Name: See You in My 19th Life season 1 episode 9
Director: Lee Na-jung
Released: 2023-07-15T22:18:04

In the ninth episode of See You in My 19th Life, Ji-eum tries to convince Seo-ha that she was Ju-won in her past life and gives him time to come to terms with it. The episode is now streaming on Netflix.

Recap

When Ji-eum shares her secret with Seo-ha, he finds it hard to believe her, so she talks to him about Ju-won’s favorite book. She tells him that the key to the box that Ju-won gave him on his birthday is kept in that book.

She gives him a note and asks him to read it only after seeing the contents of the box. She leaves his house to give him time to accept the truth. Ji-eum then visits Cho-won and tells her about revealing the truth to Seo-ha as well as her experience of remembering her past lives.

While Ji-eum is prepared for the worst, she feels better after sharing her problems with Cho-won because, in all her other lives, she did not have anyone who would share her good and bad memories, but now she does.

Seo-ha does not look for the key immediately, but he does think about all the times when Ji-eum reminded him of Ju-won. Meanwhile, Ms. Jang tells Chairman Mun that Seo-ha is asking questions about the accident.

She adds that Director Lee seems to be anxious and that he might confess to Seo-ha that he ordered the accident. This is a problem for Chairman Mun but an opportunity for Ms. Jang, who tells him that she will take care of it.

Min-gi leaves the shaman bells in Ji-eum’s room, but she does not touch them and returns them to Min-gi. She does not want to remember her first life because it is not important right now; she is focusing on something that means a lot more to her.

Seo-ha finally goes to his father’s house to get the key. As Ji-eum had told him, he finds the key in Ju-won’s favorite book. Before he can open the box, Director Lee comes there, and Seo-ha hides it.

Seo-ha asks his uncle and his father if there is anything that they need to tell him. When they do not give him the answers that he needs, he leaves. He does not go back to get the box.

Do-yun comes to pick his brother up from a restaurant. His brother is drunk and pesters him to get him an ice cream. Cho-won sees the brothers together and thinks that Do-yun is being annoyed by a drunkard, so she comes to his rescue.

Do-yun wants Cho-won to stop talking about liking him because he is not going to date her. People humiliate him when he is seen with Seo-ha, and he quietly bears it, but that does not mean that he does not get hurt. He requests her to stop, and she leaves in tears.

Ji-eum waits for Seo-ha at the amusement park, but he does not show up. Seo-ha has not opened the box yet. At the same time, he cannot stop thinking or dreaming about Ju-won and Ji-eum.

Finally, the next day, he goes to his father’s house to get the box. Inside the box, he finds a book that has a story as well as illustrations. The book tells the story of Ju-won’s life and the loneliness that she felt in the endless cycle of death and rebirth.

While reading the story, Seo-ha suddenly remembers Ju-won’s last words. Before dying, she had told him that she wants to remember him in her next life and that she will come back to see him.

He then reads Ji-eum’s note. It says that if he believes her, she wants him to meet her at the place that Ju-won and Seo-ha could not visit on his birthday. Seo-ha does not think twice and goes to the amusement park, where Ji-eum is still waiting for him.

There, Ji-eum tells him that she would have kept waiting for him if he did not show up today as well. In her last life, she was killed because she was with him, so he apologizes to her now. Ji-eum replies that she as well as Ju-won wish for him to be happy.

Ji-eum and Seo-ha are now together with no secrets between them. However, Han-na and Min-gi discuss that Seo-ha will soon have issues and that this problem will end only if they become normal. The two of them decide to do what they can while they still have a chance.

Han-na asks Ji-eum to deliver a message to Ms. Jang. After talking about Ms. Jang’s history with Lee Sang-a, Seo-ha’s mother, Ji-eum tells her that Lee Sang-a has been watching her all along. She asks her to apologize to Seo-ha or Lee Sang-a will keep haunting her.

Ji-eum meets Han-na after that, and Han-na says that they should forge new relationships in every life. She leaves Ji-eum, but not without saying that she trusts Ji-eum to make the wise choice when the time comes.

Seo-ha confronts his uncle about the accident. Director Lee tells Seo-ha that he never tried to kill him. He wanted to hurt Chairman Mun, not Seo-ha, as he hated seeing Ms. Jang with him and that he neglected his sister, Lee Sang-a.

Even though Director Lee did not want to kill anyone, Seo-ha still asks him to turn himself in. If he fails to do that, Seo-ha will be forced to do it. Director Lee does what Seo-ha says; Ju-won and Do-yun’s father get justice years after their deaths.

Min-gi sends Ji-eum pictures of the place that Ji-eum remembered from her first life. She decides to go there, and Seo-ha joins her. Do-yun sees the pictures of that place on Ji-eum’s laptop.

At the same time, Cho-won seems to be in danger, as accidents keep occurring around her. Min-gi goes to Ji-eum’s room with the shaman bells when she is absent and rings the bells.

Seo-ha and Ji-eum get to the bridge where Ji-eum saw herself embracing Seo-ha in her first life, and she remembers what really happened. She was not embracing Seo-ha but stabbing him. As Min-gi keeps ringing the bells, she also remembers getting shot with an arrow.

Review

There are some beautifully shot scenes in this episode. Ji-eum being followed by all her reincarnations and Seo-ha coming to meet Ji-eum at the amusement park are scenes that will leave an impression.
The show keeps emphasizing that Ji-eum remembering her past lives is more of a burden than an advantage. The illustrations in Ju-won’s book highlight this point and bring out the darkness in Ji-eum’s existence in the most captivating way.
Seo-ha and Ji-eum getting together is not the end of their love story, but the episode still gave that scene enough attention that it might as well be the end. It was a satisfying reunion and definitely worth the wait.
However, the accident subplot had an anticlimactic end. The past few episodes had been focusing on this subplot, and they raised the expectations of the audience, but Seo-ha’s uncle confessed too easily, and it all came to an end in the blink of an eye.