The Mountain’s Will
Did Jae-gyeong really sign the agreement form?
Il-man and his supporters continue to harass Jae-gyeong to sign the agreement form. Jae-gyeong, unravelling under the weight of his wife’s death, still refuses.
Il-man exterminates Jae-gyeong’s bee colonies and Jae-gyeong snaps. He hallucinates the buzz of bees and clutches handfuls of their dead bodies, saying they’ve come back to life.
Sol, terrified, signs the agreement form with Jae-gyeong’s seal. He runs over to Il-man’s house and is about to knock on the door when he overhears Il-man’s faction discussing every one of their horrific deeds. Il-man opens the door and takes the agreement form.
Il-man meets Geun-tak, who tells him that the project was blocked anyway. The villagers leave Black Bridge Village while the national park is still offering incentives. ..
Why did Yi-gang go to Sol’s house and how did she escape?
In 2020, Sol’s innocent charade is now full of arrogance. Yi-gang informs him that she’ll take her theories to the police the very next day. Sol only refrains from killing her because of the CCTV in his residential area and the fact that Yi-gang’s phone can be traced. Gu-yeong calls Sol, asking about Yi-gang and putting her in the clear for now.
Gu-yeong picks up Yi-gang and the three of them head to meet Il-hae. Yi-gang admits that she put a GPS tracker in Sol’s backpack, believing that he will try to dispose of the evidence after learning she’s going to the police. The plan is to follow him right to the evidence, which they hope will lead them to solving the case. ..
Sol hikes up the mountain to his stash with Gu-yeong and Il-hae not far behind. He realizes he is being tailed and removes the GPS, disappearing into the heavy fog.
Does Dae-jin stay behind bars?
Dae-jin is released from detention for his cooperation with the police. He goes to Haedong Station where Yi-gang breaks the news that Sol is the culprit. Dae-jin radios a false SOS out to every ranger on the mountain, sending them to Deokseoryeong to find Sol.
Was Sol’s motivation simply revenge?
Hyun-jo, having realised that Sol was the real culprit, discovered the cave where Sol had stashed the evidence. Sol, able to see Hyun-jo, was also there. Sol confessed to killing the villagers because they couldn’t remember the events of 1991. ..
In 2017, Sol, struggling with his trauma and hallucinations from his father’s death, returned to the mountain to commit suicide. Hyun-su stumbled upon him and asked for directions. When Hyun-su recognized Sol, he was excited to see him and asked after Jae-gyeong. The question upset Sol and caused him to hear the buzz of bees again. He gave Hyun-su the poisoned yogurt and sent him on his way. ..
With Hyun-su’s death ruled as an accident, Sol convinces himself that the mountain is on his side. He takes up a ranger position and recruits Se-wook to his sinister cause.
In the present, Sol tells Hyun-jo that he stopped hearing the bees. Sol also expresses his anger at Woong-soon for being oblivious to Seong-guk’s crime. When Woong-soon’s investigation of the bus incident led him to Sol, Sol used the truth of the hit-and-run to keep him quiet.
Hyun-jo disputes Sol’s claims that the mountain willed the deaths, using his visions as proof that the opposite is true. Hyun-jo also realizes that his first vision of Sangsuri Rock – where the young boy went missing – was the mountain’s way of leading him to the rock formations and to Sol.
What happens to the evidence?
Sol drops Se-wook’s notebook with the list of victims onto the pile of evidence. A bee sticker identical to the one on the phone Hyun-jo found is on its cover. Sol sets it alight along with the rest of the evidence.
Il-hae and Gu-yeong hike toward the smoke rising from Sol’s fire but find no useable evidence left.
Why does the bee sticker phone matter?
Yi-gang flies a drone to the cave and captures Hyun-jo walking towards Sangsuri Rock where they first saw the rock formation.
With all the other rangers in Deokseoryeong – two hours from Sangsuri Rock – Yi-gang and Dae-jin make the journey there in a helicopter. Yi-gang carries Dae-jin the rest of the way until she spots Hyun-jo making his last rock formation. He disappears shortly after. At the same time in the hospital, his life support is turned off.
Yi-gang recalls seeing a bee sticker phone at the police station and recalling the town hall meeting where she noticed scars on Se-wook’s hand. ..
Gu-yeong and Il-hae go to the police station to petition for a forensic examination of the phone that they believe may have evidence related to the Sol and Se-wook murders. The results of the forensic examination are returned that night, and it reveals extensive conversation transcripts between Sol and Se-wook about carrying out the murders. ..
Is Sol caught by the police?
The police track Sol’s car to the base of the mountain and ask Dae-jin for the ranger’s cooperation in finding him.
Yi-gang is left alone at Haedong Station when the lights switch off around her. A sol rushes up behind her and knocks her out with his torch.
Yi-gang wakes up in a moving car. When he does, he starts ranting about how his streak of murders were the will of the mountain. Sol also reveals that he killed her grandma, and she gets desperate enough to throw herself out of the car, landing next to a stretch of roadworks.
Yi-gang is driving home from work when she sees a car coming down the mountain. She gets out to try and stop it, but the driver, Sol, grabs a mallet and advances on her. When he stands above her, she swings a rock at his face and knocks him down. She tells him that the mountain is just a mountain. Sol gets back up to finish the job as a landslide tumbles down and kills him. His death explains why he could see Hyun-jo in the cave.
What becomes of the rangers?
Yang-sun and Gu-yeong continue to remember each other after passing the promotion test. Il-hae has taken over Dae-jin’s role as commander.
Yang-sun is the lottery ticket girl who wants to repay her debt to Yi-gang by becoming a ranger. Yang-sun addresses the girl’s lingering fear of the mountain, repeating the sentiment that the mountain is just a mountain. Yi-gang conducts the interview for Haedong Station’s new recruit, who is looking for a job and wants to repay her debt to Yang-sun. Yi-gang tells the girl that she can overcome her fear of the mountain by repeating it to herself and by doing things like going on hikes and exploring the area.
The group of hikers reach the peak early in the morning, just as the first rays of the sun start to peep over the horizon. Dae-jin and his daughter watch as the sun slowly rises, turning a beautiful pink and orange. The sky is clear and bright, and everyone is able to see the stars.
Did Hyun-jo really die this time?
Hyun-jo is the leader of the rangers who control the crowd. We flashback to Yi-gang receiving the news that he’s breathing again. An overlaid snippet of a past conversation between our leads reveals that he has also stopped having visions.
The news that the mountain had been cursed by a powerful spirit has finally been resolved. All is now well on Mount Jiri, and the people are celebrating their victory.
The Episode Review
Our time on Mount Jiri comes to an end with the discovery of Sol’s body and the evidence that has been uncovered. The journey to this point was a bit ridiculous, but it kept the episode more engaging than the actual resolution. ..
Jirisan’s refusal to accept or reject its fantasy tag made the message pushed in our faces more than a little confusing. The mountain is just a mountain – it’s nothing to fear. And yet, Sol did have something to fear from the mountain determined enough to take him out that it gave Hyun-jo visions and crushed Sol in a landslide that very conveniently missed Yi-gang (who was only a metre or two away). ..
The drama acknowledged its own fantasy elements, but an inconsistency reared its head. Namely, Yi-gang could see Hyun-jo so she should have died. You could try to make the argument that her future was changed with Sol’s death but that doesn’t add up with the rule the drama set up for itself: the future is inevitable. Each time Hyun-jo has tried to change the future using his visions he has failed, and the visions proved to be the “re-written” future all along. By this logic, the future is set in stone and Yi-gang should have died.
The contradictions in the finale came partly from a last-minute rush to wrap everything up with a pretty bow – another bizarre experience. While we rushed through Sol’s demise with some divine mountain power, we got a dragging sequence of Gu-yeong honoring Yang-sun’s memory. ..
In a recent episode of “The Good Place,” Yi-gang, a character with a disability, is able to walk again. This event is significant because it challenges the trope that disabled people cannot have happy endings. The show leaves us with the message that disabled people can have happy endings, but without any explanation, this is not the case.
After Hyun-jo’s death, the rangers all got a little bit happier. They deserved it after all they went through.
