"My Perfect Stranger" drama: Episode thirteen 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: 4.5%, 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 eigth 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

Short promo video for the thirteenth episode.

 

**** For some odd reason there was no preview video for this episode but have a different one which had never been posted and is a short yet fairly decent video that is subbed in English.

   

 

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 You naturally wouldn't know but did write this up five days ago. Wanted to space the final four recaps out so took my time in publishing this but also waited an extra day before viewing the 14th episode. So thanks if you've been reading these recaps which don't draw a high amount of views or at least compared to Idol posts. At times these can be longish but about three years ago changed the pattern to these recaps which I think has made them much easier to read and these days drama posts get almost twice as many views as they did five yeas ago. Figure if you're reading these you must be a Korean drama fan and though there's many more posts for Japanese shows do enjoy viewing these more. Soon will be getting to the second season of "Taxi Driver" and I may also be recapping Jin Ki-Joo's 2022 series "From Now On, Showtime!" which has mixed opinions on it and has anyone seen it?

 Did update the character list a bit but that will probably be for the last time. For the first 6-7 episodes there wasn't much of a cliffhanger to end those shows off. But that's certainly changed and there was another intense scene to end episode twelve. In the above top screenshot the 18 year old high school Bum-Ryong had been murdered by the still unknown killer. He was an odd character who did a few slimy things though all in all seemed like a good kid. Bum-Ryong did go out in style as he saved Soon-Ae from being slain by this madman but the cost was his own life! After that the detective Baek for some inane reason felt Hae-Jun had killed him and the two other victims! Baek dragged him away in handcuffs as that episode ended and as Yoon-Young sobbed above how can he think that Hae-Jun is a killer? That baffled me too and a lot of this episode continued on from that scene, let's finally get to this show's action.

 Before we get to what took place with Hae-Jun there was a very short scene that opened the episode with his future grandfather Yoon, that's him on the left in the top screenshot. Yoon is the principal of the Woojung High School and is the father of Yeon-Woo who will be Hae-Jun's future father! Of course then Yoon knew nothing about that but was buying a watch way ahead of time for whoever his future grandson would be. The watch was engraved with an Italian saying and while it didn't seem important at the time it did prove to be as time went on. As you can see in the second screenshot Hae-Jun was being dragged away from Bum-Ryong's murder scene by the detective Baek, besides Yoon's scene there were also a few other mini ones before the attention turned to Hae-Jun. In that fourth screenshot lying in bed was Soon-Ae, she's okay but was unconscious due to the trauma of almost being the fourth victim of the killer. Her father was so irate with the Woojung police, that's also him in the fourth screenshot, the citizens of the small city were told they were safe for Ko was arrested for being the killer which was such a terrible mistake. That framing of Ko was courtesy of his sister Mi-Sook who is in the bottom screenshot, she's been a very important character but that was her only scene in this episode.

 Mi-Sook is the only person to have been a witness to the killer in action as she saw the student teacher Lee get killed on the night of May 16/17th, the date is now June 2nd. Mi-Sook is going to keep mum on what she witnessed as her goal was to see her brother framed for the murders and it did originally work as Ko had been sentenced to 34 years in prison for the killings. With these changes in history it appears that won't be happening, especially after the arrest of Hae-Jun. It was a long shot but Yoon-Young did pay Mi-Sook a visit to try to get her to tell the police what really took place, it would free Hae-Jun plus it may save a few more lives. That went nowhere for Yoon-Young for as above Mi-Sook lied and said she had no idea what she was talking about, she witnessed a killing?! With Mi-Sook at that killing was Hae-Kyung who we didn't see in this episode, don't know why Yoon-Young didn't have her try to talk some sense into Mi-Sook. As you can see below Yoon-Young is at her future mother Soon-Ae's side and she will soon wake up. Above in two screenshots you can see Yoon-Young take a matchbox out of Soon-Ae's pocket that was from the Bong Bong Teahouse. That warning 'Women who read are dangerous' was in the matchbox and had been left at the killers previous two murders, there's little doubt Soon-Ae was his intended third target and why? 

 That's Soon-Ae's future boyfriend and husband Hee-Sub in the second and third screenshots. He's certainly down after what took place with Soon-Ae and also that his one time fiend Bum-Ryong had been slain. Hee-Sub's role has been much smaller the last three shows and we haven't heard about his older brother Yu-Sub for the last two episodes. It was the first time Soon-Ae's parents had met Hee-Sub and they did take him out to dinner for they felt quite sorry for him but it wasn't a pleasurable meal as Hee-Sub was still in a Zombie like state. So after those mini scenes the attention finally shifted to Hae-Jun who is the main character in this drama and he's in most of the scenes from here on out. As you can see above Hae-Jun was being questioned by the detective Baek who though tough seemed to me to have a good head on his shoulders. So how could he even think that Hae-Jun could have killed Bum-Ryong or possibly have had a hand in the previous two murders? One key bit of evidence was that in Hae-Jun's pocket was a matchbox from the Bong Bong Teahouse with that 'Women who read are dangerous' warning, why would Hae-Jun have the killer's calling card?! Of course Hae-Jun couldn't reveal the truth as that matchbox was from the year 2021 and had been found next to Soon-Ae's dead body, Yoon-Young had it on her when the pair were whisked back ton1987.

 That questioning from Baek went nowhere and truly wonder if he thought Hae-Jun was actually involved in any of the murders? Baek did a bit more checking and to his surprise there's never been any kind of records that Hae-Jun has even been born! There was no birth certificate, his ID and teaching certificates were fake and who was this man.... a spy sent from North Korea? That could be a possibility and have noticed the tensions in this drama about spies from the North were very high in 1987. Baek did want to give Hae-Jun a break as he did rescue his son from a fire and also helped his two nephews Hee-Sub and Yu-Sub from being beaten by a trio of thugs from Seoul. Hae-Jun did then say he truly wanted to reveal everything but would Baek believe him(?), if Hae-Jun told him the story of coming from the year 2021 then of course Baek wouldn't! So in a bit of a surprise to me Hae-Jun said he would tell Baek everything from A to Z but had two conditions. One is that he had to be brought back to his house and the other was that the high school principal Yoon had to be be there, he's also Hae-Jun's future grandfather. With his questioning going nowhere Baek agreed and you can see what took place in the below screenshots. 

 Didn't know if it would ever happen but it did which is that Hae-Jun related most of the story of him coming back in time to Baek and Yoon. Naturally the pair didn't believe such a far out story but once they saw the things Hae-Jun had at his home they began to wonder could he be telling the truth? Such as Hae-Jun having his computer system with him and those weren't around in 1987 plus there was a  newspaper article from 1988 that had the story of Ko being sent to prison for the killings! Hae-Jun also had all of Baek's police reports about the case, even the ones he wrote up the day before! The ice breaker was what was mentioned in the very beginning of this recap and that was when Yoon had bought a watch for his future grandson, whoever that would be. Yoon noticed a watch on Hae-Jun's left wrist and asked to look at it, it was the exact same watch with the Italian passage engraved on it, there's no way Hae-Jun could have stolen it as he was in jail when Yoon bought it! Against all odds Yoon was convinced Hae-Jun was telling the truth about coming from 2021 and would be his future grandson! It was much more difficult to convince Baek that Hae-Jun was telling the truth, as a favor to Yoon Baek will release Hae-Jun but vows to stick to him like glue until this case is settled!

 Above you can see that Soon-Ae finally arose, she hadn't been hurt too badly but the stress of what almost took place was to much for her to handle. Immediately after that some detectives from the Woojung police station arrived, they want Soon-Ae's account of what took place as they want to nail Hae-Jun for the killings! Soon-Ae laughed at the detectives, how could they possibly think that Hae-Jun was the killer as he actually saved her life! Plus he had chased after the unknown hooded man which was witnessed by two others plus hadn't he been at home with Yoon-Young when she was abducted? The detectives who did interview Soon-Ae believed her story, they notified their chief who appears will be dropping the case against Hae-Jun which should have never happened. However that also means the Woojung police are back to square one as they have no suspects or new evidence, Ko is still locked up and do they still consider him to be a killer? NO, why will be revealed in the next recap. Below Baek did visit Soon-Ae at the hospital and also ran into Yoon-Young, of course he realized she's also from 2021! She has the same last name as Baek and he wondered if that was a coincidence? No it wasn't as she revealed that Soon-Ae will be her future mother and her father will be Baek's nephew Hee-Sub. Yoon-Young did say she had never known that Hee-Sub and Baek were related as her father never mentioned him as over time Baek ignored his nephews, there's still time to change that. 

 The more as time goes on the more Baek believed Hae-Jun's wild story of coming from 2021, especially when Hae-Jun could tell him all of the sport's scores and news just before they happened! Plus that chat with Yoon-Young sealed the deal so where do the new 'partners' go from here? To Baek the most logical starting point would be to interview Mi-Sook as she's the only one to have seen the killer's face, Hae-Jun agreed and off they went. But that meeting with Mi-Sook never place as outside of Hae-Jun's house was his future grandfather Yoon who felt this may be the only time he could ever share a few drinks with him! So off they went and it wasn't an enjoyable evening for either of them. Hae-Jun didn't say all that much and think because of that Yoon realized in the future he may not have been the best of grandfathers. Yoon got a bit too tipsy and was escorted home by Hae-Jun so it ended up being a wasted evening for him as far as finding out clues about the unknown killer. On his way home Hae-Jun made a detour to the Bong Bong Teahouse, its owned by Chung-A who is his future mother1 Hae-Jun has never liked her even before he learned that important piece of info but think was a bit curious about what she was really like. There were no other customers at the teahouse and Chung-A said Hae-Jun was her 20,000th customer so everything was free! Of course Hae-Jun knew that was a ruse to get him to stay which he did and he did learn a few key thing about the woman.

 Ching-A is closing the Bong Bong Teahouse and Hae-Jun is her final customer! That came out of nowhere and did startle Hae-Jun though he didn't appear to be all that upset. There was no reason that Chung-A gave but is also leaving the small city of Woojung and will that mean she'll be breaking things off with Yeon-Woo, Hae-Jun's future father? The next evening there was a funeral for Bum-Ryong, not well attended as he wasn't a popular student. But there Hae-Jun did talk with Yeon-Woo and asked how things were going with Chung-A? Fine he responded and she didn't tell her own boyfriend she would be leaving down in two days! Down to the final scene and what a cliffhanger it is, after the funeral Hae-Jun visited the hospital while still in his mourning suit. He was there to see how Soon-Ae was doing and she's so much better, he had a small gift for her and so didn't many others as there was a huge pile in the room of presents! When Hae-Jun added his to the pile he noticed something sticking out from a basket of fruit which was a matchbox from the teahouse. The episode ended with Hae-Jun reading the note that was inside the matchbox which was also the calling card of the killer, that's the bottom screenshot above. Was it a warning from the killer who failed to murder Soon-Ae the previous night? If so that meant the killer is well known in Woojung and had visited Soon-Ae, that was one unexpected twist! After writing up three of the four segments did view the 14th episode and speaking of twists that show has too many of them to count!!!! That recap is the next post and viewing these screenshots does help as I use them to recall what took place in a show.