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The decorations at Bong Hee's house definitely go to show that color is closely associated with her, and the pastel pinks, yellows, greens, and blues also continue inside her room. But we also discover color now on the island, as Bong Hee fishes up several suitcases which have washed up on to the rocks from the ocean. For starters, the suitcases lined up provide color inside the run-down house that the crew miraculously find, but the contents of the suitcases are what really bring out the colors. The survivors on the island are able to change clothes from the dreary beige that literally everyone was wearing, to blue, green, yellow, red, and so on. Out of the suitcase also come blankets, with which their shelter-house gets colorized. The color similarities between Bong Hee's real house and the shelter-house prove that Bong Hee felt at home in that run-down house surrounded by the other survivors, as well as that Bong Hee had varying degrees ownership of the shelter-house itself.

The transition from the shades of beige outfits to the colorful outfits in this episode may also signify a change in the attitudes of the survivors. In the beginning, the situation was more or less an every-man-survives-for-him/herself on the island, with the crew scattered, lost, and to viewers, not very developed as characters. But now that they've all come together, we're starting to see the personality differences of each character, as well as their views and objectives. In the beginning of episode 4, I was actually very curious as to why Bong Hee often seemed to wear yellow in the present. But then toward the end, when Choi Tae Ho (played by Choi Tae Joon) and the pilot found the lifeboat, I felt that the color yellow, the color of the lifeboat, may signify Bong Hee's survival from the island. And I immediately was able to point out who else was wearing yellow in the crew, thanks to the fact that Tae Ho went back to the camp unharmed. The only others who seem to be wearing yellow are Lee Yeol (played by EXO's Chanyeol), who is wearing a yellow/red-striped flannel, and CEO Hwang Jae Kook, who is wearing a yellowish mustard suit. If yellow does really signify survival, then maybe the other two I mentioned will be alive by the end of the series? Of course, all this color theory I'm blabbing about may just be me reading way-too-deep into it. If that's the case, then I'll just be embarrassed about blabbing on about it for so long later. 

We've really come to a point in the story where the production staff seems to want us to be on Ra Bong Hee and Seo Jun Oh's (played by Jung Kyung Ho) side, while within the plot itself, Bong Hee is inching closer and closer to becoming a very likely suspect in Yoon So Hee's (played by Ryu Won) death. Jun Oh, for the most part, seems to be suffering from a guilt-ridden conscious more than anything, by believing that he is responsible for composer Shin Jae Hyun's death. By while Jun Oh's character is indeed pretty dumb and selfish, he shows us viewers that after putting himself first in all situations, he is willing to help those around him out. Sure, he thought he stepped on a mine, but then he sent the others off to save Ha Ji Ah (played by Lee Sun Bin) first. He did rescue Yeol out of that manhole in the ground, and even though he won't admit it out loud, he knows he wasn't very helpful when Bong Hee went off to retrieve the suitcases, and thanked her by giving (as in stealing from Ji Ah) her the pink jacket. As far as we can tell, Jun Oh isn't exactly a real murderer, and we've been informed so all along based on the fact that only Tae Ho and So Hee blame him for Jae Hyun's death, not everyone in the company. 

Bong Hee seems to be, for now, in a similar situation. She's convinced herself that she's responsible for So Hee's death, more out of guilt that she couldn't save her, than anything. There's definitely more to that story than we're allowed to see at this point, obviously. What's good is that the storyline has begun relying less and less on pure memory-based recounting, and has decided to give viewers a more factual retelling of what happened. Because that's what we want to know, is what actually happened on the island, and that's why we're watching. Thanks to more factual storytelling in this episode, the pace was able to pick up significantly compared to episode 3, and we're all happy (not the best diction, but you know what I mean). 

Some of you may feel like the comedy element distracts from focussing on the plot, but I want to argue that the producers really had no choice but to pass some things off in this drama as comedy. It seems more or less like they had to change up filming locations, and not every island scene was filmed on the designated island. As viewers, we can't help but to pull back from being focussed in the story from time to time, when we see a fish that is clearly out of a freezer and not fresh-caught from the ocean, or a clearly domestic rabbit running around in a forest of cleanly-trimmed flower bushes (yeah I didn't mention it from the last episode but we all saw it!), or the abrupt change in landscape from a subtropical forest-like surrounding to a grassland field. Sprinkling the story with comedy helps to brush off more of the unrealistic elements and accept that this is definitely a fictional story, while also reminding us that we're still watching, for the core elements of what the drama has to offer. Survival, morality, human values, and the likes. 

In the end, maybe the most valuable lesson that we can all learn from watching 'Missing 9', is that we all need to receive deep sea diving lessons from Haenyeo (Korean sea women who harvest ocean crops without using any special diving equipment) like Bong Hee's mother, immediately. 

SCORE:

Plot................7

Performance......8

Pacing...........8

OVERALL......7.6