Head Over Heels episode 9 review: When pain becomes power, and still Yeom Hwa chooses ruin

In episode 9 of Head Over Heels, the dead are getting increasingly bolder. Spirits no longer hover quietly around the living—they cling, they hunt, they seep into the cracks of a fragile system already overrun by silence and shame.

Mo Beom, a secondary student pushed to the edge by bullying and blackmail, is now stalked by the Suic*de Ghost, whose presence chills the school’s halls with an ugliness that’s less mythic and more real. Meanwhile, in Head Over Heels, Bae Gyeon-woo, Park Seong-ah, and Yeom Hwa remain entangled in their web of spiritual debts and unfinished cycles.

Bae Gyeon-woo wins in archery, but it costs him. Park Seong-ah, the girl he tries to save, is marked. And Yeom Hwa reveals her tragedy but not her remorse. Her son is dead, sealed in a coffin she carries on her back, imprisoned by the weight of her actions. Yet she keeps making excuses. She drags his soul through this world, hurting many in Head Over Heels, but takes no responsibility for the damage she keeps causing.

The rules are breaking in Head Over Heels, and so is Gyeon-woo

After the archery competition, Bae Gyeon-woo starts seeing things no living person should. The marks on Park Seong-ah’s spirit robe spread like bruises on borrowed time, signs of something dark closing in. But it’s not her he tries to save. It’s Mo Beom, the student stalked by the Suic*de Ghost, the one buried in silence, bullying, and extortion.

Gyeon-woo intervenes when he shouldn’t. In trying to protect Mo Beom, he triggers exactly what the old woman had warned about. A state between worlds, where the soul slips but doesn’t land. He’s not unconscious. He’s not dead. He’s not back, either.

When Park Seong-ah grabs his hand, it does nothing. Whatever bound them before doesn’t work now. The rules are shifting in Head Over Heels, and Gyeon-woo is the one paying the price for stepping out of line.

Yeom Hwa carries a coffin, but never the blame

The reveal in this episode of Head Over Heels about Yeom Hwa’s past arrives like a punch that’s meant to explain everything. Her son is dead, and not just gone—he’s trapped. Locked in a spiritual coffin she carries on her back, bound by the consequences of her own violence. But instead of breaking under the weight of grief or guilt, she turns it into spectacle. She walks through Head Over Heels like a martyr in her own fantasy, dragging a punishment she never really owns.

Her cruelty toward Park Seong-ah doesn’t stop. Even after everything, even after claiming she’s lost the most, she keeps choosing to hurt. The series shows her past as if that’s supposed to be enough. As if suffering alone is grounds for forgiveness. But she doesn’t act with remorse. She acts with entitlement. And no matter how many times the camera lingers on that coffin, it never lands on a moment where she actually changes.

The weight of redemption never asked for

What Head Over Heels makes clear is that redemption costs something. But when the debt isn’t yours, the payment corrupts everything it touches. Yeom Hwa's grief doesn’t soften her. It calcifies her, turns every act into justification. And those around her are the ones who suffer for it. Park Seong-ah is still bound to her. Gyeon-woo is now slipping because of choices Yeom Hwa set in motion. Even the boy she once lost can’t rest—his soul is trapped, his body sealed, his story hijacked to explain a woman who never once admits fault.

The show frames this as tragedy, but tragedy implies something lost despite effort. Here, the loss happens again and again because the same person keeps choosing the same harm. No matter how heavy that coffin is, the weight is never hers alone. And the more she drags it, the more she drags everyone else with her.

A tragedy by choice, not fate

Yeom Hwa’s presence poisons everything it touches because it’s rooted in refusal. Refusal to change, to stop, to reckon. She knows what she’s done. She knows who paid for it. But instead of facing it, she wraps herself in suffering like armor and moves through Head Over Heels as if her story gives her license to keep hurting.

The result is rot disguised as grief. Every time she enters a scene, something fractures—Seong-ah’s growth, Gyeon-woo’s chances, even the rules of the spiritual world itself. She doesn't just haunt the narrative. She twists it, bends it to justify herself, and forces everyone else to carry the consequences. The show doesn’t say this out loud, but it shows it clearly: Yeom Hwa isn’t tragic because she lost something. She’s tragic because she keeps choosing to lose more.

Park Seong-ah sustains what everyone else shatters

In Head Over Heels, Park Seong-ah absorbs the aftermath of other people’s decisions. Her connection to Yeom Hwa was never chosen—it was inherited, imposed, and never once safe. Still, she holds the line. She reaches for Gyeon-woo. She keeps her balance as her spirit robe starts to blacken. She endures every shift in the spiritual field without asking who started the quake.

Nothing bad that happens to her comes from her own actions. But every consequence finds its way to her. Now Gyeon-woo is possessed in the limbo state they were warned about, dragged into it after trying to protect Mo Beom. And even that, Seong-ah has to face. She sees it. She holds it. She stays in the middle of a storm she didn’t call, surrounded by people who won’t take their hands off the trigger.

There are only three episodes left. And with Gyeon-woo possessed in limbo, Seong-ah cracking under the weight, and Yeom Hwa still dragging her coffin full of excuses, Head Over Heels has no more room to stall. Whatever resolution comes next has to be earned. Or else the damage won’t stop—just shift hands again.

Rating with a touch of flair: 4.5 ghost arrows out of 5.

Possessed boys in limbo, spirit robes bruising, and a coffin that moans louder than its carrier. This episode delivers tension, consequence, and a sinking feeling that not everyone will walk away clean.