Abhiroop Das
Helmed by Lee Jung-hyo, Netflix’s ‘The Price of Confession,’ originally titled ‘Jabaegui Daega,’ is a Korean mystery thriller series that intertwines the lives of two strangers in a saga of crime without punishment, and punishment without crime. When An Yun-su’s husband, Ki-dae, is found murdered in his art studio, all evidence seemingly points to her being the culprit. All her desperate pleas of innocence go unheard as she is sent to prison, where a chance encounter with a killer, named Mo Eun, changes her future forever. The latter has a unique proposal in mind: she can take credit for Ki-dae’s murder if Yun-su promises to finish the job Mo Eun started, with one final murder. Although hesitant to potentially jeopardize her life, Yun-su realizes that her options are sorely limited and plunges headfirst into the world of darkness. SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Price of Confession Plot Recap
‘The Price of Confession’ begins with An Yun-su tying the knot with Lee Ki-dae, before flashing forward to a scene of pure horror, as Ki-dae lies in a pool of blood, slowly dying in the arms of his wife. As the police begin their investigations, they learn that Ki-dae was having an affair, and that brings their suspicion to Yun-su. Before long, prosecutor Baek Dong-hun enters the scene, unearthing evidence that directly implicates Yun-su. Her arrest and subsequent incarceration make national headlines, drawing the attention of another killer, named Mo Eun. She has just poisoned a dentist couple to death, and when the police arrive, she shows no resistance to being arrested. Upon being imprisoned in the same detention center, Mo Eun arranges solitary confinement for herself right next to Yun-su, and the duo begin to converse through the walls.
Mo Eun, as it turns out, has a very specific proposal in mind. She promises to take the blame for Ki-dae’s murder, essentially allowing Yun-su to walk free, in return for the latter to murder the dentist couple’s teenage son, Se-hun. While the deal is immensely risky, it is still Yun-su’s only way out, especially since she has to find her husband’s real killer. With the plan now in place, she only has a few days to track Se-hun down. However, just when she manages to pin the teenager to the ground, she hesitates and instead spares his life under the promise that he will go into hiding. To her utter surprise, Se-hun is found dead not long after, and all the evidence once again points to her being the killer. With no way of walking out of this situation, she makes her escape, narrowly avoiding the police at several turns. Meanwhile, Baek Dong-hun tightens his grip on the investigation, only to find more and more clues of foul play.
With not many places left to hide, Yun-su realizes that the only way out of this crisis is by going on the offensive. To that end, she uploads a public confession, lying about murdering her husband while also claiming to have evidence that clears her name in Se-hun’s murder. The plan is to rile up the real killers, but before she can make any progress, she is ambushed by Se-hun’s grandfather, Dong-uk, who threatens to kill her in search of answers. Meanwhile, Mo Eun breaks out of prison and finds her way to Dong-uk, saving Yun-su’s life and escaping with her once again. However, amidst the entire chaos, Yun-su, Mo Eun, and Baek Dong-hun independently figure out who the real killers are in both murder cases, and a final faceoff awaits.
The Price of Confession Ending: Who Killed Yun-su’s Husband? Is Choi Su-yeon the Murderer?
‘The Price of Confession’ ends by revealing Lee Ki-dae’s murderer to be none other than Choi Su-yeon, who is the wife of Mo Eun’s lawyer, Jin Young-in. Although on the surface, Su-yeon, a cellist by profession, appears to have no connection to Yun-su’s husband, a closer look reveals that they met each other through art. Ki-dae, a professor at Hongseo University, evaluated one of the paintings donated by Su-yeon, determining it to be a plagiarized work. This allegation infuriated both Su-yeon and her husband to no end, leading to weeks of aggressive back-and-forths between them and Ki-dae. On the fateful day of his death, it was Su-yeon and Young-in who barged into his studio, demanding an apology. When he refused, a rage-fueled Su-yeon impulsively attacked him with a glass bottle, before using a carving knife from the studio to finish the job.
It is important to note that this entire murder scene, as depicted in the final moments of the show, is a visualization exercise on the part of prosecutor Baek Dong-hun. The scene essentially mirrors his interrogation of Yun-su at the start of the movie, where he believed her to be the killer. In those scenes, he imagined a similar scenario, this time with Yun-su as the murderer. Given how she is ultimately proven to be innocent, Dong-hun’s assessment of Su-yeon is coloured with uncertainty. However, the other pieces of evidence sprinkled throughout the narrative very clearly point to Su-yeon being the murderer, with Young-in serving as her accomplice. In the flashback, we learn that it was Young-in who covered up his wife’s tracks and planted fake evidence, while Su-yeon escaped in a hooded attire, briefly locking eyes with Yun-su. The mysterious hooded stalker, as such, is confirmed to be Su-yeon.
While much of Yun-su’s personal investigation into her husband’s murder winds up being a failure, she finds her breakthrough in the Hongseo University memorial exhibition, which is dedicated to Lee Ki-dae. Thus, the setting operates on a symbolic level, presenting all the necessary clues to her in one platter. First, she figures out that Jin Young-in, whom she knows as Mo Eun’s lawyer, was secretly connected to her husband. Next, she learns that the painting in conflict, which she had only heard about in passing, was indeed donated by Young-in and his wife. The final nail in the coffin is when she comes face to face with Su-yeon once again, immediately recognizing her eyes as the killer’s. Yun-su’s real genius, however, is in how she communicates her conclusions to prosecutor Dong-hun by intentionally placing herself in front of a CCTV camera in specific locations, guiding him to every piece in the puzzle when he recreates her trail and solves the case.
Who Killed Se-hun? What Happens to the Killer?
Lee Ki-dae’s case constitutes just one half of this murder mystery narrative, as the other is the inexplicable killing of Se-hun, the son of the dentist couple previously murdered by Mo Eun. In the end, we learn that Se-hun was killed by Mo Eun’s lawyer, Jin Young-in, a short while after Yun-su spared the teenager’s life. Although she specifically instructed Se-hun to go into hiding to save his life, he paid little heed to her advice and immediately went back to playing video games. Not long after, he was ambushed by a hooded figure yet again, this time fatally. Notably, his home’s security camera captured the entire event, revealing the murderer to be none other than Young-in. The lawyer then ended up using the footage to his advantage, cropping it in a way that made Yun-su look guilty of the murder. After clicking a picture of Se-hun’s mutilated body, Young-in pushed him into the freezer, letting Yun-su take the fall yet again.
Although Young-in has no personal vendetta against Se-hun, killing him strengthens the larger plan against Yun-su. The lawyer’s involvement in Lee Ki-dae’s murder recontextualizes his decision to defend Mo Eun in the first place. As her lawyer, he has access to all communication between her and Yun-su, and quickly gathers their plan to kill Se-hun. One-upping both of them, he lands the killing blow himself and even delivers a picture to Mo Eun, claiming that it came from Yun-su. While his idea is to kill two birds with one stone, he fails to anticipate the two accomplices meeting each other outside of prison. Here, Yun-su’s lie falls apart, and Mo Eun realizes that the picture she saw was not sent by Yun-su in the first place. With this, all evidence leads to Young-in pulling the strings from behind.
In the finale’s climactic showdown, Young-in is confronted by Yun-su and Mo Eun at the studio, where he confesses to both the murder of Ki-dae and Se-hun. However, that is a mere farce, as his real intention is to kill both the women and erase all evidence of his crime. He nearly succeeds in this plan, overpowering Mo Eun and holding her at knife-point. However, in the critical moment, Mo Eun makes the bold decision of stabbing herself, confusing Young-in for just long enough for her to take control of the weapon. With surgical precision, she then stabs him straight in the heart, leading to an instant death. Young-in is posthumously found guilty of the murder of Se-hun, but as he took his wife’s blame onto himself before death, the Ki-dae case remains muddled as ever. However, this time, Dong-hun vows to right his wrongs and is more prepared than ever to bring So-yeon to justice alongside her husband.
Why Did Mo Eun Want Se-hun Dead?
Mo Eun’s obsession with killing Se-hun, even if vicariously, contrasts with her cold, calculated self that we are familiar with. Due to this, both Yun-su and prosecutor Dong-hun realize that she is driven by revenge, and not a psychopathic killing instinct as claimed by the media. As it turns out, Mo Eun’s real identity is Kang So-hae, and her sister, So-mang, was sexually assaulted by Se-hun. He recorded the assault and leaked it online, and while he was arrested for this crime, he walked away with only probation. Devastated by this incident, both So-mang and her father took their own lives. At that time, So-hae was working as a medic in rural Thailand and was quarantined after contracting COVID-19. Her failure to help her sister is what pushed her to the brink, following which, she vowed revenge on Se-hun.
While in Thailand, So-hae had befriended a Korean woman named Mo Eun, who claimed to have no family back home. Based on the visual hints, it is apparent that she had escaped a dark life, and her time with So-hae brought forth a second chance at life. However, things changed with the news of So-mang’s passing, as not long after, Mo Eun was fatally affected by the virus as well. In her dying moments, she decided to contribute to So-hae’s plan by swapping identities with her. To fulfill the plan, So-hae placed Mo Eun in a car before burning it down, framing it as her own suicide. Donning Mo Eun’s identity, she made her way back to Korea, where she then worked as a chef for Se-hun’s family for over half a year. In light of this, the dentist couple’s murder is framed as Mo Eun recreating the same pain she felt from the loss of her family, and Se-hun’s death later in the story serves as a full stop to her arc of vengeance. From there, her face-off with Young-in turns into a race to save Yun-su.
Does Mo Eun Live or Die? Does Yun-su Walk Free?
In the final sequence, Mo Eun sacrifices herself to save Yun-su’s life from Young-in. While the lawyer has no real vendetta against Mo Eun, her association with Yun-su makes her his enemy as well. By the end, Young-in has a knife to Mo Eun’s throat, but is momentarily distracted by Dong-hun’s arrival on the scene, along with the police. Mo Eun uses that opportunity to her advantage, forcibly making him stab her in the stomach, which then helps her counter with a killing blow to his chest. However, the injury to her own body is just as fatal, and right after, she falls to the ground in Yun-su’s arms. While the latter is unable to understand why Mo Eun went to such drastic lengths to protect her life, this speaks to Mo Eun’s innate desire to save, rather than end lives, as Dong-hun had proclaimed earlier in the series. Having entirely devoted herself to revenge, Mo Eun had chosen a path of darkness, and her final act was to let Yun-su have a brighter future in her stead.
In the aftermath of Mo Eun and Young-in’s deaths, all charges of murder against them are dropped. However, in light of her attempted murder of Se-hun, she is sentenced to two years in prison, which is to come into effect in three years. Her story as a survivor is a direct contributor to this lighter sentence, and in the end, we see her finally regain her freedom. In memory of Mo Eun, she decides to take Sop, her daughter, on a trip to Thailand, revisiting the Anothai Ayama Border Patrol Academy, where Mo Eun worked. While recalling her time as a medic, she once remembered the only point in the village with network connectivity. In the present, Yun-su walks up to that exact location, placing Mo Eun’s watch at its final resting place. This comes as closure to their dynamic as two kindred spirits who grow past their trauma.
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