Making a stealthy move, the lurking villain is seemingly taking advantage of the fire-sensitive season in the 7th episode of Jirisan.
Coming from the previous episode, Hyun-jo foretells a wildfire breaking out on Jirisan. Inevitably, the Haedong Branch rangers challenge a perilous and physically taxing job of extinguishing the fire.
Back at the hospital, Yi-gang also gets an honest recommendation to prepare for the worst as Hyun-jo’s situation is not getting better.
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Episode Recaps: 01 & 02 | 03 | 04 | 05| 06 | 07 | 08| 09| 10| 11 | 12 | 13 & 14 | Finale Week + Review |
Jirisan Episode 7 Key Moments
“I saw a guy with a ranger uniform. It was definitely a winter suit.”
*2020 Timeline
Reporting to her senior the progress of the cameras she’s placing in the forest, Yi-gang continued to guide her through a drone she’s remotely controlling.
All of a sudden, Da-won screams and falls to the ground as spirit-Hyun-jo tries hard to clasp the radio upon hearing Yi-gang’s voice. Out of frustration, he slams the radio which also impacted his physical body at the hospital. Flabbergasted at what she saw, Da-won aimlessly runs away from him.
Reaching Yi-gang’s spot, Da-won caught her breath and tells about a man wearing blood-stained clothes. Yi-gang shows Hyun-jo’s photo when she remembered the same story of a hiker about the mountain ghost. Da-won confirms it and tells her that he vanished.
Worried about Da-won’s story, Yi-gang checks Hyun-jo’s status and was informed that he had internal bleeding and his blood pressure concern.
At the hospital, Yi-gang learned of previous episodes of Hyun-jo and she aligns it to probable instances when he was trying to reach out. She also realized that he’s risking his already precarious life with all those signals he keeps sending.
“I don’t know why this has happened to us. But if we can stop it. Maybe, we can go back to the way things were before.”
Sharing how she noticed Hyun-jo’s desperate attempt to speak with Yi-gang, Da-won is convinced how Hyun-jo has been waiting for her senior for a long time.
Heading back to the mountain, Da-won changes the memory card in one of the cameras set up and places a sign for Hyun-jo.
In her reveries, Yi-gang ponders on their situation and hopes for a moment that she can turn back the time.
*2018 Timeline
Flashback to their rowdy get-together two years ago, Team Haedong branch rangers were all pumped for the festivity. Despite Yi-gang and Hyun-jo appearing to be the only players in synch to Jae-jin in playing charades and badly finishing a relay game, they put up an incredibly hilarious ‘Amor Fati’ trot stage.
Their amusing talent show performance won them a small trophy. Taking charge of the injured Hyun-jo, Yi-gang treats him with some convenience store noodles as they talk about his most recent wildfire vision.
Reminding her despondent junior that wildfire is something hard to contain on the mountain, she lightened up his mood by telling him that everyone needs to cooperate when a wildfire erupts. She reassures him that his gift will save people again like how he did with his previous visions.
“The letters on the banner, are they always red?”
Team Haedong rangers meet for the fire prevention month and Chief Do distributes the tasks to his team. While Hyun-jo teams with Yang-sun for groundwork because of his injury, they visit the office. From there, he sees the beginning of the fulfillment of his vision.
A group of hikers also cooked some food at a spot already marked to be prone to wildfire. Various teams rush to help quell the fire.
Settling at Bidam Shelter after a day of fire extinguishing workload, the team is joined by the hikers. Just as Yi-gang spots a “fire warning” banner, Hyun-jo also sees the banners Chief Do asks him to organize.
It turns out the banner from his vision was from the previous year and was kept by herb collectors as cushions or blankets. Yi-gang speaks with the woman who brought the banner and asks where she kept it. Then, she calls Hyun-jo to go to the storage house told by the deceased snake poacher’s wife.
Hyun-jo enters the storage and meets the snake poacher’s wife’s children. A familiar banner catches his attention just as the place was locked from the outside. In panic and with his mobile phone left inside the patrol car, Hyun-jo tries to break the door.
On the mountain, the fire begins to blaze again at an area full of pine trees. Unable to deploy helicopters and with nighttime blowing the wind in a downward direction, the fire could impact the nearby town.
Hyun-jo struggles inside the storage house where a nearby fire was ignited mysteriously. Surrounded by forest fires Yi-gang runs hurriedly and stumbles down reaching a spot where a human skeleton sadly rests.
Jirisan Episode 7 Musings
We finally got a prolonged glimpse of that unfortunate day when Yi-gang and Hyun-jo met an accident that changed their lives. This episode also shared how Hyun-jo woke up to realize he became a spirit. A ghost that is bound to stay in the mountain just like what the young girl shaman told him before.
Every time he exerts effort to cross the living, it causes damage to his comatose body. But he at least can hold rocks and twigs on the mountain which aided the signals he sent to Yi-gang.
Hyun-jo in human form is already an enigma, thus, as a ghost, we can only hope that his being special would gift us a sliver of hope that he will survive. Even if we can buy his limbo-bound self helping his partner, it would be closer to home if they can achieve their goal in his human form.
Team Haedong is definitely not our best choice for teammates in playing charades. But this comic relief scene is one for the books.
Emotions rush as forest fire runs…
Amidst the drama and quick intensive informational seminar about forest fires, this episode generously dropped stunning vistas of the mountain. For people craving beautiful sceneries, bask on some captured scenes.
Jirisan surely has raised our respect to the valiant rangers confronting various natural and manmade disasters. Affirming that goal, we got to see how tough the prevention and cure of forest fires are. Relying mostly on human strength, the management is done predominantly by the onsite team with aerial help.
There seems to be more than meets the eye: Was it a natural disaster, or was it actually arson? Is the blaze linked to the previous incidents and acts of terror including the yellow ribbon trail, the poisoning and the explosives?
Notably, the poignant reality of Hyun-jo’ spirit form unable to cross the mountain border and Yi-gang who can no longer climb the mountain brings agonizing moments filled with warmth in this episode. Will their mutual desire to communicate spring hope of a miraculous chance for it to happen?
More thrilling mountain adventures with Haedong rangers on Jirisan unfold on iQiyi every Saturday and Sunday!
Photos/Videos: iQiyi
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