12 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
A 세습무 family passes shamanic abilities down through blood — the gift is inherited, not chosen. The grandfather's alarm at having a 영매 (spirit medium) born into such a household reflects a tension in Korean folk belief: shamanic power in the wrong generation, or the wrong person, is seen as dangerous rather than blessed.
The Korean Catholic Church uses the term 구마 예식 for its formal rite of exorcism, which must be authorized by a bishop. A priest performing it without permission — as Yun does — risks serious church discipline (징계). The tension between institutional church authority and the urgency of fighting evil is a running theme the show borrows from real Catholic practice.
구천 literally means 'the ninth heaven' but in Korean folk belief it refers to the limbo where restless or wrongfully-dead spirits drift, unable to move on. When Hwa-pyeong suggests Park Il-do may have fled to 구천 rather than hell, he is drawing on this traditional idea — the ghost hasn't been destroyed, just displaced.
The sizzling sound and the shot glass being slammed down signal a classic Korean comfort-eating scene: grilled meat with 소주 (soju). Sharing a bottle of soju this way — sitting across a hot grill, pouring for each other — is one of the most common ways Koreans process grief or stress together. The fact that a Catholic priest is drinking unselfconsciously signals how normal this is across all social groups.
Korean has two main speech levels: 존댓말 (formal/polite) and 반말 (informal/casual). Yun has been using polite speech the whole time while the others drop informal speech with him. He finally calls it out — he is two years older, so by Korean age-hierarchy norms he is entitled to 반말 from them. Kil-yeong's response ('then just speak informally back') is a very Korean way of leveling the friendship.
컵라면 — instant cup noodles — is the shorthand in Korean drama and daily life for someone eating alone, badly, and probably feeling sorry for themselves. Hwa-pyeong guessing Kil-yeong has been living on cup ramen gets a laugh because it is a universally understood Korean image of a person who has let themselves go.
Hwa-pyeong pours soju onto the ground by the sea for Yuk-gwang. This gesture — offering food and drink to a dead person who cannot be properly buried — echoes the 제사 (ancestral rite) tradition where the living feed the spirits of the deceased. Doing it informally at the water's edge, with raw fish (회), reflects the same impulse stripped to its most personal form.
A 눌림굿 is a specific shamanic ceremony performed to press down or seal away a troublesome spirit — '누르다' means to press or suppress. It is distinct from a full exorcism; the goal is containment rather than expulsion. The show uses it to explain why young Hwa-pyeong lost his ability to see Park Il-do clearly after the ritual was performed on him as a child.
Park Il-do distinguishes between full 빙의 (spirit possession) and a person who chooses to serve the evil willingly. In Korean shamanistic and folk-horror tradition, a spirit that is invited in — rather than forcing its way — is considered far harder to remove, because there is no victim to rescue. This is why Yang Shin-bu's case is treated as more hopeless than the others.
The entity lists past names: 김사다함, 선묘, 아리나발마, 생치새. 김사다함 is a real figure from Silla-era history (a young warrior general). 선묘 is a legendary woman from a Buddhist origin story. By claiming these names the show places the demon inside actual Korean historical memory, suggesting it has been shaping the peninsula's tragedies for over a thousand years.
원내 대표 is the floor leader of a party in the National Assembly — the person who manages the party's legislative agenda day to day. It is a major stepping stone toward party leadership or a presidential run, which is why the detectives react with dread when they hear Park Hong-ju has won the post. The scene is a quiet reminder that the demon's influence has survived inside the political system.
조업 means going out to sea to fish — a word tied to the working lives of Korea's East Coast communities. The fisherman who pulled a stranger out of the water and asked no questions, then quietly arranged for supplies to be sent, reflects a particular culture of practical, understated solidarity still common in small Korean coastal villages.