Diksha Sundriyal
Life is unpredictable. One bad decision, even if unintentional, can cause a lot of harm, and no one knows it better than Sang-ju and Yeong-ha in Netflix’s ‘The Frog.’ Sang-ju runs a motel, and Yeong-ha has a vacation home that he rents to tourists. Both men have lived a normally unexceptional life and want things to continue the same way. However, both their lives change when suspicious guests arrive at their places and turn their lives upside down forever. As the story progresses, we find out how Sang-ju and Yeong-ha’s plot lines intersect. The show also uses several motifs and metaphors to give us a better sense of their situation. A baseball cap also factors into the use of such motifs and reflects the impact of the events in the story on the lives of the protagonists and the people they love. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Cap is a Reminder of the Moment Gi-ho’s Life Changed
The cap in question is first seen on the head of the serial killer, Ji Hyang-cheol. He is wearing it on the day he checks into Sang-ju’s Lakeview Motel. That night, when he smuggles in a girl, Sang-ju is asleep at the reception. Unbeknownst to him, his son, Gi-ho, is also in the hotel and has come there to get the board game he is fond of. While Gi-ho is on his way down, Hyang-cheol is on his way up with the unconscious (possibly dead) girl. Gi-ho is shocked to see Hyang-cheol, mainly because he does not expect anyone to see him. He is scared that the stranger will report him to his parents.
When he sees the girl, it seems that the boy doesn’t fully understand the extent of what’s in front of him. Hyang-cheol makes use of this by talking to him peacefully as if there is nothing wrong with carrying someone to your room like that. In a bid to make the boy shut up, he gives him his cap. He refers to the board game and talks about how, by wearing the cap, Gi-ho will become invisible, just like the character in the game. This is a subtle way for him to tell the boy not to speak to anyone and act as if he never saw Hyang-cheol. Sure enough, a scared Gi-ho goes back to his room and hides the game and the cap under the bed.
It isn’t until later that Gi-ho realizes what he saw that night. What eats at him is that he could have prevented the whole thing by going straight to his father and telling him about the guest and the body he was carrying to his room. Had he done this, he could have prevented what happened next, basically saving his family from ruin and saving his mother, who died by suicide due to the trauma of the incident and all that happened after it. He carries this guilt within himself, chiding himself for being a coward. He never shares his story with everyone, and this further destroys him.
It isn’t until years later that he decides to get his revenge on Hyang-cheol. He vows to kill the man and avenge his family. He puts all of his blood and sweat into it and factors in every possibility, ensuring that all of it ends with Hyang-cheol dying at his hands. He does this while wearing the cap because it is only when he has killed Hyang-cheol that Gi-ho will be free of the torment and the secret that has been weighing on him for all these years. This is what the cap represents for him.
The Cap’s Meaning Changes When it Passes from One Owner to Another
In the beginning, the cap is just a cap. When Hyang-cheol wears it, it doesn’t have any meaning. But when he puts it on the head of a young Gi-ho, the cap acquires meaning. At first, it represents Gi-ho’s guilt, but later, it becomes a symbol of his revenge. Right before he shoots Hyang-cheol dead, he utters the same words the killer said to him all those years ago when he gave him his cap. Once Gi-ho has fulfilled his revenge, the cap loses meaning until Yeong-ha wears it.
Yeong-ha ends up on Gi-ho’s door unintentionally, with no idea what he really wants from him. By the end of their meeting, however, Yeong-ha learns a valuable lesson. He relates with Gi-ho because, like him, he ignored the killer in front of him and regrets not doing anything sooner. He realizes that if he doesn’t do anything now, then he will spend the rest of his life in regret, losing his loved ones when he could have easily saved them. Any doubt about taking action is removed when he calls his daughter, and Seong-a answers the phone. Now, he is convinced that killing the woman is the only way out, and it’s a desperately now or never situation for him.
When Yeong-ha wears the cap, he promises himself that this is the last day he will deal with Seong-a. No matter what happens at the end of it, either he will die or she will, and the debacle will come to an end. He sticks to this approach even when Captain Yoon approaches him, trying to get the idea of murder out of his head. He relents in favor of saving his daughter, but when Seong-a is out of prison within about two hours of her arrest, he decides to take matters into his own hands and stop Seong-a permanently before she flees the country.
At the end of the day, Seong-a dies, and things work out for the better for Yeong-ha. Still, he keeps the cap because it reminds him never to slack again in any situation and to deal with everything head-on. It reminds him how close he came to losing his daughter and his friend and represents his determination never to let that happen to them ever again. With this, the cap, which was the marker of death and chaos in the hands of a murderer and the sign of guilt and redemption for a kid, becomes a sign of hope and happy endings for Yeong-ha.
Read More: Why is the Netflix Show Called The Frog?
