'Flower of Evil' Episode 3: Is Hyun-soo really a cold-blooded killer or is he being duped for retribution?
The third episode of 'Flower of Evil' has arrived and the only thing that we can be certain of is that there is nothing that we can be certain about at this point. Is Hee-seong who is in reality Hyun-soo (Lee Joon-gi) a killer? Or is he trying to prove that he is innocent of the crime that he was accused of committing in the past when he was still the son of a serial killer? He flits between these two so often and yet, except for torturing the journalist Moo-jin in his workshop's basement, we haven't seen him commit any harsh crime. All he did was beat Moo-jin up and at this point, we hate Moo-jin enough to agree with Hee-seong. He did not only find the scene of crime in the past in relation to serial murder, but he recorded it all. Only if he had reported it, he could have stopped the murders but he didn't. On the other hand, just because Hyun-soo has antisocial behavior disorder, he suffers all through his teenage years and is even treated with prejudice because of his father but no fault of his own.
The episode constantly makes us wonder if the killer who murdered the Chinese restaurant employee is Hyun-soo or if someone else is duping him. He certainly seemed surprised when his former flatmate had claimed that he was being threatened by Hyun-soo over the phone. He was not threatening anyone, so why would this guy suddenly believe that he was being threatened for something that he had done many years in the past? That is the mystery that needs to be solved because following this, we see many scenes that run in parallel and continue to allude to the possibility that Hyun-soo could very well be the monster people claim him to be.
At this moment, Moo-jin is told that the Chinese restaurant employee was murdered at 3:00 am. It is impossible for Hyun-soo to have committed this crime because, at the said time, Hyun-soo was torturing Moo-jin in his workshop's basement. What is further interesting is the way that Cha Ji-won (Moon Chae-won) continues to see things about the current crime and connects it to different moments that she had to spend with her husband Hee-seong. When she sees the murderer in a black raincoat, she remembers her husband returning home in the middle of the night in a similar raincoat. When she sees a Chinese dish's poster in a restaurant, she remembers how the breakfast that he had cooked looked eerily similar to the one in the poster.
We also see that Hyun-soo is also ridden with nightmares about his murderer father and the closer he is to express his anger, he sees more of his father in himself and that scares the wits off him. When years ago, Hyun-soo's colleague at a Chinese restaurant tried to kill him for money, Hyun-soo had attempted to kill him but he failed because he saw an image of his father. After he runs scared, Hyun-soo met with an accident and this accident is what probably changed his life.
Another interesting clue is Hee-seong's mother reacting to the news of Hyun-soo being mentioned in relation to a current crime, which in turn seems connected to one that was committed 18 years ago. How long has Hyun-soo been keeping the identity of Hee-seong? We see Hee-seong's mother slap Hyun-soo and tell him that if they had known that he would be getting involved in such incidents they never would have made him Hee-seong. In a shocking twist, we meet the actual Hee-seong at the end of the episode and he seems to be bedridden due to some medical condition. How did Hyun-soo cross path with Hee-seong's family? The show is only getting more twisted and dark with each episode holding a mirror to the cruel world that we live in.
'Flower of Evil' will air on tvN on Wednesday and Thursday at 10.50 pm KST and can be streamed on Viki Global.