Summary
Unmasked does some good character work in Episodes 7 & 8, but it remains unable to get out of its own way where the broader plotting is concerned.
Unmasked continues to be a confounding show in Episodes 7 & 8, and it remains difficult to know what to make of it. That off-putting try-hard feeling is still there, but I must concede that these two episodes do put in some decent work to knit the cast together, adding more complexity and depth to the team dynamics, developing the overarching storylines more, and providing neat-ish resolutions to the more standalone cases.
I’m not sure these particular cases warrant a great deal of recounting since they’re mostly in service to the macro plotting and character development. But the stalker case is handled neatly, showing an ability to shift suspicion around which is reflected in the bigger Dr. Trigger and Seong-wook cases, even if you can sometimes see the seams.
But the show does benefit from the developing character dynamics. Soryong’s driven nature is a good noble center, and it’s nice to see Gi-ho and Na-hee getting stuff to do. There’s a developing texture here for sure, but is it too little too late? Do the show’s weirder tendencies and structural oddities still hold it back from really cohering? It’s honestly hard to say.
Episode 7 of Unmasked begins with Soryong reeling from Han Do’s confession of being Dr. Trigger and explanation that somebody else got a hold of the account to post the compromising photo of her, but we don’t get to sit with it too long before our attention is pulled away to Ho-seong sniffing Soryong and biting a doctor’s ear. Sometimes the show can’t seem to help itself.
But if the multiple personality stuff is a bit silly –it is – and the deliberate red herrings and shuffling of suspicion are a bit transparent – they are – there’s nonetheless a fairly interesting undercurrent when it comes to discussions about justice and reporting. There are important conversations had about the burden of proof, the necessity for clear and irrefutable evidence, and how the truth about crime can be shared – perhaps more appropriately, how the stories of victims can be told – in a truly sensitive and useful way that doesn’t lean on sensationalism.
Because I enjoy this underlying core it frustrates me more when things take silly turns. In Episode 8 of Unmasked, which shifts more to focus on the Seong-wook case, there’s a whole bit with a dog witness and an animal communicator that just feels too silly to ring true. The fact this occurs in the background of a burgeoning rivalry between Soryong and Koo which fuels Soryong’s righteous indignation – a just-right position for her to be in, in my view – is irritating.
I’m not going to devote a great deal of energy to a dog apparently being able to deduce that Seong-wook was decapitated, because I don’t see how it would do anyone any good. But it does all underscore my lingering criticism of Unmasked, which is that it’s a show arguably too odd to coalesce into anything genuinely engaging.
The eighth episode ends by shining a brighter light on Cho Hae-won, and big progress made in the Seong-wook case with an AI composite of his likeness – extrapolated from an old chewing gum ad – presented to the entire town. But meaningful investment in any of this remains elusive, and it feels a bit odd to me that I’m more interested in the smaller character-based subplots in and around the Trigger office – some of them literally involving producing and writing credits – than I am in what are ostensibly the main narrative developments.
So, we remain undecided. So deep into the season that can’t be a good thing, but at the same time maybe the fact we’ve got so much to chew on means that Unmasked is doing its job.
