Calm Before The Storm
Yi-gang drives back from the temple, she’s almost caught in a landslide and warns the oncoming traffic.
A temporary base is erected near Mujin Valley for emergency coordination. Il-hae radios the gathered rangers from Bidam Shelter to let them know that Geun-tak and Gye-hee were separated from his group near Fox Hill in Mujin Valley. Il-hae can’t begin a rescue from his end because of landslides blocking the way. ..
Yi-gang and Hyun-jo are tasked with finding Geun-tak and Gye-hee. When out on the mountain, Hyun-jo theorizes a link between the murders and the 1995 flood. Yi-gang blocks his line of reasoning, stressing that disasters on the mountain are always sudden, and anyone can be caught up in them.
The lottery ticket girl finds her missing ticket. She celebrates the win as the man from the stone pagodas happens upon her.
Meanwhile, Gye-hee supports a limping Geun-tak as the two argue about the cable car. Gye-hee becomes enraged and asks Geun-tak why he poisoned the Black Bridge Village well. Geun-tak swears he didn’t do it before collapsing. Gye-hee unzips Geun-tak’s jacket to find that his abdomen has been pierced.
Yi-gang leads Hyun-jo to an emergency telegraphic reader, which boosts cell reception, where she suspects Gye-hee would have headed. They find him there along with Geun-tak and the stone pagoda man. Geun-tak’s condition is deteriorating and support teams are mobilized.
As Hyun-jo hoists Gye-hee onto his back, he notices the stone pagoda man’s black gloves. He must leave anyway, taking Geun-tak and Gye-hee to the support team. Yi-gang stays behind with the hysteric stone pagoda man, who has hurt his leg and cannot descend. She takes him to a nearby cave situated on secure bedrock to wait to be recused.
Dae-jin and Yang-sun head out to the scene of the screaming lottery ticket girl. They find her surrounded by water, with gushing water coming from her mouth. Dae-jin radios for help, but all other teams are already engaged. Yang-sun stops him and insists on leading the rescue. She is confident that her extra training with Gu-yeong has paid off.
Yi-gang tells the stone pagoda man that they must stay put to avoid getting caught in a landslide. The man panics, saying the rangers also advised that in 1995, but the people he left in Mujin Station were swept away. In a flashback, we see that he was one of the college students in Mujin Station with Yi-gang’s parents.
The man gets more paranoid and makes a break for it. When Yi-gang tries to hold him back, he pushes her. She’s knocked out by the fall and the shot of the man’s hand in the rain looks like the one from Hyun-jo’s vision.
Yi-gang’s grandma scolds her parents after they act as the guarantor for someone’s debt and got their house confiscated. Yi-gang watches through a crack in the door.
We then skip to her parents’ funeral. Her grandma speaks to an insurance agent, who explains that if her parents’ deaths were suicides, then they won’t get the payout. Yi-gang interjects and denies the possibility.
Hyun-jo radios Yi-gang to check on her after passing Geun-tak and Gye-hee to Gu-yeong’s support team. When she doesn’t answer, he races back. ..
Yi-gang tells her story of how she and her friends were hiking in the mountains when they came across a landslide. She was able to get away but her friends were not so lucky. Yi-gang tells the story of how she found safety at the pagoda ground and how grateful she is for it.
We flashback to the man’s first trip to Mount Jiri as a college student on the day of the flood in 1995. At the stone pagoda ground, his group of friends meets Yi-gang’s parents and shares a picnic with them. He speaks with Yi-gang’s father, who wishes on a stone pagoda to become a good father. Despite his financial situation, Yi-gang’s father is positive that he can move forward.
Hyun-jo and Gu-yeong arrive at the cave. Gu-yeong escorts the stone pagoda man down the mountain. Yi-gang tells Hyun-jo that no one knows why her parents were on the mountain the day they died. ..
Yi-gang’s father gives her hand-picked flowers as a gesture of love. She chucks them to the ground, angry that their family has been forced to move to the mountain because of their debt. She tells her father that she hates the mountain and her parents. ..
Yi-gang tells the story of how she became convinced that her parents died in a mountain climbing accident so that she could receive insurance benefits. She denies this theory, but has been privately torturing herself with the thought of what her words might have done to them.
We flashback to Mujin Station during the flood. Yi-gang’s father tells Nam-sik that they won’t write Yi-gang a message because they will survive and deliver it to her themselves. ..
The flashback ends as the rain lets up. Gu-yeong, the stone pagoda man, and the lottery ticket girl encounter each other. The lottery ticket girl ran from him, scared he might steal her ticket. He tried to chase after her with the backpack she left behind and fell, injuring his leg. ..
The rescue teams filter in as they search for any clues about the 1995 Mujin Station volunteer ranger team. They are not successful in finding anything significant, but they do learn some interesting things about the team.
Dae-jin radios Yang-sun to report on the lottery ticket girl’s location. Gu-yeong listens in proudly as she hears the news and begins the rescue using a throw-line launcher.
We see someone in a black coat putting on black gloves and the rangers hear screams over the radio. The last shot is of Yang-sun’s radio lying next to her backpack on the floor.
The Episode Review
Episode 12 may have brought heavy precipitation with it, but it was more like the calm before the storm. The floods put a pause on the murder-mystery right as it was beginning to evolve. This far in, we can’t survive while only being drip-fed shots of the culprit’s black gloves.
Hyun-jo and Yi-gang continue to search for a motive in the shutdown of Yi-gang’s flood theory. Despite their best efforts, they are not able to find any clues that could lead them to the true perpetrator.
Yi-gang finally has closure regarding her parents’ death and can start to release the guilt she’s been harboring. We saw a little of that healing process when she arrived back at the base and shared a tender moment with her grandma.
Yang-sun’s high only lasted a few minutes before the culprit made their next move. If she doesn’t survive that would explain why she’s absent from 2020 and why Gu-yeong is perpetually in a bad mood – far from the proud smile he wore when he realised Yang-sun was conducting a rescue (a.k.a., the best part of this episode!).
