The Misconception of "Copycat Killer"

The audience/people watching aren't just the spectators, but the players and directors too.

First off I want to start this by saying I am not finished with the show yet, but it's already exceeded my expectations a lot. When I started this show I thought it was going to be one of those typical "whodunnit" type shows, where as the audience we see/know only a little bit more than what the characters in the show do. I quickly learned this was wrong.

In this show, as the audience we are not on the same level as the characters, both the police, the killer and otherwise. We are at an omnipresent viewpoint. We find out things the police and killers do not know yet. Such as, [redacted] being revealed in one of the earlier episodes. The common misconception I see about this show is people thinking it's supposed to be a whodunnit where the killer isn't revealed until near the end in some spectacular way after the case is solved by the officals. This show is not quite a whodunnit, because we are not searching for the killer as the police are, this is shown multiple times for example when one of the police officers is speaking on the television to his daughter and then we see her being shown him talking to her or in the first episode when we first see the red van (something that continues to be present for multiple episodes)

Episode 4 was a purposeful reveal because it's showing both sides of the story. While we don't get all the information at once, we do get more than Xiao-qi and the others for a reason. Other reveals like Jia-wun's childhood bedroom is there to simply help us put together the details of WHY not WHO but WHY.

This is a great take on a usually expected trope. Whodunnit turns into Whydunnit (lol)
Unlike in other shows or movies in which the audience is on the same par as the police, the use of dramatic irony is present. The secret only the audience knows as of right now. Jian-ho not being the one who assaulted the girl in junior high, Jia-wun's character placement, Yu-tong and her friend being kidnapped together (something that's hinted towards when Xiao-qi says that You-tong's kidnapping is different and they've missed something). Once you realize this, the show changes from a badly made whodunnit to a fantastic thriller.

This is a puzzle that needs solving, but rather a broken mirror that needs to be put back together. We have all the pieces, and each episode is just another bit of glue to help us put it together.

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