted by Hae-Jun, besides that show she may not have much screen time.

Kim Ye-Ji as Kim Hae-Kyung.... Friend of Soon-Ae's, like Hae-Kyung the other girls Soon-Ae hangs out with none of them are 'true friends' and all love to party which at times has gotten Soon-Ae into trouble. On the left below is Hae-Kyung, the other two are her cronies Eun-Ha in glasses and Yu-Ri, all bully Soon-Ae.

Ji Hye-Won as Ko Mi-Sook.... Another 'friend' of Soon-Ae's who we met near the end of the second episode. She's the same woman who became a popular writer many years later and of all things Yoon-Young was her editor in chief! Mi-Sook's first novel was a huge hit but she had actually stolen the story from Soon-Ae who never said a word. Mi-Sook was such a creep back in 1987 and was even worse in 2021! Mi-Soon does come from a very wealthy family so her snobbery began on the day she was born!

Kim Yeon-Woo as Ko Min-Soo.... Mi-Sook's older brother and the same man Hae-Jun met in 2021. In that year Ko had just been released from prison after serving 34 years for murders he never committed. Though innocent for those crimes Ko is still such a creep who may have raped some girls back in 1987 and almost did so to Yoon-Young! He was arrested for the murders in episode eight but released in the 14th show. 

Choi Young-Woo as Dong-Sik.... Hee-Seop's tough uncle who is a detective. We learned in the third show Hee-Sop's parents are dead and he's now moved in with his uncle. Baek is married with two young children.

Joo Yeon-Woo as Yoo Bum-Ryong.... High school student who became Hee-Sub's first friend in Woojung and we didn't meet him until the third episode. Bit of an oddball who is on the suspect list of some upcoming murders! Sadly he was murdered at the end of the twelfth episode by the unknown killer but he did save Soon-Ae in the process.

Jung Ga-Hee as Lee Joo-Young.... We met her in the fourth episode, she's attending school at Seoul University. Joo-Yung arrived in Woojung on May 12th, that's her below on the right. She's going to be a student teacher at the high school working with Hae-Jun. He knows that on May 14th she'll be the first victim of the killer, can he possibly prevent it? That happened and on May 15th Lee returned to Seoul.

Kim Jong-Soo as Yoon Byung-Gu.... Principal of the Woojung high school, on the left above and his son was attending school in America but returned to Korea in episode eight.

Jeong Jae-Kwang as Yoon Yeon-Woo.... The son of the above man who has just returned to Korea after attending an American university for three years. Yeon-Woo is very intelligent and has been asked by Hae-Jun to fix his Time Machine car, he's on the right below. There's one other common link between them which is that he's.... Hae-Jun's future father!

**** The below group of characters we met in the first episode who are from the year 2021, unsure if we'll be seeing much more of them as most of the drama takes place in 1987.

Lee Ji-Hyun as Lee Soon-Ae.... Yoon-Young's mother and the pair didn't get along so well, it was a reason for Soon-Ae committing suicide in the first episode.

Lee Kyu-Hoe as Baek Hee-Sop.... Yoon-Young's father who is such a waste as all he does is drink, him and his wife lived off what their daughter sent them in cash and he's the other main reason Soon-Ae killed herself.

Kim Hye-Eun as Go Mi-Sook.... Popular writer of murder mysteries, Yoon-Young was her editor who seemed to do most of the work until she was fired in the first show. Mi-Sook also lived back in Woojung in 1987 and had known Yoon-Young's mother, actually she stole the story for her first novel from her!

Im Jong-Yun as Ko Min-Soo.... Man who was accused of killing many people in the small city of Woojung back in 1987. However Go was innocent and after 34 years is about to be released from prison. No one had listened to Ko's pleas for all those years until Jae-Hun visited him the day before his release and has vowed to discover who the real killer was. 

 Whew, big cast and sure more characters will be introduced so that section above will be increasing for the first few shows and of course will also be updated.

Links to the previous recaps, may help to read a few of them and especially the first.

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three .... Episode four

Episode five .... Episode six .... Episode seven .... Episode eight

Episode nine .... Episode ten .... Episode eleven .... Episode twelve

Episode thirteen .... Episode fourteen

Short promo video for the fifteenth episode.

 

 

 

 

 Okay, here we are with the last two recaps for this very enjoyable and interesting drama. Have not watched the final episode yet and won't do so until this recap is complete. Could have published both these on Sunday but wanted to space the posts for this drama out a bit so it could be Thursday Wednesday when you're reading this. Another cliffhanger to end off this episode and won't say what took place now but had an inkling something like that would happen and will explain why at the end. Will give my final grade in the next recap, for now it'll be right around a 9/10, perhaps with a solid last show it could inch slightly up.

 Do recommend at least skimming through the last recap to see where we're at as there's rarely enough time to go into what's taken place. Often use a mini intro like this for that purpose and we did learn at the end of episode 14 the killer of three people was the man in the top screenshot. He's Yeon-Woo who in the future will be Hae-Jun's father who is in the bottom screenshot. So it appears that things are all cleared up in the small city of Woojung and it's time for him and Yoon-Young to return to the year 2021, this drama took place in 1987. But of course the best laid plans often go astray and they did in this show, let's finally get to this episode's action!

 From how the previous episode ended and about the first ten minutes of this show so many new questions about almost everything popped up! But have no fear for as we go through what took place many of those new puzzlers will be answered though some not until the end. In that first screenshot Hae-Jun was grazed by his Time Machine car driven by his future father Yeon-Woo who had been working on it for three weeks and looks like it's finally repaired. But later on I was wondering if Yeon-Woo hadn't also taken the car out for a test drive to see if he too could travel in time, if so he failed at that. Hae-Jun wasn't too badly hurt by the car grazing him though Yeon-Woo jumped out and was giving him such a severe beating, can no one save the star Hae-Jun? During that beating Hae-Jun did have a flashback to the future(?), that's in the third screenshot and Yeon-Woo had also killed his son in 2022! In the fourth screenshot is Mi-Sook, it was her only scene which was a shame as her character is so interesting and evil! It is true that Mi-Sook saw the culprit who killed the student teacher Lee, of course by now we viewers know the killer is Yeon-Woo. Mi-Sook was talking to Yoon-Young and didn't she realize the culprit had been working on the Time Machine car?!?!

 NO she didn't and Yoon-Young was in a panic on what to do! Where could Hae-Jun have gone and the only possible place was the small tunnel on the outskirts of Woojung. For the car to travel through time it needs to enter the tunnel, exit out the other side and then you should be in whatever year you chose which is why Yoon-Young thought that was the most logical place. Running through the center of Woojung she did notice the main detective in the killings Baek and dragged him along, that was a life saver! For when the pair reached the tunnel Hae-Jun was out for the count and Yeon-Woo had just picked up a concrete slab which he was about to bring down upon Hae-Jun's head! Baek must be an ace shooter for at a distance of fifty yards clipped Yeon-Woo in the shoulder, rushed up to him and has placed the killer under arrest! Hae-Jun was beaten badly but didn't look it and will be out of the hospital in about two days. Naturally the person most stunned at what took place was Yeon-Woo's father Yoon who is the high school principal and also Hae-Jun's future grandfather! Yoon is so respected and Baek hated to have to give him the news that his son was the killer of three people. However Yoon did question that for the killings took place on May 16th, 17th and June 3rd, his son had been in America until May 19th. That's Yoon asking Baek about that above but when a search of Yeon-Woo's room was done his passport was found, that's right below and check out the date. 

 So Yeon-Woo did return before anyone thought to Korea from America where he had been attending college for three years. He was back a week before the two killings, it was never mentioned where he may have been hiding but it possibly could have been with his girlfriend Chung-A who is in the sixth screenshot. So now there's no alibi for the first two killings, Yeon-Woo is being charged by Baek for the murders of Lee, Kyung-Ae and Bum-Ryong along with the attempted murders of Soon-Ae and Hae-Jun, how will be squirm out of those charges?! Yeon-Woo is an extremely intelligent man plus was so cool when he was interrogated. Yeon-Woo covered his tracks very well and as he asked Baek above.... 'You don't have any evidence?'. It was thought a key piece of evidence would be the handwritten notes in the matchboxes from the Bong Bong Teahouse which Chung-A had owned. The message in them was 'Women who read are dangerous', wouldn't Yeon-Woo's writing be a dead giveaway? No for the writing on those messages was entirely different plus Yeon-Woo had left no other evidence, what can Baek and his mates do? Coming to the rescue was his girlfriend Chung-A who had been receiving letters from Yeon-Woo for three years and had saved them all.

 She brought them to Yeon-Woo's father Yoon and a unique thing was revealed. Which is that Yeon-Woo could also write lefthanded perfectly and it looked nothing like his right handed writing. So that's why the messages in the matchboxes couldn't be pinned on Yeon-Woo, what will his father do with this shocking new development? Don't know how Hae-Jun knew something fishy was about to take place but he did for he left the hospital and traveled to Yoon's house, that's the bottom two screenshots above. Yoon had started a bonfire and was throwing his son's letters in them which did surprise me. But in the nick of time Hae-Jun arrived and was able to retrieve some letters, he too was shocked at what Yoon was doing. They had a minor spat and there was nothing Yoon could do to convince Hae-Jun not to bring the evidence to Baek, will the letters be enough evidence to make the murder charges stick? Yoon is a righteous man but even so when your son may be charged with three murders you may do anything to save him. That's Baek in the next two screenshots, even by the end of this show we don't know how things for Yeon-Woo will turn out but there's still much more to take place.

 Hae-Jun's main mission in traveling back to the year 1987 was to stop the three killings and also his own life for the culprit did kill Hae-Jun in 2022! That mission has been accomplished and as Hae-Jun was telling Yoon-Young it's time to travel back to their own year of 2021. The date then was June 13th, their ETD will be the next night and Hae-Jun wants to leave very quietly. One baffling thing which was never brought up is Chung-A's pregnancy, she's Hae-Jun's future mother. Chung-A has known she's been pregnant for a few weeks and how is that possible as Yeon-Woo didn't return to Korea until five weeks ago???? Hae-Jun has one major thing to wrap up but first Yoon-Young wanted to settle her own affairs. Above she bought her future father Hee-Sub a $200 guitar and that was a lot of money back in 1987 and to say he was stunned would be an understatement. Yoon-Young knew what kind of man Hee-Sub turned into over the years, a useless alcoholic who treated his future wife Soon-Ae so badly. Perhaps if Hee-Sub had some goal of his own that future could end up being so much better, he loves the guitar but had never owned one and will Hee-Sub possibly become a musician in the future? Who knows and while a major character we haven't seen him as much these last four episodes.

 More on Yoon-Young's settling things with Soon-Ae soon but before that happened Hae-Jun had one final meeting with his future father Yeon-Woo. Hae-Jun wants many answers such as why did he kill the two young woman and Soon-Ae was close to being Yeon-Woo's third victim. There was a third victim who was Bum-Ryong who had managed to save Soon-Ae but the cost was his own life! For now that question was never fully answered, why he picked those three women to murder. But Yeon-Woo did tell his future son(!) that at the age of seven his mother had abandoned him and his father Yoon, even before that the mother totally ignored Yeon-Woo. The mother was an avid reader which could be one major reason for ignoring the young Yeon-Woo, it could also be why he wrote those messages 'Women who read are dangerous' but why write that? Hae-Jun did find out why his future father wanted to kill him for Yeon-Woo had found the secret room at Hae-Jun's house that had all of the evidence about the murders and that didn't leave Yeon-Woo with many options, One other thing he found was the users manual for the Time Machine car, until then Yeon-Woo had no clue that Hae-Jun came for the year 2021!!!! Of course why would he and then Hae-Jun dropped such a huge bombshell onto Yeon-Woo's lap, he's Hae-Jun's future father who was such an ingrate and it was Yeon-Woo who killed him again in 2022!

 Final segment and there was more of that conversation which is in the below screenshots. But as Yeon-Woo does say above he couldn't believe Hae-Jun didn't ask him why he chose those three young women to kill and I can't believe those questions weren't asked either. That was the only business Hae-Jun had to clear up for he did want to leave Woojung very quietly and wonder what would happen if they remained in 1987? Leaving quietly wasn't to be for Yoon-Young did blab to her future grandparents about leaving the following night which would be June 14th. Yoon-Young did have that one final get together with her future father Hee-Sub but of course the main person she had to see was her future mother Soon-Ae. That's the pair in two above screenshots, needless to say Soon-Ae was so baffled when Yoon-Young kept saying how close they will be in the future! There's no doubt the biggest questions will be what has changed for Hae-Jun and Yoon-Young in the year 2021, the biggest question for her is was she ever born?!

 The final three screenshots above are from the final two minutes of this show and had an inkling something like this would happen, Before the Time Machine car enters this small tunnel outside of Woojung you have to enter the date you want to travel to and then go through the tunnel or it could be considered an overpass. When you leave the other end you will be in that year, in their case it was 2021. However as you can see in the bottom screenshot above after that trip through the tunnel it's still 1987, what happened???? The reason I had a feeling that would happen is because of what took place in the opening scene when Yeon-Woo tried to run over Hae-Jun at the tunnel's exit. Yeon-Woo had found the users manual to the Time Machine, knowing he may be arrested soon Yeon-Woo may have tried to travel in time but he didn't repair the car properly. So because of that had a feeling the car wouldn't time travel in this final scene either. That wraps up this recap and now on to view the final episode which is the following post, I have no clue how this drama is going to end.