“Sisyphus: The Myth” Ending Explained: Episode 16 Recap

Published Categorized as Kdrama Recaps
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“Sisyphus: The Myth” has ended its run last night, but many fans found themselves confused about its ending, so what just happened in “Sisyphus: The Myth” episode 16?

Today, I am here to recap “Sisyphus: The Myth” episode 16 and explain the ending of the drama.

Note: below is a recap of the key moments of “Sisyphus: The Myth” episode 16, its not a scene by scene recap

“Sisyphus: The Myth” episode 16 recap

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Mr. Park is going upstairs to his old house, he’s carrying a gun, Bingbing tries to stop him and he aims the gun at her telling her to leave. However, she ends up admitting that she’s his daughter and confesses she didn’t tell him because she’d hated him. She begs him not to go inside and do anything bad because nothing happened that day anyways. He begins to also fade away as he tells his daughter, he wouldn’t have come back in time if he hadn’t killed anybody, so ultimately, he didn’t.

At the church- the 1st time

Sigma has held Han Tae Sul and Seo Hae captive, he’s holding a gun and surrounded by his men saying he won again. He hands Tae Sul the laptop and tells him to code the uploader or else he’ll shoot his lover, he makes him choose again between his lover and the world.

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However, Han Tae Sul is many steps ahead of him. He says he won’t do it and asks Seo Hae to follow his lead from now and just ‘trust him.’ He begins to stall time and says he’s already won this time, Han Tae Sul asks Sigma about the time he hid in the park and almost committed suicide. Sigma starts to panic when Han Tae Sul starts to fade and glitch signaling that the future has changed.

Sigma gets a phone call and the caller doesn’t say anything but after that, the uploader stops working and he can hear the machines are shutting down.

He attempts to shoot Seo Hae but he starts to glitch and fade as well, she beats him. But he goes on top of her and begins to strangle her before he fades away. Luckily, someone from the upper deck of the church shoots him twice, he’s dead.

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Immediately after this happened, Han Tae Sul tells Seo Hae they need to ride the uploader, so they leave in a rush. Eddie shows up at the uploader site all worried and calling someone but he leaves. Then, the Asian Mart gang appears, they help them ride the uploader after Han Tae Sul works the code slightly to make it work one last time.

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Before he leaves, he asks for a bullet proof vest from one of the boys and Mr. Park whispers something to him.

The day Seo Hae was locked in the bunker

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They land safely and Seo Hae is upset he’s lying to her and keeping stuff from her. He’s actually held her captive in the bunker to save her. The control bureau won’t come cause they’re busy searching for her.

He excuses himself to go pee.

He then comes back and they leave. They catch Seo Hae’s dad at the station and ask for his help. They ask him to track down a man named Seo Gil Bok [Sigma] and do whatever he wants with him. Han Tae Sul also asks him to call a number, some strange guy will answer, he can ignore that and then hang up the phone.

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The father daughter get one final hug.

The couple then goes back to the Asian mart. Han Tae Sul asks for guns and ammunition. He also whispers to Mr. Park what his future self has told him, he says ‘your daughter is right next to you, but you’ve been wasting time without recognizing her. You can stop now, its okay.’

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Night-time is here, Han Tae Sul says somebody should be here by now, turns out, Jae Sun is alive and well.

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When Han Tae Sul had gone to the bathroom after they traveled back in time, he actually went to hand in the bullet proof vest to Jae Sun and told him to keep it a secret from Seo Hae and get shot in her steed. Seo Hae is very upset and kinda beats him but ends up hugging him happy he’s alive and well.

Jae Sun takes them to the church and now its repeated. Their old selves are in the same situation they were in at the beginning of this episode. Han Tae Sul and Seo Hae go up to the second floor and prepare their guns to shoot Sigma. They shoot him at the right time.

Meanwhile, Seo Hae’s dad finds Sigma’s younger self from that time, he’s bruised and covered in blood. They ran a search party for him and found him at the park. The police officer instead offers him his jacket because Sigma was freezing.

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In the church, the couple shoot Sigma. While the couple from that specific time run away from the church, this couple goes down and sees that Sigma has also disappeared because the future events never happened.

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Seo Hae also begins to disappear, the couple cries as they dread their goodbyes, they kiss and they hold each other tight.

But she doesn’t disappear.

Eddie shows up and shoots her. He throws the laptop at him and tells him to code the uploader. He rants about how he’s had to do all the dirty work for Han Tae Sul and how all of this is supposed to be his. He was always his sidekick. He wants to go back in time and steal everything from him, his company and his girl.

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Han Tae Sul is handed the laptop and begins to try and convince Seo Hae that they should go back in time again and try it out. Seo Hae is in deep pain and is crying her eyes out, she begs him to stop and not to code it. This is how they could avoid the war.

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He starts coding and the uploader machine almost starts working and the police at the park sees the missiles in the sky. However, Seo Hae signals him no again, he sees the gun and runs to grab it. He points it at Eddie. He tells Seo Hae that he’s always been buying time knowing well how its supposed to end. He wanted to be with her, he shoots himself thus putting an end to everything.

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Everything goes back to normal.

Tae Sun is alive. Young Seo Hae is also okay with her parents during this timeline.

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Meanwhile, the older Seo Hae is crying on Han Tae Sul’s body. She also disappears.

At the airplane

We go back to the start time, the first scene of the first episode of the drama. A man is complaining about his ramyun. Meanwhile, Han Tae Sul is sitting and next to him is Seo Hae. Seo Hae is asking him about the menu and he looks at her lovingly. He then tosses his medicine away and lays his head on her shoulder. The entire airplane feels empty but them in it.

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Meanwhile, Sigma’s life has turned around. He’s at the park drawing a kid’s face. When he goes back home, we learn that he’s still obsessed with Han Tae Sul. He pulls out a notebook with information about time travel written on it. He goes to the mirror, he is wearing similar attire to Han Tae Sul’s cover, he also puts on glasses.

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The end.


“Sisyphus: The Myth” ending explained

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The way to explain “Sisyphus: The Myth” ending is simple.

It is basically a paradox within itself. Its about past events that can’t occur without the future events occurring as well. Han Tae Sul had to stop Sigma from becoming that using Seo Hae’s father help. The phone call Han Tae Sul asks him to make when he goes back to the past is the signal that his future self had gone to see him. Its the signal that tells Han Tae Sul their plan to stop Sigma once and for all is going to work as planned which is why he can already tell sigma wasn’t going to win at the church this time.

However, why did Eddie show up?

The exact reason why is unknown but remember the moment Eddie had gone to the uploader and how the couple avoided him? It appears that he was aware of the church incident and ran there after finding out the uploader wasn’t going to be made.

In a way, Eddie’s actions was going to lead him to take over Sigma’s role in his place.

The moment Han Tae Sul killed himself [the future self] was the moment a new timeline was created and the world was saved. Han Tae Sul knew the only way to stop it was to kill himself or wait it out watching Seo Hae die, he didn’t bear to see Seo Hae disappear before him. He knows he must choose the world over her and he does that this time.

The events of the first half of the episode are intertwined with the second half as its repeated from a different perspective.

But how can Han Tae Sul still remember everything and sees Seo Hae?

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During the original timeline, at the first episode, we’re brought back to ground zero. Due to the paradox, Han Tae Sul is now aware his brother is safe but also remembers all the events. Seo Hae isn’t actually there and she isn’t actually real, she is a hallucination, a fragment of his imagination.

He is still taking medication which signals he knew of what could’ve happened and has relieved the moments over and over again. He refuses to take his medication and settles to see Seo Hae. The airplane scene then shows how the other passengers disappear.

This could mean that Han Tae Sul is so deep into hallucinating that all he sees is his Seo Hae. The passengers didn’t disappear but in his mind, they did. All he wants is to spend time with Seo Hae.

But what about Sigma?

Sigma was indeed saved and didn’t become that monster, however, he still hates Han Tae Sul and tries to copy him. IF you’re asking ‘then how does he have this notebook with all the information on it about time travel?’ It is most probably the notebook of Seo Hae’s father. Remember, he saved him and gave him his jacket, the notebook could’ve been what was in his jacket.

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Sigma will continue to live in an illusion thinking that someday the future him might him and change the world or not. He is still crazy.

So this was “Sisyphus: The Myth” episode 16 recap and “Sisyphus: The Myth” ending explained. What are your thoughts on the ending? Did you like it?

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By Jass K.

Hi, I am Jass k. I discuss some of the hottest currently airing kdramas on this site in form of reviews an/or recaps, join me in the discussion~

44 comments

  1. So the in that case, the airplane scene was the new timeline where there will be no war and Han Tae Sul didn’t make the uploader, am I right? This is so . Adult Gang Seo Hae and Han Tae Sul won’t really be together as lovers…

    1. In every timeline there will always be a sigma, even if its not that guy(forgot his name) someone somewhere would want to do the same. Tae Sul will still have to finish the uploader code regardless. the only option is to kill himself. every. time. this is the time paradox unfortunately. The future cannot be changed, unless something irreversible happens (someone dying is the best example) then the future will always contort itself to have the same result, even if there has to be a few detours.

  2. I am still puzzled right now. Can someone help me and explain to me, how come So Hae did not disappear when the time they hug each other? They did shot sigma, so I think So Hae would disappear too, but she didnt, she just disappeared when Tae Sul shot him self. Please explain this scene first before I fix the other scene. haha lols

    1. she didn’t disappear because eddy took sigmas place. if Tae Sul ended up finishing the uploader, eddy would have become the new sigma and would have done similar things. the reason it happens like that is again because of the time paradox, the future will always be the same, unless something drastic that cannot be reversed happens. Tae Sul realises this and that’s why he offed himself, because even if they somehow defeated eddy, someone else would have taken his place and the cycle would have continued because if he stayed alive, one way or another he would have to complete the code simply because he is alive. He would always be given that ultimatum of the girl or the world whether its by eddy or someone else. Once he killed himself, the uploader had zero chance of being completed, thus the world was back to normal and every person from the future disappears, and Tae Sul’s ‘soul’ or his memories, sort of ‘transferred’ to a different timeline where sigma does not exist, or doesn’t exist yet. and because sigma does not exist, future seo hae also does not exist. hence the hallucinations. I hope I explained this adequately haha

      1. I would have had her die. Him beat Eddie in his grief create an uploader program put himself in a kind of stasus in a buffer program. Set it to downlod himself at her age of 20 or so meet her with his memorys intact. As soon as they fell in love and kissed her memorys come back. Sorry hopeless romantic… Hate the ending

      2. So, what’s the correct answer to the question “the girl or the world?”
        IF before he chooses to make the uploader to save the girl, SIGMA win
        IF now he chooses to kill himself, he back to ground one on the plane
        What IF later he chooses to let Seo Hae died instead?
        Interesting ~

      3. Seo Hae should have disappeared immediately when Sigma disappeared. Everyone should have. Even Sigma’s men in the Church disappeared FIRST. Why? Because everything changed. So all the future people, including Sigma and Seo Hae and Park and his team should have disappeared together. Why didn’t they? Because…TV SHOW.

    2. Seo Hae did not disappear when SIGMA was killed because the one who killed SIGMA was FUTURE Seo Hae. So Present Seo Hae had to take the uploader to travel to the past to save them from SIGMA in the Church. Idk if that made sense, but i hope it helped. 🙂

      Below is the explanation for why Seo Hae did not disappear when Eddie appeared in the Church.
      When they hugged Seo hae was GOING TO disappear. But that did not happen because Eddie came in. In a way, Eddie’s action could lead him to take over Sigma’s role. Thus, Han Tae Sul understood that even if he kill the REAL SIGMA there will be people to replace SIGMA. So the best way to escape this was to kill himself.

  3. Me ayudaron mucho tus puntos de vista.
    Creo que hay dos lineas de tiempo. La que sigma provoca, y la que han tae sul provoca. Es por esto que al tocar sus propias cenizas él logra ver otra posibilidad.
    El que decide siempre es han tae sul, por eso habrá veces que decida el mundo y otras a ella.
    Tambien concuerdo en que el viaje de avion es una alucinacion, de la nueva paradoja. Es en una aerolinea diferente, pero no se porque tendria alucinaciones con ella, ya que el aun no la conoce…

  4. It’s called the timeloop/bootstrap paradox, if Seo Hae didn’t exist in the present, she could not have existed in the past. So, she could not have shot Sigma and saved herself if she never existed in the future. When Han Tae Sul devised the plan, he took advantage of the time loop paradox. We must remember he is smart. In the bootstrap paradox, say, if you send a book back in time to your old self with which you can create a machine, then that book becomes the reason you created it and so, the book exists as an entity in itself, independent of time, both in future and past. Both Seo Hae and Han Tae Sul became independent entities when they went back to the past to save themselves, because they exist in the future, they exist in the past. If you point out to what if she disappears after she saved her old self, then you have to understand that time isn’t always moving forward in a Universe where time travel is possible, all time exists in all time. And so, the only way to break the loop was for Han Tae Sul to kill himself. You can see the exact same thing in the Terminator series. And so, when Han Tae Sul kills himself, he becomes the reason the entire timeline that once existed because of him creating the time machine to not exist. And so, the story begins again at episode 1, this time the loop has ended and a new timeline is being written where time travel isn’t possible yet, ofcourse it is debatable to define consciousness and about how he retains his memories from another timeline, but for the sake of the series, let’s say it does and in the final moments of his death, his entire consciousness jumped to the new timeline.

    As for Eddy Kim shooting Seo Hae, it was inevitable as any alteration in past makes the future that much more certain. Seo Hae was meant to die, if Sigma didn’t kill her at an earlier point of time, someone else will later on. This is exactly why Han Tae Sul chose to end the entire loop instead of rewriting timelines only for it all to happen at a later date via someone else. He saw how when they killed Sigma, Eddy took his place.

    And here is where the title of the series makes sense, it isn’t sigma who plays the metaphorical sisyphus in the series, but Han Tae Sul and Gang Seo Hae. If Sisyphus chose to accept death and not cheat the Gods when it was his time, he would not have to keep hurling up the Boulder only to watch it fall again.

  5. Thanks for the explanation! I just done watching the last episode and was so blank & confused! After reading your explanation, I feel much satisfy with the ending haha! This ending is pretty good and I buy it! A lot people just can’t accept the main characters need to be sacrifice, the writer really courage enough to take the bumpy road (so much negative reviews out there lol). Anyway, I really like this ending, simple and direct… Previously I watched another time travel German drama– DARK, the loop is just keep on repeating until my brain going to explode and hardly finish the first season. Not going to watch second season to torture my brain again lol. Sisyphus ending is too realistic, so is either you like it or hate it. For me, this drama is definitely in my fav kdrama list ^^

    1. You should keep on with Dark, it’s really good. Personally the only thing I don’t her get is how is it possible that seo’s father still had that journal with all the indications of events from a timeline that doesn’t exist anymore. Sigma was reading it as if he understood what was this about, but the journal or at least what was written inside should have vanished too

      1. the father got that journal cuz he wrote it after meeting his kid with the guy he already knows about all this they told him about it and he was preparing incase they failed to protect his child once again the heroic guy even made a shelter incase they failed remember, for sigma he understood cuz when he was attacked by them he heared what they were talking about, war and stuff thats the only conclusion of why he understood that

  6. I don’t get how present day Tae Sul can ‘see’ and plan everything before he even take the uploader. How can he be so sure that they will shoot sigma in time? He hasnt gone through that so he cant possibly know. He can only predict and plan right? But he kept saying ‘the future i see’ as if he’s done it all and came back to do it again. Can somebody explain how it he knew everything?

    1. Okay, so I thought about it and it is just a passing shower thought so take this hypothesis with a grain of salt. Also, this is going to be really long so as to explain how and why I came to such a thought while breaking down the series so bear with me.
      We know nothing about consciousness and whether it truly exists or whether it can be coded in machines as logic. But, for the sake of the argument let’s say that in the world of Sisyphus, Han Tae Sul has found a way to code human construct into data and transfer it over a relay to the past or future, wherever the downloader is. This is why they were after him to write the code. In order to travel back, an object is converted into data and then that data is sent to the co-ordinates specified, it is similar to writing an email, where you snap a pic and then send it over through the internet in the form of packets. Only, this address is to a machine in the past and you have enough power (this is huge, so huge that we cannot achieve it) to tear open a wormhole to send it (via uploader). This explains why people arrived in parts (packets) with missing limbs and organs. Now, this data can only interact with its surroundings through the exchange of information. This would not be possible unless the universe itself was somehow only information bared to its bits. There is something called the Quantum Entanglement which solves the cat in the box paradox being both dead and alive. So, this is a bit technical but I’ll oversimplify it. Basically, because the probability of something to happen is finite, that finite probability entangles (merges/mixes/interacts) with everything else in the Universe. This is how the multiverse theory was born. So, for every decision, the Universe splits into all of the equivalent probabilities (if you choose to drink tea instead of coffee, another universe is made where you drink coffee, this is done to protect individual timelines). When the downloader was made, the entire Universe became time travel possible (we can say, it became similar to a computer simulation). (*Plot hole maybe- people could not have gone back beyond the time of the making of the downloader as that universe did not exist at that point of time, but I think Tae Sul’s device worked multiple times before he formed Quantum and Time but it wasn’t perfect*)
      Now, that we understand how time travel was possible in Sisyphus, question of consciousness comes in. If I were to copy you and send you both on different journeys by the end of which I would ask which one of you is the original one what will you say? Both of you will say that they are the original ones because there is no way to distinguish which is a copy and which is not, what if during the process of copying you, you consciousness jumps to the copied you? Are you the copy or the original? A way you can keep only one of you is by deleting (killing) the first construct after copying but as long as there are 2 of you, there is no way of finding out which one is the original. Sul solves this by injecting something (maybe a code) into the travelers that identify the object as copy and is meant to disappear if it comes in contact with the original to protect the Universe from further paradoxes such as the Grandfather Paradox. We see this when Sul touches the copy of the pendent to the original and it disappears. Now, back to the question after the journey both of you come into contact and the copy disappears, which journey’s information do you retain? The answer is both. Because information occupied during that time is original and is thus kept. (You see this if you copy a copy of a folder containing say 5 files over the original which had 2 files. Original files are kept while the copy is not).

      Now, this is the answer to your question. Tae Sul cannot see everything but he is incredibly smart. When he came into contact with his remains, the information of the future was copied into the present him. Since the information flux is so huge, it caused a migraine and some time to finally make sense of it all. He saw how everything happened the last time (like remembering a dream) and thought on his feet, a plan. He didn’t know the plan was working, that is why he made sure to double check. Remember when he wrote on the wall for help in the present, someone from the future came to save him, this is what he leveraged on, he followed a process in the present (locking Seo Hae in the bunker to throw off the Control Bureau, meeting in Asia Mart, I also think he relayed signs that he travelled back by leaving hints to himself from the past to make the plan work. This can be seen when Eddy asked him to code, He didn’t see this part of the future, yet we have to remember that there is one Han Tae Sul already coding in the basement, he collaborated with his future self to make the plan work.
      He also put on many safeguards. Using Sun as a taxi was a way to make sure he didn’t die, using the phone call was a way to make sure, Sigma was with the police. Using the information paradox (both Sul’s existing at same time causing him to flicker) was a way to make sure the plan went through.
      Because he retains information of the future as a dream memory, his visualization of the plan makes him see (metaphorically) everything and this is why he says so. Hope I haven’t confused you more than you already were.

      1. Also In the final (flight) scene, how come both wound up together, unless han tae sul was travelling with present seo hae(the nine year old).
        Incase she appears to be his hallucination, even then wd have his past self been able to see it coming, no matter the uploader was created or not.

    2. Quick answer: when he touched the powder made of his dead remains, his present and future self fused like the watch in an earlier scene. So he gaines his future self’s memories. But as his future self was dead he always knew it would end with him dying in this timeline.

    3. Thanks for the explanation but I think the entire scene on the plane did not happen in the real physical world. If so, then Han Tae Sul would be CEO of Quantum and Time and that would mean Sigma exists because he invested in his company. The scene on the plane is happening on time displacement. Where they are basically out of body but somewhere in memories of each other, which was shown in the earlier episodes. This what Tae Sul meant when he told Seo Hae to find him no matter what. Seo Hae found him in his memory of when he was in the plane, where it all started because that was where Tae Sul wanted to go at the very beginning when they did not know each other.

  7. Hi! There were two Tae-suls and Seo-haes at the final scene… Where did the other couple go? Did they just vanish into thin air because they cannot coexist?

  8. or
    HTS is just really crazy/mentally ill since the beginning? The loops are just in his mind. His brother really died because of him(which makes him Sisyphus not because of cheating death, but not caring for his brother), no real time travel, no sigma, no future, no past.. only his imaginary girlfriend just to ease the pain. A very sad life. He became addicted to ‘Doctor Strange’, starts to imitate him, imagining infinite possibilities, trying them all in his brain, making all these Hallucinations and thus Sisyphus. He don’t need to cheat death twice to become Sisyphus coz there’s no uploader to begin with, even if there is, he never used it coz he died or always die.

    All in all, he is just mentally ill human and loves Doctor Strange.

    Sorry for my bad english. I hope you understand it.

  9. I think since they both died, the plane ride is them going to heaven. Hence the shining light and him not needing his medication anymore. But at least they saved the world.

    And the reason Eddie came in at the end is the sisyphus concept of never being able to change your fate without him killing himself.

    Hated the ending.

  10. But since Han Tae Sul has killed himself in the present, i think it is not possible to go back to the first scene in the airplane, remembering everything. Perhaps nothing of all this has happened and everything is inside his confused mind ! Unless time paradox permits everything.

  11. I’ve read all arguments, hallucination , not hallucination and both dead and moving on. All are convincing of course and can’t pick which one is more likely but am leaning more towards either both are dead or it’s not a hallucination. The one thing about it being a hallucination that doesn’t convince me is why would the writers have HTS tell seohee to find him. He said it many times and just before she disappears..she says she will find him as well. I don’t think it is meant that they will find eachother in his hallucination…doesn’t make sense to me. One more thing, I forgot if Taesul knows her fav color is pink…if he knows then that is something against the hallucination idea again…

  12. This is my side of explaining the facts. In the last episode we saw Tae Sul being in the church with Sigma and Tae Sul told him that he has seen the future, and that he will win this time. When Seo Hae arrived at the church, it happened that we all saw, she was fighting we Sigma and then Sigma started chocking her. Then someone from above shot Sigma twice and it seemed that it was all over, and Seo Hae asked Tae Sul who did this but she got no answer. Tae Sul knew what was going on, and i, after a careful look back at the previous episodes, remembered that his Quantum & Time driver who had come back from the past had given him a little box which had the remains of Tae Sul and Seo Hae from the future when they had died and told him to open it only when they wouldn’t had other choice and then i realized that when he said Seo Hae had to trust him, he had told it thanks to the remains of their future. This is the first part of the episode. Then i got confused. After Sigma had died, why did they have to use the time machine and go into the past and repeat the same story but from another angle? When they went to to the day where Seo Hae was locked in the hideout, then Tae Sul told her he did it so the audit office wouldn’t caught her and through that i realized that Tae Sul locked her there so Seo Hae of the future could do what she would do to kill Sigma. Then they resumed the church scene, but in the place of their future selves to save their past selves. When they killed Sigma, where did their past selves go? What i don’t understand is how did the first part of the episode save their present selves? And after they left to go to the past, where did their future selves go? Their future selves were on the second floor. When their future selves killed Sigma, why did their past selves go to repeat what their future selves did? They could just leave the church and live together happily. Also, When Eddie showed up and shot Seo Hae and then Tae Sul pointed a gun at Eddie, Tae Sul told her to find him if there was no future. But how would this happen, since the time machine would never work again and when Tae Sul killed himself the nuclear bombs disappeared and logically there would never be war because of his death. Anyway, the last episode really confused me and i got a lot of questions. Please answer my questions and tell me your views because all the events happened, are in a very confusing way.

    1. After they killed Sigma, their past selves had to go redo what their future selves just did. They had to travel back in time and save their past selves again. Basically time is constant, they need to keep repeating what their future does. in the timelines, their future selves would take over their existence in the current timeline, because the present people would have to keep going back to save the next ones.

      If they don’t go to save their past, the loop would be ruined, and there will be a timeline where no-one saves them.

      The show makes it that the future and past have independent lives, which is why tae sul could rely on his future to save him. in a plot where the present has to happen before a future occurs, this would not be possible.

      in reality, tae sul always dies in that church so he never has a future, but the show twists some rules and allows him to interact with his future self through the powder (his ashes) that his bodyguard gave him to then plan his survival from sigma.

    1. Because he never died. In all the timelines, he never dies. He just hides in the consciousness realm and walks around through time and parallel worlds, leaving his physical body in the current time line. When he ” died ” , it was really just that Sigma captured him and kept him hostage. Then he escaped, but the broker guy made a deal with Tae San to send him back to the past to get the key of the safe and give him the uploader blueprints that Tae Sul made, etc.

  13. Question.

    Why is Seo Hae the same age age as Tae Sul in the airplane? If all of this happened in the year 2020 (that’s when it all started when he was riding the plane, right?), Seo Hae should be a little girl. Because if he never made the time machine, she should have no way of being with him in the year 2020 as an adult woman.

    Wtf, I’m tired of these Korean shows making me hella confused in the end. Between S:TM and The Call, I’m done.

  14. Tae Sul died in a timeline. It returns to the starting point. His brother woke up, so the upload code, which was hidden with him, is at Sigma’s disposal. I believe that Seo Hae, who appears on the plane, is not a hallucination, nor a result of imagination, she is real and is fulfilling her promise to find Tae Sul again, in a new attempt to avoid the war.

  15. This film has good acting, special effects, sets, and overall production values. However, it’s plot is fundamentally flawed. The flaws are not mere details; they are fundamental, because the entire plot revolves around time travel, but the so-called time paradoxes are really just time contradictions that do not make any sense.

    For example, in the final church scene, Tae Sul shoots himself in the head, and because he does not exist, the downloader that he invented supposedly never was built, and therefore all the events the required its existence come unraveled and in particular there is no nuclear war so the world is saved.

    But in that case, he could not have traveled back to the past to reach the church, shoot Sigma, and then shoot himself. Which means he would still be alive and able to code the uploader/downloader.

    Another issue: There is a nuclear war that occurs while Sigma is still a starving misanthrope with no special abilities or knowledge. So apparently that war happened without Sigma’s intervention. Therefore, why does Sigma need to use the uploader to upload a nuclear bomb to start a war that destroys the world–the world would seem to have already taken care of that without his assistance. In which case, stopping the downloader/uploader from being coded would not save the world from destruction.

    Admittedly time travel is a complicated domain, but the writers for this show did not do a good job in navigating that arena. The show ends up being a head scratcher that leaves many issues unresolved and illogical, which is unsatisfying for viewers.

  16. Biggest question of all, why is Eddy throwing a hissy fit at HTS to code the uploader if HTS and GSH just used it to go one day back in time???? Help. This is driving me crazy. HTS was not supposed to create the uploader, so what were the Asia Mart people celebrating and helping the couple with and what did they use to travel back in time? Your explanations are helping me so much. Thank you!

  17. Thanks for the explanation about Sisyphus ending. I know maybe your explanation is not 100% correct like they mean it. I mean the producer and writer of this drama. But, your explanation kinda helps me understand the meaning of the last scene in the last episode. I was almost disappointed with the ending because of how Seo Hae was still there and sat beside Tae Sul, also how Sigma still crazy as before and has that note.

    However, isn’t weird that TaeSul is back alive? I thought that the TaeSul who kills himself is the TaeSul on the present time. Or is it from the future? Then time paradox because of that white flour he touched in the bridge?

  18. In this story, time travel, and paradoxical ending isn’t about the two lovers. But Sigma and his brother(Tae-san) are the lichen pin from beginning to end back to the beginning. Stands to reason that with the original Tae Sul timeline now removed from existence and the only two people with any knowledge of the first time line would be Sigma(only knows because of the book left in the jacket) and Tae-san. Then the fight with Sigma’s soul continues with Tae Sul’s brother taking up the mantle. With Tae-san‘s “mind” being trapped in the time void(excuse the Dr. Who reference), He is really the only one who knows the true story ark.

    Like the Greek Proverbs state: It’s in the human’s nature to continue a negative folly even if it contradictory to his/her health. So, the battle isn’t with older Sigma, but with the boy who grew into that hateful Sigma. Sigma made statements to the fact people just don’t care, him spending two nights covered in blood at the park. To no one at the police taking him seriously. Had just one person shown him one ounce of kindness, He wouldn’t had gone through with his plans. People’s prideful nature is selfishly going to over rule whats is morally right. Both timelines of Sigma has him still shaped by cruelty of his childhood. To affect any true change and allow the paradox right itself; has to begin and end in Sigma’s childhood. Remember, it was just one act of kindness of Seo-hae‘a father to change (just so ever slightly) Sigma’s path. Removed the cruelty of his childhood, you give Seo Won-Ju a chance of a “normal” life, shaped not with the horrors of his father’s own sad existence. You could write at least season Two there. You could even write season Three with the failures of changing Sigma and the group trying to help the father.

    One last point: When Sigma moved back into the past, as he bashed the man’s head in; did anyone stop him? Did anyone rush to man’s defense? That’s man’s nature. That’s Sigma’s view of the World through his past cruelty, that’s the writers view of what our society looks like, and it’s a shite existence.

    Anyways, I’m really enjoyed this show. So many twists and turns. But also some room for better editing of time flow. Some segments were dragged on than should have been. Contradicting points of the war itself. One storyline had just Korea being nuked to the whole world being nuked. Unless each time the commander of the Control Bureau 7 showed new changes to old time. And the writers didn’t want you to see that with each change, little things like the whole world burning instead just Korea.

  19. Best job I have read explaining the finale. Well done.
    I missed the part with the notebook in the jacket, and thats why it all starts again.

    But yeah, I figure this is a never ending loop. I personally believe the start of the loop is when Han Tae Sul figured out how to make time travel as a child. He then shared that with sigma, who was already having visions of the future by then.

    This plot had a main character who was cursed. In these types of stories, the only cure for a curse is love. The one who loves the cursed one releases the cure and/or the cursed one dies as an act of love. I don’t know it Han Tae Sul is in an endless loop in the afterlife or just endless timeloop. Doesn’t really matter. Seo Hae may or may not find him again on future time loops. It’s his curse, not hers. The memory/hallucinations of her gives him comfort and its the happiest ending he can hope for as someone who is cursed for eternity for messing with time.

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