My Secret Terrius: Episodes 5-6

by abirdword

Out of the NIS and into the KIS! There are so many teams working on the mystery of Chief Moon’s death, though several of those teams don’t know that’s what they’re investigating. Terrius is ahead of them all so far, but they aren’t making it easy for him. And while Ae-rin starts to make progress with a new job, the investigations bring new doubts about her husband’s death, egged on by the secrets a loved one can keep.

 
EPISODE 5 RECAP

The building residents gasp at the August 31 security footage—Ae-rin’s husband seemingly chased by an unknown man. A wiretap sticker in the room tips K off to their suspicions, and he’s on the move.

The neighbors bat around the usual reasons for a man in trouble–grudges, loan sharks, and extra-marital affairs—but Ae-rin swiftly rejects them all. While they argue, Bon has slipped out of the room.

Bon has initiated Terrius mode and checks the navigation system in Ae-rin’s husband’s car and notes the search for MetaPalace, which he deletes from the search history. Bon grabs the SD card from the car’s black box and takes off.

Back in the security office, Ae-rin and her friends decide to investigate more before taking their evidence to the police and dash for Jung-il’s car. Once all eyes are off the security office computer, someone remotes in and deletes the footage from August 31. The culprit is Yong-tae, and he orders K to make sure there are no further problems.

The parents don’t find any clues in the car, having been stripped of them by Bon moments earlier. But they do have one detail Bon didn’t find in the car—Ae-rin’s memory of the tarts from the popular bakery Margo across from MetaPalace.

Bon reviews the black box footage. He hears Jung-il’s reaction to something in the parking lot, and with some zooming, Bon catches a blurry glimpse of Chief Moon’s assassination. The car camera also gets a clear shot of K’s face as he stalks after Jung-il.

Speaking of K, he is third in line to check out the car evidence, but finds nothing that the other two spy groups have left behind.

Ji-yeon starts her own investigation of Chief Moon’s death with the chief’s former maid. The maid recalls a new bag that the chief seemed troubled by, and how it disappeared from the house after his death. Director Shim isn’t too impressed with the evidence when Ji-yeon reports in, but Ji-yeon intends to persist with her lead.

Speaking of that missing bag, Yong-tae places it on a shelf in the forbidden room in his office suite. The room appears to be a strange shrine to his smuggling deals, bags labeled with names and numbers. He adds the label, “Ethan, failed” below the returned bag.

Yong-tae returns to his office where he’s surprised by Ae-rin, who is there right on time to take his lunch order. Yong-tae is feeling pollack stew today. Ae-rin makes the reservation, and just as she hangs up, Yong-tae calls to change his mind to pasta. And then short rib soup.

He finally decides on take-out sushi, but even as Ae-rin goes out to fetch that, he calls her on her cell to request ddeokbboki and soondae instead. Ae-rin is justly frazzled after she hangs up.

Still, Ae-rin’s efforts are praised by Yong-tae when she returns with the food. Ae-rin can’t help but get in a jab though. “CEO, are you pregnant? You’re acting like a pregnant woman today.” Yong-tae’s driver snorts a stifled laugh.

The neighborhood parents (and Bon) return to the security office, where they discover the footage is missing, with no evidence of anyone entering the office. While everyone else is flummoxed, Bon knows who is responsible.

Ae-rin meets with Jung-il’s boss after work, where she learns about her husband’s plan to visit an author client at MetaPalace. But the boss relays that Jung-il never made it to see the author.

While Ae-rin is out, Bon encounters his first distress with the twins. Joon-soo asks him to find Woogabar, which Bon mistakes for nougat bar, while Joon-hee has lost Pigius, which he of course mis-hears as Terrius at first. Bon is at a loss for how to resolve the problem.

Fortunately, Sang-ryul offered to exchange numbers in case Bon needs help earlier that day. At the time, Bon denied he would need any help, but Sang-ryul chuckled and took it upon himself to enter his number into Bon’s phone.

Bon gives him a call, and Sang-ryul takes a break from nerf dart shooting practice to supply images of Joon-soo’s missing mech toy and Joon-hee’s stuffed pig. The Superman theme plays as Bon uses his trained spy eyes to find the lost toys amidst the mess. Crisis averted, Bon notes that it’s already nine and there’s no sign of Ae-rin.

Ae-rin has stopped by a convenience store, mostly to dwell on her meeting with Jung-il’s boss. She recalls their discussion, and how Jung-il’s boss mentioned how stressed Jung-il seemed about his work responsibilities. The stress is news to Ae-rin, who can’t help but think of the way she nagged Jung-il.

When Ae-rin finally gets home, Bon worries that something bad happened. When Ae-rin seems unconcerned, he lectures her to come right home after work. Ae-rin mistakes Bon’s concerns for her safety as his frustration with her kids and apologizes to him for her tardiness.

Bon attempts to leave, but the gurgle from his stomach has Ae-rin making late night noodles for them both. Ae-rin shares her sadness about her husband’s secret stress while Bon eagerly slurps the noodles. Bon may not have been married or have kids, but he understands what it feels like to lose a loved one, and he comforts her the best he can.

K confirms with Yong-tae that the neighborhood mothers seem to have given up. When K asks why Yong-tae has hired Ae-rin, Yong-tae smiles that he likes to keep his enemies close.

After K departs, Yong-tae receives a call on one of the many burner phones in his desk. Whoever on the other end gives him instructions to order a new bag.

The next morning, Ae-rin is in a rush to get her kids to the school bus. Bon meets her in the hall and they all head down together. Ae-rin’s in such a rush she almost forgets to deliver some nose nuzzles to her kids, but at their reminder she runs back. She stands and almost leans in for some nuzzles with Bon, but they both pull back awkwardly.

At the bus stop, Eun-ha, Sun-mi, and Sang-ryul suggest a tea date to Bon, but of course Bon curtly turns them down. This drives Eun-ha, who knows everything about everyone, mad, and she’s further infuriated when Sang-ryul taunts her with Bon’s number in his phone.

At the NIS, Do-woo shares the name of the new chief of security, Congressman Jung In-taek, with Ji-yeon. The news hasn’t been announced yet, but Do-woo has worked his spy magic to turn it up. Another interesting piece of info—the congressman and Chief Kwon are old acquaintances. Ji-yeon tries to avoid answering Do-woo when he asks where she’s going, but it’s obvious that he’s tagged her with a tracking device.

Dressed as a janitor, Ji-yeon slips into Chief Moon’s home for evidence of the missing bag. She huddles in the closet when she hears a door close behind her. As the intruder opens the closet door, Ji-yeon comes out swinging and kicking.

Her combatant subdues her, long enough for the two to recognize each other: Ji-yeon sees that it’s Bon, dressed as an internet technician.

They move to a café to catch up. Ji-yeon earns Bon’s trust by agreeing that she thinks Bon is innocent, and her opinion is enough for him to trust her with the intel that he has about Chief Moon’s death. They both agree that it was an assassination, and Bon shares that he knows of a witness to the murder, though he won’t tell her who yet.

While Ji-yeon is out, Do-woo has an encounter with Chief Kwon. Chief Kwon suspects that Ji-yeon knows something about Terrius, but Do-woo is able to slyly avoid the chief’s interrogation.

Soon enough it’s time for Bon to go pick up the kids. He won’t tell Ji-yeon where he’s heading, only that it’s personal. She grabs the sticker tracker that Do-woo hid in her bag (she’s no fool, Do-woo) and slaps it on Bon’s back as she waves him off. As soon as she can, she’s on the phone, demanding that Do-woo find her location.

EPISODE 6

Ji-yeon tails Bon to the neighborhood playground. Ji-yeon’s first guess is that Bon married a woman with kids, but she overhears Sun-mi and Eun-ha refer to Bon as a sitter.

At work, Ae-rin swaps out the floral arrangement in Yong-tae’s office, and while she’s there, curiosity drives her to the locked room. She presses a few buttons on the keypad, but she doesn’t crack the lock code that easily.

Ji-yeon’s stalking is revealed by Joon-hee, who spots the smiley sticker on Bon’s back and asks if she can have it. Now Bon must walk a careful line, to destroy the tracker without upsetting the twins.

The easy answer to this is ice cream, of course. He takes the twins to the nearby corner store, and sneaks the sticker off Joon-hee’s hand and onto the store bin without anyone the wiser.

Ae-rin chooses this moment to check in on Bon and the kids. She admonishes him for ruining their dinner with ice cream, but Bon tells her that he’s busy right now and hangs up, ha. Your nanny is very serious business, Ae-rin.

Ji-yeon realizes what has happened when she sees Bon exit but Do-woo reports her location as still in the store. She finds the sticker inside, but no sign of Bon.

Once home, Bon puts together the similarity of the tracking device sticker from Ji-yeon and the sticker the twins gave him earlier. He discovers the wiretap hidden in his sticker and promptly microwaves it. An interrogation with the twins reveals that K gave them the sticker pack. Bon quickly realizes that basically the entire building has been wiretapped as the two list off the long list of sticker recipients.

Bon’s got to sweep and clear the wiretaps, and Sang-ryul’s his first target, under the guise of a play date. Once inside, Sang-ryul pushes Bon over in a fight for the comfy spot on his couch and serves him coffee.

Bon spots the wired sticker on Sang-ryul’s son’s door, and sidles over to it, pretending to be impressed with Sang-ryul’s interior design sense. Bon rips the sticker off when Sang-ryul isn’t looking and sidles back to the couch, nudging Sang-ryul out of his spot. But this is not Bon’s final stop on the play date tour.

Bon travels to each neighbor’s apartment to collect the stickers, including the ones on the playground and in the security office. But the final stop is Eun-ha’s place, and she’s a much tougher audience.

Eun-ha invites Bon to join KIS, which she spells out for him as King Castle Information System. It’s basically a big gossip network among the moms in the King Castle apartments, but Eun-ha clearly runs it like her very own spy network.

At first Bon chuckles at her play on the NIS, but he soon realizes how serious the KIS is when Eun-ha already knows how much he enjoys interior design, ha ha. So Bon has no other choice but to join up with the KIS.

The KIS gossip reaches even busy Ae-rin, who wonders at the strange behavior of her sitter. Meanwhile, Bon has collected all but one of the heart stickers.

When Ae-rin gets home, she asks Bon to avoid upsetting the other mothers in the neighborhood. But she can’t help but smile, surprised that Bon is more sociable than she had observed. Again, Bon feels watched.

With the intel from Bon about the witness, Ji-yeon get permission from Deputy Shim to open an official investigation, and to bring Do-woo along as her partner. Operation: King’s Bag has begun.

The operation gets its own storefront, in a bag shop called King’s Bag. Do-woo escorts Ji-yeon to a secret room at the back, where all their spy equipment resides. Do-woo has parsed Chief Moon’s phone records, and discovered a cloned phone from a restricted number. The more frequent location the calls were made from were Star Tower.

Ae-rin deposits a delivery from Italy on Yong-tae’s desk. He asks her to stay to watch the reveal—a beautiful handbag. Ae-rin’s jaw drops when Yong-tae tells her it’s worth $100,000.

On the bus, Ae-rin wonders what type of woman carries a handbag that expensive. She easily calculates out that she’d have to save $1000 a month for eight years before she could afford one. These thoughts almost make her miss her stop, and while she makes it out, her handbag gets stuck in the door. As she yanks it free, the shoulder strap rips off.

Ae-rin stumbles on King’s Bag, and as she stares up at the display, she recalls how she acquired her current handbag. It was a gift from her husband after she gave birth to the twins. Instead of flowers, he gives her money for a handbag, and they smile warmly together.

Ae-rin managed to find a beautiful knock-off bag with the money. Now in the present, the worn bag sits limply in her arms.

Ji-yeon and Do-woo grow nervous at Ae-rin’s lingering near the store. Ji-yeon opens the door and shoos Ae-rin away. Ae-rin huffs that she wasn’t interested in the bag anyway.

Bon passes the day exhausting the children with all sorts of activities, including a round of push-ups. When Ae-rin returns to eat dinner with her kids, she laughs to hear that Bon is very effective at wearing the rambunctious kiddos out. The kids duck out of dinner early, leaving Ae-rin to eat their leftovers.

Ae-rin recalls that Eun-ha was supposed to give her a call after work. She reaches into her pocket, but there’s no phone to be found. That’s because it’s sitting on her desk at work, annoying Yong-tae.

Ae-rin tries to drop the kids off with Bon while she retrieves her phone. He’s not home though, so after a pause, she takes the kids with her to the office. Oh, this is such a bad idea.

Ae-rin can’t find her phone on her desk, so she slips into Yong-tae’s office. And that’s when it hits: all that extra food has been digested, and she needs to go to the bathroom, stat. The twins are thirsty though, so she gives them juice from the fridge while she ducks into the bathroom.

With their open juices, the twins explore Yong-tae’s office. They’re intrigued by the fancy box on the desk, and once they remove the lid, they’re even more impressed by the fancy bag inside. Oh god, I can’t watch…

Joon-hee picks up the bag, but her brother knocks it out of her hands. They get into a slapping fight, and their juice goes flying all over the floor, where the handbag is located.

Ae-rin returns to find her children not where she told them to stay. She enters Yong-tae’s office, and gasps in horror as she spots the bag on the floor, discolored from the dark juice, as the twins try to wipe away the stains.

At the apartments, Bon returns from a run. When he gets to his floor, his eyes meet Yong-tae, heading out. What is he doing here?

The elevator doors start to close, but Bon turns back, suspicious, and he throws his hand out to catch the doors. They open back up, and Yong-tae looks into Bon’s glaring face.

 
COMMENTS

I was so nervous the moment that Ae-rin walked into the office with the twins. I had to watch the last five minutes of this episode through my fingers. And then as soon as the box for the bag came into view, and their open beverage containers hovered over… Oh god, my stomach started to hurt worse than I imagine Ae-rin’s felt at the time.

And let’s not forget that first encounter between Bon and Yong-tae. Sohn Ho-joon should be no match for So Ji-sub, and yet, when their eyes met at that elevator door, I felt like Yong-tae was a presence not to be taken lightly.

It’s weird that Yong-tae is in the building, and it should seem nefarious, and yet… I think there are a few reasons that we’re supposed to consider. One is that he is suspicious of Ae-rin and is trying to keep tabs on her. But the other possibility… makes me think that he might just be a little more tender-hearted than he first seems.

Because sure, he could be keeping his enemies close. But he could also just feel really bad for this woman who is now a widow because of him. He came off as a misogynist during that first interview, but what if he specifically said no married women with children because he didn’t want to endanger someone with a family with his illegal activities? And his reason for being in the building, doesn’t it make more sense that he was there to drop off her phone, because he felt bad for her? If this is the case, I will be delighted. Because that means we could see him change sides at that last minute, and I love a good villain-to-the-good-side swap.

Bon reveals himself in this episode to be equal parts super self-sufficient man and lost child who needs someone to make him food. And I swear Bon was just waiting for his turn to have his nose nuzzled by Ae-rin in farewell. This man just obviously needs a hug, stat. I kind of hope it’s the twins who are the first to break through that self-made emotional shield Bon’s been wearing for a while.

Small details, like Ae-rin easily doing the mental math for the handbag savings keep her characterization grounded. She’s smart and competent, great character development for someone who could have been a one-dimensional housewife, and stuck in a job that doesn’t appreciate just how capable she is.

I feel like Yong-tae set himself up for Ae-rin’s sneakiness. If he’d just given her real work to do, she wouldn’t be so bored and wouldn’t need to sneak into the off-limits room. But you can’t take an intelligent woman like Ae-rin and plunk her in an office where she has exactly three responsibilities and not expect her to misbehave.

I love a good bonding scene over noodles, though the idea that Bon and Ae-rin’s relationship could take a romantic turn concerns me a little. So far the show itself isn’t pushing more than a good friendship, and I hope it keeps it that way.

There is of course the building tension between Ji-yeon and Ae-rin, which could definitely be construed as jealousy and the start of a love triangle. But I don’t feel like that will actually work with this set up, so while the basic structure is all there, I feel like the story will be more about building a team of trustworthy friends rather than a love connection.

Bon totally took note of the similarity between the tracker that Ji-yeon placed on him and the wiretap stickers the twins distributed. He already doesn’t trust the NIS, but this revelation could derail his trust in Ji-yeon for a while. Do-woo might be the obvious candidate for NIS mole, since he is the one distributing this tech, but I think he might be a red herring. Chief Kwon is next in line as a suspect, but again, she might just be too suspicious. Does that leave me with sweet Deputy Shim as the mole?

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