100 Days of Deception Episode 9 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Kim You-jung as Lee Ga-kyung
Park Jin-young as Kim Tae-ung (Sato Hideo)
Kim Hyun-joo as Yoo So-ran
Lee Mu-saeng as Yoo Philip
Jin Sun-kyu as Sato Shinichi

The plan and the papers for America

Yoo So-ran walks the Gugukdan, the independence group she works for, through its next operation. It centers on the opening of the pneumatic tube system, the message tubes newly built into the Government-General, the Japanese colonial administration in Gyeongseong (Seoul). So-ran and Yoo Philip will attend. So will Kim Myung-nam, invited with her father, and Songjeon, who has passed the background check for a kitchen job as a Japanese man. So-ran is to assemble three smuggled bombs in the ladies' room. While the ceremony runs in the first-floor tube room, Songjeon will trigger the fire alarm to create a distraction for the guests in the banquet hall upstairs, and So-ran will hide a bomb in the flowers on the stage. It is timed to go off during the toast of the Governor-General, the highest Japanese official in Korea.

Lee Ga-kyung arrives late, and So-ran hands her an identity guarantee letter: she leaves for America the next night. Under her cover name, Keum Seo-hee, she will travel as the nanny for the baby of an American missionary family, the Millers. Philip has had the paper notarized at the U.S. Consulate. There is a catch: she must leave America within 30 days, so after San Francisco she will be on her own and staying illegally. Ga-kyung tells So-ran not to worry about her.

Hideo on the street

Over drinks, Sato Shinichi, the Inspector General, hears about a week of raids in Keijo, the Japanese name for Gyeongseong. They have netted six independence fighters and 57 suspects. He sends the geisha away and asks about Keum Seok-jung's wife. The search around Kyeam-ri, the village burned in 1919, goes on. He orders his men to learn whether she is alive and how, or how she died, so that no loose ends remain.

Shinichi's voice reminds his adopted son, Kim Tae-ung, who lives as Sato Hideo, that no one forced him to become Japanese and that he owes his father gratitude. On a street, a Japanese man is beating Joseon (Korean) street kids for supposedly stealing and splashing his clothes. Hideo calls out to him. Taking Hideo for a Joseon man, the man starts to say that such people stink like animals however well they clean up. Hideo knocks him down and punches him again and again, demanding he repeat it.

An officer orders Hideo to stop or be shot. Hideo dares him to fire, saying shooting is what his kind do best. The beaten man urges Officer Kimura to kill him. Instead, Hideo asks the officer's name and tells the officer to contact him at the Government-General, not the residence. Once someone identifies him as the Inspector General's son, the men beg his forgiveness and swear their respect for Shinichi.

The night before

At the Sato residence, Shinichi hears that Hideo has not come home and brushes off fears that his pneumothorax, a collapsed lung, is back.

At the Yoo house, Philip gives So-ran a gift for the banquet. He reminds her that she once meant to kill herself after killing Shinichi. Then he confesses that his feelings for her have always been real, even though their marriage is a cover. So-ran apologizes. He says he understands, but asks her not to think of dying, since a time bomb leaves her a way out. She says she is worn out and reminds him of her request to be cremated in hanbok, traditional Korean dress. Philip promises that if they fail, he will never let her get hurt.

So-ran gives Ga-kyung a bag for her things. Once the operation is done, even if the plan goes wrong, Ga-kyung is to head straight for Gyeongseong Station, then on to Incheon for the morning boat. Ga-kyung asks what So-ran will do afterward, and So-ran admits she has never thought about it. Before bed, Ga-kyung, who calls her madam, tells her everything will go fine.

Elsewhere, Lee Young-bok warns Myung-nam that she could fall under suspicion after the operation. Myung-nam says she is ready. She once followed him when he kept slipping out alone, thinking he had a lover, and found the Gugukdan instead. Young-bok, who calls her miss, begs her not to marry and asks her to leave for Shanghai with him once it is over.

Songjeon shares rice balls with a friend, who made them because Songjeon once said his mother's were his favorite. Songjeon recalls how he lost his whole family when the earthquake hit, and how his friend saved him from a vigilante group by saying he was Japanese. When Songjeon asks for kimchi, the friend calls him Mr. Matsuda and warns him not to blow his cover.

The day of the ceremony

At the Government-General the next morning, a superior mentions that the French technician praised Ga-kyung's English and asks where she learned it. She says she picked it up as a girl, working as a live-in maid for foreign families. He also asks whether the subversive she interpreted for at Jongno Police Station was named Keum Seok-jung. When she says nerves kept her from remembering, he presses her. He then assigns her to interpret for the foreign reporters at the ceremony, because Interpreter Sato has called in sick.

At Hideo's empty desk, Ga-kyung thinks that she will leave without seeing him and that she wanted to help him find his mother. She leaves the pawn ticket on the desk, the receipt tied to his search for his adoptive mother. Later, Myung-nam tells Ga-kyung she envies her for being free to leave Joseon. Ga-kyung answers that she envies Myung-nam too, for having someone good at her side.

In the banquet hall, guests praise Kim Seung-eok, Myung-nam's father, for his huge donation to the tube project and his new family tie to the Inspector General. Shinichi welcomes Philip and So-ran, and tells So-ran he is sorry about what happened to her baby. Once Ga-kyung arrives, it is announced that Ms. Keum is to interpret for the foreign reporters. So-ran says Seo-hee's skills are still limited and suggests Mr. Hideo instead, but Shinichi says Hideo called in sick. Then So-ran's button comes off. Ga-kyung asks to take her to the office for the sewing kit, and Philip offers to interpret in Ga-kyung's place.

Shinichi is asking where Hideo is when his son walks in, greeting the guests loudly and hailing the father he respects above all others. When Mr. Kim calls Myung-nam over, Hideo agrees they make a lovely couple. The fathers arranged it, he says, and he only does as he is told. He jokes about baby names until he is told he has had too much to drink. When Shinichi rebukes him by his full name, Hideo answers that he does not need reminding what his name is. Shinichi says they will discuss the consequences after the banquet.

On his way to the banquet, Fukuda, the police chief, runs into Hideo and says he secured the grounds only to find the trouble inside. When Fukuda calls him Hideo, Hideo demands to be called Mr. Sato and swears at him. Fukuda answers, "You and I are both Japan's dogs," and tells him they should not bite each other.

A confession in the office

In Hideo's office, Ga-kyung notices that So-ran is wearing earrings and asks whether Mr. Yoo bought them. She tells So-ran the office is a better place than the restroom to assemble the bombs. When Hideo knocks at the locked door, Ga-kyung calls out that she is sewing Mrs. Yoo's button. So-ran pleads for time to finish one more.

Mr. Kim insists on seeing his future son-in-law's office, though Myung-nam tries to stop him. So-ran is introduced as the wife of Yoo Philip, a correspondent for WWP News, there to have a button fixed. Ga-kyung introduces herself as his trainee interpreter. Mr. Kim remarks that a man and a woman sharing an office is a little improper and has Myung-nam take Hideo's arm. As a favor from Shinichi, he has also arranged for her to attend the ceremony in the cramped tube room. Myung-nam pleads that tight spaces make her uneasy, but when asked whether she has business in the banquet hall, she gives in.

Alone with Hideo, Ga-kyung notices his lips and asks whether he has been drinking. He snaps that she must take him for a pathetic drunk picking fights after his father scolded him. She apologizes for prying and turns to go. Hideo stops her with the pawn ticket and asks whether she is going away or wants nothing more to do with him. Ga-kyung says it is time to give it back and that they each have their own road. She thanks him for everything.

Then she tells him she liked him, the man he was as Kim Tae-ung, and that is why she kept getting involved. Hideo answers with his Japanese name, Sato Hideo. "I'm not Kim Tae-ung," he says.

The fire alarm and the flowers

In the tube room, the ceremony ends as planned. The Governor-General receives the first delivery through the tube, a congratulatory letter from Prime Minister Inukai sent from the Keijo Post Office. On that cue, Ga-kyung phones the kitchen with a coded message that the guests must be thirsty. Someone in the kitchen shouts fire and the alarm rings. Officials calm the banquet guests with word of a false alarm.

A guest questions So-ran about her years in Shanghai and keeps pressing for where she lived. A woman interrupts and orders a secretary named Maruyama to remove the flowers at once, because roses give the Governor-General hay fever. The arrangement meant to hide the bomb is carried off the stage.

In a corridor, Ga-kyung finds the flowers set outside and takes the bomb. She runs into kitchen staff wheeling in an enormous cake, held up by the fire alarm. The Governor-General has not arrived yet. Word passes that the "gift" is now in the cake, set to go off at 6:20 p.m., with a warning to get as far away as possible.

The Governor-General arrives and declares Joseon's first pneumatic tube system open on May 15, 1932. He calls it a step toward Manchukuo, Japan's new state in Manchuria. He calls Interpreter Sato up to put his speech into English, and Hideo takes his place beside him, close to the bomb. Then the Governor-General invites Hideo to stay for the toast. As the glasses rise, the warning about 6:20 p.m. sounds again, and Ga-kyung watches in terror as the hall calls out cheers.

Up next: 100 Days of Deception Episode 10 Recap. See every episode in the 100 Days of Deception episode guide.