I have just discovered I did not write a review for Blind, despite it being one of my favorite dramas in 2022. It’s got everything I love. Siblings with strained relationships but a deep connection, gruesome murders, and unfolding mysteries linked to secret atrocities that are slowly revealed. I thoroughly enjoyed every episode and am gonna run you through the general set up for it – and what happens in the first episode (so spoilers for the first episode follow!)

Blind opens to a group of young boys, elementary to middle school aged, in matching dirty uniforms running through the woods as vicious dogs chase them down through the night. These boys are terrified and desperate. It’s clear they are running from more than just the dogs… but a horrible situation. 

One of the boys gets his foot caught in a bear trap. Another boy is waiving down a car for help only to be run down on the road. Savagely the drivers put the car in reverse, running over the kid a second time, ensuring his death. Those who are uninjured are quickly surrounded and trapped, their escape attempt thwarted. A man the boys call Crazy Dog narrows in on them, whistling an eerie tune.

– and the scene closes on a child’s wide eyes before it cuts away… to an equally horrifying scene in present day 2022.

A young lady is kidnapped off the streets and wakes up in a plastic lined room tied to a chair (never a good scene). She is strangled by an unknown man… who is whistling the same creepy tune as Crazy Dog. 

Back at home her parents await her return, hanging up balloons, the entire house decorated for the young lady’s birthday. She will never come home.

The stage is set.

The basic mystery presented: 

Who were the children? And where were they? Did any of them escape? Who is the person that murdered the young lady? Is he connected to the man that was hunting the children in the first scene? Is it the same man?

I was riveted and hooked after 15 minutes. 

We meet our main character, Sung Jun (Taecyeon), in the next scene. He is a cop amongst the crew called out when the girls body is discovered on the outskirts of town. 

Sung Jun’s older brother Sung Hoon (Ha Seok Jin), is a judge. But not just any judge, he’s a righteous man known for his unfailing devotion to fairness. He eats alone, he refuses to take any bribes, and won’t even help a family member who got into trouble. The law is just in his eyes. It is only people who are fallible.

We learn quickly that both parents seem to loathe their police officer son while they dote on their judge son. It is not a happy home.

We learn the two brothers live together. That the cop brother has a history of violence and was often in fights as a youth. The judge implicates maybe he became a cop to continue a life of violence, and the suggestion clearly upsets the police officer.

Big brother judge is overseeing the murder trial of the girl strangled, now nicknamed  “Joker’s Murder Case,” because of the wounds on her face. The suspect was caught in a security camera threatening the victim with a knife… but he claims another man was involved – our young police officer! Could the judge’s suspicions be true?

The show flashes back once again to the young boys hiding in fear from the opening scene. The whistling man who is hunting them is finally revealed… It is the father of the young woman who’s been murdered. And as the camera pans in on one of the young boys, it cuts back to modern day – to our police officer.

Are they same?!

Was the murder truly an act of retribution? For whatever horrible things were obviously happening with those boys???

Ya’ll. I had to know. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere until I’d burned through this entire show and binged it all over the weekend.

Overall Rating: 9/10 – A Dark Murder Mystery About the Dark Side of Humanity.

Read on for some very mild spoilers… and the connection of this show to true events

What’s really disturbing is that this drama is roughly based on real forced labor camps that existed in South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. The Brothers’ Home is one such facility which held thousands of people captive, including children, who were forced to work in multiple factories. Apparently torture and death were commonplace at these places. 

As this show illustrates, such large facilities were impossible to keep totally secret. Many people knew about it, in one way or another. Common people turned a blind eye to the horrors of what was happening there.

Thus the show title.

The human capacity to compartmentalize things is truly fascinating. 

Organized crime such as this involves many parties, playing various roles. Most of them were able to deny or stay willfully ignorant of the bigger picture. This does not necessarily lessen their guilt, but there’s a reason the stories are always about the king pins or the individuals at the top of the pyramid who wield the most power (and wealth). 

This show is careful and crafty in showing the levels of corruption that keep such a system in place. Though the crazy dog seems the most brutal, he is merely an employee working for someone higher. Someone who is able to bribe or manipulate others in high positions of power.

Shows like this that feature someone (or several people) nurturing a life-long grudge due to trauma… well, it can be tricky business. Cause everyone processes trauma differently, because people are complex. I thought this show did a particularly good job of allowing us to see variety with how the young boys had grown up and dealt with their pasts, whether in positive or negative ways.

It was a nice touch to add a social worker in as the third lead, working with all the various characters at different times, her even personality and unique perspective a much needed balance in the drama. She is accustomed to working with children and young adults with troubled pasts. She recognizes their contradictory behavior patterns and struggles with opening up. And I liked that though there was some very, very mild flirting (possibly) between her and our cutie cop, this was not a love story in any way.

This is a story about how people live with the things they’ve been through or the things they’ve done. It’s a story about justice and how it’s nearly impossible to achieve. It’s a story about the stories we tell ourselves and how those narratives can trap us and warp our realities. And it’s really, really good.