Genie, Make A Wish Episodes 7-8 Recap: Who Is The Immortal Being?

Genie, Make a Wish does follow a linear arc, placing Iblis and Ka-young as its central protagonists, but it is also a show of many different stories. The other characters branch out in their own narratives but contribute to the moral value of the main arc as tributaries to a river. Episodes seven and eight of the show gives us the glimpses of some of these arcs—like Im-seon’s fate or Ms. Gu’s downfall—while also throwing in a serial killer plot. Thematically tying all of them up to prove Iblis’ point that humans are essentially corrupt, the show seems to set a premise for the goodness of its protagonist; it heightens the dark so that Ka-young’s morality can stand out. However, Ka-young’s soul seems to exist deep in time and has an ancient connection with Iblis. Coupled with the angel versus genie war, the show navigates the path in time to fill up the gap in memories of precisely twenty years.

Spoilers Ahead

What Happens in Episode Seven?

When Ka-young visits the moment of her death, she can see the look on Iblis’ face; while Ejjajel tries to interpret it as rage, Ka-young refuses to believe it and says that it is one of sorrow. She also confronts Ejjajel, saying that he could have done something to save these children rather than waiting for Iblis to grant wishes. Ka-young returns home without giving Ejjajel what he wants—Iblis’ demise by turning Ka-young’s last wish against him. The two have a warm moment of reconciliation. The next day Iblis realizes the hourglass has started running out; possibly because his heart has been hurt—as Sade comments. Iblis starts looking out for his ex Jinniya to find out an explanation regarding this; however, he reveals to Ka-young that he had an ex, and that sets her off a little bit. Later, the two reconcile again by sitting atop a tall building under the stars.

Im-Saeon and Ms. Gu are both facing the consequences of their wishes; Im-Saeon has become tardy at her job and loses her job as a result. Later, Ms. Gu threatens Ka-young with a death wish if she does not declare the money transferred from her account to Gu’s is a gift, but Ka-young calmly says that she also has a wish left and lets her face embezzlement. The guy who killed the deer turns out to be a serial killer, who also killed the woman whose photo Ka-young was looking at in the last episode. As his second wish, he goes to a crime scene to check who the witness was and drags Iblis along; upon realizing that it was his mother, he is relieved since she would never tell on him. However, Ka-young threatens this man after learning the truth. She does not want to expose him since he would use his last wish anyway to get free. 

The identity of the mysterious man is finally revealed—he is an angel called Shadi. He limps away at night and is met by Irem, who asks him whether she has reason to fear that he will hurt Ejjajel; Shadi says that he abhors Ejjajel because he killed their brothers and is not aware of any camaraderie between Ejjajel and Iblis. Shadi then goes forward and puts the entire town to sleep as he ties up Iblis. The next morning, Sade gathers everyone up, including Ejjajel, Irem, and Ka-young, and tries to unfasten the iron-like heavy rope. When Iblis confronts Ejjajel about this, he refuses to have anything to do with Shadi’s business; in fact, he comments that it is Iblis’ doing. Shadi serves the immortal being that he created almost a millennium ago. Iblis goes into a flashback and realizes that he may have granted the child immortality on the night in the desert when Ka-young died, although he cannot remember his face now.

What Happens in Episode Eight?

The boy that Iblis immortalized that night is Hunbish—and he is also the master that Shadi put to sleep as he escaped with the string from the rug. There is a round table meeting at Hunbish’s place, who is now known as Khalid. He has a human parent who tries to exert his control over him; however, soon his myth is busted by Hunbish’s associates; he cannot be controlled. Meanwhile, Ka-young tries figuring out the technicalities of the rope—it is only heavy iron when a spirit ties it to another spirit and does not work the same between spirit and humans. Meanwhile, what Ka-young noticed a few episodes before is starting to become an uncanny gap in Iblis’ memories. A twenty-year discrepancy has been found according to the lamp’s manufacturing date that even Iblis does not remember. According to Iblis, he was caged for 983 years. However everyone else, including the other spiritual beings, knows that the time period was actually 963 years. Where did the memories go? Ka-young can recall some fragments of memory where he sees a boy weaving a rug. 

Iblis makes Ka-young summon Jinniya, his ex, to have a chat with her. His intent is to ask whether Jinniya tried to beguile him by wearing the face of the Arabian desert woman that he keeps seeing in his visions, and he also asks if she knows anything about Shadi and why he might have tied him in his sleep. Jinniya is able to tell him that Shadi had a son who used to weave rugs and was half human and half mortal and died years ago. Jinniya also reveals that Iblis had destroyed an entire city because of Ka-young; no way she would recognize her because she died when she was eight in the previous timeline. However, Jinniya confirms that Iblis lost his memory of twenty years. Ejjajel is furious because Irem had let Iblis know the location of Jinniya and takes her voice away from her. He then visits Zahara, another angel, who has only one immortal flower growing on his roof and tells him that his error has been a cause of distress for everyone. 

Meanwhile, Min Ji and Grandmother bond well—they visit shopping malls and seem to be romantically getting close. Min Ji reveals that Ka-young does not take any pills for her violent streak but also confirms that she is good at heart; the grandmother is getting to know another side of her granddaughter previously inaccessible to her. Im-seon loses her job at the store for being tardy, and she in turn tells her daughter off from receiving any help from her anymore. She wants a last wish—she wants the genie to forget that he has granted her any wish at all; however, this does not work on the genie.Iblis and Ejjajel get into another petty fight over the chaos that has been taking place on top of their longstanding tiff. It is triggered because Sade, who seems to have fallen for Irem, bites Ejjajel on his leg after what he did to Irem. While the two are fighting in the sky over the moon (yes, literally), Ka-young is at a cliff. Hunbish’s mortal father turns up there and tells her that he needs to settle some debt—he pushes her off. This is when Ka-young has the memory of scattered emotions in her life about the people she loves and realizes that she, in fact, wants to live. Iblis just flies in and holds her mid-air; apparently this is her last wish that she materialized. The two embrace, and it seems like Ka-young is feeling a rush of emotions as Iblis endearingly calls her a “psychopath.”

Who Is The Immortal Being?

I think there used to be a number of immortal beings at one point in time since Zahara’s garden had many flowers, and now there remains one. This flower symbolizes the immortality of Hunbish, or Khalid; it is yet to be seen how Hunbish became Khalid and why his parentage is ambiguous. Some think he is Shadi’s son reborn, while others believe he is an orphan; he also seems to have a mortal father with his own motive. As much as we know, Khalid wants ownership of the lamp, and Shadi chose him as his master by bestowing a ring that he had. Shadi willfully remains captive to this master; however, it is unclear why Shadi went to tie up Iblis despite saying he hates Ejjajel and has no enmity with Iblis per se. Shadi is the angel of song and sleep and can put anyone to sleep by the power of his singing. He had successfully done so the night he escaped. If he is choosing to stay on with Khalid, then he must have a vested interest in this millennium-long war. Somehow, Ejjajel was set off by the fact that Jinniya had met Iblis and went forward to threaten Zahara at his garden. “The error” that he mentions must have something to do with the boy’s immortality. Also note that the boy that Jinniya mentions that Shadi had was a weaver; Ka-young also sees a similar boy in her visions weaving threads. This may all be connected; how, I am not sure yet!

Where Have Those Twenty Years Gone?

Everyone seems to know that there is a gap of twenty years in Iblis’ memory; only Iblis does not. No human can undo his memory since Im-seon tried and failed. Then it must have been a spirit thing that affected his memory, so that he only recalls the moment when he thinks that Ka-young died in the desert. However, the flashbacks show a girl much older, and Jinniya also recalls Ka-young’s face. Is it possible that Ka-young did not in fact die that night and lived on? This seems to be a solid explanation, only that we still do not know who wiped Iblis’ memory and for what reason. 

The lapse seems more than just a dark spot in memory; it rather seems like a conspicuous and deliberate erasure. In Genie, Make a Wish, the act of forgetting does not seem to be accidental, but one driven by cosmic intent. Someone, or something, wanted Iblis to forget, perhaps to protect Ka-young, perhaps to preserve the fragile balance between heaven and the infernal. What if those two decades were not simply lost but sacrifices offered up in exchange for Ka-young’s rebirth in another timeline, or perhaps their reconciliation? The show has asked many questions of which the answers feel evasive—let’s keep an eye on the next episodes and the articles to figure out the answers together.

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