Summary
“Merry-go-round” finds Ah-yi in hot water after a risky decision backfires, while more explicit links between the magician and the missing girl throw doubt over the man’s intentions.
This recap of The Sound of Magic season 1, episode 3, “Merry-go-round”, contains spoilers.
You’ll recall that the second episode ended with Il-deung making Ah-yi a morally questionable proposition about throwing a maths test. And you’ll recall that, in the first episode, Ah-yi only took one 50,000 won note when she could have taken two. Those two things, taken together, give us a good idea of why this is a difficult predicament for her.
The Sound of Magic season 1, episode 3 recap
Because we know both of these things, and because we know how important Yoo-yi is to her, we can understand why Ah-yi agrees. She’s being offered a hefty sum. And while the handshake deal might give a spying Ha-na the wrong impression, Ah-yi’s as good as her word. Which isn’t easy for her to justify.
One thing leads to another. After a brief, fantastical musical interlude with Ri-eul on the titular merry-go-round, Ah-yi strikes up a more long-term financial arrangement with Il-deung. In for a penny…
It almost seems like a love triangle is brewing between Ah-yi, Ri-eul, and Il-deung. The latter is jealous of Ah-yi learning the basics of misdirection, especially when he later learns that she knows virtually nothing about Ri-eul. He cautions her about the potential danger, but after being invited, shows up to the after-hours lessons with her, albeit a little unenthusiastically.
But there’s bad news all around in “Merry-go-round”. Firstly, Ri-eul is more explicitly tied to Ha-yoon’s disappearance, with camera footage of a man in magician gear destroying banners with scissors suggesting he’s trying to cover his tracks. It seems a little too obvious to be true, but with glimpses of another young woman around the fairground, there’s a pretty obvious implication that Ri-eul is at least knowledgeable of – but probably involved in – Ha-yoon’s disappearance.
Plus, Ah-yi and Il-deung’s arrangement is exposed after Il-deung’s mother notices the large sums of money disappearing from her son’s bank account. With Ah-yi already in financial dire straits and moral crises, this is the last thing she needs. Within this, though, we’re starting to get a better sense of Il-deung himself, which is nice but might turn out to be a little more burdensome than the show’s script can handle. We’ll see.
You can stream The Sound of Magic season 1, episode 3, “Merry-go-round”, exclusively on Netflix.
