Through darkness comes light, through fear comes love, and through pain comes triumph.” ― Lilly Atlas, Acer.
All predators are evil, but a sexual predator that preys on little girls is particularly heinous, because they somehow believe that what they’re doing isn’t wrong. They minimize the act and rationalize their behavior to avoid the guilt or even the acknowledgment. On the contrary, they probably feel like they are doing these little girls a service, especially the predator that kills after they perform their sexual act. It's unthinkable for me as a viewer to believe that such predators live among us, target our children every day.
That there are individuals out there, I can't call them human beings, because no human with heart can reduce a child to a vehicle for pleasure. I can only imagine how it must be for the detectives who live with the reality of its day, in and day out, who see and know the gruesome reality of these types of crimes, and worse, the toll it takes to solve them. The terror and almost emptiness in Song Ha Young's eyes convey the extent and length to which he believes he must go to solve the heinous crimes he confronts as a criminal behavior analyst. I could almost feel the depth of that pain when he interviewed the criminal that dismembered his girlfriend. One must seem as devoid of emotions as possible to calmly interact with a monster who doesn't feel remorse or guilt for what he has done.
When I found Kim So Jin was going to be part of the Through the Darkness drama team, I was excited, especially since she doesn't star in dramas much. She doesn't disappoint in her role as Yoon Tae Goo, a female team lead of Mobile Investigation Unit at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency in the early 2000s. It must not have been easy to try and assert herself in the world of men. I loved the intensity she brings to the character and the relatability as she struggles to assert herself in a period where man dominated. It explained her aggressive defense of her authority towards Ha Young and the criminal behavior analysis team, all men as the lead investigator in the little girl's kidnapping and murder case.
I knew that as sharp as Tae Goo was, she would sooner than later realize the benefit of working with the behavior analysis team, together they were much stronger than working apart. What affected me most as I watched the events of the second week of the drama unfold is how Kook Young Soo, Yoon Tae Goo, Jung Woo Joo (Ryeoun), Choi Yoon Ji (Gong Sung Ha), the reporter, and particularly Song Ha Young struggle to come to terms with the senseless abuse and murder of an innocent life. I would be remiss not to mention Kim Nam Gil's brilliance in the role of a man and police officer who feels too much, so much so that he distances himself from everyone as a way to cope. The scenes where the team desperately searches for the missing girl's missing fingers, and when Ha Young wishes in his sleep, where he could've puffed Lee Soo Hyun's (Noh Ha Yeon) killer away before he committed the most atrocious act against, was especially touching. I like that he doesn't fit nor does he try to fit.
It’s unconscionable, but every year, thousands of children become victims of crimes—whether it’s through kidnappings, violent attacks, sexual abuse, or online predators, as quoted by the FBI. Through the Darkness, and in particular Song Ha Young, I realized, what he already knew, that culture and society contribute greatly to criminality, but is not the main reason why serial predators do what they do. In my opinion, the true issues lie in the voidness of humanity, the lack of heart, because as most criminalists say, all abusive behavior flows from a hard heart, from one choice that leads to many, many choices until the conscience is seared and no longer in operation. Still, it doesn't dispute that predators exist, and the only way to get ahead of them is to try and understand them. Watch episode 3 & 4 here.