The Fiery Priest: Episodes 21-22

by LollyPip

Our fiery priest seems to be running around a lot, expending a ton of energy but not actually accomplishing much. This episode gives him an actual purpose which is great, but he might end up putting himself in real danger. And if that’s not bad enough, an old “friend” enters the picture, someone whose very presence could throw our priest into a tailspin and ruin everything.

 
EPISODE 21

Kyung-seon runs into Hae-il and Dae-young hiding in a bedroom at Chul-beom’s house, both still in disguise, and she screams. Hae-il gives her a chop to the neck and knocks her unconscious, then awkwardly dumps her on the bed.

They leap out a window with varying degrees of gracefulness, Dae-young nearly squishing Hae-il. They almost get caught by Chul-beom’s men, but Seung-ah leaps out of nowhere with a flying kick and gets her own little hero moment.

Hoon-seok tells Chul-beom about the intruders, and he finds Kyung-seon still unconscious. He sits her up, and when she opens her eyes, she goes into panic mode and nails him with a right hook (LOL, even Hoon-seok just stands there watching). She nearly punches Chief Prosecutor Park, too, hee.

As they’re escaping, Seung-ah gets a message that the entire Violent Crimes unit is on the way to Chul-beom’s house to investigate a theft. Dae-young says it’s weird that they’d sent Violent Crimes for a simple theft, holding up a tiny vase that he stole. The others yell at him for stealing — but only because he didn’t take something more valuable to give the police a plausible reason to think it was just a break-in, lol.

While the police search the house, Kyung-seon thinks about the two men she saw. One of them seemed awfully familiar, with those sexy eyes above his mask. Dae-young and Seung-ah join the group while Detective Lee is questioning Kyung-seon, and Dae-young almost swallows his tongue when he learns that the tiny vase he took was part of a priceless set of antiques.

Everybody looks at Seung-ah when the third intruder is described as wearing a black outfit and white socks — exactly what she’s wearing. She looks at Dae-young pleadingly and he just stands there shaking, but Detective Lee only fusses at her for dressing like a criminal.

Done with this, Kyung-seon orders the police to catch the criminals within three days, then she tells Seung-ah to drive her home. She wants to talk about Hae-il, and Seung-ah’s obvious crush on him. Seung-ah denies it, but Kyung-seon says another woman can tell, and she warns Seung-ah not to let her feelings cause problems for a priest. When she gets out of the car, Seung-ah whines at being found out.

Chul-beom tells Dong-ja and Chief Prosecutor Park that he thinks the break-in at the villa was just thieves, because no bugs or hidden cameras were planted. Dong-ja thinks it might have been Chief Nam and Representative Park, and although Chief Prosecutor Park disagrees, she says they need to deal with them quickly.

Back at the church, the three exhausted “thieves” discuss their evening, and Hae-il says that he’s having a friend test the blood for DNA. Seung-ah tells Hae-il to rest, and when he says he’s fine, she pounds on the table and yells at him for not listening to her. Dae-young is jealous that Seung-ah doesn’t seem worried about him, too.

They still don’t know who they guy in glasses at the villa was, but Dae-young correctly guesses that he’s Kyung-seon’s boss. He also says he can tell their group is falling apart, with Dong-ja and Glasses Guy on one side and Chief Nam and Representative Park on the other. He’s on a roll, also deducing that Chief Nam and Representative Park are behind the investigation into Dong-ja.

He suddenly remembers the vase he stole, but it’s not on the counter where Hae-il left it. LOL, Sister Kim carries in a tea tray, using the vase for the tea. Hae-il stops Dae-young from telling her how valuable it is, but they all scream when she nearly drops it, hee.

Kyung-seon has trouble sleeping, haunted by the thief’s familiar, sexy eyes. It occurs to her that the thief looked a bit like Hae-il, but she tells herself that that’s silly.

Hae-il prays for forgiveness for stealing, struggling valiantly not to blame it on Dae-young. He tells God that he did it for justice, and when he finishes, he looks fondly at his photo of Father Lee, reassuring himself that Father Lee’s smile means his sin wasn’t so bad.

In the morning, Kyung-seon waits outside Daebum Trading to returns the car keys to Chul-beom, saying that as a prosecutor, she can’t drive a gift given by a gangster. Chul-beom says he’s just going to bring it every day, but Kyung-seon says she’ll get a restraining order if he does.

Hae-il’s coroner friend worries about running the blood sample through his own lab. His agency shares information with the NIS and Hae-il could get in trouble, so he offers to take it to a hoobae who works at a different lab. Sister Kim brings them tea, and Hae-il’s friend says she looks very familiar. She makes an excuse and leaves, and her odd(er than usual) behavior pings Hae-il’s radar.

When she gets to work, Kyung-seon’s coworkers reports that he looked into Chief Nam and Representative Park, and that they’re the worst sort of scum. He calls Representative Park a sociopath, which reminds Kyung-seon that Hae-il mocked her by telling her to take a sociopath test online, so she finds a test and gets started.

Detective Lee leads a meeting about the break-in at Chul-beom’s villa, making Seung-ah and Dae-young very nervous. Detective Lee says that a teeny-weeny scratch on the upstairs window frame makes it “special larceny.” Dae-young protests a little too vehemently, and the team asks if he’s the thief or something, so he just laughs like it’s the funniest thing ever.

Kyung-seon gets a perfect score on the sociopath test. She congratulates herself on her high score, even bragging about it to her coworkers, completely clueless that it means she’s a total sociopath, lol.

Later, Dae-young and Seung-ah meet at the church, where Seung-ah shows the guys on a map how close Chul-beom’s villa is to the cliff where Father Lee’s body was found. There’s only one accessible trail, and there are CCTV cameras because the land is owned by the city, but it’s managed by Daebum Trading so the files will have been deleted.

Hae-il says they’ll just have to go look for evidence in person. Seung-ah warns him against getting caught right after breaking into the villa, and he says they’ll just have to go in disguise.

PWAHAHA, Hae-il and Dae-young show up at the nature trail dressed as a Middle Eastern billionaire and a very attractive woman — I’ll let you guess which is which. They notice that the CCTV cameras have all been taken down, and Dae-young says it’s like in the movie “The Memoir of a Murderer” (which Kim Nam-gil starred in, heh).

They spread out to look for clues, but they snap into character when an ajusshi comes over and says they’re trespassing and need to leave. He’s wearing a Daebum Development jacket, so Hae-il leads Dae-young back down the mountain.

Kyung-seon’s coworker gets his hands on the depositions of all of Representative Park’s victims, and he tells Kyung-seon that according to them, Representative Park is the worst sort of sociopath. Kyung-seon gets angry at his use of the word sociopath like it’s a bad thing, ha.

Still in disguise, Dae-young asks Hae-il if he’s still planning to investigate Representative Park, and Hae-il says that as the most corrupt, he’s the easiest of the Fearsome Foursome to take down. Hae-il notices an old man looking up his skirt and primly adjusts his posture, then asks Dae-young when he’s going to decide which side he’s on.

Dae-young admits that he wants to start over, but he asks for a little more time to think. Hae-il asks why it’s so difficult for Dae-young to switch sides — do the bad guys have something on him? Dae-young looks cornered, but he says that he’ll explain in detail later. There’s a weird moment where Dae-young seems to notice how pretty Hae-il is as a lady, but they snap out of it when Seung-ah texts that she’s identified Glasses Guy as Chief Prosecutor Park, Kyung-seon’s boss.

Meanwhile, Chief Prosecutor Park confirms with an informant that Representative Park and Chief Nam are behind Dong-ja’s corruption investigation through some connections in the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office. He’s given a packet of information on the two connections, a Prosecutor Park and a Mr. Lee, enough to scare the them and make them confess to Chief Prosecutor Park.

Chief Prosecutor Park asks his informant if he found anything on Hae-il’s real identity, but the informant says that he’s been too busy with work and will get to it soon. Chief Prosecutor Park tells him to hurry, and that he has one more task for him. We see the informant’s face – and it’s Agent Lee, the spy who ordered Hae-il to throw the grenade into the room full of children. I knew he would pop up again!

Kyung-seon walks home past the convenience store, where Hae-il is sitting outside eating ramyun. He grumbles that the assailant is ignoring her victim, and she marvels that his nose healed quickly and offers to head-butt him harder next time.

Suddenly she grabs him and gets very close, trying to see if his eyes look like the thief’s eyes. She covers his nose and mouth with her hand, and gasps — it’s him. Hae-il does the same to her, and they glare at each other dramatically.

EPISODE 22

Confused, Hae-il bats Kyung-seon’s hand away from his face. Kyung-seon walks away in a daze, wondering why Hae-il would break into the villa and who that other Sasquatch guy was.

Jang-ryong is back at Ssongsak’s restaurant, making him say the alphabet and slapping him when he makes a mistake. But this time, Ssongsak gets a hard glint in his eyes and advances on Jang-ryong… then chickens out and pretends there’s something in his eye.

A loud “HEY!!” rings out, and Jang-ryong turns to see Agent Lee. He says he just wants to eat in peace, and is unimpressed by Jang-ryong’s attempts to intimidate him. They nearly come to blows, but Hoon-seok arrives and tells Jang-ryong to back off — he’s here to take Agent Lee to Chul-beom.

Agent Lee searches Chul-beom’s house for evidence the cops may have missed. When he gets to the room where Hae-il found the blood, he notices the luminol and mutters, “Kim Hae-il, you haven’t changed at all.”

Chief Prosecutor Park meets with Chul-beom and tells him that a man needs three things to succeed… money, courage, and someone to back them up. He says that all Chul-beom needs is support, and he offers Chul-beom a chance to earn that support — by killing Representative Park.

After getting Jang-ryong drunk, Young-moon calls Kozayev to his office to tell him about the huge safe full of cash in the basement of Daebum Trading. He suggests they team up and take the money for themselves, and when Kozayev asks about Chul-beom, Young-moon’s assistant says that they can make him disappear.

After his talk with Chief Prosecutor Park, Chul-beom goes to the safe and contemplates the massive locking system. He tells Hoon-seok that they could keep all the money if they could figure out how to unlock it, and he gets an evil idea.

Ssongsak takes a Chinese food delivery to the Daebum Development office, and from outside the door he overhears Jang-ryong telling his underlings not to make any mistakes tonight when they go to kill Representative Park.

Hae-il is looking up Representative Park online when he chokes on his tea and coughs onto his computer screen. The liquid makes it look like Representative Park is bleeding, then a light breaks through the window onto Hae-il’s face, and he wonders if it’s a sign from God. Sung-kyu runs in to say that a drama is filming outside — HA, it was just a floodlight.

But Sung-kyu shows Hae-il the autograph he got from the lead actress, whose name is Gu Hae-ra, which also means, “Save him.” But God isn’t taking any chances that Hae-il might not get the message… Seung-ah calls him to tell him that they’re plotting to kill Representative Park tonight.

Dae-young and Seung-ah bring Ssongsak to the church, but all he knows is that they said they’re going to kill Representative Park. Hae-il wants to catch Chul-beom in the act, but Dae-young says they’d need the entire Violent Crimes team, and they’re not exactly cooperative these days.

Hae-il says they can still catch Chul-beom, which will make him guilty of abetting murder and Representative Park a whistle-blower and will weaken Dong-ja’s side. He says they need to implement Plan B… which he actually hasn’t thought of yet. LOL. The four put their heads together and start cooking up a plan.

Ssongsak leaves first, and Hae-il asks if he’ll be okay, since he’s the one who learned of the plot to kill Representative Park. Ssongsak says he’ll be fine, though he admits he’s scared. But he gets emotional as he says that if Hae-il can catch the guys who killed Father Lee, that’s enough for him. He says that he thought people who showed anger were fools, but from now on he’ll show his anger, too, and Hae-il tells him that Father Lee would be proud.

Ssongsak stops by the convenience store to bring Yo-han a huge plate of mandoo as a peace offering. He says that he doesn’t think Yo-han is a fool, and that Yo-han is his only friend, and he wails, “I love you, Yo-han!” and gives him a half arm-heart. Yo-han can’t stay mad, and they’re both crying as Ssongsak feeds Yo-han the mandoo. Awwww, I luff them.

Kyung-seon has accumulated enough evidence to take down both Representative Park and Chief Nam, so Chief Prosecutor Park tells her to meet with Representative Park tonight and tell him so. He claims that he wants to give Representative Park a chance to repent, but Kyung-seon seems to sense that something is off, especially when Chief Prosecutor Park tells her to be understanding if there’s a mess to handle later.

Representative Park pushes back when Kyung-seon calls to tell him to see her later, until she mentions that she has evidence of a lot of his crimes. Meanwhile, Chief Prosecutor Park and Dong-ja show similarly damning evidence to Chief Nam, threatening to turn it over unless Chief Nam repents for what he did to Dong-ja. He’s pathetically eager to prove that he’s sorry, so Chief Prosecutor Park tells him to turn a blind eye to anything that happens today.

Dressing again in his spy gear, Hae-il follows Representative Park’s car from his motorcycle, but it worries him when the car stops to pick up Kyung-seon. Dae-young gets a call at the station and tells Detective Lee that he got an anonymous tip that someone is planning something against Representative Park (oof, his acting is terrible).

It works, and Detective Lee mobilizes the Violent Crime team. While they get ready, Detective Lee tries to call Chief Nam, but he’s not answering his phone. He wants to call Chul-beom, but Dae-young says that if they save Representative Park alone, Detective Lee can take all the credit, and it works.

As they drive, Kyung-seon tells Representative Park that Chief Prosecutor Park wants him to correct what he did to Dong-ja and kneel to beg forgiveness. He threatens to refuse, but Kyung-seon says she doesn’t recommend it, just as they’re cut off sharply by another car.

Kyung-seon is as surprised to see Jang-ryong as Representative Park is, especially when his lackeys start smashing in their car windows. They drag Representative Park out of the car and start beating him, and when Kyung-seon tries to stop them from carrying him off, Jang-ryong knocks her to the ground and tells her to go home.

Hae-il waits impatiently for the Violent Crimes team, who are stuck behind traffic caused by a drunk man lying in the road bellowing out lyrics to BTS’s “Idol,” lol. But he witnesses Representative Park being taken away, so he jumps on his bike and speeds after them. Kyung-seon recognizes his body type and flags down a taxi, telling the driver to follow that back — um, bike.

Representative Park is carried into an office building, and Hae-il follows them inside with Kyung-seon not far behind. Jang-ryong takes Representative Park to the roof, where his minions make an impression of Representative Park’s thumb, remove his shoes, and prepare to toss him off the roof.

A voice calls out, “Let him go,” and Jang-ryong sees Hae-il sauntering up to the roof, his face obscured by his mask. Without another word, Hae-il starts throwing kicks and punches, but he gets distracted when Representative Park tries to run and is hit in the back of the head by a minion. Hae-il grabs Jang-ryong and uses him as a shield, and the swinging minion smacks Jang-ryong with his bat instead.

Downstairs, the Violent Crimes team finally shows up. Someone calls Jang-ryong and tips him off, and he and his men make a run for it. Hae-il checks on Representative Park, who’s unconscious but alive, so he calls emergency services for an ambulance. He can’t escape down the stairs because the police are using it, so he lets himself into a block of offices.

Dae-young finds him and directs the cops in the opposite direction. Hae-il keeps going, but this time he runs into Kyung-seon, literally. She grabs his face and shrieks that he’s the same guy who hit her in the neck, so Hae-il raises his hand like he’s going to chop her again, making her cringe and giving him a chance to run.

He makes his way to the lobby and almost gets to the front door, but Detective Lee and most of the team jump out with weapons drawn. Dae-young and Seung-ah see it happening and wonder how Hae-il got caught, and Kyung-seon shows up and answers, “I know.”

Detective Lee orders Hae-il to put his hands in the air, and after a moment, Hae-il complies.

 
COMMENTS

Okay, will this finally be enough to convince Kyung-seon that the last thing she wants is to be Chief Prosecutor Park’s partner? If the rampant crimes and coverups didn’t do it, maybe the idea of being murdered the first time she takes a wrong step might. She can’t possible be deluding herself that the crimes she’s helping commit are okay — but then, she did get a perfect score on a sociopath test, so it’s possible she genuinely believes that as a prosecutor, anything she does IS the law. But maybe her sociopathic desire to save her own skin will kick in and she’ll wake up, and realize that Chief Prosecutor Park is bad news.

I find it kind of hilarious that, as much work as Hae-il is going to in order to gather information to bring down the Fearsome Foursome and make Chul-beom pay for killing Father Lee, it looks like the Foursome might actually end up doing his job for him by imploding from the inside. The main four are now actively working against each other (and even plotting to kill each other), their satellite members are gossiping among themselves and will likely stage some sort of coup, and as for Chul-beom himself — well, at this point I won’t be surprised by anything he does. I would be very amused if it turns out that all Hae-il really needs to do is sit back and let most of his problems take care of themselves.

As scary as the implications are, I was actually glad to see Hae-il’s old nemesis, Agent Lee, show up in this episode. I had a feeling that he would, since Hae-il is going to have to confront his painful past at some point, and he and Agent Lee have some unfinished business to clear up. I do think that Agent Lee already knows that Hae-il is somehow involved in the Fearsome Foursome’s dealings, since he was asked by Chief Prosecutor Park to find out Hae-il’s real identity (“Kim Hae-il” is most likely a new identity he took on when he left the NIS), and he seemed to be stalling for time when Chief Prosecutor Park asked what he knew about the priest. I don’t look forward to Hae-il seeing Agent Lee again, because it’s going to bring up a lot of old emotions he’s been trying to keep stuffed deep down in his psyche, but I do want Hae-il to come out of this whole thing mentally healthier, and that’s not going to happen until he confronts Agent Lee, and thus his past.

In the meantime, this is worth seeing one last time… you’re welcome!

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