4 Moments In Episodes 9-10 Of "My Perfect Stranger" That Illustrate Generational Trauma

With two murders rocking the sleepy town of Woo Jung, Baek Yoon Young (Jin Ki Joo) and Yoon Hae Joon (Kim Dong Wook) continue their secret detective work when a key suspect is arrested. But things aren’t as they seem across town, and Yoon Young’s past may not hold the keys she thinks it does. As the pains of the past circle over to the future in a vicious cycle, Hae Joon and Yoon Young find that some pain is carried too deeply to let go. With the advent of Hae Joon’s father, who has been unknowingly roped into fixing Hae Joon’s time-travel car, Hae Joon and Yoon Young’s time in the past may be about to end. But do they have enough time to stop the third murder? And is there any hope of preventing the first two from having happened in the first place?

Warning: spoilers for episodes 9-10 below.

1. Yoon Young’s assumption of her father’s guilt

With the town searching for a culprit, things play out in 1987 as they did in the original timeline. Baek Dong Shik (Choi Young Woo) arrests his nephew Baek Hee Seob (Lee Won Jung) for both murders. Yoon Young washes her hands of the whole thing when Hee Seob refuses to admit who the bloodstained rag belongs to. She thinks back to all the trauma her father put her through over the years via his neglect and finds it easy to believe the worst about him. She’s putting all that pain right back on him. But Hae Joon isn’t so sure. Hee Seob kept insisting that the rag was his when Hae Joon asked him why he had it. Hae Joon is convinced that Hee Seob is protecting someone, most likely his brother Bae Yoo Seob (Hong Seung An). But this doesn’t sit any better with Yoon Young.

2. Yoon Young’s assumption of her uncle’s guilt

Yoon Young doesn’t truly think that her father is capable of killing someone physically, but there’s no denying that he did so by words and actions a thousand times over. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Hee Seob consistently chose his brother over his wife and daughter to the point of absurdity. When her mother was in the hospital, severely ill, Hee Seob was busy tending to Yoo Seob. His excuse? Yoon Young was there so he didn’t have to come. A tearful Yoon Young shows up at Yoo Seob’s place having packed her father’s belongings and throws them at him saying that he can just stay with his brother then. Yoon Young relies on those memories to harden her heart. Even her mother’s younger self can’t convince her.

Lee Soon Ae (Seo Ji Hye) actually is Hee Seob’s alibi for the night. After he rescued her and Yoon Young from her ex, Yoo Bum Ryong (Jo Yeon Woo), they stayed up all night together. He confessed his feelings, and she agreed to be there for him. But her father locks her in her room and refuses to allow her to tell the police the truth. Despite the death of Soon Ae’s sister, the town’s busy victim blaming Kyung Ae (Hong Na Hyun), saying it was her own fault that she died due to working in a bar. Soon Ae’s father, Yoon Young’s grandfather, doesn’t want them gossiping about Soon Ae. It’s such an awful thing to do, even if he’s trying to protect the only daughter he has left at the expense of a young man’s life. Soon Ae escapes confinement and runs to Yoon Young for help. But Yoon Young won’t hear it. She’s relying on Hae Joon to find Yoo Seob—whom she thinks is the murderer—and free Hee Seob that way. But the truth that Hae Joon finds is significantly more shocking.

It turns out that Yoo Seob was one of the students protesting against the government and was arrested and badly beaten by the police for it. Meanwhile, Hee Seob is being brutally beaten by the police in an attempt to coerce a confession. Cops from Seoul also show up to snatch Hee Seob away and torture him for his brother’s location. Yoon Young finds a wounded Yoo Seob hiding in Hee Seob’s attic and realizes that it was his bloody rag that Hee Seob had been holding onto. Yoo Seob tells her the truth: they had an older brother, Jin Seob, who was murdered by the police along with their parents. Yoo Seob and Hee Seob made a pact as per their mother’s last request: to always watch over each other.

The horrifying implications here are that neither Yoo Seob nor Hee Seob are the killer, and that this means Hee Seob was tortured for days in the original timeline until he cracked and revealed his brother’s location to the police. Whatever the police did to Yoo Seob left him severely brain damaged for the rest of his life. Yoon Young realizes all of this in a second and is horrified because that grim future is about to come true with Hee Seob being tortured. Worse, she could have stopped this earlier by helping Soon Ae get the truth out. Luckily, Hae Joon has a plan and calls reporters from Seoul over to where the police are torturing Hee Seob. Within the hour, both brothers are reunited and treated at a hospital for their injuries. Yoon Young realizes that her father’s behavior (while inexcusable) stemmed from guilt for outing his brother. She always assumed that her father was just an awful person. Generational trauma is a silent but deadly condition, and Yoon Young finally sees her father for who he was and who he could have been if he had been born in a better time. Certain kinds of pain will leak into all areas of life, and the trauma he witnesses as a child and a teenager shaped the rest of his life. She knows that now.

3. Kim Hae Kyung’s assumption of her mother’s favoritism

With that out of the way, Hae Joon and Yoon Young focus on the third upcoming victim: Kim Hae Kyung (Kim Ye Ji), a member of Go Mi Sook’s (Chi Hae Won’s) group of bullies. Hae Kyung’s mocked at school due to having a single mother, who also operates a bar and who happens to have a bit of a relationship going on with their homeroom teacher. In the original timeline, Hae Kyung runs away from home after believing that her mother chose her boyfriend over her after continuing to meet with him when Hae Kyung asked her not to. But in reality, that meeting was for her mother to say goodbye to him and break off their relationship. If things play out, Hae Kyung vanishes after running away and is never seen again. Her mother wastes away her whole life, believing that her daughter is alive and handing out posters in front of news stations (like the one Hae Joon worked for) in the hope that someone will take an interest in Hae Kyung’s case. She dies in 2020 utterly traumatized with no answers.

Hae Joon isn’t going to have that. He preempts the whole running away bit by taking Hae Kyung on a field trip instead where he gives her some life advice. Don’t take every moment for granted. He keeps reading her runaway note out loud, much to her embarassment. He points out that her mother would have read this thousands of times (and did in reality) if she never came back. Hae Kyung grouses that she wasn’t going to run away for long, but Hae Joon knows that, regardless of her intention, she would have vanished forever. Hae Kyung returns home to find that her mother has broken it off with her boyfriend for her, and she is finally secure of her place in her mother’s life. She’s understanding in turn and tells her mother to date him after all. And a relationship that could have fallen apart is mended. But can the same be said for Hae Joon?

4. Hae Joon’s assumption of his mother’s identity

Hae Joon’s ties to this town are becoming a little clearer. The jovial head of the school Principal Yoon Byung Gu (Kim Jong Soo) is his grandfather, a far cry from the bitter old man that Hae Joon knew. Hae Joon’s father is an engineering genius. But all we know of Hae Joon’s mother is that he doesn’t know her and doesn’t care to. She left right after giving birth to him, and he has no interest pursuing that relationship if she doesn’t. His grandfather passed whatever happened in the past right onto Hae Joon, who grew up indifferent and disgusted with his mother.

But with his father currently repairing his time-travel car, Hae Joon’s getting curious about who his mother is, especially on the day of his father’s first date with her. So he follows his father on the date and sees him (asleep at the movies) beside a woman with a pink headband. Hae Joon waits for the woman to exit the theater at the end but is left horrified. Two women exit the theater with that headband: the mysterious young proprietor of the Bong Bong teahouse (where the matchboxes beside the murder victims came from), and Go Mi Sook herself. With Go Mi Sook looking increasingly like the main suspect for the murders, could Hae Joon be descended from the very person he’s hunting?

The mystery takes a backseat this week as we eliminate suspects from the list, namely Hee Seob and Yoo Seob. For a show that’s both a time-travel mystery and a very slow burn romance, it’s also a love story and an ode to the difficulties older generations faced in turbulent political times. This week’s exploration of how pain is carried through the years and let go has been illuminating and heartbreaking. With Yoon Young finally on board with her parents’ romance, there’s another conflict out of the picture. Next week hints at Go Mi Sook taking a forefront as “her” novel starts to take off. With six episodes left, here’s hoping that we get some answers on the show’s biggest enigma!

Okay but these two are actually very cute together. You can see why she fell for him! He protected her reputation even when he could have namedropped her as an alibi!

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Shalini_A is a long time Asian-drama addict. When not watching dramas, she works as a lawyer, fangirls over Ji Sung, and attempts to write the greatest fantasy romance of all time. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and feel free to ask her anything!

Currently Watching:  “My Perfect Stranger,” “Tail of the Nine-Tailed 1938,” and “Dr. Romantic 3.”
Looking Forward to: “Gyeongseong Creature,” “Ask The Stars,” “The Girl Downstairs,” “The Worst Evil,” “Queen of Tears,” “Vigilante,” “Demon,” “Daily Dose of Sunshine,” and Ji Sung’s next drama.