Recap
Guang Yan didn’t need to be a honeytrap, the daughter wanted help with her homework from a med student. But he just made an appointment to meet the next day.
Yi Yong meanwhile, confirmed that he found the former employee/wife of colleague/mother of other girl running the coffee shop. Her name is Jingmei. He also got a strange feeling from the coffee shop.
The Baker shows up with cupcakes at Chu Ying’s work again. She has him listen to a recording of her interview with the colleague and father. He notices that the colleague keeps saying the Kidnapped Girl’s name over and over. The opposite of what most people do in these kinds of tragic circumstances.
Via phone, Guang Yan tries to encourage Yi Yong to make calligraphy from his heart. He writes curses against Chu Ying and Guang Yan. Heh. The coffee shop still feels strange to him.
Window Doll remembers when the Shopkeeper made her, the red threads/veins coming out of her and into the doll. Yi Yong startles her awake by tapping on the glass.
Guang Yan helps Jingmei’s daughter prepare for tests, learning that her mother has a habit of comparing both her and her stepfather with others. Then he notices something! We don’t get to see it!
Yi Yong and Window Doll break into the coffee shop and realize it’s a copy of the Shopkeeper’s place. When they leave, Jingmei is there with the cops for Yi Yong. But Chu Ying and a detective show up to get Jingmei.
Listening to the interview, they noticed the colleague avoided talking about his wife, and found it suspicious. They question Jingmei about her finances, but she denies anything to do with the Kidnapped Girl. Yi Yong meanwhile, is let go since he didn’t steal anything.
Guang Yan had found a charm like the Kidnapped Girl’s hairpin, dangling off Jingmei’s daughter’s phone. The Kidnapped Girl didn’t give it to her, she found it at home and doesn’t let her mom see it.
Since the cops didn’t get anywhere, Yi Yong and Guang Yan go after Jingmmei with the power of the brush! Showing her the pictures of the Window Doll so that she can see her too. Jingmei is overwhelmed with memories and calls the police.
The police search the woods, with Chu Ying and the Shopkeeper there too. The body is found, and the Shopkeeper sobs over her while Window Doll watches.
Jingmei though, says she didn’t kill the Kidnapped Girl. She found her painting a cupboard in an abandoned building. She was upset the Kidnapped Girl didn’t give her hairpin to her daughter and locked her in the cupboard. She ran back from lunch to let her out, but the girl was dead.
Chu Ying reports this to the guys while the Window Doll listens. Chu Ying explains that jealousy was the motive, and Jingmei didn’t even realize she took the hairpin. Window Girl vanishes.
Yi Yong avoids calls from the Shopkeeper but goes to his mom. She talks to him about the weird burden of telling people about her suffering, but that it’s good for her heart.
Yi Yong goes to see the Shopkeeper, who wants to know what her doll looks like to him. He describes the appearance of the Window Doll. But the actual doll looks like her daughter when she was kidnapped. She never made any other versions.
Yi Yong realizes that the Window Doll wanted him to see her, and not the Kidnapped Girl.
The Shopkeeper confesses that she couldn’t imagine her daughter growing up, and it made her feel guilty and terrible. But when Yi Yong could see her, she realized her daughter was dead. She breaks down in front of him.
Yi Yong leaves a note saying it’s not her fault but the murderer’s fault she can’t see her daughter grow up. He also leaves a drawing of the Window Doll. The shopkeeper smiles.
Yi Yong is in his own bed when he gets up and starts to mix the ink, looking at the Window Doll.
Thoughts
The English subtitles could use work in a few places here and also I feel like I’m being a little dense on a few things.
First off, why is Yi Yong doing calligraphy in the coffee shop? He’s trying to write from the heart again — is he trying to bring forth the apparitions? Or is it about figuring out what’s weird about the coffee shop? I think it’s the former.
Yi Yong’s conversation with his mother about grief and sharing feels really powerful and I wish I understood it just a little better. I believe she’s talking about the awkward reactions of people when you share something terrible that happened to you, like it’s a burden on them, but that ultimately the sharing is good for you. It’s a complicated idea, so I understand it being hard to translate.
Finally, does the Shopkeeper realize Yi Yong is seeing apparitions? Does she think he’s seeing ghosts? And I think when the shopkeeper is smiling at the end there, she’s seeing Window Doll thanks to Yi Yong’s picture. She must be, right?
But these confusions aside, another really powerful episode. Is this the ugliest emotion we’ve seen become an apparition? The Zombie and Fedora Man were both these protective instincts on some level. The Tree Lady was companionship or maybe a longing for companionship. Window Doll is jealousy. No wonder she’s the angriest of them.
I thought the actress playing the Shopkeeper did a fantastic job of showing a mother’s raw grief and guilt in the scene with Yi Yong.
Even if the subtitles left something to be desired, Yi Yong going to his Mom for advice before seeing the Shopkeeper is the sweetest thing. He took one mom’s advice to unburden another’s because he does really care.
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Oh No! Here Comes Trouble is currently available in the US on iQIYI.