The Long Season 1.04

Episode 4

Hualin, 1998. Luo Meisu, Xiang's wife, calls in a psychic to help her figure out what why Yang spends so much time lying in bed. The psychic says that it has something to do with a woman. Luo tells Xiang later about what the psychic said. He discounts it as nonsense and then they goes to talk to his son. Yang says some cryptic things about leaving Hualin and never returning.

Xiang and Ma Desheng talk some more. Captain Ma realizes that he is going to have to count on Xiang because the police department won't give him the resources he needs. He takes Xiang out to eat at night and they talk about the case. Xiang has a theory that Captain Ma didn't consider, for why the body parts were found in three different places.

Hualin, 2016. Xiang, Ma Desheng, and Biao meet to talk about the taxi with the phony license plate. They find someone who has been selling fake licenses plates, Xing Juanchan. Xing is someone Xiang and Biao knew at Hualin Steel back in 1998. They try confronting him but get nowhere. They follow him and keep an on him.

Ma gets another dancer to pretend to be interested in buying a phony license plate. He contacts Xing but he isn't very convincing. Xiang, Ma, and Biao confront Xing for a second time. Xiang tackles him. He seems to be hiding something. They finds he has license plater on his plus he is wearing a urine bag. Xing starts crying. They wind up giving him back the license plates and letting him go.

Xiang goes home and finds Luo Meisu and Yang waiting for him. He is stunned to see them. They look just like they did in 1998. Yang isn't acting strange or withdrawn. Xiang goes for a drive that night. He stops along a bridge and yells at the moon but calls it by his son's name.

Thoughts

It doesn't seem like a heck of a lot happened in this episode. I'm not sure what to make of the efforts to track down the phony license plates. Will that bear some fruit in a future episode or is that just be a dead end that won't resurface?

There is a fair amount of Ma Desheng and Xiang talking together and working together in this episode, both in 1998 and 2016. Shen Mo is not in this episode and there aren't any scenes, as far as I can tell, that are set in 1997. Biao plays a smaller role than he did in the first three episodes. I'm not sure what to make of the scene where Luo Meisu and Yang appear in 2016. Is it a dream? Is Xiang hallucinating?

I'm still intrigued but I'm not sure where the story will go from here.