'Awaken' Episode 5: Jung-woo or Jaimee, who is the serial killer, and what connects them to White Night Village?
In 'Awaken' episode 5, we saw how Jung-woo had managed to survive a fire that no one else would have. From the beginning of the episode, there have been various hints that Jung-woo has abilities that one might find hard to explain scientifically. It also seems like he has an IQ of 200 following the illegal experiments that were conducted at the White Night on children who belonged to the orphanage. Then we also found out that many of the children who were experimented on had died with a smile on their faces even when they had stabbed themselves or jumped to their death. All of this is eerily similar to the current string of murders that Jung-woo has been investigating. Now with Jaime Leighton arriving all the way from the US to profile the killer behind the murders, she is having inklings that the killer may just be Jung-woo himself if the clues so far were to be believed.
Then there are instances where we have seen how Jung-woo had brought about change in the electricity around him, or say getting a mirror to shatter without any external force, and that us wondering if he could also have the power of telekinetics? If not how did the mirror in Jaime's home break apart? One thing we are certain of is that Jung-woo doesn't experience pain the same way others do. His injuries do not seem to bother him as much as it does other people. From the scene of Jung-woo analysing the victims' file in a secret room to the picture of him at the same building that the victims frequented hint at Jung-woo being the person behind the death of the men who have been killed so far.
Then there is the instance of Jung-woo managing to save five people from a huge arson fire. One of them happens to be the founder of White Night Village, the same one he was in as a child and was experimented on. We learn that Jung-woo used hydrogen peroxide and his own blood to create oxygen and enough air for the survivors to breathe and survive. How did he know to go the safe house that only the owner of the building and the architect knew about though?
That is the first question that Jaime asks after she manages to escape from a hospital facility where she had been imprisoned. A woman who has been in touch with the reporter and did his background checks for him is also the same person who kidnapped Jaime. They also mention that a surgery was conducted on Jaime and that she is now back towards recovery, but what operation are they speaking of and why was it pertinent for Jaime to get this done? She is not sure but what she does know is that she must do her best to escape from the freaky facility. So she manages to escape and in a call back to how she had escaped from White Night as a child, she ends up obstructing the way and is almost hit by a truck, but instead, escapes and gets better at a police station. That's when she starts to think back to the time when Jung-woo ended up running into the building on fire.
She wonders how he got to know about the fire and if the hydrogen peroxide was inside the safe room or outside. She also thinks of all the clues that had made her suspicious of him in the first place and she concludes that he must be the one behind abetting the suicide of all the men who had been killed so far. She also concludes that there is a reason why he is now targeting Son Min-ho and that all of it goes back to his connection to the White Night Village.
Despite all the evidences though, the one thing that bothers us is that he is also the cop who is investigating the crime and there are times when he seems clueless about things that he would have known were he the killer. So could he really have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). That would definitely explain the dissonance. However there is another angle to consider as well. What if Jaime Leighton, the profiler from FBl is somehow connected to the murderer and the murders? She is afterall also from White Village, so she could also be suffering from the same condition as Jung-woo. Also, she has officially been diagnosed with DID, according to the files that the cunning reporter had pulled during the background research. Unless they are doctored, the chances of her being a perpetrator are as high as Jung-woo being one. The trauma that both of them have suffered will be the key to resolving this case and we wonder who will open the lock to their memories. Could there also be a connection between the young man who is being used and abused by a businessman to hack and con his way to the top and Jung-woo as well? He may be the third child in the room that we saw in the first episode of the show.
'Awaken' episodes air on Mondays and Tuesdays on tvN in Seoul, South Korea at 9pm KST and can be streamed on Viki in the US.