Summary
The mystery of When the Phone Rings continues to deepen in Episode 8, but the strength of the connection between the characters carries the audience along.
I said in my recap of the previous episode that just because we’d made some romantic progress When the Phone Rings was far from being a done deal. Episode 8 proves that very capably by shaking up the mystery even further, with new twists and questions complicating what was already a deeply intriguing narrative. As if fans weren’t on tenterhooks already – what even are tenterhooks? – this, I think, is the classic “okay, what?” moment that any good thriller needs.
Oh, there’s still some romance too, obviously, but significantly less than the last installment. Sa-eon and Hee-joo are still in something of an emotional honeymoon phase, so it’s all cooking and waking up from nightmares to find solace in each other’s company. You know what I mean. Remember, these two are finally living as a married couple despite having been a married couple for a while, so they’re navigating a new dynamic and exploring new feelings – or acknowledging old ones, anyway.
Hee-joo can’t believe her luck, in a way, since she’s amazed that Sa-eon isn’t much angrier about all the business with the phone calls, but it’s really his own secrets that are of primary concern now, his illegitimate relationship to Chairman Paik, secret contracts, and all of that juicy stuff.
When the Phone Rings Episode 8 is also when all roads start to really converge. The location everyone seems bound to is that orphanage Sang-woo has been diligently investigating. He invites Hee-joo to meet him there, just as Sa-eon goes to poke around because it’s where the kidnapper’s phone was traced to. Naturally, he sees Hee-joo and Sang-woo together, which incenses him, so he races after them and dramatically brakes his car in front of theirs.
Sa-eon has a point – all this weirdness did only begin after Sang-woo’s arrival. But I still persist that this is deliberate misdirection to make Sang-woo look guilty, like him later being implicated in a fire. I’m just naturally disinclined to believe what a show wants me to believe, and since it’s so intent on making me believe this, I’m suspicious. Then again, almost everything about When the Phone Rings makes me suspicious.
The gist of it seems to be that the “real” Sa-eon suffered mightily at the hands of the Paiks, and might still be alive, despite our Sa-eon having seen the Chairman drown him in the lake. There’s plenty of evidence to support this, including a message saying, simply, “He’s still alive,” which is a bit of a clue. A video, seemingly from a variety show, is connected to it – Hee-joo is sent it by the real killer, and it’s later playing at the orphanage. In support of Chairman Paik’s potential villainy, it seems like he may have been involved in the accident that killed Hee-joo’s family.
There’s a nice scene between Sa-eon and Hee-joo involving that video. After confronting her and Sang-woo, Sa-eon asks why she didn’t come to him about the video when she was first sent it. Naturally, Hee-joo was scared he’d run away. There’s a lot of sincerity in Sa-eon telling her that even if he were to disappear from the world, all he’d want to be left behind is Hee-joo’s version of him. In other words, all that matters to him now is what she thinks of him. It’s a nice sentiment.
And it’s really these kinds of exchanges that add texture to everything else, especially as the overarching mystery gets sillier and sillier. Despite a fiery climax, it’s really the epilogue that sings in When the Phone Rings Episode 8, with Hee-joo becoming teary at the pictures from the retreat, which all reveal Sa-eon gazing lovingly at her. You can expect In-a to deliver some more bombshells in the next couple of episodes since she visits Hee-joo in the climax, but I think that’s a nice idea to leave things on for now.
