Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.

Missing: The Other Side (S2)
(미씽: 그들이 있었다 / Missing: Geudeuli Itseodda / Missing: They Were There)
MyDramaList rating: 8.0/10

Hello everybody, and welcome to my review of the second season of Missing: The Other Side. You can find my review of the first season here. Despite my week-long holiday in-between and the fact that this season was slightly longer than the first one, I was able to go through it quite quickly. As I thought, it was a good idea to watch it in one go, since there were a lot of references to the events of the first season. It was also a good idea to split the reviews for each season, because altogether it would’ve become an incredibly lengthy monster review that no one would probably take the time to read, lol. In any case, I really enjoyed the journey on which this whole series took me, and the way it consistently touched me from start to finish will definitely stay with me. I’d just like to thank my Spin the Wheel app for picking this show out for me now, because otherwise it would’ve probably taken me a very long time to get to it.

Since I already spent such a long review on the first season, for this one I’ll try to remain a bit more concise (although I can’t guarantee anything, knowing myself). The premise of the full story is that there are two men, Kim Wook and Jang Pan Seok, who for some reason are able to see and enter specific ghost villages that are invisible to the regular eye. These villages house ghosts of people whose bodies haven’t been found yet. Through communicating with these ghosts, Wook and Pan Seok set out to assist the police units in charge of missing persons cases in order to locate the bodies. Once found, the ghosts are able to pass on by disappearing from their village.
In season one, Wook and Pan Seok deal with the ghosts in Duon Village, a place in the countryside, while simultaneously dealing with their own losses – Wook’s mother who disappeared and Pan Seok’s young daughter who got kidnapped. At the end of season one, after the two help locate pretty much every single ghost in Duon Village, it is hinted that there might be another ghost village, one where Pan Seok’s daughter may have resided before she was found. The second season deals with this village, hidden in an abandoned industrial complex. Wook and Pan Seok set out to deal with a whole new community of villagers, including a shocking number of young children, and a new overarching case that ties in with the events of season one.

Let’s just start like we always do. Missing: The Other Side (S2) is a tvN K-Drama with fourteen episodes of about an hour long. I watched the full series here. The story takes places two years after the events of season one. After locating the bodies of all the villagers from Duon Village, Kim Wook (Go Soo) and Jang Pan Seok (Heo Joon Ho) haven’t been able to see any ghosts ever since. Together with Lee Jong Ah (Ahn So Hee), they now continue Wook’s original business of catching scammers and frauds, occasionally assisted by officer Shin Joon Ho (Song Joon Cheol/Ha Joon) and detective Baek Il Doo (Ji Dae Han) from the missing persons police unit.
However, their newly acquired ‘peaceful’ life is disrupted when a ghost suddenly appears in front of Wook and leads him to another ghost village, referred to as Industrial Complex 3. This ghost, a young man named Oh Il Yong (played by Kim Dong Hwi) is somehow able to leave the village, although he still can’t physically do anything when he’s outside. When other ghosts try to escape, they just respawn at the big tree that forms the entrance to the village (like the basement room in Thomas’ café in season one). When Wook and Pan Seok enter the village for the first time, they are shocked to see an entire school of children there. It doesn’t take long for some kids to spot Pan Seok and inform him that his daughter Hyun Ji used to be there as well.
At hearing this, Pan Seok immediately forms a strong connection with this new village and ends up spending a lot of time there. Even without Hyun Ji present, he can’t let go of the fact that she was there for fifteen years. He decides to stay there and gather as much information as he can to visualize how Hyun Ji lived in this village all this time.
The appointed ‘leader’ of Industrial Complex 3 is a middle-aged woman called Kang Eun Shil (played by Lee Jung Eun), nicknamed Captain Kang as she used to command a fishing boat. She runs a supermarket right across from the big tree and is always the first one to welcome new arrivals and put them at ease. Having lost her own husband and son while she was still alive, she is an incredibly warm and motherly figure to everyone in the village, especially to the younger people and children.
As Wook and Pan Seok get acquainted with all these new people, Il Yong leads them to a new case involving a drug dealing gang, which turns out to be connected to Lee Dong Min (Lee Yoon Jae), one of the main culprits from the first season, who’s still in jail. Whilst they unravel Il Yong’s involvement with this gang, Wook and Pan Seok set out to find the bodies of all the ghosts from this newfound village.

I just want to say right off the bat that I was slightly thrown off by the opening sequence to this season, because it specifically depicted the disappearance of children under a very mellow and hopeful soundtrack. Overall, the fact that this season predominantly focused on finding missing children and dealt with a considerable level of child abuse and suffering left me quite distraught. It occasionally got a bit too much for my heart to take, and I won’t deny that I’ve cried multiple times while watching this. It was definitely on another level than season one.
Also, the general focus seemed to have been a bit different in this season, as it centered more on people that had already been missing for a longer period of time rather than people that were currently missing and investigated by the missing persons unit. In this season, it was mostly Wook and Pan Seok bringing a missing person to Joon Ho’s attention and having him pick it up at his police unit instead of the other way around. As such, I was initially a bit worried that this would be a continuous case-by-case story where they just covered a new person in each episode. Although that’s kind of how it started in the first couple of episodes, I’m really glad they strayed from that as soon as the connecting story of the drug gang came into play. In the end, I was just as touched, heartbroken and flabbergasted by the plot twists and cliffhangers as I was in the first season, so props for the writers to pull off another very successfully written season.

Just like in my previous review, I’d like to start by giving a brief summary of the overarching storyline of the drug gang that plays out while Wook and Pan Seok look for the villagers’ bodies, because this ties in to Lee Dong Min, Choiseung Construction and other specific events from the first season. Basically, the drug squad police unit now led by Captain Lee Man Sik (Kim Jae Cheol), who was in charge of the missing persons unit in season one, is currently in charge of tracking down a drug deal gang that doesn’t only illegally deal drugs but also for some reason kidnaps and murders people, which brings them back into cooperating with the missing persons unit. The ring leader of this gang calls himself ‘Goliath’, and while the police have confirmed his existence through the dark web, they keep being one step behind in the drug gang’s schemes, which keep leading to new innocent victims, mostly young women.
For some reason, Il Yong keeps hovering around these drug dealers, suggesting that he knows them and/or that they had something to do with his death. The person he specifically identifies as his killer is Kim Pil Joong (Jung Yoon Jae), who at some point is thought to be Goliath himself. However, it turns out that there are even more people behind him, like the mysterious ‘Steve’ – later identified as Noh Yoon Goo (played by Kim Tae Woo).
I just wanted to introduce this plot in advance before I move on to my character analyses to make it easier to refer back to.

Since I’ve already written elaborate character analyses on the main recurring characters in my first season review, I’d just like to write a bit about how their dynamics developed in season two and address some new plot tools that were added to flesh out their personalities even more.
As we know, Wook’s mother disappeared when he was seven. In season one, he finds out she was murdered, meets her ghost in Duon Village and helps locate her body in the final episode so she can finally move on. Now, two years later, Wook doesn’t have a real job anymore and just goes around catching bad guys together with Pan Seok and Jong Ah. He and Pan Seok also live at Jong Ah’s place since they can’t afford something for themselves. In the first episode, Wook heroically manages to track down a voice phishing scammer and is awarded a Brave Citizen award. This is where he meets Il Yong for the first time, although he doesn’t realize he’s a ghost yet at that point.
Besides re-awakening Wook’s ability to see ghosts and find a new ghost village, this season adds one more storyline that significantly contributes to Wook’s character development. One of the women that gets kidnapped by Goliath’s drug gang early on in the story is Moon Se Yeong (Im Seon Woo), a single mother. Her teenage daughter, Moon Bo Ra (played by Choi Myung Bin), one day appears in front of Wook’s apartment, claiming that Wook is her dad. As it happens, Wook used to date her mother Se Yeong back in the day, but he keeps denying that he’s her father because “he’s never been married”. Of course, this is kind of a vague argument because we all know marriage isn’t a condition to have a child – it would’ve been clearer if he’d just said “we never slept together” or something. I have to admit I didn’t really understand why they had to keep this so vague until the end, even in the conversations between Wook and Se Yeong. I guess it’s because they had to wait until the end for Bo Ra to finally accept that he wasn’t her real father but that he still came to care for her like one, but I honestly don’t think it would’ve made a difference if they’d at least made it clear to the viewers that he wasn’t her biological dad. I don’t think it was something that needed to be kept ambiguous to that extent. Anyways, even though it turns out that Wook isn’t her dad, his acquaintance with Bo Ra and reunion with Se Yeong does contribute significantly to his character development. You could say that he actually learns how to be a dad without being one. I loved how, in the final episode, he told Bo Ra that there are father-daughter relationships like theirs everywhere, like with Pan Seok and Jong Ah. I just thought this was cool since I literally described the relationship between those two as a father-daughter bond in the first season.
While Wook starts off with the same vibe as in season one, quite careless and free, he definitely matured even more after meeting Bo Ra and keeping her safe, both while her mother was missing and after she was found, and that was cool to see. It honestly made me feel like he came to understand Pan Seok’s fatherly sentiments towards the kids in Industrial Complex 3 a bit better as well.

Speaking of Pan Seok, I definitely felt like he became more sentimental in this season. Of course, as if finding out what happened to his daughter and locating her body after looking for her for fifteen years wasn’t enough, he’s now actually able to see the place where she stayed during all those years. In a way, it was really sad that the wasn’t able to find it before, while she was still there, but he takes all the gratitude and closure he can from what everyone in the village can tell him about her, and she even left a letter for him. I have to admit I was a bit worried at first when he kept insisting to stay at the village more than returning home, because I didn’t know if it was a good thing that he would start spending more time with ghosts than with the living, but in the end it all turned out okay. Additionally, he was already used to spending more time with ghosts during his entire time living by Duon Village, so I guess my worries were invalid, lol. Nevertheless, he still definitely kept me on my toes in terms of naivety. In hindsight, most situations that initially made me go “are you kidding me?!?!” luckily turned out to be staged and/or part of a plan, but I definitely didn’t think it was wise to drink any kind of beverage when he visited that poison lady’s house, for example. Apart from the new things he found out about Hyun Ji, I didn’t feel like there was that much additional development to Pan Seok’s character. Which is fine, of course, since we already got to see so much of him in season one and he just remained to be the soft goofy old man we knew and loved.

Now that I think about it, we definitely found out more about Wook’s past than Pan Seok’s in this season. Not only did we get a glimpse into his dating history and that Se Yeong was his first love, but we also found out that Noh Yoon Goo was the one that actually killed his mother. I actually gasped out loud when they suddenly revealed that and literally showed the footage of him killing both Wook’s mother and Detective Park. The fact that he was revealed to be the henchman that killed those people for Lee Dong Min was wild. It made the connection to the first season much more tangible and I thought that was pretty cool. Aside from that, it was nice that they kept adding to Wook’s character and development with news pieces of information instead of just letting him stay the same after getting to know him throughout season one.

If Jong Ah wasn’t already my favorite supporting character in the first season, she definitely stepped up her game in this one. I loved how she came to join Wook and Pan Seok in their quest to find those missing bodies, even when she couldn’t see the ghosts herself. I also really loved the bond she built up with Bo Ra when she came to stay at their place. Despite her initial disapproval of the idea that Wook had a daughter (her crush on him was definitely more apparent in this season), she became such a great eonni to Bo Ra, and it was nice to see how the young girl started opening up to her more and more as well.
One other thing I appreciated was the consistency in Jong Ah’s personality. I still remember how thoughtful she was for making those new flyers and banners of Hyun Ji for Pan Seok in season one. If that didn’t already warm my heart, her literally building an entire café at the industrial complex and gathering her friends to set up a full-fledged campaign to find all those missing children, even putting their pictures on the cupholders and everything, definitely did. Honestly, I loved how she just refused to stay behind and kept thinking of ways to help despite not being able to see the ghosts herself. Her growth throughout this season really touched me, and I thought it was all the more fair when the last episode revealed that she also became able to see ghosts. She opened up her mind and helped out so much, it almost felt like a reward that would allow her to keep helping out even more.

In this season, we are introduced to two friends of Jong Ah who end up helping her out at the café that becomes their new headquarters to locate the missing people from Industrial Complex 3. These friends are Geun Hyung (Lee Kyo Yeob) and Seul Gi (I can’t find this actress credited on any of my source websites, but I’m guessing from the ending credits – yes, I went there – that she might be called Lee Hye Ryung). We first meet these two when Jong Ah visits her hometown in one of the first episodes. This particular trip ends in a tragedy since the friend whose wedding she was going to attend ended up as one of the victims of the drug gang, wedding dress and all. After this, when Jong Ah sets up the Chamjoeun café, she asks Geun Hyung and Seul Gi to come work there and help her promote those missing people. They two of them are kept in the dark about the whole ghost business, of course, but it was still nice that Jong Ah found some allies who agreed to help her in such an important cause. I also liked getting some insight into Jong Ah’s personal life and family history through seeing her meet her childhood friends and visit her parents.

After the events of season one, I was really glad to see Shin Joon Ho so fresh-faced and cheerful again. We all know he really went through it, so it was refreshing to see him suddenly be much more animated and smiley in this season. Of course, the edginess was still there when he visited Lee Dong Min in prison and stuff, but all in all I think he processed everything very well. It was cool to see how he now immediately took up Wook’s requests and actively promoted the missing persons cases while working around the fact that the clues he got came directly from ghosts.
I remember saying that I loved how he came full-circle with detective Baek at the end of the first season, and now that we actually got to see him work together at the missing persons unit, everything just seemed to fall into place. He and detective Baek became such a fun duo together and it was great to now have that origin story of how far they came after initially dismissing each other’s sentiment so much. Honestly, I didn’t even realize how much Joon Ho had grown on me until the part where he got stabbed and I was like “NONONONONONO”. I actually panicked there for a second! I really liked how he cleaned up in this season and became an even stronger ally in helping out Wook and Pan Seok and becoming more friendly and supportive towards them.

One thing that I also picked up on in season one but that struck me again in this season, was the nature of the relationships between Wook, Pan Seok and Joon Ho. Even though they went through so much, both individually and together, and saw each other through a lot of heartbreaking and traumatic events, for some reason I still wouldn’t define them as ‘friends’. I don’t know if it’s because they’re all manly men who don’t need to express how much they actually care for each other, but I can’t help but feel that they consistently remained more like partners in crime than actual buddies. I think this is quite a unique aspect of the series as a whole. These men came into each other’s lives under the weirdest of circumstances and ended up helping each other out with the most personal and emotional stuff, and it still feels like they’re more like allies and work partners than chums. Honestly, when Wook gave Joon Ho that hug towards the end, even I was like ‘oh, wow’, haha. I feel like the growth that these men went through, also in relation to each other, is one of the greatest aspects of this series. The way they keep it so mature and professional while always having each other’s backs and even crying along with each other when the occasion arises brings a really unique heartwarming depth to their dynamic. I really loved that.

Now that I’ve covered the main recurring characters, let’s move on to the new people that this season introduced to us, starting with the living ones – I’ll save the sob stories until the end.
I quite liked the introduction of Bo Ra and Se Yeong. It was nice to get some more insight in Wook’s past, but they also ended up being really nice supporting characters that contributed to Wook’s growth. When they showed how Se Yeong was being held captive, I honestly already abandoned all hope that she was going to be found since that had never happened before. I did wonder why her kidnapper was keeping her alive for so long and kept telling her that she’d put them both in danger if she escaped, but I just assumed she would end up being another unfortunate victim. After the first season, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d ended up killing her even after her desperate escape attempts and established attachment to her daughter. That’s why it came as such a surprise when they managed to rescue her in time and she was happily reunited with Bo Ra.
I was really interested to hear more about Se Yeong’s past relationship with Wook. Not just because of the “is he Bo Ra’s dad or not” question, but also because we haven’t actually seen Wook involved in any romantic relationship before, be it in the past or in the present. In terms of his character development I was quite interested to find out what he would be like in such a dynamic. From the way they spoke with each other, I thought they were really sweet. Despite the fact that they must’ve broken up on bad terms, they actually still acted kind of shy with each other, which was cute to see. It was also nice that Se Yeong just went along with the new relationship between Wook and Bo Ra and didn’t even seem to care that he wasn’t her real dad. I feel like she ended up instilling some new sense of responsibility in Wook without even meaning to, and I really liked seeing that.
Se Yeong’s dynamic with Bo Ra was also really heartwarming. We’re introduced to them after she’s been kidnapped, so all we initially hear about her is that she’s a sloppy single mom that goes out every night and neglects her daughter. Bo Ra still seemed very attached to her, so I was hoping to see them reunite and interact at some point. I remember how sad I felt that we only got to see a couple of flashbacks of Joon Ho and Yeo Na when the latter was still alive, so I knew it was going to be hard to only get to know Se Yeong and Bo Ra separately from each other as well. Luckily, that didn’t happen this time and mother and daughter were happily reunited.
I really liked Bo Ra. She was such a mature kid for her age. It was so brave of her to just go out to seek help when her mom disappeared, first with the police station and then with Wook, after recognizing him both from her mom’s picture and from the Brave Citizen award ceremony on TV. There are many movies and series that depict someone introducing themselves to a parent they’ve never met before, but I gotta say Bo Ra didn’t seem to be that nervous at all. She just walked up to him like “Hi, dad”, lol.
I also appreciated how smart she was, both when Noh Yoon Goo suddenly came up to her and introduced himself as a friend of her dad’s and when she confronted Wook with the fact that she knew he, Pan Seok and Jong Ah were somehow finding missing people and offered to help. Even after finding out that Wook wasn’t her real dad, she stayed so calm and mature. Their hug after he told her he’d still be her father was really sweet. She was a nice new addition to the cast of characters, one that was both linked to one of the covered cases and Wook’s character development.

Even though they did bring back two guys from Lee Dong Min’s gang in season one – Jang Do Ri (Yoo Il Han) and Mangchi (Park Won Seok) – we got a whole new set of bad guys this season. I actually liked that they linked this gang to Lee Dong Min to establish the history of his crimes even more, instead of just creating a whole new separate gang that had nothing to do with the events of the first season. I just love it when you think something is over and done with, and then the show suddenly provides you with a new piece of unexpected information that contributes even more to the story as a whole.
Noh Yoon Goo, who is only introduced in the final six episodes of the season, is revealed to have been working for Lee Dong Min for many years. I found it kind of interesting that he, with his flair and presence, was actually someone who did another person’s bidding, calling someone else “hyungnim” and doing their dirty chores for them. He talks about his history with Lee Dong Min in some detail at some point, saying that he came from nothing and started working in construction at sites that were owned by Choiseung Construction, and that Lee Dong Min sought him out and brought him up as one of his henchmen. It’s even revealed that Noh Yoon Goo was the real culprit behind the murders on Wook’s mother and detective Park – we even get to see him kill them through flashbacks.
I would’ve liked seeing Noh Yoon Goo and Lee Dong Min interact a bit more in person. They had one phone call, but we only hear Noh Yoon Goo’s side of the conversation. At some point, it seems like Lee Dong Min changed his mind about something and Noh Yoon Goo ends up bribing another prisoner to kill him in his cell. When asked by Jang Do Ri why he did that, he just says that he’s a changed man now and that he’s not desperate enough anymore to “start a fire at an orphanage for chump change” – suggesting that he was also responsible for setting those orphanages on fire. In the end, he definitely worked his way up as a more intimidating enemy than Lee Dong Min. I mean, if you look at how easy it was to track down and arrest Lee Dong Min in season one, Noh Yoon Goo had nothing on him.
I’ll say a bit more about the open ending of this season at the end of my review, but one thing that kind of bummed me out was that Noh Yoon Goo was introduced so late into the series. Although we got some solid information on how he knew Lee Dong Min, there was still so much to find out about him. I was really hoping we’d get to at least see a final confrontation after Wook would find out that he was the one who killed his mother. Honestly, for someone who was just walking out in the open and doing some casual sightseeing, Noh Yoon Goo remained a very mysterious person right until the end.
I also would’ve liked to get a bit more conclusive info on Kim Pil Joong. Despite the fact that he was introduced as a cold-blooded killer who betrayed his friend, he did end up making sure Noh Yoon Goo wouldn’t get his hands on Il Yong’s body. It explained all the more how confused he was to see Il Yong in the village, because of course he knew he was still alive. It would’ve been nice to get a bit more insight in the friendship between him and Il Yong and how exactly he turned on him. In hindsight I felt like they could’ve done more with his character, just like how they kept Sang Cheol in the village for a while longer to gradually reveal his innately good nature. It’s kind of ironic to say, but in Pil Joong’s case it was actually kind of a bummer that he was found so quickly – they just had him and I feel like he could’ve told them way more. Not gonna lie, I would’ve liked seeing him and Il Yong rekindle things in the village some more before he disappeared, so at least Il Yong would’ve known it was never Pil Joong’s intention to kill him.

Before I move on to my character analyses of the Industrial Complex 3 ghosts, I first wanted to comment on some general similarities to the first season. Not that it really bothered me or anything, but I did find it interesting that they repeated the event of a new ghost appearing just when Wook discovered the new village (Yeo Na in season one, Alice in season two), and how this new ghost became a key character throughout the story. Secondly, I also thought it was typical that they introduced at least one “bad” ghost that still bothered people in the village. Seriously, the fact that they sent a child rapist to the village that happened to have the most children in it was pretty sickening, but I thought the way they dealt with him was actually quite similar to how they dealt with Woo Il Seok in the first season. Having said that, the similarities mostly lay in the way and timing of their introductions, because their stories were definitely very different from the ones in season one. I just wanted to make note of it, since it wouldn’t have surprised me if they purposefully reused some tactics from the previous season. In fact, that would actually be a logical thing to do, since the ghost villages essentially all worked the same way.
One thing that did strike me was that, at some point, whenever someone died, they just immediately ended up at Industrial Complex 3. Like, it almost became a running gag and I was a bit worried that it might end up de-sensitizing me to the impact of their deaths: after all, they just ended up at the village and could be further questioned from there. Especially seeing how for example Thomas got separated from his comrades and Alice got separated from her mother in death, it would’ve made sense if some people got sent to different villages. In that sense, I found it a bit typical that every next now dead person just arrived at Industrial Complex 3. Despite this, I really appreciated that the writers found new and innovative ways to deal with the ghosts, like making Pil Joong disappear almost as soon as he arrived, and introducing ghosts that were either able to leave the village or forced to stay even after their body was found. I really liked that it wasn’t just a repetition of the first season but that they raised more questions that only added to the depth of the world they created. I’ll keep saying it, but the writing of this show is without a doubt one of its greatest assets. They used the second season to both flesh out what we’ve already seen and to open up new loopholes and possibilities to elaborate on.

Let’s start talking about the residents of Industrial Complex 3, starting with Captain Kang.
In terms of the similarities I just mentioned, I really wondered what kind of “leader” Captain Kang would be, and how much she would differ from Thomas. I’m really glad that they managed to flesh her out as such a strong individual character that I just couldn’t help but love. Just like with Thomas, there was a moment at the beginning where I feared she might have had some shady intentions – Lotso the Bear traumatized us all – but she really turned out to be the warmest and most empathic person ever. Her own story only came out in the final episodes, but it already became clear what kind of person she was through everything that led up to that. She literally treated everyone in the village as her own children, and despite getting used to everything after spending forty (!) years there, she would still tear up at the thought that all these children could’ve grown up to be such wonderful adults. The scene at the sports field day when she got emotional as she visualized the kids at the age they would’ve been if they hadn’t ended up at the village actually broke me. The way she and Mr. Jung talked about them as “pretty flowers whose stems had been cut too soon” was heartbreaking.
I also thought it was so touching that she actually kept a whole archive of important artefacts that former villagers had left behind, and that the objects they’d given her didn’t disappear with them when they were found. It meant so much to Pan Seok to have something tangible that Hyun Ji had left behind for him. I thought it was a really nice touch that they added in something that remained after the ghosts left the village, so that the remaining residents still had something solid to remember them by.
Through Captain Kang’s own story, we find out that she drowned at sea five years after she buried her own husband and son, who also died during a fishing accident. She always assumed her body had to be somewhere at the bottom of the sea, and so she also told Wook and Pan Seok not to bother looking for her. When it was revealed that her leg started acting up each time her death anniversary came around, I assumed that meant that something may have been sticking into it in the water or something. Until those two old friends of her were introduced and they revealed that she was the only one of her crew that disappeared from that boat, I didn’t even expect there to have been a different truth behind her death. As it was revealed that not every single ghost had lost their life because of murder, I also thought that maybe Captain Kang really did just get unlucky. Her own acceptance of this truth and the fact that she’d probably stay in the village forever due to the alleged location of her body only made it all the more painful when it was revealed that her old friend had actually killed her for her insurance money and stored her body in the freezer of her old warehouse, which he took over after her death. The discovery of her body literally sent chills down my spine. The realization that she’d just been sitting there propped up against the wall, completely frozen, for forty years was horrible. Her response to finding this out and the frustration at still not being able to leave the village really gave me goosebumps.

Speaking of this, I really wonder why she, and Thomas for that matter, weren’t able to leave the village after they were found. Season one starts off with Thomas back in Duon Village, talking about the living people that helped them to what’s later revealed to be Il Yong. I actually thought he left at the end of season one, since they found the bodies of his comrades and also suggested that he must be among them as well. I saw some comments online from people speculating that people like him and Captain Kang, the established ‘admins’ of their villages, might not be able to leave since they’ve somehow been assigned the role to welcome new arrivals for all eternity. The only difference here is that, while this would make sense for Thomas as he was the first one to arrive in Duon Village hundreds of years ago, I’m not actually sure if Captain Kang was the first one to arrive in Industrial Complex 3, and if it really didn’t exist before she came there, much later than Thomas. While Wook and Pan Seok did promise her to find out the reason why she couldn’t leave, this season also left us hanging on that question. It ends with her welcoming yet another new arrival, seemingly accepting that she has no other choice but be there for every new poor soul that ends up there.
I just felt so bad for Captain Kang, because it seemed like, even though she acted just like Thomas in how she’d accepted her role and made peace with the thought that she’d stay behind forever, when push came to shove she still had hope that she would be allowed to move on as well. The way she screamed into the void about the unfairness of being forced to stay behind in the village after what was done to her, even after her killer had confessed and her body had been found was incredibly heartfelt. For what it’s worth, I really hope they manage to find out a way to help her move on, because this was actually cruel.

On a side note, I actually didn’t fully understand the testimony Captain Kang’s killer’s wife gave at the police station. The only things they made clear was that her husband had killed Captain Kang on the boat during that storm and somehow ended up putting her in that freezer. His wife never knew about this, but slowly started going crazy after allegedly being haunted by Captain Kang’s ghost.
In her testimony, she says the following:

“I did it. I never even dreamed she was in that freezer. If I’d known, when I found her with the leg caught in the net, I wouldn’t have untangled her and let her drown. I thought my husband had pushed her into the sea. I hoped she’d move on without losing any limbs.”

What I get from this is that the wife found Captain Kang’s body in the water with her leg stuck in a net, and that she untangled her so she could at least sink without any inconveniences to her limbs. Saying that she was under the impression that her husband had pushed her into the water would suggest that she was aware of the fact that her husband killed Captain Kang. This would at least explain why she started hallucinating that Captain Kang was haunting her, because why would she be haunted if she didn’t even know about her murder? She just didn’t know that her husband put her body in the freezer afterwards.
All in all, I found it quite a roundabout way of admitting to what exactly she’d done, especially since she started out with “I did it”. I guess she just meant that she was the one who ‘killed her’ by letting her drown, and regretted that after finding out her husband had stored her body. Still, I had to read through this several times to analyze her testimony. I feel like this series occasionally tends to hint at things and revealing certain truths in a very vague and roundabout way.

The first really mysterious ghost we meet in this season is Oh Il Yong, who for some reason is the only resident of Industrial Complex 3 that’s able to leave and enter the outside world. Initially, Captain Kang is the only one who knows about this, and they have this silent agreement that he will check up on the relatives of the villagers so that Captain Kang can let them know that their families are doing okay without raising suspicion, attributing it to the fact that ‘she has her sources’. As she’s been in the village for so long and is such a trusted figure to the villagers, no one would think to doubt her, and that would be her way of covering for Il Yong.
I have to say that, for someone that finally managed to track down one of the living people able to help him that Thomas talked about, Il Yong definitely remained very vague and suspicious for quite some time. I actually agreed with Wook when he complained to Captain Kang that Il Yong had the tendency to just appear at random places but never explain anything. To be fair, I can imagine that Il Yong was probably caught off guard when he met Wook after screaming into a void for three years and he might have been struck in a “now that I found someone, I don’t actually know what to ask of him” kind of situation.
From the way Il Yong kept lingering around Pil Joong and the other drug gang members, I already had a feeling that he might have been involved with that gang himself before he died. It could be that he was kidnapped and killed himself, but seeing as he was dressed the same way as them, I thought it was more likely that he was a part of that gang and tried to get out of it or something. Turns out I was right, but they still did a really great job at supporting his decisions. Same as with last season, I loved that even when my hunch about something was right, the way they revealed it still managed to touch me in some way.
In the end, I really couldn’t bring myself to blame Il Yong. He showed his true nature in his response to realizing he gave drugs to a father who went on to kill his own kid in a blind rage. The fact that his mention of “I can still see his face” turned out to refer to the crying kid was so painful. Being confronted with the destroying consequences of his first ever job, he immediately wanted out and ended up getting stabbed by his trusted friend. He was still so young and his heart was in the right place. He got involved with the wrong people because of his underprivileged background and immediately came to regret it. He ended up in the village while carrying the guilt of causing an innocent child’s death, and this information only supported all the more how kind and brotherly he acted towards all the young children that ended up there. I loved how literally his clothing style and his personality started to become lighter and brighter as soon as he and Wook cleared the air and started working together more amiably.
With regards to the continuous genius of the cliffhangers that this series uses, I’ll just say that the revelation that he was actually alive and being nursed by that mysterious woman Wook kept seeing in his dream really got me. As much as his comatose state explained the fact that he was still able to visit the outside world, I actually didn’t see that coming. It immediately reminded me of Kim So Hyun’s character from Let’s Fight Ghost, who was able to help the male lead with solving crimes as a ghost while her real body was actually in a coma the whole time. I remember that the girl in that show didn’t retain any memories of her time as a ghost when she woke up, so I’m glad at least Il Yong ended up remembering it in the end.

In both Captain Kang and Il Yong’s cases, I was actually not prepared for the discovery of their bodies. In Il Yong’s case it wasn’t immediately clear that he survived (🤜🏻that bloody cliffhanger🤛🏻), so when he suddenly disappeared I was more in denial than distraught. While Captain Kang was crying her eyes out over his abrupt disappearance I was just sitting there like “huh?!” Like, I was convinced he couldn’t have just died, he was established as a way more important character than that.
I had the same when they found Captain Kang’s body in that freezer and they didn’t even show her disappearing in the village. I thought there was no way there were just going to let her leave like that, without a proper send-off. Regardless, I still gasped when she was revealed to be still there. Honestly, this series was so good at never letting me know its next move, my goodness.

I think it’s safe to say that the school was a very prominent place in Industrial Complex 3. It’s where a lot of scenes took place, as many of the depicted events involved activities with the children and taking them on field trips. It’s no wonder that most of the adults that arrived at the village ended up working at the school.
The first person we meet, who’s also the first missing persons case that gets solved in the story, is Yang Eun Hee (Kwon Ah Reum), a young woman who was killed by her jealous boyfriend twenty years prior. It was really touching how they revealed that Pan Seok knew her mother from when they were both looking for their missing children in the past.
After Eun Hee is found, the two people that remain in charge of the children are Jung Young Jin (played by Jung Eun Pyo) and Ahn Hye Joo (played by Yoon Ji Won). Mr. Jung, a former Korean literature professor, is initially very hesitant about the truth behind his death. He has told Captain Kang that he took his own life so his wife could get a pension, and that he’s too ashamed to be found. There were several moments where I found his behavior a bit suspicious, but he was alright. When he wasn’t working at the school he was usually tending to his garden or helping Captain Kang out with chores at the supermarket. The way he ultimately revealed that he had lied about his death and that his son had accidentally killed him was so well played out. He had been acting like such a calm and patient man that I assumed he’d made his peace with staying at the village forever, just like Captain Kang, so it was a pretty big shift for him when he finally asked Pan Seok to search for his body in the end. Seriously, it didn’t even matter who it was, every single time they found a body that was hidden out of sight somewhere, it gave me goosebumps. Even if some discoveries and disappearances from the village hit me harder than others, the underlying notion that those bodies had been there for so long, just dismissed even by their own family members in some cases, was absolutely horrific. It never ceased to give me chills.

Hye Joo was a young woman who used to be an art therapist. I’m not entirely sure how long she’d been in the village, and it was only ever revealed that she had an elderly father left that Il Yong occasionally checked up on. She’s one of the only ghosts that doesn’t end up being covered in this season. Since I’d assumed they would locate every single person in the final episode like they’d done in season one, this actually came as a surprise to me. I’d expected her to also get her own arc of how she died and get closure by being found. I liked Hye Joo, she was really nice and it would’ve been interesting to get a bit more background information on her.

If there’s one character that unexpectedly grew on me, it was Go Sang Cheol (played by Nam Hyun Woo). Sang Cheol is initially introduced as Se Yeong’s kidnapper, and a part of Goliath’s drug gang. It’s only after he is killed by one of his gang mates and ends up at Industrial Complex 3 that we find out he was actually an undercover police officer from the drug squad who infiltrated Goliath’s gang. He’d been instructed to kidnap and kill Se Yeong but ended up keeping her away from him. Despite initially appearing very guarded and grumpy, it’s quickly revealed that he’s quite the crybaby and kind of a tsundere. In the village, he takes on the role of sports coach at the school. Being surrounded by the children and the warmth from the villagers, Sang Cheol gradually becomes more amiable with everyone and even starts patrolling around the village, keeping true to his original job.
I really loved the way he bloomed into being such a sweetheart. I think he particularly became more expressive in his more sensitive feelings through Ro Ha’s arc, which I’ll talk about after this. I’m not gonna lie, even though we saw him get killed and knew what happened to him, it still gave me goosebumps when Joon Ho found him behind that wall in that abandoned house, accompanied by Noh Yoon Goo’s secret stash of drugs. The fact that they actually went through the effort to hide him there and build a whole freaking wall to hide from sight, bro. We’d already seen how he looked when he got killed, but the shot of his face in the plastic bag peeking out from that hole in the wall was actually chilling. I’m not even lying when I say that I was sad to see him go. They were sitting around the campfire after the field day, all cozy and all. He really grew on me as a character and I would’ve liked to have him stay in the village a bit longer, since he also actively started helping out with the safety of the village and became like a hyung figure to Il Yong.
Also, something that specifically touched me in Sang Cheol’s case was Captain Lee’s attachment to him. Captain Lee, the head of the drug squad team, was the one who’d brought him into the undercover case and was constantly worried about what had happened to him. I can’t really put my finger on it, but the way he genuinely cried when Sang Cheol’s body was found and kneeled down when he informed his parents of their youngest son’s death was heartbreaking on a different level. I actually felt bad for him, thinking of how guilty he must have felt bringing Sang Cheol into that job. There was something really admirable about the responsibility he felt for his death. It was quite touching to see this side of Captain Lee, I’m glad they brought him back and gave him more to deal with in this season.

I hope you’ve prepared your heartstrings, because I’m now moving on to the main child characters from the village. Even if they ended up not locating every single child, I thought it was a really nice gesture that Jong Ah at least set up that campaign to raise awareness and direct attention to all the children that were missing. I don’t know if all those children were in Industrial Complex 3, but it was suggested that this village was assigned to mostly fragile and defenseless people – which leaves me with the question how freaking Choi Yeong Bae ended up there, but alright.
The first child to be investigated and found by Wook and Pan Seok is Lee Ro Ha (Kim Ha Eon). He always appeared as a cheerful kid with a talent for drawing. Before they actually start investigating his disappearance, Hye Joo is able to give Pan Seok a nudge in the right direction by showing him some drawings that Ro Ha made after he just arrived, which ultimately lead them to the location of his body. This happened around the time that the annual sports field day approached, and Ro Ha became visibly anxious with regards to his running ability. He kept getting upset for not being able to run faster and became really insecure about not being able to win the race. While Sang Cheol was encouraging him in the village, Wook and Pan Seok were out to figure out what had happened to him.
This particular story also put things in perspective for me regarding the fact that not everyone ended up in the village because of murder. As it turns out, after Ro Ha’s father (Son Kwang Eob) had been sent to prison for ‘accidental homicide’, Ro Ha and his mother ended up homeless, and when his mom collapsed at some point, she was taken away in an ambulance that left Ro Ha behind. While running after the vehicle to catch up to his mom, Ro Ha ended up falling off a mountain cliff.
Just like how Captain Kang’s leg kept acting up because it had gotten stuck in a net, I just had a hunch that Ro Ha’s obsession with running faster must have had some additional meaning, but it still gutted me that it was because he never got over not being able to run fast enough to reach his mom. By the way, am I the only one who finds it really weird that the ambulance didn’t take him with them? Maybe he arrived just when they took her away or something? I just can’t imagine they would’ve left him there if he’d been sitting and crying by his mother’s side when they came to get her. Anyways, I just had this feeling that they would probably find his body as he was crossing the finish line of the sports field day. It was just such a typical euphoric moment for it to happen and I could already picture how it would happen. In the end, it happened exactly as I’d imagined. And I still cried my eyes out. I really can’t get over the way they frame these moments so that, even when you know what’s going to happen, it still punches you in the heart. I think that Ro Ha’s disappearance from the village was the first scene where I didn’t just tear up but actually had tears rolling down my cheeks. His little euphoric face as he was catching his breath after just winning the race 😭😭😭.
Also, can I just say how bad I felt for Ro Ha’s dad? I don’t know exactly what he did to get sent to jail, but from the way he acted I really don’t think he was that bad of a man. The first thing he did after being released was go home to his family only to find out that 1. his wife had been admitted at a psychiatric ward and 2. his son, who he hadn’t seen since he was eight years old, was missing. The scene where the dad broke down at the site where they found Ro Ha’s remains and they showed him his little shoe was gut-wrencing. Ro Ha would’ve been in high school if he was still alive. Excuse me, I got something in my eye again.

When Wook and Pan Seok first arrive at the village, the first children to greet them are Choi Ha Yoon (Kim Seo Heon) and Lee Yeong Rim (Lee Cheon Moo). I think Ha Yoon was supposed to be the girl that came up to Pan Seok at the end of season one and told her friends that he was Hyun Ji’s father. Since Ha Yoon had been Hyun Ji’s best friend, she was able to tell Pan Seok the most of about her and even showed him Hyun Ji’s headband that she received from her; just like with Captain Kang’s archive, every item that had been given to another person in the village remained even after the giver disappeared.
Ha Yoon and Yeong Rim are two peas in a pod. Apparently, they had already been friends when they were alive and arrived at the village together. Ha Yoon is very protective of Yeong Rim, who’s a bit of a crybaby and, according to their own words “not very smart”. She has to keep reminding him of things and gets mad whenever she spots him with banana milk. Apparently, the two of them disappeared after a strange lady approached them in the playground and gave them banana milk to drink. Even though they don’t seem to remember what exactly happened after that, at least Ha Yoon had recognized the banana milk as ‘dangerous’, just as the logo of the Blue Bird Care charity, which became a big lead in their case.
Honestly, I loved these kids so much. I especially loved how smart Ha Yoon was. She actually figured out all by herself that Pan Seok wasn’t dead like them because he didn’t appear in the picture she took of him and knowingly kept it a secret because she was convinced that he would find her just like he’d found Hyun Ji. It gutted me seeing them as college students in Captain Kang’s imagination of them at the age they would be if they’d still been alive.
By the time Wook and Pan Seok start looking into Ha Yoon and Yeong Rim’s disappearances, we’d already seen several people disappear from the village, including Ro Ha, so I actually had the audacity to think that I was mentally prepared for whatever came next. Even after learning about the circumstances in which they disappeared, I thought I would be able to handle it. Boy was I wrong. The moment they found those pots buried in that lady’s greenhouse and Ha Yoon and Yeong Rim disappeared while they were happily riding the swings in the sunset, I was once again bawling like a baby.

Like I mentioned before when I was talking about the similarities between the two seasons, there was one ghost that appeared in the village right when Wook and Pan Seok first discovered it. This is a five-year old girl called Lee Alice (played by Kim Tae Yeon). I swear, I could cry just be looking at her. She was so freaking tiny 😭 I didn’t even want to think about what might have happened to her. Throughout the story, we see her slowly but surely become more comfortable in the village, and it was particularly sweet to see how quickly she warmed up to ‘Uncle Wook’. Although the fact that they lost sight of her a couple of times was quite concerning, she really became the baby sweetheart of the village. I loved how she ended up staying close to Captain Kang and kept consoling her, she was such a sweetie 😭.
Although Alice’s case ultimately doesn’t get solved, we do find out that she had an abusive father, which I think explains enough. Interestingly, Il Yong ends up finding Alice’s mother (played by Filippino actress Cherish Maningat) in a different village that even Wook and Pan Seok can’t see. Il Yong manages to convey that Alice’s mother got beaten by her Korean husband because she couldn’t speak Korean fluently. What can I say, if that’s a dealbreaker for you, you probably shouldn’t marry and have a kid with a foreigner. Anyways, for some reason Alice got separated from her mother in death. I honestly found this really interesting and hoped they would elaborate on that more, but that didn’t. The husband fled away to Guam, so they couldn’t easily track him either – I can only hope his plane dropped him above that island full of prehistoric animals from Cage of Eden.
Because Alice had been introduced at such a specific time and they kept bringing her back into focus, I just assumed that they would leave her discovery for the end as one final tearjerker. Honestly, it’s because I was mentally preparing myself for Alice’s arc that I wasn’t as shocked by the unexpected discoveries of both Il Yong and Captain Kang’s body. This was another thing that they left open, and I wondered why. I was completely convinced they’d pull the same trick as in season one and just finish off all the discoveries in the final episode. I really hope they’ll still get to it and manage to bring Alice and her mother together in some way in the end. I just want this little baby to find peace 😭🙏🏻.

I’d just like to discuss a couple more side characters before I move on to my final remarks and cast comments. Of course I can’t talk about every single thing that happened here, and there are bound to be aspects that I don’t discuss, I still want to point out two villain characters that gave me proper chills.
The first one, whom I’ve already mentioned, was Choi Yeong Bae. He was a child rapist that for some reason was sent to Industrial Complex 3. Captain Kang had made sure to drop him at an island surrounded by water and hid the boat in the woods so he wouldn’t be able to get back ashore to the children, but at some point he still manages to swim to the edge of the map and respawn at the big tree. He actually ends up kidnapping and gagging Ha Yoon, after which literally everyone jumps on him.
Now it wasn’t as much his character that made an impression on me, but his wife, Jo Yoo Seon (Lee Seung Hee). Wook manages to track her down and get her side of the story. This woman actually murdered her own husband because he couldn’t even keep his hands off his own daughter. There was something so eerily powerful about the way she immediately believed Wook when he told her about her husband’s ghost and handed his ashes over to him. There’s always something to be said about reasons for murder, but I honestly found this woman so strong. She was walking around like a zombie, coughing up blood and looking like she could pass out at any moment, but as soon as a strange man approached her telling her that her husband was still harming children in the afterlife, she was like “do what you have to do”. The quiet rage of her consent really stuck with me. Like I said before, I really appreciated how this season kept finding new ways to deal with the cases of each ghost, and this one definitely jumped out to me. It just goes to show that there’s a different kind of mourning for the relatives of criminals.
The second person that made a big impression on me was Kim Geon Joo (Oh Yoon Hong), the lady who killed Ha Yoon and Yeong Rim. She might not have been as mysterious and intriguing as Kang Myung Jin from season one, but she was so. freaking. creepy. I mean, look at her in this screenshot, man.

Can we just acknowledge how fricked up this woman’s psyche was? The fact that her own mother had suffered so much that she ended up begging for death messed her up so much that she started to believe that everyone going through a heart time wanted to die. She would literally see a child cry at the side of the road for a trivial reason such as fighting with a friend, and be like “ah, they’re in pain, I should just end their life right here to ease their suffering”. Excuse me, ma’am. No matter how much you may have believed that you were ‘nursing’ or ‘helping’ people, that way of thinking is just messed up. The freaking audacity of her to be like “I saved those little children, if I hadn’t ‘helped them’, they would’ve still been in pain.” If you hadn’t ‘helped’ them, they would’ve grown into beautiful smart college students, making the world a better place. They would’ve been in the bloom of her lives. They didn’t ask you to take away their lives for them, so don’t you dare give yourself credit for that. Honestly, that pissed me off so much. The realization that she approached Yeong Rim because he had been crying about his parents getting a divorce, and Ha Yoon had probably just been there with him and ended up as collateral damage really sets my teeth on edge.
Of course, there’s something to say about her psyche, she was clearly not well and should’ve received help herself, but this honestly doesn’t make up for anything she’s done. This woman had every single drink in her fridge drugged to get rid of any kind of unwelcome visitor and she killed so many people, from children to the elderly, in her conviction that she was ‘saving’ them. It was messed up.

Now that I’ve finished my character analyses, I’d just like to make a couple of final comments before moving on to my cast comments.

First of all, to keep things happy, I just want to mention that I literally YELPED at the sight of Pan Seok’s puppies (now doggies) again and realized they had a puppy of their own 😭🙏🏻❤️. I finally remembered their names: Junggoon and Manggoon, and their little Jjamppong 🐕🐕🐕. I loved that they kept these doggies in the story and gave them their own proper houses. They may not have appeared as much throughout the story, but they still made everything better whenever they appeared on screen. I also loved that Jjamppong was able to travel to the village and interact with the ghost people. The scenes of little Alice playing with him were the cutest. Honestly, big shoutout to these pups.🫶🏻

Despite the fact that the writers of this series did another amazing job at filling in blanks and linking events together, in hindsight there’s just one tiny plothole that I noticed. I clearly remember that the children that recognized Pan Seok as Hyun Ji’s father at the end of season one came up to him in the street and disappeared through another portal, meaning that they were able to leave their village as well. Since this season established this was only possible if the person wasn’t fully dead yet, and Il Yong’s case was a very rare one that no one else had ever heard of, it seems that this may have been a slip-up, although of course I understand there was no other way for the children to catch a glimpse of Hyun Ji’s father before he ended up going to their village. They must have been from Industrial Complex 3, since that’s where Hyun Ji was, so that probably shouldn’t have been possible, especially not for a group of them. I just realized this while I was writing this review and referred back to the way they teased the second season in the first season’s finale. Anyways, again, it’s a tiny inconsistency that didn’t have any further repercussion on my experience of this show, and apart from this they really did an amazing job at clarifying and wrapping up things.

It’s time for the cast comments! I really loved seeing both the familiar faces from season one and the new faces from season two come together. Once again, I was really impressed by the overall acting performances, these actors have made me both laugh and cry out loud and I just want to make sure I credit as many of them as I can.

Can we just agree that Go Soo pulled off that long hair so well? I actually liked it more than his hair in season one, haha. I have to say Wook definitely grew on me in this season, compared to season one. I remember that I kept getting kind of annoyed in the beginning that he kept so much to himself, but he definitely opened up way more in this season and immediately consulted others when he found something out, so that was a huge improvement. I loved how natural he was with the kids, specifically Alice, and how well he ended up taking care of Bo Ra, even while knowing she wasn’t his real daughter. He actually became a dad, in one way or another, and it suited him.
This is still the only series I’ve seen of Go Soo so far, but I really hope I’ll get to see more of him. I’m glad I got introduced to him through this show!

I was more than happy to enjoy some more good guy action from Heo Joon Ho. I really hope I’ll get to see more performances of him where he isn’t a bad guy, because now that I’ve seen him as Pan Seok I don’t want to go back. 😭 I’m glad Pan Seok was able to get even more closure through discovering the village Hyun Ji stayed at, and that Industrial Complex 3 was basically like an intermediate station for him as well, despite the fact that he was still alive. I feel like he cried a LOT in this season, more than in season one, and his emotional portrayal hit me every single time. He is such a good actor, and I really can’t wait to see more dramas of him.

It was great to see Ahn So Hee back as Jong Ah again. I loved that everyone started calling her Jjonga, as kind of a fond nickname, haha. I really love that they brought her back as more than just a supporting character this time, and that her contribution to the cases just kept growing and growing. I would love to see her in a third season with the ability to see ghosts for herself, that would be such a boost for her. There’s just something about her energy and determination that is so fun to watch. Ahn So Hee really stepped up her game this season. According to MDL I have at least one more show with her in it on my list, so I’m already looking forward to seeing her again. I’m sad to say goodbye to Jong Ah (for now).

I loved seeing Ha Joon as a more cheerful Shin Joon Ho in this season. He did a really good job at turning a new leaf without losing any of the anger that still bubbled under the surface regarding what happened to Yeo Na. He actually became one of my favorite characters in this season, purely because of his new-found determination and alliance with Wook and Pan Seok. It was also great to see him be more expressive of his emotions and sentiments towards the cases he dealt with. It’s because I got to know him through the traumatic events of season one that I managed to feel so much more for his character, knowing what lay underneath. I was kind of hoping we’d get to see him visit his grandmother at some point, but I guess he really didn’t form any new ties with Choiseung Construction (which is probably for the better). It was nice to see him again, and I hope I’ll get to see him in more shows from here on out as well.

Moving on to the new cast additions, I was so excited that Lee Jung Eun was going to be in this season. She’s one of those ahjumma actresses that always manages to blow me away with her performance, no matter which show she appears in. I’ve seen her before in King of High School, Who Are You: School 2015, Oh My Ghostess, Let’s Fight Ghost, Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, Tomorrow With You, Fight For My Way, While You Were Sleeping, Wife I Know, The Light in Your Eyes, Our Blues, Yonder and the movie Parasite, and there’s still a whole bunch of her dramas on my list. Lee Jung Eun just has this undefinable balance between steadfast & tough and warm & motherly which was a perfect fit for Captain Kang. She’s able to express an incredible range of emotions with such natural ease that it always impresses me. I love all the layers that she managed to convey through her portrayal of Captain Kang, from the stern to the heartbroken parts. I really enjoyed her performance in this drama.

I was convinced that I knew Kim Dong Hwi from something because he looks so incredibly familiar, but it turns out I haven’t seen any dramas with him before. As a matter of fact, he’s only done five dramas so far, two of which are still in production. He has been appearing in movies since 2014, but his drama debut was in 2020, according to MDL. In any case, I really loved him as Oh Il Yong. The new sense of mystery that he brought with him immediately pulled me into the story, I loved his dynamic with Wook and how he gradually opened up more throughout the story. At the end of this season, he turned himself in after awaking from his coma and had his final conversation with Wook in jail. If there’s going to be a third season, I would really like to get a bit more backstory on him, as well as some explanation for how he was able to link minds with Wook while he was comatose. Could be that it was just the strength of his desperation to find a living person to help him, but since Wook also ended up dreaming about that merry-go-round I’m just curious to find out what that dream link is about. In any case, I thought Oh Il Yong was a really nice new character and I think Kim Dong Hwi did a really good job portraying him. He seems like a very natural actor and I hope he’ll get the chance to make more drama appearances soon.

I’ve seen Choi Myung Bin before in Tunnel, Chicago Typewriter, 100 Day Husband, Itaewon Class and Twenty-Five Twenty-One. I really liked her portrayal of Bo Ra. She exuded a very mature vibe from the start and her dynamic with both Wook and her mother was really sweet. I definitely didn’t expect Wook to be approached as a father figure, but I think the way they made him adapt to that was really natural, and I would actually love to see him spend more father-daughter time with Bo Ra. Choi Myung Bin was only fifteen years old when this show aired, which only makes me applaud her performance more. It just always impresses me when such young people are already able to convey such deep and heartfelt emotional performances. Can’t wait to see her in more things, which I will, according to MDL.

I honestly think my initial distrust for Mr. Jung came from the fact that I somehow associate Jung Eun Pyo with a scheming eunuch, lol. Not that I’ve actually seen him as a scheming eunuch before. 😂 My first memory of him was from The Moon That Embraces the Sun, where he did play a eunuch (a loyal one), but I guess through my history of historical dramas I’ve generally started associating eunuchs with being scheming. 😂 Other than that I’ve seen him in My Love From Another Star, God’s Gift: 14 Days, Fated to Love You, Kill Me, Heal Me and Café Minamdang. It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve seen him in a bigger role, so it was kind of a throwback seeing him in this series. I was positively surprised by his performance in this show, it was nice to see him again.

Apparently I had the exact same thing with Nam Hyun Woo as I did with Kim Dong Hwi: I was positive I recognized him from something, but according to MDL I haven’t seen him in anything before. Curious. Anyways, as I’ve already said in my review I really liked Sang Cheol, he was one of the side characters that actually grew on me and that I was sad to send off. I guess I just generally have a soft spot with tough-looking guys that are big softies on the inside, because as soon as Sang Cheol started opening up more I just melted. I loved the way he tried to comfort Ro Ha and how he cheered him on as he was reaching the finish line. His death was very tragic, just like the way he was found. Nam Hyun Woo did a really good job at portraying a character that may have experienced something miserable, but was in no way pitiable, even in death. We need more heroes without capes like Sang Cheol.

One actress that I did recognize correctly from something was Yoon Ji Won. I remember her being the copycat girl from Cheese in the Trap, who was quite a nasty piece of work. She also appeared in Fantastic, but I don’t remember many side characters from that. Luckily her portrayal of Hye Joo was much kinder. I keep repeating it, but I really wanted to get to know more about her. We didn’t even know how long she’d been at the village and how she met her end. If there’s going to be a third season (I know I keep saying it, but that’s just how much I want closure for everyone), I’d like to see the team investigate her disappearance and bring her to peace as well. I thought she was a nice new addition to the cast.

For some reason I keep mixing up Kim Tae Woo with Kim Tae Hoon, and not just because of their names. 😆 They just have the same vibe over them. In any case, I was really impressed by Kim Tae Woo’s performance as Noh Yoon Goo. I don’t think I’ve seen him in a villain role before. I’ve only seen him before in good guy roles like in God’s Gift: 14 Days, and I specifically remember how much I loved his character in Romance is a Bonus Book, which is still one of my highest-rated shows. Seeing him with his funky hairstyle, clothing and his flashy way of talking was definitely something to get used to. Noh Yoon Goo was definitely one of these villains that act all chummy and smiley before showing the monster within. It was actually chilling to see him flip a switch and just strangle that other prisoner in the bus like that without a moment’s hesitation. I guess it was all the more scary because he consistently kept his own hands clean so far, he was just flaunting about and dining at restaurants, and the finale actually revealed his criminal tendencies for the first time (apart from the flashbacks we’d seen of him from when he still worked for Lee Dong Min). Seeing Kim Tae Woo portray that kind of malice was actually very impressive, he pulled off a very intimidating villain. I always like to see actors in dramas that I haven’t seen in a while, and he was definitely one of them. Bravo!

Finally, I can’t end this cast comment section without a huge shoutout to the amazingly talented child actors that appeared in this show: little Kim Seo Heon, Lee Cheon Moo, Kim Ha Eon and Kim Tae Yeon. All of these kids were under ten years old when this show aired, and they all managed to break my heart into tiny little pieces with their heartfelt performances. Korea’s drama industry has a bright future with such talented little sweethearts. Seriously, despite being quite an emotional person I don’t usually cry that easily, but these children really managed to steal my heart. I hope they’re all growing up happy and healthy wherever they are, and that they will grow up to be as beautiful and mature as the characters they’ve portrayed in this show. 🙏🏻❤️

In conclusion, while I may be wrapping up this review as the final installment of this series since there hasn’t been any news about a possible continuation, I think we can all agree that the finale of season two HEAVILY suggested a third season. In fact, they left more things open than the first season did.
The first season ended purely with the suggestion that there was another village, and that that’s where Hyun Ji might have stayed at. This in itself could’ve just been an ending without further elaboration, apart from the confirmation that there were more ghost villages.
This season ended with the introduction of several new plotlines, and didn’t finish all of its existing ones. First of all, they didn’t end the season with locating every single villager’s body, as both Hye Joo and Alice remained together with Captain Kang. Apart from that, they also left us hanging with the promise of finding out why Captain Kang couldn’t leave the village even after she was found (just like Thomas). Noh Yoon Goo ends up escaping during his transport to jail and Wook still has to find out he’s the one who killed his mother. Then there’s the revelation that Jong Ah suddenly becomes able to see ghosts as well, and the introduction of at least two new villages. We never find out why Wook was able to dream about the room that Il Yong’s body was in through his eyes and why he started dreaming about that mysterious merry-go-round. And what about freaking Im Si Wan as a potential new village head welcoming us under said merry-go-round?
Concerning that last one, Im Si Wan’s cameo appearance might just be a tease, just like how Hotel Del Luna ended with the revelation of Lee Joong Gi as the new owner – it doesn’t necessarily indicate another season. After all, we already got enough confirmation that there are more ghost villages, through this season and Alice’s mother. Still, there’s a lot that they left us hanging on.
In my opinion, the story definitely asks for a more complete ending than this. I’ll actually be a bit mad if there really isn’t going to be a season three, because there’s no way they’re writing off Noh Yoon Goo’s escape as “oh well, sometimes people don’t get what they deserve”. I need more closure than that. There is still so much more to figure out about Noh Yoon Goo and how he ties in to everything, especially after the revelation that he’s not the real Goliath either. I am more than positive that the writers of this show are able to pull off a perfectly satisfying conclusion to this story. Let’s just keep it at that: I’ll be waiting.

I would definitely recommend this series. I think it’s important to note that, besides the chilling and heartbreaking aspects of the story, the heartwarming and touching elements are just as significant. Yes, the world is an awful place full of scumbags that feel entitled to take other people’s lives, I’m not going to sugarcoat that. But, as I mentioned before in my review of season one, it’s kind of comforting to imagine that those who met such a chilling end at least get to experience some final peace in a beautiful quiet village where everyone enjoys the small happinesses of eating a warm meal and spending time with loving, caring people. As much sadness the villages are filled with, they thrive on the temporary relief from the horrors of the outside world and create a comfortable intermediate station before the afterlife. It’s just as important to keep our eyes open to the cruelties of the world we live in as it is to acknowledge the warmth and beauty that we can find in it. I think this series mirrored this contrast very aptly by juxtaposing the awful body finds to the way the ghosts disappeared from the village. A tragic discovery versus a heartwarming depiction of closure. The beginning of a painful road of mourning versus a long-awaited chance to move on. I’ll leave it at that.

It’s never happened before that I got to watch two double-season shows in a row. I’m happy to watch whatever I can, of course, but as much as I love writing reviews, it takes a lot of time and energy to finish them, especially if the story is stretched out over multiple lengthy seasons. I know I have a couple more multi-season dramas on my list, but for now I hope my app picks out a good old single-seasoner next, lol.

Until then! Bye-bee! x