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James Marsh

This article contains mild spoilers.
3/5 stars
Lead cast: Kim Da-mi, Son Suk-ku
Reportedly Disney+’s most-watched K-drama of 2025 so far, Nine Puzzles connects its final pieces in a mostly satisfying conclusion that reveals the identity of its elusive serial killer while teeing up the possibility of more adventures to come.
A second season is almost guaranteed after the show’s premiere attracted more viewers to the streaming platform than either of its other Korean releases this year, Unmasked and Hyper Knife.
The central partnership between eccentric criminal profiler Yoon E-na (Kim Da-mi) and introverted detective Kim Han-saem (Son Suk-ku) has plenty of room to run and leaves many questions still unanswered.


We learned from the show’s early episodes that all of the victims in the investigation were connected. On the one hand, following each murder E-na receives from an anonymous sender a jigsaw piece which matches one left at the scene of her uncle’s killing 10 years earlier.
On the other hand, the three victims – bar owner Lee Mi-young (Kim Ye-won), her former husband Kang Chim-ok (Lee Hee-jun), and property tycoon Do Yoon-su (Lee Sung-min) – had all at one time owned the same apartment in The One City luxury residential complex.
As E-na and Han-saem struggle to find any further connection between their victims, they turn their attention to E-na’s uncle, former Hangang police chief Yoon Dong-hoon (Ji Jin-hee).
It transpires that Yoon was far from squeaky clean and was responsible for burying a number of cases during his career. The last was a defamation case against journalist Lee Gang-hyun (Baek Hyun-jin), who subsequently turned up dead.

Upon studying photographs from that crime scene, deemed a suicide at the time, E-na and Han-saem spot a puzzle piece lying next to the body that proves to be part of the same jigsaw they have been slowly and morbidly assembling. Yoon was not the first victim after all.
Han-saem also learns that his superior Yang Jung-ho (Kim Sung-kyun) was the detective originally assigned to investigate Gang-hyun’s death.
But just as this revelation appears to back up his theory that someone inside the Hangang police department is conspiring against them, Han-saem makes an even more shocking discovery: E-na was a classmate of Gang-hyun’s son and was at the scene on the night of Gang-hyun’s death.
Protesting her innocence, E-na recalls overhearing a desperate phone call that night between a drunken Gang-hyun and someone he was begging for help. After checking the phone records, E-na heads down to Jeju Island to track down the contact, Oh Cheol-jin, played by superstar Hwang Jung-min.

Later that same night, however, E-na is arrested and charged with murder after being caught red-handed handling Oh’s freshly strangled corpse.
Their heads spinning, Han-saem, Jung-ho and police chief Hyeon (Jang Kyug-su) race down to Jeju, where E-na sits coolly and calmly behind bars, as if this was part of some grand plan.
She is also visited by her psychiatrist, Dr Lee (Park Gyu-young), who was attending a nearby seminar with her colleague Dr Hwang (Roh Jae-won).
Moments later, E-na reveals a cast-iron alibi and another puzzle piece, delivered to her in Jeju.
By framing herself for one of the killer’s crimes, E-na reveals that she believes she has flushed them out. The murderer was not only aware E-na was in Jeju, but must be one of the four colleagues and acquaintances who arrived to ensure she was cleared and released. But which one: Jung-ho, Hyeon, Lee or Hwang?

As Nine Puzzles barrels towards its finale, it does so at the expense of much of the engaging character work that had come before.
Han-saem in particular becomes little more than a sounding board against which other characters air their theories or to whom they reveal important plot points, with much of the mystery surrounding his past still unresolved.
E-na also has less time for kooky antics, instead displaying cool-headed clarity in a crisis.
Once the killer is revealed, their implementation of the jigsaw puzzle paper trail is so convoluted and implausible it defies belief that anyone would bother going to all the trouble, especially considering the real motive for their crimes.
As is often the case in these mysteries, the value is found in the journey rather than in its conclusion.

While the killer’s identity is not immediately obvious, the reason the series of wealthy, corrupt individuals were killed becomes apparent long before it is articulated, and speaks to wider social issues.
It’s a theme that is ubiquitous, albeit rather less engaging than the rampages of a deranged genius.
While the resolution is a little underwhelming, with some of its pieces slotting together somewhat awkwardly, overall Nine Puzzles is compelling pulp television that leaves us wanting more.
Nine Puzzles is streaming on Disney+.


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Kim Da-mi (left) as criminal profiler Yoon E-na and Son Suk-ku as detective Kim Han-saem in a still from Nine Puzzles. Photo: Disney+.

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The jigsaw pieces Kim Da-mi’s criminal profiler has been sent after each murder fall into place and tee up K-drama for a second season.


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The jigsaw pieces Kim Da-mi’s criminal profiler has been sent after each murder fall into place and tee up K-drama for a second season.

The jigsaw pieces Kim Da-mi’s criminal profiler has been sent after each murder fall into place and tee up K-drama for a second season.