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Mysterious Il-seung: Episodes 7-8

How many times can a man escape prison before he finally gets caught? Jong-sam tests that limit, but first he reunites with an ally from the past. While he’s busy trying to untangle the mysterious Il-seung’s last moments, Jin-young and her unit literally dig deeper into their recent case, where they uncover past deeds grislier than anticipated.

 
EPISODE 7 RECAP

We return to the river where we last left Jong-sam with the ex-NIS agents. They’ve tied him to a weight and drop him into the water. Jong-sam struggles to free himself, but then he gets an assist from an unidentified underwater hand that cuts the rope to the weight and sets Jong-sam free.

On land, that helpful hand is revealed to belong to Jong-sam’s former mentor, Detective Kang. Jong-sam is not happy to see him after all this time, but the former detective has one last scheme for the two of them—he wants to help Jong-sam find the missing 100 billion won and crush Director Lee (the former president), his long-time target, once and for all.

Jong-sam’s not buying it, so he turns away from the detective, only to be surrounded by police cars. They’re here from the prosecutor’s office to arrest Il-seung for theft.

Chairwoman Gook is not happy at all to hear this latest turn of events, and she orders her agents to tail Jong-sam. As they do, they also start gathering intel on the prosecutor who has called Jong-sam in.

That man, Prosecutor Kim, grills Director Lee about his monetary exchanges with Chairwoman Gook. The director’s attorney, Lawyer Ahn, interrupts briefly to insist that the director not be kept past midnight.

Prosecutor Kim agrees and continues on with his timeline of the director’s misconduct, and shows off his testimony and photographic evidence that shows that a portion of the NIS budget was transferred to a company in Macao, and then withdrawn and transported by Chairwoman Gook back to the Future Economics Institute. The chairwoman used her diplomatic status to pass the money through customs undetected.

Director Lee responds to the allegations by asking where the money is then, and Prosecutor Kim admits that Il-seung stole it. When Director Lee says that they should focus on catching the thief, Prosecutor Kim assures him that he already has.

Jong-sam is escorted into the prosecutor’s office then, and he can’t help but recall the last time he was here as a young man. Time is up in Prosecutor Kim’s office, and Director Lee heads out. He and Jong-sam pass each other in the hall, neither knowing the other until Prosecutor Kim calls out for Il-seung.

There’s a snag in the great Il-seung identity switch—Prosecutor Kim was working with the real Il-seung and knows that Jong-sam isn’t the right guy.

Out in their car, the NIS agents have figured this out too, though they’re disgruntled that their intel team is a little green and slow to get this info back to them.

Back to the stand-off in the prosecutor’s office, Director Lee runs with the opportunity this gives him. He laughs at Prosecutor Kim for falling for a fake Il-seung, when even the paperwork the prosecutor’s office matches Jong-sam’s face.

Prosecutor Kim leaves in a huff as Director Lee turns as well, and Jong-sam picks up the Il-seung paperwork tossed on the ground as the officers release him from custody.

Jong-sam follows Director Lee into the restroom to strike a bargain: Jong-sam asks for time and space to find the money for Director Lee on his own. If he finds it, he gets 1 billion won ($1 million) of the total 100 billion as his cut. There’s no need for trust, since Director Lee can just have Jong-sam killed if he fails or defects. As a death-row convict, Jong-sam seems calm at the prospect of his life on the line.

Director Lee accepts the deal and calls off Chairwoman Gook, who then pulls her agents back. Jong-sam gives the agents a wink and a wave as they’re taken off the case.

Jong-sam heads back to the one place that’s his, the playground where he used to sleep as a youth. It turns out it’s also the place where he and Detective Kang used to meet up if they were separated, and Detective Kang shows up now.

Jong-sam’s not interested in Detective Kang’s nostalgia, and instead presses him on any intel he has on Director Lee. Ten years in prison has left Jong-sam unfamiliar with the latest cell phone technology, so Detective Kang has to walk him through the video he has on his phone, of a figure climbing into a truck the night that the real Il-seung died.

Detective Kang explains that Director Lee prefers to keep his money in cash, and when he learned he was under investigation, he attempted to move it in this truck under the cover of night. His plan was ruined by Il-seung, who managed to hijack the truck and hide the money.

Jong-sam wonders what clues Il-seung’s lost phone might have on it. It turns out that Detective Kang was looking for the phone the night he first spotted Jong-sam looting the storage container, and he knows it looks like the same model as the phone he has.

With the detective’s usefulness exhausted, Jong-sam starts to head off. Detective Kang can’t help but ask why Jong-sam doesn’t want to know where he’s been all these years. Jong-sam has one question: What happened to Detective Kang’s wife? Detective Kang blusters that they never actually married, and they’d fallen out of touch. Jong-sam suggests that she might still be waiting for him, but he says she wouldn’t wait this long. Jong-sam leaves the detective behind in the playground with his thoughts.

We cut to a woman waiting alone outside. Someone calls out, “Wife!” and she smiles and greets her husband, Jin-young’s team lead Detective Park. They cutely greet each other and hurry inside to escape the cold.

Detective Kang, on the other hand, heads home alone, and he asks the driver to turn off the radio as it blares updates about the case and the swing in favor of Director Lee.

Still at the office, Prosecutor Kim’s frustration grows by the minute. He recalls his interactions with the real Il-seung right before his death. Il-seung was so certain Director Lee wouldn’t have him killed, but now the prosecutor suspects foul play.

On his way out, Jong-sam notices that he’s grown smelly again (near drowning will do that to you). He stops at some clothing donation bins, and after discarding several sparkly outfits, finally finds some clothes for himself.

He uses the information from the prosecutor’s office to find Il-seung’s rooftop apartment. For a detective, Il-seung picked a really easy door lock combination, and Jong-sam is inside in one try.

The place is a sty, but the really terrible smell is coming from Jong-sam’s feet, so he hurriedly changes clothes before cleaning up the rest of the apartment and then heading to bed.

While Jong-sam struggles to sleep in a strange bed, Ddakji is still walking the halls of the hospital. Both men find themselves asleep on the floor, Jong-sam in the apartment and Ddakji on the floor of a bathroom stall.

The next morning, Jin-young greets Detective Park’s wife in the police station lobby. Meanwhile, Ddakji is ushered out of the bathroom by the hospital cleaning staff. He heads to Musan Penitentiary to claim Jong-sam’s possessions and the money that he’d given to his commissary. The guard gives Ddakji directions to the facility where his friend’s body is being held.

Back at the police station, Detective Park and team touch base on the Gil-choon case. As they discuss, Chief Jang sneaks in to see when he can show off their success at a press conference. Detective Park thinks he shouldn’t give a press conference because Eun-bi is so young, but the chief says he won’t reveal her name or face.

Jin-young thinks they aren’t done investigating yet, and she receives a call that reinforces her doubts. The construction worker from the water tank has a lead on Thien, the woman who quit the site the same time that Gil-choon left.

The chief expresses his concerns for the woman’s safety (somewhat halfheartedly), and then proceeds to say that if things get out of hand the police will be the ones who will look incompetent. As he turns to leave, Detective Park calls out, “Hey, you punk.” The chief whirls back around, but Detective Park pretends he was directing his comment at Dae-woong and sends him to fetch Gil-choon for questioning.

Detectives Min-pyo and Dae-woong try to question Gil-choon about Thien, but Gil-choon evades. He does say that he took Thien to his house to work, but that she ran away.

Detective Park and Jin-young watch the exchanges through the glass, and the two suspect that Gil-choon knows more than he’s letting on. They also worry that there are more unknown victims, since it didn’t seem like Gil-choon’s first attempt at drowning someone. Jin-young eventually gives the signal to give up when it’s clear that Gil-choon won’t budge.

The team reviews their knowledge of Thien. She left the construction site when Gil-choon did, and her last traceable action was a bank withdrawal on April 10, shortly before Gil-choon was arrested the first time.

The team has put out calls for the bank’s CCTV footage, as well as a call to the Vietnamese Embassy to reach out to Thien’s family. In the meanwhile, the team heads out to their best lead, Gil-choon’s house, where Thien supposedly went to work.

At Il-seung’s apartment, Jong-sam realizes that he failed to return the storage container key to the office. Jong-sam rushes back to return the key (for a former thief and informant, he’s oddly attached to following the rules), and learns that the office manager is the one who was instructed to turn him over to the prosecutor’s office. While he’s there, he also rummages through their lost and found, and discovers Il-seung’s abandoned phone.

He’s not sure what to do with a smartphone, so he watches intently as the office manager plugs it in to charge it and then turns it on. She can’t get any further with the passcode in place, and she recommends that Jong-sam use his detective hacking skills.

In Chairwoman Gook’s office, the former NIS agents receive her admonishments. Agent Kwak suggests that they’ll conduct their own search for the money in secret, but the idea of defying Director Lee only infuriates the chairwoman further.

Once the agents are out of her office, though, Agent Ki starts to complain about the chairwoman and their situation. Agent Kwak scolds him for that, but then cheers his junior agent back up with the suggestion that they go check up on Jong-sam.

Jong-sam doesn’t have any hacking skills, but he tries out the next best thing: friends of friends with hacking skills. He heads into a shop and drops the name of a fellow inmate, the Porn King. Jong-sam is honest about how he knows the king, but the two men want to be sure that he’s not a detective in disguise (HA!), so they ask him, “What’s the most delicious cookie in prison?”

Jong-sam mutters that obviously there are no delicious cookies in prison. Not yet satisfied, the men give him a follow up question: “Who is the most pitiful prisoner?”

Jong-sam doesn’t want to answer, but when the men resist, he answers, “The one with no commissary deposit.” The guys are satisfied with this answer, saying that most people will say the death-row prisoner (little do they know, Jong-sam meets both of these qualifications), and they get to work cracking the passcode.

 
EPISODE 8 RECAP

Jin-young and Detective Park have made it to Gil-choon’s home. An older woman, who claims that Gil-choon isn’t her son, tries to shoo them out. Detective Park inquires about Thien, and the name gives the woman pause. She says that Thien ran away after just ten days of living there, and then asks why the police would waste time and money to find “that thing” who ran off with another immigrant man, and calls them all animals.

Jin-young doesn’t like the sound of that and says that these are people, not animals or things. The woman waves them to the door with her broom, ranting about how the police should be caring for the Korean people, not outsiders.

Min-pyo interrupts to let his team lead know that they’ve been able to recover footage of the bank withdrawal Thien made before she disappeared, and the woman seems shaken to hear this.

The team heads out to a notably empty field of greenhouses, where they watch the CCTV footage. It’s not Thien but a man who appears on camera. A local police officer arrives to share additional footage of Thien gathered during an investigation of a stabbing. Thien and a man enter a motel, and then only the man leaves.

As for the empty fields, the officer says that they’re likely hiding in the mountains after they heard police officers from Seoul were headed to town, as most of them are illegal immigrants.

The crew heads to the mountains and grab the workers as they try to flee. They walk them back to their tent to inquire about Thien and the man in the footage. Jin-young spots a woman’s nervous glance to the back of the tent, and she finds the man hiding in a cabinet.

There’s a language barrier, however, as the man speaks Vietnamese and no one else does. He responds to Thien’s name, and they find Thien’s necklace from her photo in his bag, but they still struggle to understand his response. When Min-pyo asks where he buried the body and mimics digging, the man points outside.

He directs them to a haphazardly poured piece of asphalt, where Jin-young finds a scrap of scarf popping out from the edge. The confession seems too easy to Jin-young, but they need to start digging anyway. The asphalt is going to make it difficult and expensive, so Detective Park calls after Min-pyo to try to keep it cheap.

Elsewhere in an alley, Jong-sam hears Detective Kang’s footfalls behind him, and admonishes him for such a rookie tailing mistake. Detective Kang is excited to see the phone recovered, and finds just one outgoing call in the log, to Il-seung’s voicemail. He shows Jong-sam an image of a calling card they need to get the passcode, and Jong-sam thinks he’s seen it back at Il-seung’s apartment.

The Porn King’s hackers take a ramyun break and chortle about the surveillance and wiretapping apps installed on Il-seung’s phone, ones he doubts Jong-sam knows about. The younger guy asks if he deleted the apps, but the elder says nah, he left them because he doesn’t like tall guys. Ha.

At Il-seung’s apartment, Detective Kang can’t find any surveillance equipment, but Jong-sam uncovers the calling card and they’re able to access Il-seung’s voicemail.

The messages are from Il-seung himself, as he details in each new message how he placed a hidden camera in Director Lee’s office, then recovered the camera’s memory card with evidence on it; how he managed to steal and hide the 100 billion won; and finally the moment when he knew someone was after him and ditched his phone at Incheon Harbor. The last two messages are from Prosecutor Kim, asking Il-seung to call him back.

Detective Kang runs through the order of events, while Jong-sam’s just taken with hearing the voice of the man he now impersonates. As they brainstorm next steps, Jong-sam has a question: What’s an SD card? Jong-sam is amazed to see how tiny Detective Kang’s phone SD is, and exclaims that they’ll never find the lost evidence.

Director Lee broods in his office with his lawyer over the interest he’s lost out on with the money missing, even though he wouldn’t have deposited the cash anyway. There’s a knock at the door, and Chairwoman Gook arrives, against the director’s direction to keep a distance during the investigation. Lawyer Ahn can’t help but point this out, and their animosity towards each other is clear.

The chairwoman is here to ask for another chance to take care of Jong-sam, but the director doesn’t hear her out. He offers tea, which the chairwoman thanks him for, but then he scoots the cup over to Lawyer Ahn instead, who smiles and accepts.

Back in the mountains, the cheap dig worker is a little sloppy, but after a strike nowhere near the spot, they manage to dig up the asphalt and unearth a body. Time to call in the NFS.

With this reveal, the immigrant man begins to wail. Jin-young catches some words and thinks he’s trying to say “brother” and “little sister.” She looks at her phone and shares new info: This man is Thien’s brother, and he was in Vietnam when she disappeared.

The dig crew guy checks on the spot he started digging at first, and gasps as he points out a hand. There is more than one body buried here.

The whole road is soon sectioned off and NFS starts photographing and dusting the bones. When Detective Park and team reports back in the Chief Jang, they’ve uncovered five bodies total. Chief Jang wants to know if they think it’s Gil-choon, so he has something to announce, but Detective Park refuses to say for certain until they investigate further.

The only thing Detective Park is certain of right now is his hunger, and Dae-woong arrives on cue with some PPL pizza that even the chief can’t resist.

Detective Park wonders if the chief is trying to distract from Director Lee’s slush fund scandal, but Chief Jang says he just wants a story that will unite everyone (and who doesn’t love a harrowing serial murder case with a triumphant ending for the police?).

Back at Il-seung’s apartment, Detective Kang and Jong-sam focus on finding the lost SD card. Jong-sam opens up a bit with Detective Kang, and confesses that when he was in the water last night, it was the first time in a while that he had thought, “I want to live.” Because death sentences are rarely carried out, it wasn’t until his life was truly at risk that Jong-sam realized how much he values his life.

 

Watch the scene

“I want to live”

 

As Detective Kang hands Jong-sam his ID badge, Jong-sam notices something different about the back. The badge Il-seung had on him when he died had a black chip in the corner, not a gold one like the one he holds now. We’ve got a clue, but Jong-sam will have to recover the ID from Musan Penitentiary where he hid it.

Jong-sam passes the bus carrying Ddakji to his supposed remains, neither aware of the other. A construction site has built up around the prison escape hatch when Jong-sam arrives. Right before Jong-sam ducks in, he receives a call on Il-seung’s phone, but no one speaks.

The call was from the NIS agents, who are using the surveillance apps they installed in the phone to track Jong-sam. Now that they know where Jong-sam is headed, they tip off henchman Baek Kyung of his arrival.

Jong-sam recovers the ID from the hole in the solitary cell wall he stuffed it in easily enough, but Baek Kyung enters the cell for a confrontation. Jong-sam tosses the ID up into the crawl space and the brawl begins. The NIS agents turn Il-seung’s phone camera on so that they can watch, and the phone conveniently falls to the ground with a great view of the action.

 

Watch the scene

Will Jong-sam make it out alive?

 
Jong-sam hides when a guard comes in to check on Baek Kyung, but the guard spots the open hatch door in the ceiling. Baek Kyung attacks the guards, and Jong-sam takes the opportunity to swing back up through the ceiling while the brawl continues below.

The guards rush off, calling for reinforcements to catch the escaping convict. The remaining guard checks on Baek Kyung, but he’s prone on the ground and the pool of blood behind his head suggests that things did not end well for the prisoner.

Jong-sam makes it to his escape hatch, but the construction crew has arrived at the site and moved their heavy machinery, blocking his exit. He’s trapped in a dead end as the guards surge towards him.

COMMENTS

It seems four is the limit for easy jailbreaks. He’s got to somehow reach the other exit and escape, right? But when he does get away (because we all know he’s going to have a magic solution to this problem), the guards are going to know that someone managed to get out. When they see that all prisoners are accounted for, would they even try to chase down Jong-sam? I can never tell with this show. They like to introduce a problem, and then resolve it super quickly, so the prison could either be another entity trying to unmask the escaped Jong-sam, or just a quick dramatic detour resolved by next week.

I’m happy to see that Jong-sam and Detective Kang get a chance to reconcile, but I can’t help but be frustrated that it just seems to further delay Jong-sam and Jin-young’s official team-up. I keep waiting for the chemistry to kick back in for our two leads, but the show has really divided itself by separating them for this long. I feel like there’s no real reason for Jong-sam to ever meet back up with Jin-young, unless the unfolding murders linked to Gil-choon somehow connect back up with the missing money.

And with Jin-young stranded solely with her police unit, she’s grossly underutilized. The group dynamic seems to place Jin-young into more of a side character, even though she’s obviously doing a lot of the heavy lifting for the team. The more interesting interactions are now between Chief Jang and Detective Park, as they maneuver for control.

There’s another power struggle on the other side as well, and my suspicions are on the divide between Chairwoman Gook and Lawyer Ahn are only going to set the bad guys back. I’m fine with the whole organization taking itself down from within. Give Jong-sam the money and let him find a new life with Ddakji somewhere.

I am enjoying the moments where Jong-sam struggles to adjust to normal life outside of prison. He’s an eager learner when it comes to new technology, but that can’t save him from habits that he’s grown comfortable with. The scene where both he and Ddakji find sleep on the floor was touching. I suspect a soft warm bed is something often mentioned in the dreams of the Musan inmates, and yet when Jong-sam has a chance to claim that dream, it’s not comforting.

I’m not sure what Ddakji’s long-term plan is here. I suspect Eun-bi would gladly take him in to her apartment, but he needs to find her first. He’s got his money back now at least, but I’m not sure he knows what he wants to do next, and it’s so anxiety-inducing. On one hand, I wish that Jong-sam had reached out, especially since he had to know that news of his supposed death would travel out to Ddakji eventually. But of course, I know that Jong-sam has had his hands full of constant action since he first broke out of prison, so I can see why he might not want to reach out, and how even if he wanted to, it might be a little low on the list of priorities. Still, this is all that Ddakji wanted from him, so they need to join forces soon.

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At the moment, Jong Sam gets too many people around him who know that :

a. He's Kim Jong Sam, a runaway prisoner -> The villain and Men in Black, but they will covered it up. Ddak Ji, but he won't tell anyone. Gil Choon, he can tell everyone but no one will believe him for now. Baek Kyung, if he ever get out from prison, he can be a real danger for Jong Sam. Jin Young, let's see what she will do..

b. He's the fake Oh Il Seung -> also Jin Young, prosecutor Kim, and Oh Il Seung's former coworker (as @tummy said in the last recap), there should be at least a whole squad who know the Real Oh Il Seung when he was still alive, unless he's a super secret agent who worked all alone..

Overall, his undercover mission is too risky, I wonder how the writer will handle it..

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I'm pretty sure Baekkyung is dead now, so that only leaves 7 people who know he's faking. So, no problem. 😜

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But.. But.. I'm sure I saw Baek Kyung (OUTSIDE the prison) in the next week teaser 😣

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Uh oh. If he's alive he'll be pretty mad at Jongsam.

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I wonder if he's outside the prison because he's also 'dead.' Lol.

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I think the only reason what protects Jong-sam somewhat from a score of people knowing who the original Detective Oh Il-sung was is that there's several cops with the same name...because Korea. Too bad the name isn't Hae-young...

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So, I think they are aiming to give us several mysteries throughout the entire drama :

1. Kim Jong Sam and Oh Il Seung's fate
2. Jin Young's father death
3. Possible rivalry between detective Kang and detective Park - So, there's no love triangle between the main lead, but love triangle between detective Kang, detective Park, and the wife?
4. The big baddies so far are Director Lee Kwang Ho, Gook Su Ran, and the other man. Plus the Men in Black and Baek Kyung are kind of the illegal NIS ?
4. People on the good side ; Real (deceased) Oh Il Seung, Prosecutor Kim Yoon Su, Detective Kang (?), and Jin Young's squad.
5. Song Gil Choon's attempted murder that leads to bigger case

I'm excited but also nervous ! 😆

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I'm pretty sure the murders pinned on Jong-sam and Ddak ji 10 years ago also has something to do with Jin-young's father's death, because it looks like they both occurred at around the same time, like a few days apart maybe. This could be what brings Jong-sam and Jin-young together in the present.

Mysteries upon mysteries! This really puts the 'mysterious' in 'Oh, the Mysterious' haha 😂

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The number of new mysteries, questions and characters that are being introduced each episode is starting to confuse me but I'm still watching for Yoon Kyunsang and Jung Hyesung. I am also intrigued by Detective Kang, who we do not know yet if a good or bad guy. They are probably throwing a lot in as the drama is expected to run for up to 40 eps.

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I feel like Detective Kang is kinda like Logan/Wolverine and Detective Park is like Scott/Cyclops in this love triangle.

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I'm not sure if Gook Su-ran and Director Lee's NIS handling means that the NIS is illegal...but more like they were misappropriating its privileges for illegal activities and using it as a front to launder cash etc.

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Yes, we need Ddakjji and Jongsam and Jinyoung to get together! If the Men in Black somehow switched sides and joined Jongsam, that would be even better.

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This freaking show is giving me so much life. Like I've stated before, the writers actually make characters intelligent the way real-life cops and criminals are (even though Jong-sam was framed for murder he's still a petty criminal). People NOTICE clues, factor them into their preexisting knowledge, and act on their deductions. The show doesn't fall into the trap of dumbing characters down for the sake of plot, which means the pacing is always snappy and audience gets a sense of satisfaction from seeing smart writing. It also doesn't hold the viewers' hands by overexplaining things or stretching out plot points that would've been realistically resolved sooner.

On the other hand, this means that the writers need to be really good at writing how the characters will continue to react to situations in the pre-established intelligent fashion, which is always a challenge. So far, the writing has been solid in terms of pacing and the mystery, so I'm confidently coming along for the ride.

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While I think the characters are written intelligently, the writing suffers from a little from too much plot convenience and characters in the right time and the right place with the right things. I feel like it gets in the way of the characters' intelligence at times. Like...how in the world did Jong-sam know to have that strip of Morse code? Where did he put the Morse code after he went back to jail to have it when he wakes up after being unconscious and getting his outfit changed?

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This is the end for me watching this drama. A few too many improbabilities stacked up against unlikely actions by the characters with the sole purpose of making some kind of narrative framework.

People being conveniently stupid, then the same people being conveniently smart.

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Detective Kang (his mentor) seems suspicious to me I don't trust him.
JS dropped Il Sung phone in the cell this phone had important evidences, they will know that the person who was in the cell was a detective when they find the phone, maybe he will get caught and say that he's working undercover, but a prisoner is dead will they cover it or JS will be suspect of murder again since they can't say officers killed a prisoner.

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He might frame it like Baek-Kyung stole the phone while on one of his escapades outside prison. It's always easy to blame the dead guy...

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Poor Jong-sam. Where's that Mighty Child super strength when you need it? lol. Of course he gets trapped when he tells Officer Kang not to follow him.

I really hope they don't draw out the whole Ddak-ji just missing Jong-sam thing too much. I was like all 'LOOK OUT THE BUS, DDAK-JI!' Don't break my heart with those two, show! It was a lot like how Gil-dong kept missing Gil-hyun and Eorini. I think Ddak-ji's actor has a similar profile and 3/4 angle to his face as Gil-hyun's actor, Shin Hee-seop.

1. I get a huge kick out of Jong-sam being effectively cell phone/technology illiterate but being smart enough to disguise it and learn how to use it by getting the lady at the docks to turn it on and charge it. He’s like the only millennial who can’t lol. I also love how Detective Kang has to be the one to teach him how to use it. It’s such a great comedic reversal of generations.

2. It’s sort of hard for me to watch scenes with Jong-sam and Detective Kang because for all Detective Kang has done to basically betray Jong-sam and whose inaction basically led Jong-sam to jail, he’s still a father figure to him. And the subtext of this guy being all he has and the only person who knows his predicament is hard, particularly because you know he could turn on Jong-sam again. And yet, Jong-sam seems to trust him on some level. It’s like watching Jin-pyo and Yoon-sung in City Hunter all over again and all the pain. He just wants to be a regular kid with a dad. I really loved the scene where he lays it into Detective Kang for ruining his life…because at the end of the day, that asshole decided that it was okay for an innocent teenager to rot in jail with a life sentence just so that he could take down the corruption of the president. He’s willing to sacrifice innocents. No matter what his endgame and the results, it shows his lack of integrity and character. He has the capacity to be ruthless and callous when it suits him.

3. I thought it was TOTALLY badass of the prosecutor to just lay out his case against the director. It’s too bad that the lynchpin to his investigation is dead…but there’s something poetic about the cop being dead, but justice still being done literally in his name.

4. I like that Jong-sam knows sometimes the best thing to do is stay silent and let everyone else take care of things with their own assumptions. It really got him out of a big mess with the director and the prosecutor. He really does have street smarts and knows how to survive. I also like that he’s smart enough to steal Il-sung’s personal info. Plus, the scene of him stealing clothes from the donation bin is just hilarious.

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5. The director is also very shrewd to be able to shred Prosecutor Kim’s case against him just by having a second Il-sung. But what I like knowing is that it may seem like the second Il-sung is on his side, but it’s the same as the original Il-sung, this one’s probably going to get him into hot water, too. It’s going to be interesting to see how Jong-sam navigates both sides.

6. I really like the reversal of the playground scene, with Jong-sam on top and Detective Kang in the slide, but Jong-sam is colder than he was as a kid…and seeing him at the playground like that is his lost innocence and the childhood he probably never had.

7. I feel sooo sooo bad for Ddak-ji. It’s like he expected to have helped Jong-sam for awhile with his commissary money and everything and now that’s all for naught and his BFF is dead and he’s got no one, really. Because he’s still too chicken and fearful to see his sister. I really want the Ddak-ji/Jong-sam reunion! And that whole thing how both of them have to sleep on the floor gave me all the feels. They’re out in the real world, but they’re both still prisoners in so many ways. Jong-sam with his lack of identity and Ddak-ji with his lack of companionship.

8. Oooh. Detective Park’s wife was SOOO Detective Kang’s ‘wife.’ I really think there’s going to be a big foil between the two of them. Detective Park seems like he’s incompetent but is actually the opposite and has a lot of integrity. He plays by the rules and tries to get the best benefit for everyone. He’s not going to do a press conference to get publicity and glory. He’s going to protect a victim instead. Detective Kang may be a man of principles in the law, but uses unscrupulous methods to get his way at the cost of others. In his world, the ends justify the means. It’s also a difference with Jong-sam whose first comment when he hears Il-sung’s voice is ‘So that’s what he sounded like…’ He shows respect and empathy for someone who passed away trying to do something good while to Detective Kang it’s not even a thought.

9. The scene in the pawn shop was hilarious. I just like how Jong-sam is both a convict and a police officer and how the two worlds overlap and mesh. It’s just fun to see how he can get bad exposure from both sides.

10. It’s nice to have a main character of a show admonish someone for having lack of empathy and bigoted views of an entire group of people.

11. Do you always hire Bob’s Bargain Basement Excavators when looking at a potential crime scene? It seems like with the scarf there, they had enough to start a full criminal investigation with the NFS…

12. It’s sort of weird to have Papa John’s have a Subway like obnoxious k-drama presence. Maybe because I’m used to Subway but not Papa John’s lol. Also, who orders like 2 small pizzas for five/six people? That is at least 3 mediums or 2 larges…Duh.

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13. I like the way Officer Park sidestepped his CO and played it safe with how the only thing he’s concluded from the investigation is that he’s hungry…CUE PPL! It really highlights his integrity.
14. I really get a kick out of the irony and really meta thing about how Jong-sam has to break out of prison and escape all over again…because when the guards say that a prisoner has escaped…they’re technically not wrong. Except Jong-sam is legally dead…so can he really be an escaped prisoner? He’s safe as long as he doesn’t get caught. All the evidence

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Thank you for your recap and comments, abirdword! I didn't realize that Jin-young & Co. discovered 5 bodies beneath the asphalt. Yikes! Apparently the creeptastic Gil-choon has been busy.

Maybe I misunderstood the earlier scene (during Jong-sam's interrogation, etc.) of Detective Kang being apprehended as he tried to leave. I thought it indicated that he was taken against his will, and that was why he wasn't around to go to bat for his young protégé.

I must admit that I'm twitching a bit when I see Chief Jang Hyun-gi after the actor's turn as the scheming airline executive in MAD DOG. His current police dress code seems to specify symmetrical neckties, thank heavens. ;-)

Jin-young is slogging along on the Gil-choon investigation. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for her father's back story. I can't help but feel that the baddies who framed Jong-sam and Ddakji.

Chairwoman Gook looked vaguely familiar to me. Omo! Actress Yun Yoo-sun played a nun in LOVE LETTER with Jo Hyun-jae, and also appeared in RETURN OF ILJIMAE / MOON RIVER, GU AM HEO JOON, SHE WAS PRETTY, and SIX FLYING DRAGONS, among many other vehicles.

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Oops! Let me try that again...

I can't help but feel that the baddies who framed Jong-sam and Ddakji are involved in the destruction of Jin-young's father's company. Dollars to doughnuts, he did not commit suicide.

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