Post by humblestudent2 on Oct 5, 2007 1:57:57 GMT -5
Episode 18 recap
Begins: Friday morning, May 4, Day 26
“The Starving Boy”
At the beginning of the episode, Seung-ha’s “brother”, Soo-gon, has just shown Hae-in the old photo of Seung-ha, taken twelve years ago, which convinces her, finally, against her will, that he is really Jeong Tae-seong.
Oblivious of her concerns, Soo-gon reminisces about those early days. He was working in a cabaret, and Seung-ha collapsed on the steps, suffering from malnutrition. Soo-gon took him to the hospital and stayed with him. He really is a kind guy, as Seung-ha told Kwang-doo once. That was how they met. (Of course, as we know, this was after the real Seung-ha had died in a hit-and-run, and Jeong Tae-seong “borrowed” his identity.)
Hae-in is visibly upset, and tells Soo-gon she has to get back to Seoul. “Did you have a fight?” Soo-gon asks cheerfully. “He doesn’t handle personal conversations well. Why don’t you come back with Seung-ha for a weekend!” Hae-in takes off. Standing at the bus stop, she goes over things that she has heard him say over the last few weeks, trying to find some reason to doubt what she now knows, but failing.
“The Defense Attorney at Work”
As for Seung-ha, he has just now shown up at the police station to defend Na Seok-jin, who, as Oh-soo knows, is one of Seung-ha’s last surviving targets!! He calls Heui-soo to beg him to get someone else. “Can’t you get a hotel lawyer?” “He is our hotel lawyer,” says Heui-soo, explaining that it was their Dad’s decision and there’s nothing to be done about it. Oh-soo feels utterly helpless at this turn of events.
Oh-soo clearly expects anything except that Seung-ha will actually act as a serious defense attorney, but the private conversation between Seung-ha and his new client suggests that Seung-ha may be about to defy expectations again. He says he believes that Seok-jin wouldn’t have left the hanky and the cigarette butt behind, but it does seem that he was on the scene. “Did you order the physical attack?” he asks. “The important thing is to prove that you didn’t kill him.” Seok-jin admits that he did order the beating. “Was this on Heui-soo’s orders?” “No. He just told me to take care of the Soon-ki business quietly.” “Do you have an alibi?” Seung-ha asks. Seok-jin says he does not. Seung-ha says they need to buy time, either to prove an alibi or find evidence that will exonerate him.
Hae-in now calls Oh-soo with a few questions. Are there any photos of Tae-seong from 12 years ago? No, says Oh,soo, they’ve all been taken from the records. “Are you sure he’s manipulating everything?” Hae-in asks, grasping at straws. “Is it possible that he’s alive and still isn’t the manipulator?” Oh-soo asks why she’s asking such a thing, but she gets agitated and rings off.
When the questioning begins, Oh-soo manages to sneak in. Seok-jin says that he did meet Soon-ki at the warehouse, but he was alive when he left. Ban asks if he didn’t hire Boss Kyeon to kill Soon-ki. Seok-jin denies it. Ban refers to the evidence of the phone calls and the traffic camera.
However, Seung-ha begins to shoot holes in the evidence, and quite effectively. The evidence that he was on the scene is beside the point, because he admits being on the scene. As for the handkerchief and the cigarette, they are evidence against Ban’s theory, not for it. If he hired Kyeon to kill Soon-ki, why use a poisoned cigarette? Why would a handkerchief be left behind? Ban accuses Soon-ki of using the stairs when he left the building the second time in order to avoid the security camera in the elevator, but Seung-ha retorts that that’s just an assumption, and is nothing like evidence that he actually killed Soon-ki.
Watching all this, Oh-soo becomes even more apprehensive and suspicious; clearly he doesn’t understand Seung-ha’s game at all. As Seung-ha leaves afterwards, Oh-soo corrals him: “First you frame Seok-jin and then you make him innocent. What are you up to?” Seung-ha calmly answers, “I believe someone is framing him.” “Is that someone yourself?” retorts Oh-soo. “It’s your job to find the killer,” Seung-ha tells the incredulous Oh-soo. “We’re partners now. You and I are the only people who believe he didn’t do it. I do my job as a lawyer, you do your job as a detective. Everything goes according to the wheel of destiny.”
“No,” Oh-soo retorts, “everything goes according to your scheme!”
“Like you said [in episode 16, I think], I’m not God,” says Seung-ha.
“’God makes destiny, but people change destiny’!” replies Oh-soo, flinging Seung-ha’s own words back at him; I think Seung-ha gives him a grudging look of approval in response to that little hit.1
“Seok-jin’s Alibi”
Inside the station, the team is assessing things. The evidence they have, Chief Ban says, is only enough to hold Seok-jin for 48 hours; after that, they’ll have to release him unless they come up with something else. Min-jae now mentions (as Oh-soo returns from his conversation outside) that Seok-jin got a call on his cell phone from Choi Na-heui at 11:02 PM. Naturally Oh-soo catches this.
Na-heui herself is in her husband’s office, talking about the prospects for having a child through insemination. She asks why Secretary Na isn’t at his desk, and is shocked to hear that he has been arrested for Soon-ki’s murder. “He’s not that kind of person!” she protests. Heui-soo replies, on the basis of his experience, that there are no special types of person – people can change depending on circumstances.2
At this point Oh-soo calls to ask Na-heui why she called Seok-jin on the night of the murder. “I wanted to ask what hotel Heui-soo was staying at,” she answers inventively; “is Secretary Na really a suspect?” “Yes,” answers Oh-soo, “he has no alibi.” When the phone call concludes, Heui-soo probes Na-heui about the phone call – he is at the state where he wants to torture both of them by encouraging her to tell more lies, I guess, since he knows exactly why she called Seok-jin, since it was he who sent her those last photos. “I always stay at the same hotel,” Heui-soo points out, tripping her up with ease. “Yes, I guess I’ve been out of it lately,” Na-heui answers, then takes off to the ladies’ room and bursts into tears, knowing that she herself is Na Seok-jin’s missing alibi.
“The Defense Attorney at Play”
Meanwhile Oh Seung-ha goes near the library, but stands at a safe distance, apparently somewhat troubled by his feelings for Hae-in which came out last night. He turns to go, but encounters Hae-in, who of course has blown off work today. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says, but Hae-in takes his hand and says, “Show me you’re sorry – take me to dinner or maybe a movie.” She is apparently in a happy mood and is not showing any of her inner conflict – for the moment.
Seung-ha smiles and takes her hand himself and for the rest of the day they have a little idyllic K-Drama couples’ wordless montage, full of cute moments; they eat in a restaurant, he wipes her face, they sit in a swing, they stand by the shore of the lake as the sun is setting.
Walking back home, Hae-in chatters about her lonely childhood, giving Seung-ha an instructive monologue/parable about feeling disconnected from the world but really just needing a friend and how she met Joo-heui. They both agree that they had fun. She goes in the house. Seung-ha goes back to the house and lies down in bed, still all smiles, apparently having completely forgotten the pressures of mastermindhood for this one evening.
Hae-in, though, is found by her mother, sitting motionless on her bed, tears flowing down her face. Her mom tries to comfort her and asks what’s wrong; she can’t tell her. But we know what it is. She and Seung-ha are going to have to have a Talk.
“Secrets and Lies”
In the morning, Min-jae tells Oh-soo that something new has turned up in Soon-ki’s bag in the apartment. It is the second red-envelope photo that he got – the one showing Na-heui leaving her house. Oh-soo remembers Soon-ki in the Tarot Café, telling him that the first photo he got showed a “man and a woman together”. So this is a second delivery that he got from the Mastermind, which he never told him about.
Oh-soo questions Seok-jin. Why did Soon-ki hide this second photo, does he have any idea? The first photo was you and your girlfriend, right? What is this about? What is the secret that you’re hiding? “There is no secret!” Seok-jin cries, distraught, bound to lie both by his shame and by his intention to keep Na-heui out of the scandal. He lashes out at Oh-soo, “This is all because of you – none of this would have happened if it weren’t for you.”
Meanwhile, we see the gloved hands get another red envelope out of the familiar subway locker. But this time we get a clear picture of who it is! WOHHHHHH!!! It’s Kim Yeong-cheol!!!3 He walks off mumbling: “It’s almost over, Tae-hoon!”
This time the t’aekbae comes for Heui-soo at his office. The red envelope contains the money and the plane tickets that Seok-jin left for Soon-ki! (Did you notice that they weren’t found on the scene?) Also, there is a photo that was snapped at the airport, showing Heui-soo sneaking back to Jeju in his golf outfit!! Heui-soo, taken totally off guard, compares the envelope and picture with the envelope and picture that he got earlier (showing Seok-jin and Na-heui smooching in the corridor). At that moment Seok-jin’s lawyer comes in to discuss matters, and Heui-soo has to throw everything into a desk drawer.
Now, Heui-soo is of course not actually in any great rush to see Seok-jin get out of jail. Rather the contrary; and this despite the fact that, in a late-night conversation, his dad has instructed him to give Seok-jin his full backing. (Congressman Kang doesn’t believe Seok-jin had the nerve to kill Soon-ki anyway – he suspects “the other person” that Joon-p’yo was talking about.)
Seung-ha tells Heui-soo that after he demonstrates his client’s innocence of the murder he’s going to tell him to admit to the assault. Heui-soo tries to hide his real feelings, but of course he is happy neither with the idea of his secretary publicly admitting to working with gangsters to beat up a guy, or, more basically, with his wife’s lover beating his frame. “I heard there was lots of evidence,” he says delicately, but Seung-ha dismisses this; he’s innocent, he was with someone else. Heui-soo tries to get Seung-ha to see that this mustn’t affect the hotel, but Seung-ha won’t listen: this is an individual case. If it had to do with the hotel at all, then Kang Heui-soo himself might be responsible for the beating. Heui-soo offers to assign Seung-ha a “partner” who knows more about the hotel business and can keep Seung-ha on a leash, but of course Seung-ha, who knows exactly what is going on, politely and cheerfully declines the favor.
As Seung-ha leaves, the police arrive with a warrant to search Seok-jin’s desk. Heui-soo tells his secretary to cooperate fully with them. Min-jae turns up a locker key in the desk; it’s a key to a locker in the hotel’s health club, one of Secretary Na’s perks. In the locker, they find a bottle of pills, blue-and-white capsules containing a white powder. Jae-min wonders if the powder is potassium cyanide, and HE SMELLS IT AND JUST ABOUT TASTES IT!! That’s NOT how you analyze unknown poisons!!! “We lose more rookies that way….”
“The Runaway”
Meanwhile, Cha Kwang-doo has spent the morning out visiting Seung-ha’s sister at the sanitarium.
The previous day, after finding out that Seung-ha was Seok-jin’s attorney, he got a phone call from his old police friend, Detective Kim (this is not the same Detective Kim who chewed Oh-soo out in the bar). Now, if you remember, back before Oh-soo was suspended, he had a talk with Kwang-doo about the possibility that Tae-seong had switched identities with another runaway who had been the real accident victim. Oh-soo was going to get a list of runaway teenagers at the time of the traffic accident. Apparently Kwang-doo is following up on this himself, and so Detective Kim faxed Kwang-doo this list.
And Kwang-doo immediately saw on this list the name of Oh Seung-ha, reported missing from a Catholic orphanage.
Kwang-doo thought about this far into the night. He remembers Seung-ha asking him, weeks ago, if he thought his being Jo Dong-seop’s lawyer was a coincidence. Of course Seung-ha let Kwang-doo believe his little theory that it was because the Mastermind wanted Kwang-doo involved himself. But it cannot be a coincidence that Seung-ha and Tae-seong were runaways at the same time. Kwang-doo is now the fifth person (after Joon-p'yo (deceased), Seung-heui, Oh-soo and Hae-in) to learn Seung-ha’s true identity.
So, in the morning, Kwang-doo goes out to visit Seung-heui and try to get her to tell the truth about the flash drive, which, he correctly surmises, probably contained Joon-p’yo’s interview with the old man from the Dongmun store.
Seung-heui, evasive and troubled throughout the conversation, asserts that even though the orphanage director may have reported Seung-ha missing, he didn’t “run away” (I suppose the distinction is that he was looking for work or whatever). As for the flash drive, Seung-heui sticks with the music story, and would like Kwang-doo to leave, but he has a few more words to say: he doesn’t blame Tae-seong for getting revenge on the world, but he wants to stop him from going on a path he can’t turn back from. “If you know something, please stop him,” he pleads earnestly. But his words have no visible effect on Seung-heui’s resolve to keep Seung-ha’s secrets.
“The Stutterer”
On the other hand, such pleas sometimes have a delayed effect…. Hwang Dae-bil shows up at the police station, and wants to speak to Detective Kang Oh-soo. Under the circumstances, Ban’s superior consents to this.
Dae-pil confesses. He hated Reporter Seong; he had been getting the “Destiny” letters for three years, from someone who understood his need for revenge. He was told he’d get his chance, but he had to wait to see “what decision he (Joon-p’yo) made”. Apparently he made the wrong one, because he was called from a pay phone and given the reporter’s location, while he drove around waiting for his chance.
He didn’t record the call, but he remembers that the caller stuttered.
On the strength of this, Oh-soo wants a search warrant for Yeong-cheol’s apartment. Team chief Ban says that isn’t enough. Oh-soo proposes checking all the fingerprints from the pay phone at the accident site, looking for Yeong-cheol’s, using people from other teams if necessary.4
“I’d rather be a murderer”
At this point the rest of the team comes back and they tell Ban and Oh-soo about the pills, which they are getting analyzed. Oh-soo protests that this must be another frame. Unfortunately because of privacy concerns there are no cameras in the dressing room.
Oh-soo tells Seok-jin about the pills. He sees the noose tightening around Seok-jin’s throat, while he remains inexplicably silent, keeping his secrets and sticking with this story of being out driving alone. “What are you hiding?” Oh-soo begs him. “Where did you go?” “I can’t tell you,” sobs Seok-jin …. “I’d rather be a murderer.” Oh-soo, increasingly frantic, dashes around and finds the blue handkerchief and snatches it up and dashes off to find Hae-in.
Meanwhile Na-heui, at home, continues to stew and fret. Now Heui-soo comes in and announces that the two of them will leave next week for a relaxing long vacation in Provence! Na-heui, who knows that she is Seok-jin’s alibi, wonders if that would be the best thing considering Secretary Na’s situation. Heui-soo, who (unknown to her) also knows that she is Seok-jin’s alibi, knows that it is just the thing. “The company is taking care of him,” he says sharply, getting a bit sick of his wife’s concern for her lover.
“I don’t believe in hope”
Meanwhile Seung-ha is also looking for Hae-in. (He’s also curious where Kwang-doo has been all day.) She didn’t go to work today either, she’s not at home, and she’s not answering her cell phone. Seung-ha is actually getting concerned that she might have fainted again from the pressure of some task or other.
At last, in the evening, he finds her sitting in the church. “You should have told your mother,” he scolds her, concerned. But she has bigger concerns – she wants to save Seung-ha’s soul. “Why didn’t I see the truth? You’re suffering more than anyone but you have to let yourself out of the tunnel,” she says.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, uncharacteristically evasive.
“I’ll be there for you, Jeong Tae-seong.”
She tries to take his hand; he backs away. His defense mechanisms kick in. “I don’t need anyone,” he declares with juvenile bravado. “You couldn’t prove anything 12 years ago and you still can’t.”
He starts to walk out of the church; she grabs him from behind, fastening her arms around him. Both are crying now. “Please stop!” she cries. “Don’t give up!”
He pries her hands loose from his waist. “I don’t believe in hope,” he says harshly. “And I don’t look back on the steps I’ve taken.” He walks away with his fist clenched.
He leaves the church.5 Outside the door, he immediately proves himself a liar, turning back toward the church, burning with the desire to go back in; horrible loud sobs come from him. He drives away, racked with grief; he pulls over and stops on the side of the road, because he’s too overcome with emotion to drive.6
“I wanted to let you know the truth”
Oh-soo is in front of Hae-in’s house, trying to find Hae-in just as Seung-ha was. He calls Joo-heui but she hasn’t seen him. But at that moment Hae-in comes back from the church, eyes red, and weary, but ready to do the job at hand. Oh-soo has second thoughts – maybe she shouldn’t do a reading. Maybe she’s too weak, and also – it flashes through his mind – he doesn’t want to put her in the position of betraying Seung-ha, whom he knows she has feelings for. But Hae-in is going to go ahead.
She does a reading on the handkerchief. She sees Soon-ki’s bloody face in the warehouse. She sees the photo of Na-heui and Seok-jin kissing in the car. She hears Soon-ki’s voice as he says something; and then a hand reaches out and puts a cigarette in his mouth…
“It was different,” she gasps, coming back to the real world. “How?” asks Oh-soo. “The Gates of Hell wasn’t in it, or the locker. I say your friend. He was talking to someone … he said, ‘I wanted to let you know the truth.’” She and Oh-soo note that he used an honorific form – he was talking to an elder or superior.7 Also, there was a photo of a man and a woman hugging.
“The duty of Oedipus”
At a loss for ideas, Kang Oh-soo sets up another late-night meeting with Seung-ha. “Cyanide pills were found in Seok-jin’s locker,” he says. “How can I prove him innocent?”
“So you’ll perform the duty of Oedipus?”8 asks Seung-ha, who has not had a good evening so far.
“Quit talking nonsense and tell me how!” cries Oh-soo.
“The facts you are uncovering can pierce your heart,” Seung-ha warns. “If I can save Seok-jin I don’t care about my heart,” Oh-soo replies. But anyway, Seung-ha tells him he has all the evidence he needs, in the cell phone records and the photo.
Back in his apartment, Seung-ha is drinking. He stares at his reflection in a mirror. Repeating Kang Oh-soo’s earlier lines, he asks his reflection bitterly, “When will it be enough? How far will you go?” – and sloshes the drink in the reflection’s face.
Kang paces back and forth, stewing over the problem that Seung-ha has posed him. But ultimately he figures out why Soon-ki, the blackmailer, was holding on to a picture of Na-heui, and who the ‘girl friend’ was in the earlier picture, which Seok-jin so frantically flushed away, and why it’s important that Na-heui called Seok-jin immediately before he went back out on his supposedly solitary drive at 11 PM, and why Seok-jin would “rather be a murderer” than tell the truth about his secrets and his alibi. He dashes down to Seok-jin’s cell. “You didn’t, did you? – you and sister-in-law?? Tell me I’m crazy, tell me I’m wrong! Look me in the eye and say it!” Seok-jin can’t do it. Oh-soo thinks about slugging him, but doesn’t. He goes out in the street and cries.
Ends: Late Saturday night, May 5, day 27
(1) The ‘reflection’ motif has gotten to the point that they are speaking each other’s lines. Not for the last time.
(2) Maybe you don’t want to hear this from the murderer Heui-soo, but this is one of the underlying themes of the whole very Christian drama. We are all sinners; we all have the power to do any evil. Here is the same thought from the Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton:
"No man’s really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be; till he’s realized exactly how much right he has to all this snobbery, and sneering, and talking about ‘criminals,’ as if they were apes in a forest ten thousand miles away; till he’s got rid of all the dirty self - deception of talking about low types and deficient skulls; till he’s squeezed out of his soul the last drop of the oil of the Pharisees; till his only hope is somehow or other to have captured one criminal, and kept him safe and sane under his own hat." - The Secret of Father Brown
(3) !!!Shock!!! BIG SURPRISE!!
Seriously, we have known this for like a month now.
(4) Why didn’t they do this before? Has the phone booth been closed this whole time, it’s over a week since the injury. If they didn’t lift the prints before and didn’t seal the phone booth, isn’t it too late? If they did lift the prints before, what have they been doing with them? This part seems a bit weak…
(5) He abandons the love of Hae-in and the love of God in the same action. Very symbolic.
(6) Just as Oh-soo did in an earlier episode.
(7) To be precise, he said “Sasireul allyeodeuriryeogo han keyeiyo.”, literally “Truth <-- wanting to let (you) know <-- doing/speaking <-- it is that”. The key point is that he said “allyeodeuriryeogo” and not mearly “allilyeogo”. The auxiliary verb “teurida” is an honorific used with elders or superiors; so “allyeodeurilyeogo” means something like “wanting to offer you the service of letting you know”. The d-addicts translator renders this as “I wanted to tell you the truth, sir.”
(8) See Episode 11.
Begins: Friday morning, May 4, Day 26
“The Starving Boy”
At the beginning of the episode, Seung-ha’s “brother”, Soo-gon, has just shown Hae-in the old photo of Seung-ha, taken twelve years ago, which convinces her, finally, against her will, that he is really Jeong Tae-seong.
Oblivious of her concerns, Soo-gon reminisces about those early days. He was working in a cabaret, and Seung-ha collapsed on the steps, suffering from malnutrition. Soo-gon took him to the hospital and stayed with him. He really is a kind guy, as Seung-ha told Kwang-doo once. That was how they met. (Of course, as we know, this was after the real Seung-ha had died in a hit-and-run, and Jeong Tae-seong “borrowed” his identity.)
Hae-in is visibly upset, and tells Soo-gon she has to get back to Seoul. “Did you have a fight?” Soo-gon asks cheerfully. “He doesn’t handle personal conversations well. Why don’t you come back with Seung-ha for a weekend!” Hae-in takes off. Standing at the bus stop, she goes over things that she has heard him say over the last few weeks, trying to find some reason to doubt what she now knows, but failing.
“The Defense Attorney at Work”
As for Seung-ha, he has just now shown up at the police station to defend Na Seok-jin, who, as Oh-soo knows, is one of Seung-ha’s last surviving targets!! He calls Heui-soo to beg him to get someone else. “Can’t you get a hotel lawyer?” “He is our hotel lawyer,” says Heui-soo, explaining that it was their Dad’s decision and there’s nothing to be done about it. Oh-soo feels utterly helpless at this turn of events.
Oh-soo clearly expects anything except that Seung-ha will actually act as a serious defense attorney, but the private conversation between Seung-ha and his new client suggests that Seung-ha may be about to defy expectations again. He says he believes that Seok-jin wouldn’t have left the hanky and the cigarette butt behind, but it does seem that he was on the scene. “Did you order the physical attack?” he asks. “The important thing is to prove that you didn’t kill him.” Seok-jin admits that he did order the beating. “Was this on Heui-soo’s orders?” “No. He just told me to take care of the Soon-ki business quietly.” “Do you have an alibi?” Seung-ha asks. Seok-jin says he does not. Seung-ha says they need to buy time, either to prove an alibi or find evidence that will exonerate him.
Hae-in now calls Oh-soo with a few questions. Are there any photos of Tae-seong from 12 years ago? No, says Oh,soo, they’ve all been taken from the records. “Are you sure he’s manipulating everything?” Hae-in asks, grasping at straws. “Is it possible that he’s alive and still isn’t the manipulator?” Oh-soo asks why she’s asking such a thing, but she gets agitated and rings off.
When the questioning begins, Oh-soo manages to sneak in. Seok-jin says that he did meet Soon-ki at the warehouse, but he was alive when he left. Ban asks if he didn’t hire Boss Kyeon to kill Soon-ki. Seok-jin denies it. Ban refers to the evidence of the phone calls and the traffic camera.
However, Seung-ha begins to shoot holes in the evidence, and quite effectively. The evidence that he was on the scene is beside the point, because he admits being on the scene. As for the handkerchief and the cigarette, they are evidence against Ban’s theory, not for it. If he hired Kyeon to kill Soon-ki, why use a poisoned cigarette? Why would a handkerchief be left behind? Ban accuses Soon-ki of using the stairs when he left the building the second time in order to avoid the security camera in the elevator, but Seung-ha retorts that that’s just an assumption, and is nothing like evidence that he actually killed Soon-ki.
Watching all this, Oh-soo becomes even more apprehensive and suspicious; clearly he doesn’t understand Seung-ha’s game at all. As Seung-ha leaves afterwards, Oh-soo corrals him: “First you frame Seok-jin and then you make him innocent. What are you up to?” Seung-ha calmly answers, “I believe someone is framing him.” “Is that someone yourself?” retorts Oh-soo. “It’s your job to find the killer,” Seung-ha tells the incredulous Oh-soo. “We’re partners now. You and I are the only people who believe he didn’t do it. I do my job as a lawyer, you do your job as a detective. Everything goes according to the wheel of destiny.”
“No,” Oh-soo retorts, “everything goes according to your scheme!”
“Like you said [in episode 16, I think], I’m not God,” says Seung-ha.
“’God makes destiny, but people change destiny’!” replies Oh-soo, flinging Seung-ha’s own words back at him; I think Seung-ha gives him a grudging look of approval in response to that little hit.1
“Seok-jin’s Alibi”
Inside the station, the team is assessing things. The evidence they have, Chief Ban says, is only enough to hold Seok-jin for 48 hours; after that, they’ll have to release him unless they come up with something else. Min-jae now mentions (as Oh-soo returns from his conversation outside) that Seok-jin got a call on his cell phone from Choi Na-heui at 11:02 PM. Naturally Oh-soo catches this.
Na-heui herself is in her husband’s office, talking about the prospects for having a child through insemination. She asks why Secretary Na isn’t at his desk, and is shocked to hear that he has been arrested for Soon-ki’s murder. “He’s not that kind of person!” she protests. Heui-soo replies, on the basis of his experience, that there are no special types of person – people can change depending on circumstances.2
At this point Oh-soo calls to ask Na-heui why she called Seok-jin on the night of the murder. “I wanted to ask what hotel Heui-soo was staying at,” she answers inventively; “is Secretary Na really a suspect?” “Yes,” answers Oh-soo, “he has no alibi.” When the phone call concludes, Heui-soo probes Na-heui about the phone call – he is at the state where he wants to torture both of them by encouraging her to tell more lies, I guess, since he knows exactly why she called Seok-jin, since it was he who sent her those last photos. “I always stay at the same hotel,” Heui-soo points out, tripping her up with ease. “Yes, I guess I’ve been out of it lately,” Na-heui answers, then takes off to the ladies’ room and bursts into tears, knowing that she herself is Na Seok-jin’s missing alibi.
“The Defense Attorney at Play”
Meanwhile Oh Seung-ha goes near the library, but stands at a safe distance, apparently somewhat troubled by his feelings for Hae-in which came out last night. He turns to go, but encounters Hae-in, who of course has blown off work today. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he says, but Hae-in takes his hand and says, “Show me you’re sorry – take me to dinner or maybe a movie.” She is apparently in a happy mood and is not showing any of her inner conflict – for the moment.
Seung-ha smiles and takes her hand himself and for the rest of the day they have a little idyllic K-Drama couples’ wordless montage, full of cute moments; they eat in a restaurant, he wipes her face, they sit in a swing, they stand by the shore of the lake as the sun is setting.
Walking back home, Hae-in chatters about her lonely childhood, giving Seung-ha an instructive monologue/parable about feeling disconnected from the world but really just needing a friend and how she met Joo-heui. They both agree that they had fun. She goes in the house. Seung-ha goes back to the house and lies down in bed, still all smiles, apparently having completely forgotten the pressures of mastermindhood for this one evening.
Hae-in, though, is found by her mother, sitting motionless on her bed, tears flowing down her face. Her mom tries to comfort her and asks what’s wrong; she can’t tell her. But we know what it is. She and Seung-ha are going to have to have a Talk.
“Secrets and Lies”
In the morning, Min-jae tells Oh-soo that something new has turned up in Soon-ki’s bag in the apartment. It is the second red-envelope photo that he got – the one showing Na-heui leaving her house. Oh-soo remembers Soon-ki in the Tarot Café, telling him that the first photo he got showed a “man and a woman together”. So this is a second delivery that he got from the Mastermind, which he never told him about.
Oh-soo questions Seok-jin. Why did Soon-ki hide this second photo, does he have any idea? The first photo was you and your girlfriend, right? What is this about? What is the secret that you’re hiding? “There is no secret!” Seok-jin cries, distraught, bound to lie both by his shame and by his intention to keep Na-heui out of the scandal. He lashes out at Oh-soo, “This is all because of you – none of this would have happened if it weren’t for you.”
Meanwhile, we see the gloved hands get another red envelope out of the familiar subway locker. But this time we get a clear picture of who it is! WOHHHHHH!!! It’s Kim Yeong-cheol!!!3 He walks off mumbling: “It’s almost over, Tae-hoon!”
This time the t’aekbae comes for Heui-soo at his office. The red envelope contains the money and the plane tickets that Seok-jin left for Soon-ki! (Did you notice that they weren’t found on the scene?) Also, there is a photo that was snapped at the airport, showing Heui-soo sneaking back to Jeju in his golf outfit!! Heui-soo, taken totally off guard, compares the envelope and picture with the envelope and picture that he got earlier (showing Seok-jin and Na-heui smooching in the corridor). At that moment Seok-jin’s lawyer comes in to discuss matters, and Heui-soo has to throw everything into a desk drawer.
Now, Heui-soo is of course not actually in any great rush to see Seok-jin get out of jail. Rather the contrary; and this despite the fact that, in a late-night conversation, his dad has instructed him to give Seok-jin his full backing. (Congressman Kang doesn’t believe Seok-jin had the nerve to kill Soon-ki anyway – he suspects “the other person” that Joon-p’yo was talking about.)
Seung-ha tells Heui-soo that after he demonstrates his client’s innocence of the murder he’s going to tell him to admit to the assault. Heui-soo tries to hide his real feelings, but of course he is happy neither with the idea of his secretary publicly admitting to working with gangsters to beat up a guy, or, more basically, with his wife’s lover beating his frame. “I heard there was lots of evidence,” he says delicately, but Seung-ha dismisses this; he’s innocent, he was with someone else. Heui-soo tries to get Seung-ha to see that this mustn’t affect the hotel, but Seung-ha won’t listen: this is an individual case. If it had to do with the hotel at all, then Kang Heui-soo himself might be responsible for the beating. Heui-soo offers to assign Seung-ha a “partner” who knows more about the hotel business and can keep Seung-ha on a leash, but of course Seung-ha, who knows exactly what is going on, politely and cheerfully declines the favor.
As Seung-ha leaves, the police arrive with a warrant to search Seok-jin’s desk. Heui-soo tells his secretary to cooperate fully with them. Min-jae turns up a locker key in the desk; it’s a key to a locker in the hotel’s health club, one of Secretary Na’s perks. In the locker, they find a bottle of pills, blue-and-white capsules containing a white powder. Jae-min wonders if the powder is potassium cyanide, and HE SMELLS IT AND JUST ABOUT TASTES IT!! That’s NOT how you analyze unknown poisons!!! “We lose more rookies that way….”
“The Runaway”
Meanwhile, Cha Kwang-doo has spent the morning out visiting Seung-ha’s sister at the sanitarium.
The previous day, after finding out that Seung-ha was Seok-jin’s attorney, he got a phone call from his old police friend, Detective Kim (this is not the same Detective Kim who chewed Oh-soo out in the bar). Now, if you remember, back before Oh-soo was suspended, he had a talk with Kwang-doo about the possibility that Tae-seong had switched identities with another runaway who had been the real accident victim. Oh-soo was going to get a list of runaway teenagers at the time of the traffic accident. Apparently Kwang-doo is following up on this himself, and so Detective Kim faxed Kwang-doo this list.
And Kwang-doo immediately saw on this list the name of Oh Seung-ha, reported missing from a Catholic orphanage.
Kwang-doo thought about this far into the night. He remembers Seung-ha asking him, weeks ago, if he thought his being Jo Dong-seop’s lawyer was a coincidence. Of course Seung-ha let Kwang-doo believe his little theory that it was because the Mastermind wanted Kwang-doo involved himself. But it cannot be a coincidence that Seung-ha and Tae-seong were runaways at the same time. Kwang-doo is now the fifth person (after Joon-p'yo (deceased), Seung-heui, Oh-soo and Hae-in) to learn Seung-ha’s true identity.
So, in the morning, Kwang-doo goes out to visit Seung-heui and try to get her to tell the truth about the flash drive, which, he correctly surmises, probably contained Joon-p’yo’s interview with the old man from the Dongmun store.
Seung-heui, evasive and troubled throughout the conversation, asserts that even though the orphanage director may have reported Seung-ha missing, he didn’t “run away” (I suppose the distinction is that he was looking for work or whatever). As for the flash drive, Seung-heui sticks with the music story, and would like Kwang-doo to leave, but he has a few more words to say: he doesn’t blame Tae-seong for getting revenge on the world, but he wants to stop him from going on a path he can’t turn back from. “If you know something, please stop him,” he pleads earnestly. But his words have no visible effect on Seung-heui’s resolve to keep Seung-ha’s secrets.
“The Stutterer”
On the other hand, such pleas sometimes have a delayed effect…. Hwang Dae-bil shows up at the police station, and wants to speak to Detective Kang Oh-soo. Under the circumstances, Ban’s superior consents to this.
Dae-pil confesses. He hated Reporter Seong; he had been getting the “Destiny” letters for three years, from someone who understood his need for revenge. He was told he’d get his chance, but he had to wait to see “what decision he (Joon-p’yo) made”. Apparently he made the wrong one, because he was called from a pay phone and given the reporter’s location, while he drove around waiting for his chance.
He didn’t record the call, but he remembers that the caller stuttered.
On the strength of this, Oh-soo wants a search warrant for Yeong-cheol’s apartment. Team chief Ban says that isn’t enough. Oh-soo proposes checking all the fingerprints from the pay phone at the accident site, looking for Yeong-cheol’s, using people from other teams if necessary.4
“I’d rather be a murderer”
At this point the rest of the team comes back and they tell Ban and Oh-soo about the pills, which they are getting analyzed. Oh-soo protests that this must be another frame. Unfortunately because of privacy concerns there are no cameras in the dressing room.
Oh-soo tells Seok-jin about the pills. He sees the noose tightening around Seok-jin’s throat, while he remains inexplicably silent, keeping his secrets and sticking with this story of being out driving alone. “What are you hiding?” Oh-soo begs him. “Where did you go?” “I can’t tell you,” sobs Seok-jin …. “I’d rather be a murderer.” Oh-soo, increasingly frantic, dashes around and finds the blue handkerchief and snatches it up and dashes off to find Hae-in.
Meanwhile Na-heui, at home, continues to stew and fret. Now Heui-soo comes in and announces that the two of them will leave next week for a relaxing long vacation in Provence! Na-heui, who knows that she is Seok-jin’s alibi, wonders if that would be the best thing considering Secretary Na’s situation. Heui-soo, who (unknown to her) also knows that she is Seok-jin’s alibi, knows that it is just the thing. “The company is taking care of him,” he says sharply, getting a bit sick of his wife’s concern for her lover.
“I don’t believe in hope”
Meanwhile Seung-ha is also looking for Hae-in. (He’s also curious where Kwang-doo has been all day.) She didn’t go to work today either, she’s not at home, and she’s not answering her cell phone. Seung-ha is actually getting concerned that she might have fainted again from the pressure of some task or other.
At last, in the evening, he finds her sitting in the church. “You should have told your mother,” he scolds her, concerned. But she has bigger concerns – she wants to save Seung-ha’s soul. “Why didn’t I see the truth? You’re suffering more than anyone but you have to let yourself out of the tunnel,” she says.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, uncharacteristically evasive.
“I’ll be there for you, Jeong Tae-seong.”
She tries to take his hand; he backs away. His defense mechanisms kick in. “I don’t need anyone,” he declares with juvenile bravado. “You couldn’t prove anything 12 years ago and you still can’t.”
He starts to walk out of the church; she grabs him from behind, fastening her arms around him. Both are crying now. “Please stop!” she cries. “Don’t give up!”
He pries her hands loose from his waist. “I don’t believe in hope,” he says harshly. “And I don’t look back on the steps I’ve taken.” He walks away with his fist clenched.
He leaves the church.5 Outside the door, he immediately proves himself a liar, turning back toward the church, burning with the desire to go back in; horrible loud sobs come from him. He drives away, racked with grief; he pulls over and stops on the side of the road, because he’s too overcome with emotion to drive.6
“I wanted to let you know the truth”
Oh-soo is in front of Hae-in’s house, trying to find Hae-in just as Seung-ha was. He calls Joo-heui but she hasn’t seen him. But at that moment Hae-in comes back from the church, eyes red, and weary, but ready to do the job at hand. Oh-soo has second thoughts – maybe she shouldn’t do a reading. Maybe she’s too weak, and also – it flashes through his mind – he doesn’t want to put her in the position of betraying Seung-ha, whom he knows she has feelings for. But Hae-in is going to go ahead.
She does a reading on the handkerchief. She sees Soon-ki’s bloody face in the warehouse. She sees the photo of Na-heui and Seok-jin kissing in the car. She hears Soon-ki’s voice as he says something; and then a hand reaches out and puts a cigarette in his mouth…
“It was different,” she gasps, coming back to the real world. “How?” asks Oh-soo. “The Gates of Hell wasn’t in it, or the locker. I say your friend. He was talking to someone … he said, ‘I wanted to let you know the truth.’” She and Oh-soo note that he used an honorific form – he was talking to an elder or superior.7 Also, there was a photo of a man and a woman hugging.
“The duty of Oedipus”
At a loss for ideas, Kang Oh-soo sets up another late-night meeting with Seung-ha. “Cyanide pills were found in Seok-jin’s locker,” he says. “How can I prove him innocent?”
“So you’ll perform the duty of Oedipus?”8 asks Seung-ha, who has not had a good evening so far.
“Quit talking nonsense and tell me how!” cries Oh-soo.
“The facts you are uncovering can pierce your heart,” Seung-ha warns. “If I can save Seok-jin I don’t care about my heart,” Oh-soo replies. But anyway, Seung-ha tells him he has all the evidence he needs, in the cell phone records and the photo.
Back in his apartment, Seung-ha is drinking. He stares at his reflection in a mirror. Repeating Kang Oh-soo’s earlier lines, he asks his reflection bitterly, “When will it be enough? How far will you go?” – and sloshes the drink in the reflection’s face.
Kang paces back and forth, stewing over the problem that Seung-ha has posed him. But ultimately he figures out why Soon-ki, the blackmailer, was holding on to a picture of Na-heui, and who the ‘girl friend’ was in the earlier picture, which Seok-jin so frantically flushed away, and why it’s important that Na-heui called Seok-jin immediately before he went back out on his supposedly solitary drive at 11 PM, and why Seok-jin would “rather be a murderer” than tell the truth about his secrets and his alibi. He dashes down to Seok-jin’s cell. “You didn’t, did you? – you and sister-in-law?? Tell me I’m crazy, tell me I’m wrong! Look me in the eye and say it!” Seok-jin can’t do it. Oh-soo thinks about slugging him, but doesn’t. He goes out in the street and cries.
Ends: Late Saturday night, May 5, day 27
(1) The ‘reflection’ motif has gotten to the point that they are speaking each other’s lines. Not for the last time.
(2) Maybe you don’t want to hear this from the murderer Heui-soo, but this is one of the underlying themes of the whole very Christian drama. We are all sinners; we all have the power to do any evil. Here is the same thought from the Catholic writer G. K. Chesterton:
"No man’s really any good till he knows how bad he is, or might be; till he’s realized exactly how much right he has to all this snobbery, and sneering, and talking about ‘criminals,’ as if they were apes in a forest ten thousand miles away; till he’s got rid of all the dirty self - deception of talking about low types and deficient skulls; till he’s squeezed out of his soul the last drop of the oil of the Pharisees; till his only hope is somehow or other to have captured one criminal, and kept him safe and sane under his own hat." - The Secret of Father Brown
(3) !!!Shock!!! BIG SURPRISE!!
Seriously, we have known this for like a month now.(4) Why didn’t they do this before? Has the phone booth been closed this whole time, it’s over a week since the injury. If they didn’t lift the prints before and didn’t seal the phone booth, isn’t it too late? If they did lift the prints before, what have they been doing with them? This part seems a bit weak…
(5) He abandons the love of Hae-in and the love of God in the same action. Very symbolic.
(6) Just as Oh-soo did in an earlier episode.
(7) To be precise, he said “Sasireul allyeodeuriryeogo han keyeiyo.”, literally “Truth <-- wanting to let (you) know <-- doing/speaking <-- it is that”. The key point is that he said “allyeodeuriryeogo” and not mearly “allilyeogo”. The auxiliary verb “teurida” is an honorific used with elders or superiors; so “allyeodeurilyeogo” means something like “wanting to offer you the service of letting you know”. The d-addicts translator renders this as “I wanted to tell you the truth, sir.”
(8) See Episode 11.
