Off with righteous convictions, Blind courses a narrative filled with potentially duplicitous characters.
Beginning with a murder case, two brothers with distinct temperaments and a warm social worker cast their own doubts on the real culprit of the case. Like a puzzle to be completed, viewers may enjoy deducing the mystery being unveiled gradually.
Opening Week Rating:
Marcie Line watched Blind on Viu
Episode Recaps: 01 & 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 & 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 & 10 | 11 & 12 | 13 & 14 | 15 | Finale + Review |
Blind Opening Week Story
“Psychos are easier to catch than ordinary perpetrators.”
A group of boys escapes a building at night. One of them comes back to rescue their peer while the others go ahead. With one of them being run over to death, two of the boys fearfully hide under the wooden floor with blood dripping.
In the present, an old woman curiously opens the garbage bag her dog was checking out. She then sees the dead body of Baek Ji-eun, the girl who went missing on her twentieth birthday.
Trying how the dead body landed on the site, Detective Ryu Sung-jun wonders how the bag landed vertically instead of horizontally.
During the autopsy, bruises on the knees and arms have been found. Analyzing the shallow cuts, the examiner speculates that the arteries and cheekbones were avoided to minimize bleeding. Simulating the procedure, Sung-jun scares the examiner.
Exploring the area Ji-eun’s phone was last detected, Sung-jun retrieves footage from the dashcam attached to the helmet of the motorcycle delivery. He also interviews Ji-eun’s friend who shares that they left the club early because of a man who threatened Ji-eun with a knife after refusing him.
Catching the man in the act of hitting a girl, Sung-jun becomes thrilled to beat up the guy. Sung-jun leads the rescued minor girl to the restroom, and social worker Cho Eun-ki fetches her as her guardian.
“Once is a mistake, but after the second time, it’s called a habit.”
While being interrogated, the alibi of the man gets confirmed. He threatens Sung-jun with being imprisoned for beating him up. Unfazed by the man’s rich father and lawyer uncle, Sung-jun fronts his father and brother who are judges.
Ryu Sung-hoon avoids meals together to avoid exchanging favors. A former judge requests a favor from him on the case which also involves Sung-jun, his brother. Despite all that, Sung-hoon still refuses the favor.
The chief angrily bursts at Sung-jun for arresting the wrong person, but Sung-jun remains regretless of what he did. Although hesitant, he attends a family dinner while feeling out of place.
Sung-hoon does his carving hobby after recalling Sung-jun’s past of beating people up. He rethinks his brother’s reasons for becoming a cop.
In the funeral house, Sung-jun asks Ji-eun’s father about possible people with grudges, and his wife chimes in about Mr. Jung.
Investigating it, Sung-jun finds Mr. Jung in Hope Foods and he receives a video capture of Jung Man-chun with Ji-eun.
With the arrest of Jung Man-chun, Ji-eun’s father watches from afar. Claiming he didn’t kill Ji-eun, Man-chun requests for a jury trial, and points at Sung-jun as the culprit.
“Do you know what betrays you the most? It’s that thing called hope.”
Going back to the past, the boy who was able to escape narrates how children are captured in a center. Fully trusting the police, the boy gets returned by Chief Yeom to the facility.
At the present trial, Man-chun claims he only intended to harm Ji-eun because he wasn’t paid by Mr. Baek. He adds how Ji-eun escaped by riding a car that is driven by Sung-jun.
Baffled with his claims, the people and the jurors refuse to believe Man-chun. Attending the trial, Sung-jun shows the footage from the motorcycle driver.
Adding to evidence pointing at Jung Man-chun, Sung-jun presents the unique method of Man-chun in slicing through a woman’s mouth.
Although all jurors agree on Man-chun being the perpetrator, Eun-ki takes her time reviewing the case. She voices her doubts rooted in her personal experience of being suspected because of prejudices.
Unanimously judging guilty, Jung Man-chun gets sentenced to life imprisonment, so he wreaks havoc while the verdict is being read and declares his grudge against the jurors.
The parents of Sung-jun and Sung-hoon watch the news, and their mom finds Mr. Baek appears familiar. Back at home, Sung-hoon directly asks Sung-jun if he is responsible for what happened to Ji-eun.
“What we think is common sense is often prejudice packaged to look like common sense.”
Eating together after the trial, the jurors introduce each other. Others enjoy it, but juror number 5 soils the mood for getting angry with being photographed.
Because of a motorcycle cutting through, the vehicle carrying Jung Man-chun crashes, which enables him to escape. Sung-jun warns his brother to stay home, but Sung-hoon proceeds to the court and sees the ripped list of jurors. Receiving the full list of addresses, Sung-hoon checks on each juror.
As the part of Eun-ki’s address gets ripped, Jung Man-chun holds her hostage. The police deployed tries to talk him out of it, but Sung-jun acts on his own, rescuing Eun-ki.
Hospitalized after, Mr. Baek tries to inject a substance into Jung Man-chun, but he stops as the latter confesses he just followed orders from a man named Jung Yoon-jae.
Dreaming about his life as a child under the wooden floor, Sung-jun wakes up terrified.
Blind Opening Week Musings
Even in the beginning, it doesn’t feel like Jung Man-chun was the sole perpetrator. The jumps from the flashbacks to the present somehow hint that the case being presented is unordinary.
Ryu Sung-hoon as a judge has doubts about his brother Ryu Sung-jun, and it holds grounds based on his perception of his brother who has a seemingly violent history. Although it may be too early, there may already be characters whose external appearance is different from their real nature.
As a competent older brother again, Ha Seok Jin’s role reminds me of his past roles, especially the one from Drinking Solo. However, his character Ryu Sung-hoon like Sung-jun certainly has its distinct color, which may also transform into an unexpected form in the process.
The arguments of juror Cho Eun-ki in the case deserve merits for relevance. It emphasizes the impact of prejudices that ignore other factors which may actually lead to the truth.
For the first two episodes, it may be perplexing who the children are and their relation to the adults in the Hope Welfare Center. It appears to have a connection with the present case and holds a deep secret, which we shall look forward to as the drama progresses.
Watch new episodes of Blind every Friday and Saturday on Viu.
Photos: tvN
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