I Hear Your Voice ep 17: Dramatic Review

I can't believe that we are already here.  The final week of I Hear Your Voice.  Soon the voices will be stilled and we will once again bid a fond farewell to one amazing drama.  I am very much going to miss this one.  So much so that I haven't yet been able to bring myself to watch the final episode which is technically out and available.  Many of you have probably finished it.  I'm just not ready to say goodbye yet and seal that coffin with the final nail.  I mean, it's going to have to happen today, just as soon as I finish talking about 17 here since I need to still review it, but it will be a bittersweet moment, that's for sure.

Time for a little TMI.  Skip this part if you don't want to read it.  You won't understand why the format is different, but that's okay with me as long as it's okay with you.  I went out last night with some friends and had some (delicious) Mexican food.  I haven't had Mexican food in so long  which is weird for me as it is one of my favorite cuisine's and well, living in Arizona as I do, the most plentiful of dining options available.  Last night and this morning I have learned that it is the last Mexican food I will probably ever enjoy again as my fructose malabsorbing body is not reacting well to it.  So why the heck am I telling you such things?  I just want you to be prepared for a change in today's format.  Feeling as ill as I am feeling, sitting here in my beloved desk dungeon just isn't going to last long.  I am not long for this chair.  My bed is tantalizingly close and drama-ready.  Gravity is not my friend today and will be better handled in a horizontal as opposed to vertical position.  Which really stinks because there is sooooooooo much to talk about with this episode.  I definitely don't want to do it an injustice, so I will do my very best to get in all in as succinctly as possible.  And with that, away we go!

Thankfully, a lot of the first part of this episode was flashbacks, or at least scenes we already saw mixed in context with scenes we didn't see.  Psycho lured Hye Sung to an abandoned building by using Soo Ha's phone to convince her that he had Soo Ha captured there.  Fearing for her young man, she rushes off like an idiot to the Psycho's den and is quickly captured herself.

Min Joon Gook's plan is to turn Soo Ha into a "beast" like himself.  He has been tormented ever since that night at the dock when Soo Ha refused to kill him on the basis that he wouldn't sink to the level of living as a beast like Min Joon Gook.  So yeah, that made Psycho all twitchy and before he kills himself, he wants to see Soo Ha himself turn into a murderer by setting up a situation that mirrors his own from the past.  And here we learn the full story of how this all began all those years ago.

Min Joon Gook's wife was dying and needed a heart transplant.  Finally, a heart was found for her, but as she was about to go in for surgery, the heart was "stolen" by Soo Ha's father, a reporter with apparently enough influence to jump the transplant list.  Mrs Psycho dies, Min Joon Gook goes crazy and kills Soo Ha.  When he is imprisoned for the murder, his mother, who has Alzheimer's is left in care of his son, who then both end up dying of neglect because Min Joon Gook was no longer there to care for them.  Or at least that's the part I was able to piece together.  If I'm wrong, let me know.  They didn't spell that part out quite as clearly, but it makes sense.  Adding insult to injury, we learn that Soo Ha's mother, the one that received the heart, died a month later after rejecting the transplant.  Ouch.  Hey, I'm not too proud to admit that I feel sympathy for Psycho.  His whole life was suddenly stripped away, he lost everyone and everything that he loved by Soo Ha's father's actions.  I get it.  Still doesn't mean it's okay to turn into a murderer though, as our characters pointed out.

Min Joon Gook's plan therefore is to make Soo Ha believe that he has killed Hye Sung, the one person he has left in this world and whom he loves intensely.  After luring Soo Ha there, he tosses a bloodied wrench down at his feet.  {{I'm going to pause here for a second and bring up something that I was reminded of just a minute ago.  Did anyone notice that as Soo Ha shows up and Joon Gook is watching him from up on the rooftop that he held the bloody wrench in his hand?  The last we saw of Hye Sung, he was picking up that wrench.  I loved the simple subtlety of that moment.  We catch a glimpse of it just for a brief moment.  It made me gasp outloud.  And, in true non-drama fashion, our attention was not drawn to it.  There was no zoom in which, in my opinion, made it all that more dramatic.  I just had to give props to the director for just the perfect shot there.}}  Soo Ha then freaks out, thinking that Hye Sung is dead.  He reacts by going to kill Min Joon Gook (who by the way is wearing sunglasses this whole time so that Soo Ha can't read his thoughts).  Thankfully, before striking, Soo Ha comes to his senses enough to realize two things - one, Hye Sung isn't dead and two, even if she were, he's still not going to become a murderer like Min Joon Gook.  He remembers the promise made and knows that Hye Sung felt so strongly about this that she willingly put her own life on the line.  I was so proud of him in this scene!  What an amazing young man!  I love his maturity and wisdom and hot sexy self!  Go Soo Ha!  Hye Sung was also relieved and proud of her man, as she was listening to this whole exchange as she was bound and gagged elsewhere with her phone on speaker.

Min Joon Gook doesn't take this well.  At all.  Things aren't going as he so meticulously planned.  Things get even hairier for him when the cavalry show up.  Before going in to the Psycho's den, Soo Ha had called Attorney Cha to tell him what was going on and to ask for his help.  Cha and the SWAT team all show up on scene.  Min Joon Gook had been planning on killing himself there on that roof, so he takes this opportunity to slowly back up towards the edge.  As he stands there ready to fall to his death, Soo Ha tries to stop him, even going as far as to grab him as he begins to fall.  Psycho then decides that they'll just go together and off he goes, dragging Soo Ha with him.  I screamed out loud as they both plummeted over the side of the building.  No really, I totally did.  My son who was in the room with me was worried and came over to see what was wrong.  So I backed it up a bit and showed him.  Then he understood and went back to his business.  ;)  Yeah, my family is used to me by now and my little drama-induced outbursts.

Thankfully, all my screaming and worry was for naught.  The SWAT team had deployed a handy little jumper's air mattress on the ground so Soo Ha and Psycho were safe.  Psycho was arrested and Soo Ha got away with just a little leg break.  This didn't stop him from screaming like an animal as he tried to get to Hye Sung.  He sees her being lifted out (she had passed out as she watched Soo Ha go over the side of the building) onto a stretcher, bleeding and unconscious.  He still at this point only suspected she had still been alive so seeing her, not yet knowing that she was actually okay, freaked him out and he turned into a wild animal trying to get to her.  When his ambulance pulled up at the hospital, he jumped out and had to be restrained, still screaming like a banshee.

They both finally see each other and are reunited in a very sweet and touching scene.  All seems to be resolved.  Everyone is okay.  Min Joon Gook is in custody.  Soo Ha and Hye Sung are alive and well minus a couple head wounds and a broken ankle(?).  As they cuddle in the hospital bed (ooh la la!) all is well in the world.  Soo Ha even tells her, with an incredible amount of emotion in his voice, that he loves her.  The love is just oozing out all over the place.  The air is thick with an intense sense of overwhelming love.  And then Soo Ha's voice over.  Remember that we still have a whole episode still remaining, they obviously can't leave it here.  With all of the truth finally coming out, there was one truth about Soo Ha that would also come out - the fact that he had attempted to kill Min Joon Gook and had been the one to stab Hye Sung in the process. We are led to believe that Soo Ha will have to face the consequence of that night in the next episode.  But we'll worry about that next time.  For now, let's just bask in the happy, wonderful glow of these two lovebirds.  How perfect are they???  *happy sigh*

And with that, I will conclude with some screen shots from the episode.  They may not be embedded into the narrative (sorry again), but they will be in order.  I think I pretty much screencapped the whole episode.  There was just so much!  Such a wonderful episode!  I'll say it again - I am really going to miss this drama.  I can't wait to see how it ends, but I don't want to see it end.  I am, for I think the first time ever, actually happy that it was extended.  Getting that extra week was nice.  They handled it well and it seemed nearly seamless.  I have my suspicions on how they extended the storyline, but it's not glaringly obvious as it usually is.  I won't even mention it because I think the flow was still spot on and therefore no criticism or haughty "I see what you did there" is necessary.  They made it work, plain and simple and the integrity of the drama was not hurt in the process.  Kudos.  Great job team!