Two Cops: Episodes 19-20

by LollyPip

Dong-tak and Su-chang are learning some painful lessons; that the most well-laid plans can go terribly wrong, and the best intentions can actually do harm. But in the process, they’re also discovering that it’s never too late to mend fences, and that you shouldn’t ever put off honesty with those you love, because you never know how long they’ll be around.

 
EPISODE 19 RECAP

Dong-tak goes to meet with Doo-shik, but instead he finds his angry cellmate Salja waiting for him. Salja snarls that he has some business with Dong-tak and reaches into his pocket, but before gets close enough to do anything, gentle Moss interrupts them.

He hands Salja a small wooden figurine, then asks what they’re doing. Salja says it’s nothing and leaves with Moss on his heels, and Dong-tak heaves a sigh of relief.

In the yard, Doo-shik looks conflicted as he thinks about a phone call he got from Superintendent Ma, promising him a reduced sentence if he cancels his retrial. When the men line up, Dong-tak gives Doo-shik a look full of disappointment for not showing up to their meeting.

Nurse Da-jung tries to convince a hospital security officer that she saw someone in a doctor’s coat coming out of Su-chang’s room before his seizure. The security officer says she’s being too sensitive, which makes Su-chang lose his cool, yelling that he nearly died.

He participates in the argument even though neither of them can hear him, saying that it makes no sense that the CCTV camera outside his room is the only one that lost footage. Da-jung talks the officer into calling the police, and on her way out she worries that one more shock could kill Su-chang.

In another visit to Dong-tak, Yong-pal says that he’s been following Ji-an as Dong-tak asks, and that he discovered Doo-shik got his angel wings tattoo several days after Hang-joon’s murder. He says he brought a picture and asked for that exact tattoo, which means he isn’t the killer, but he knows who the killer is.

The next time they’re in the yard, Dong-tak asks Doo-shik about his tattoo and the fact that it’s a copy. He asks if Doo-shik knows the real killer’s face, but Doo-shik only glares and keeps walking.

Across the yard, Salja watches their short interaction suspiciously. When Moss finds him and asks what he’s doing, he pretends he’s just hanging out.

There’s one particular guard who seems to know something is up, and he witnesses someone on the phone saying that he won’t mess up this time. He guesses that this must be the guy who keeps trying to kill Doo-shik and makes a phone call.

Chief Prosecutor Tak tends to a plant as Commissioner Noh worries that this is all happening because Doo-shik asked for a retrial. He adds that Dong-tak is still investigating Hang-joon’s death, and Chief Prosecutor Tak says that this is why Commissioner Noh is here by himself — because Superintendent Ma is too weak.

He rehashes his metaphor about a carriage that runs for the country and how it shouldn’t rattle just because of a small rock. He tells Commissioner Noh to crush it: “And when the hunt is over, burn the hunting dog with it.”

Jae-hee joins Chief Prosecutor Tak next, who tells him about Ji-an’s request to help free Dong-tak. Jae-hee tells him not to concern himself, so Chief Prosecutor Tak changes the subject and asks if he knows someone named Gong-Su-chang.

While visiting Su-chang in the hospital, Bong-sook pouts about a date she had with Sung-hyuk this morning. She’d peppered him with questions about Dong-tak until Sung-hyuk blew up at her for talking about another man while out with him. He’d snapped that she doesn’t even look pretty today, then stormed off, hee.

Ji-an’s boss is excited to see her hard at work, anticipating a juicy story. She says that she thinks Doo-shik may not be guilty, and her friend Mi-nam offers to help her, having already learned that Su-chang and Doo-shik grew up in the same orphanage.

She goes to the hospital, where she sees a woman leaving Su-chang’s room. Remembering Da-jung’s worry about someone tampering with him, Ji-an follows the woman, catching up to her in the hospital lobby standing close to a man.

Ji-an recognizes Bong-sook just as she sees the wallet on the ground and realizes that Bong-sook was pickpocketing the man. She screams “thief!” and grapples with Bong-sook, until the confused man shows them that his wallet is safe inside his pocket. Wait, what?

Embarrassed, Ji-an slinks off while Bong-sook runs in the other direction. Meanwhile, Su-chang kneels on the floor, dumbfounded that he was able to save Bong-sook by picking up the man’s wallet and putting it back in his pocket. Well, that explains that.

He follows Ji-an when she leaves, so he’s nearby when a box falls off a second-story balcony just as she’s walking underneath it. Su-chang grabs Ji-an and swings her out of the way, making her freak out a little.

Bong-sook is mystified too, having been sure that she took the wallet out of that man’s pocket. Her thoughts turn to Sung-hyuk and the fact that he hasn’t called her, so she wanders over to the police station.

He’s in the middle of timidly questioning a criminal, but when he spots Bong-sook, he starts yelling and threatening to beat the guy up. Detectives Park and Lee watch, amused, and Bong-sook is impressed. She leaves the station with a new appreciation for Sung-hyuk.

Back in prison, Dong-tak finally gets a chance to ask Doo-shik why he didn’t show up after asking Dong-tak to meet with him. Doo-shik pretends not to know what he means, so Dong-tak says that he knows Doo-shik purposely got the same tattoo as the man in the black helmet.

He wishes him luck at his retrial, but Doo-shik says he’s changed his mind, though he just says that why is a secret. He asks how Dong-tak knew about his sister’s memorial day, and Dong-tak (who heard about that from Su-chang) returns that it’s a secret.

He asks if Doo-shik has anyone who would risk their life for him. He says he regrets not risking his life for Hang-joon, who was that person for him, and though Doo-shik seems disturbed, he just gives Dong-tak a morose look.

Su-chang pops up next to Dong-tak later to ask about Doo-shik. Dong-tak says that he doesn’t yet know why Doo-shik canceled his retrial or who’s trying to kill him, but he glares towards Salja suspiciously. From a short distance away, Doo-shik watches as Dong-tak appears to talk to himself.

Since Su-chang knows Doo-shik, Dong-tak gives him permission to use his body again, provided he doesn’t do anything weird while he’s in there. Su-chang brags that he makes Dong-tak look good, and hops in during Dong-tak’s shower.

In their cell, Su-chang tells Doo-shik that as children, Su-chang wanted to be the detective who caught the most criminals in Korea, while Doo-shik wanted to be rich. Doo-shik actually laughs and asks how he knows that, and as Su-chang sits next to him, he asks if he wants to know the real reason he framed his friend for murder.

Unaware that he’s talking to Su-chang himself, Doo-shik admits that it’s because he feels ashamed when he’s with Su-chang. Stunned and confused, Su-chang asks why, but Doo-shik says that as a cop, he’d never understand.

He remembers a time when he called an in anonymous tip that someone was pick-pocketing, intending for Su-chang to be caught. It worked, but he was also arrested, and he blames Su-chang for his own arrest that day.

He says, “Su-chang thinks he’s better than me. He thinks he always wins. He talks about morals and philosophy. He’s a crazy bastard. If he found out that I reported him, I bet he’d die of shock.”

Su-chang murmurs, “He knows that you reported him but he doesn’t blame you. He actually feels sorry for showing off in front of you. For not knowing how you felt. For making you lonely.”

For just a moment, Su-chang himself sits beside Doo-shik as he tells him to start over, and that he’ll wait for him. He says that he and Doo-shik are brothers forever, and though Doo-shik just turns back to his book, he looks like he’s swallowing back tears.

The next day, Su-chang finds a note in his cubby saying, “Meet me in the yard, I’ll tell you everything.” But while he waits, Doo-shik goes to the workshop, where someone else is waiting for him.

Salja approaches Su-chang, hands in his pockets, then suddenly whips them out, making Su-chang jump. But he’s just holding a pair of carved wooden figures, which he asks Su-chang to take to the two people he mentioned once before. He thanks Su-chang for helping him, and Moss, and even the guard on his anniversary.

At Su-chang’s confused expression, Salja clarifies that the people he mentioned are his daughters. Su-chang holds out his note and asks if Salja wrote it, but Salja says he didn’t, and tells Su-chang that he saw Doo-shik heading towards the workshop. Oh no.

Suddenly terrified for Doo-shik, Su-chang races to the workshop. He finds Doo-shik sitting alone, looking dejected, and he lets out a relieved sigh. He asks why Doo-shik said to meet him in the yard, and Doo-shik says, “Because they want to kill you, too.”

Su-chang sees another note on the floor saying to meet in the workshop, and everything clicks into place all at once. We see Moss finding the note, and an evil smile transforms his normally sweet face.

Doo-shik tells Su-chang that he knows who the man in the helmet is, and that he worked for the powerful people behind him. He gasps that he wanted to wear a nice suit, but that now he’ll die before he ever gets to wear a suit. Oh no.

His voice grows weaker and he starts to struggle to speak as he says that they’re after Dong-tak now, so he lured his attacker here. He tells Su-chang to find “it” first, and he can get the leader.

Frustrated, Su-chang paces, and when he looks down at Doo-shik he sees a jagged shard of glass protruding from his side. There’s blood everywhere, and within seconds, he’s forcibly ejected from Dong-tak’s body.

Watch the video

Doo-shik recognizes his friend and dies to save him

 
Doo-shik whispers again that he needs to find “it” first. He looks at Dong-tak, but he’s speaking to Su-chang as he says, “You always thought you were better. You always thought you were cooler. I don’t know what happened, but Detective Cha is you. You’re Gong Su-chang.”

He pulls Dong-tak close and whispers with his last breath, “You must find… the real angel.” Dong-tak runs out, leaving Su-chang begging his friend futilely not to die.

As Dong-tak runs, he remembers Moss telling him about the first attack on Doo-shik, and how he’d slipped and revealed that the killer was going for his neck. And it was Moss who made the comment that Puncture must be hiding something in his soapbox, planting the idea that someone else was Doo-shik’s attacker that night.

 
EPISODE 20 RECAP

Dong-tak finds Moss in the movie theater and tosses him around the room furiously until the guards pull them apart. As he’s being dragged out, Moss shoots Dong-tak a creepy, knowing grin.

Now that the mystery is solved, Dong-tak is released from prison. The guard who always seemed to be watching Dong-tak wishes him well from a distance, then calls Superintendent Ma to say that he considers his debt paid for keeping Dong-tak safe.

Sung-hyuk greets Dong-tak at the gate with a smile, but Dong-tak walks right past him to Ji-an. He takes her in his arms with a relieved sigh, and from a nearby car, Jae-hee watches them wistfully.

Ji-an meets with Jae-hee later to apologize for misunderstanding him, and to thank him for helping Dong-tak. Jae-hee asks why she’s here, and she confesses that she likes Dong-tak, and that he makes her nervous (in a good way) and want to be a better person. She asks for Jae-hee’s approval, and though he looks sad, he just jokes that he’ll beat up Dong-tak if he ever hurts her.

The detectives take Dong-tak out to celebrate his release. Still thinking that everything that happened was real, they tease him mercilessly and ask if Yong-pal should be imprisoned for false accusation. Sung-hyuk just says that none of it matters now, beaming when Dong-tak amiably pats him on the back.

Dong-tak grows serious when the detectives mention Doo-shik, still believing that he was Hang-joon’s killer. Detective Yoo asks if he’s okay, and if he learned anything from talking to Doo-shik. Dong-tak is surprised that Detective Yoo knew what he was up to, but his superior just says he can talk to him whenever he’s ready.

Expecting a call from Dong-tak, Ji-an gets all prettied up in a dress and full makeup. But her phone never rings, and she grows grumpier as the night wears on, until she finally washes off her makeup in a fit of pique.

Of course, Dong-tak calls after Ji-an is in bed, so she jumps up and goes through her whole beautification routine again. She goes downstairs, yawning dramatically as if she just tumbles out of bed looking this perfect, and Dong-tak lets her think he believes it.

He gives her his coat and they go for a walk, and Dong-tak asks Ji-an if she missed him. She says she knew he’d come straight to her when he got out of jail, and Dong-tak stops and asks what she’d have done if he’d been gone a long time. She says honestly that she’d still have waited, and he stares into her eyes and brushes her face with his fingertips.

He tells her that Doo-shik is dead and the real killer is still loose, so Ji-an offers her shoulder for him to lean on. Laughing, Dong-tak starts to walk away, but she calls him back and says happily that she’ll allow him close to her now. He walks into her arms for a hug, then she surprises him by giving him a quick peck on the lips.

Ji-an says there’s something she wants to know, and touches the “J” pendant Dong-tak wears. She asks what woman gave it to him, but he says it was from a boy who asked him for a favor. Eyes widening playfully, Ji-an teases that he took a bribe, then tells Dong-tak that he needs to grant that favor.

He says he will, his voice growing rough as he adds that there’s something he wants from her first. He says, “Earlier, it was too short…” then he kisses her. He apologizes internally for making her worry and hopes that his fate doesn’t make things hard on her, as their kiss goes on and on.

Watch the video

That first kiss was too short…

 
Soon after, Dong-tak picks up Doo-shik’s ashes from the prison. He goes to the orphanage where Su-chang and Doo-shik met, but he doesn’t notice that on a wall outside the building is painted a pair of angel’s wings. He finds Su-chang there, watching the children playing.

He joins Su-chang, who asks in a soft voice if Doo-shik was in a lot of pain. He asks Dong-tak to remember him after he dies, but Dong-tak says that Su-chang won’t die, because he’s going to solve the sixteen-year-old case and get his body back.

But before that, Dong-tak takes Su-chang to a secluded area by a lake, where he lets him use his body in order to send his friend off “like a brother.” Su-chang cries his heart out over Doo-shik’s ashes, apologizing over and over.

Afterward, Su-chang blusters to Dong-tak that he’s a man and didn’t cry a single tear. Dong-tak says in an utterly serious voice that if you laugh and then cry, you grow hair “down there,” thoroughly grossing out Su-chang, ha.

Dong-tak pretends to be offended as Su-chang’s hyung, and they end up chasing each other around the beach like adorable doofuses. As they play, Dong-tak makes an internal vow to Su-chang to keep the promise he couldn’t keep sixteen years ago: “Me, you, and Song Ji-an: I’ll protect us all.”

Commissioner Noh is delighted that Doo-shik is dead, reported to have taken his own life, and that the one who killed him has been “taken care of.” But he’s clueless as to why Chief Prosecutor Tak had the taxi driver killed in the first place.

He muses that Chief Prosecutor Tak must be hiding something huge if he went so far as to have a detective killed. Superintendent Ma asks what he’ll do about Dong-tak, and the commissioner says ominously that he must be involved somehow, which means he could be next to die.

Jae-hee finally gets a chance to ask Dong-tak what he learned from Doo-shik, and Dong-tak admits that he didn’t learn anything new. But he says they do know for sure now that someone went to great lengths to have Doo-shik silenced, which means there’s something they desperately want to hide.

Worried about Ji-an, Jae-hee tells Dong-tak that he’d hate to see anything happen to her. Dong-tak promises to take care of that, saying that he’ll handle everything on his own from now on.

Surprisingly, Chief Prosecutor Tak asks Dong-tak to dinner. He recalls seeing Dong-tak with the con artists (when he was Su-chang), and he says vaguely that when you get old, you start to worry and get suspicious.

He explains that he looked into Dong-tak’s personnel file and saw that he grew up in Incheon at the same time that Chief Prosecutor Tak was stationed there as a new prosecutor. He mentions Dong-tak’s history as a troublemaker and asks who helped him, and Dong-tak says that he met a detective who changed his life.

Chief Prosecutor Tak says that he’d like to meet that person someday, but Dong-tak just grows quiet. Chief Prosecutor Tak brings up Doo-shik, saying darkly that he got what he deserved, because murderers tend to earn that same fate. He wonders out loud how Doo-shik got murdered by another inmate, who then just happened to ingest arsenic.

Dong-tak says that he heard Moss hung himself, and Chief Prosecutor Tak backtracks, saying that he hears so many things in his position that he gets them tangled up. He asks if Hang-joon left anything behind for Dong-tak, and although Dong-tak thinks about the lighter that was found in his friend’s jacket, he says there was nothing.

After dinner, a drunk-seeming Chief Prosecutor Tak asks Dong-tak if he knows Su-chang. Dong-tak simply says that he’s the suspect he arrested for Hang-joon’s murder, and when he asks if Chief Prosecutor Tak knows him, he says he’s the son of a friend that he owes.

But once his car pulls away, Chief Prosecutor Tak is instantly sober, and he growls Dong-tak and Su-chang’s names.

Da-jung finds Ji-an looking at old photos of her father, and Ji-an says that she’s getting scared that the articles about him could be true. She tells her friend that she has someone she can ask for help, and that they’ll work together to find out the truth of what happened to her dad.

Dong-tak finds Su-chang waiting for him at the station and brings up the pendant he gave him sixteen years ago. A flashback shows that the first boy on the accident scene had fled, leaving the pendant behind. Dong-tak realizes that Kim Jong-doo wasn’t the only witness to the accident, and that if they find the owner of the pendant, it could lead them to the helmeted man who killed Hang-joon.

The front of the pendant has a letter J on it, but the back has what looks like a set of initials: TJH. Dong-tak tells Su-chang that the owner of the pendant is either a witness, or Hang-joon’s real killer. Excited, Su-chang asks if he can go back to his own body when they find the killer, and Dong-tak says yes, tacking on a warning to stay away from Ji-an.

Speaking of Ji-an, she turns out to be standing only a few feet away. She calls out to Dong-tak and asks who he was just talking to. He says it was nobody, but Ji-an looks skeptical.

She thinks of all the times he’s seemed to be different, acting as if he didn’t know her or saying that he doesn’t know how long he’ll be in this body. She remembers how he suddenly couldn’t fight even though he’s a martial artist, and the times when he seemed to be talking to someone who wasn’t there.

She even remembers him saying that he’s Gong Su-chang, when he thought she was too drunk to hear. She looks up at Dong-tak warily, and asks, “Who are you? I said, who are you??”

Watch the video

Who are you?

 
COMMENTS

I was pretty sure before, but now I’m certain, that Jae-hee is the boy who originally stopped at the accident where young Su-chang was injured, but ran away. The pendant that was left behind, and that Dong-tak has been wearing all this time, has Jae-hee’s initials on it, and it would at least partially explain the reason for the cover-up of the truth of that night. What we still don’t know is how a teenage boy could be so involved that he’s still being protected sixteen years later, or why so many people have died in the process, because simply being a witness wouldn’t necessitate such extreme measures.

And I’m convinced that whatever is going on, Jae-hee himself has no knowledge of it, because he seems like a generally stand-up guy who would be horrified to learn of what’s been done to protect him. Unless, of course, Dong-tak is right and the person who dropped the pendant is also Hang-joon’s killer. But right now that seems pretty farfetched, so while I’m willing to entertain that Jae-hee might be the killer, I’m holding off on giving it serious consideration until we have something that looks like a motive.

I was surprisingly broken up over Doo-shik’s death considering that we only got to know him in these last couple of episodes. He seems a lot like Su-chang in that he was a good kid who got stuck with a bad life, and just fell in with a much worse crowd than Su-chang. But holy crap, would it have killed him (no pun intended) to give Dong-tak a better clue than “find the real angel?” I mean, Dong-tak already knows that he’s looking for someone else with an angel wings tattoo! If Doo-shik had time to sit there bleeding and talking for several minutes, he had time to give Dong-tak an actual name, or at least something more to go on than something he already knows. But even though he resented Su-chang, and even framed him for murder, Doo-shik went out like a hero in the end, sacrificing himself for the only friend he ever had.

With Doo-shik’s death, and his own mortality looming, Su-chang is learning some very difficult and valuable lessons, and it’s about time. We’re finally beginning to see why he’s being allowed to inhabit Dong-tak’s body — to see things from the other point of view, and to hear some hard truths that it’s high time he heard. He’s always told himself that his set of “morals” absolves him of guilt for what he takes from others, but spending time with Doo-shik brought it home that no matter what he tells himself, Su-chang is still a thief, and making up fancy rules doesn’t make him better than anyone else. But mostly I think that Su-chang needed to hear how his behavior makes others feel, and learning that Doo-shik felt so much jealousy and resentment towards him that he framed him not once, but twice, was an important thing for him to accept.

He’s also learning a lot from Dong-tak as they spend more time together; most importantly, how to be a good person. Hang-joon was right in that they’re very similar, and if not for circumstances out of their control, their situations could easily have been reversed. Being around Dong-tak is reminding Su-chang of that part of him that has a strong moral compass, which he’s tried so hard to hang onto all these years, but which has become a twisted justification for his actions. And he’s having a positive effect on Dong-tak as well, reminding him that life can be fun even when you’ve suffered losses, and to cherish those you love while you can.

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