Catch the Ghost: Episode 6

by lovelee

Our newbie officer has grown on our chief inspector, and her every move now affects him more than ever. But he’s not the only one being affected, and in an attempt to remain focused on her true goal, she starts to build up a protective wall–that may hinder her more than help.

 
EPISODE 6 RECAP

After their impromptu dance fest, Ji-seok and Yoo Ryung enjoy a late night meal together. They have a great time sharing stories until Ji-seok winces in pain from one of his Won-tae-induced injuries.

He plays it off and keeps talking but Yoo Ryung stares at him with sad eyes and tells him she knows about his fight with Won-tae. She surprises him by suddenly getting up and sitting very close to him.

Yoo Ryung tells him she just wants to apply ointment on his cut and gently applies some to his lips. Ji-seok grabs her hand and stares into her eyes for a long beat…before moving her hand to his forehead, asking her to apply ointment on his other cuts too. Ha, so much for romance.

They grab the first subway of the day; Ji-seok turns to tell Yoo Ryung to sleep if she’s tired, but she’s already conked out. A man wearing a baseball cap with an eagle decal strolls through the car before taking a seat next to a dozing young woman. Ji-seok clocks him stealing her wallet and follows as Eagle Cap moves to another car.

Ji-seok presents his badge and asks to see Eagle Cap’s bag, but he goes on the attack and slashes at Ji-seok with a knife. Eagle Cap sprints off and manages to trick Ji-seok into getting off at the next stop before jumping back on himself, and he smirks at Ji-seok as the subway speeds away.

Ji-seok calls Yoo Ryung and gives her a rundown of what’s happened before instructing her to get off at the next stop with the victim. She protests, saying she could take down a pickpocket but he strictly forbids her from trying to catch Eagle Cap herself. What kind of thief takes a wallet but no other valuables? Something feels off, and Ji-seok promises to catch the perp, but he needs Yoo Ryung to escort the victim to safety.

Yoo Ryung accedes and hangs up, but when Ji-seok arrives at the next stop, Yoo Ryung’s nowhere to be found. But she hasn’t gone rogue, and she spots Ji-seok first. Yoo Ryung calls out to him, and she has the young woman with her. (Aw, her willingness to listen earns Yoo Ryung a head pat from Ji-seok.)

Ji-seok calls Chief Inspector Gong to ask about Eagle Cap and learns that he’s a petty thief who only robs people on the first subway after Hongdae’s club day. Chief Inspector Gong nearly caught him once but hasn’t had any leads since. Ji-seok cautiously asks for the victims’ contact information, and Chief Inspector Gong unexpectedly agrees. Yoo Ryung wonders why Chief Inspector Gong cooperated and Ji-seok tells her that Chief Inspector Gong saw them dancing the night before and felt bad about banishing them.

They speak to one of Eagle Cap’s victims and she appears very uneasy, avoiding eye contact throughout the conversation. Like the most recent victim on the subway, she confirms that she only got her wallet stolen. They have less luck at their next stop as the victim, Hong Ye-ra, doesn’t answer the door.

A neighbor informs them the apartment’s been empty for a long while. Rumor had it that the woman went missing after a vlog broadcast. Turns out Hong Ye-ra is the missing vlogger Avocado. All the clues point to Eagle Cap, but Ji-seok is cautious about making assumptions, or investigating Ye-ra’s disappearance.

The reluctance doesn’t last long though, Yoo Ryung guilts Ji-seok and reminds him he promised to catch Eagle Cap. Ji-seok gives in and tells her he’ll ask the Metropolitan Police Agency to share their information on the case. For now, he begs her to get some rest because they’ve been awake for 30 hours.

Ma-ri and her team are watching Avocado’s last vlog when she spots something–the perp’s reflection in the window. She has Woo-hyuk take the video in for analysis to define the reflection more.

Back at the substation, Yoo Ryung sleeps, while Ji-seok’s in the meeting room alone. He ponders his current situation: he has two months left to catch the Grasshoppers or he’ll be fired.

He pulls himself together and goes back out to review the Grasshoppers case file. As the team discusses their progress, a delivery man arrives with jjajangmyung (black bean noodles) and they stop for a meal break.

Elsewhere, we see the infamous Podori costumes stacked on the floor of an empty warehouse with two young men. A third enters shortly after–the jjajangmyun delivery man. It turns out his name is Dong-man and he managed to steal the case file on them while making his delivery. The oldest Grasshopper (cameo by Kim Geon-woo) is excited to see how far Ji-seok has gotten on the case.

They see that Ji-seok has been investigating costume businesses, which makes Dong-man nervous. Grasshopper Hyung complains to Dong-man that he thought they’d rise to fame after their last job, but they got overshadowed by the subway serial killer.

Meanwhile, Ji-seok is updating the digital Grasshopper case file when he notices the physical case file is gone. He asks Soo-ho to look for the files as he heads off to meet Ma-ri.

At Metro, Ma-ri overhears two officers on her team talking smack, saying she only got where she is thanks to her mom. Ji-seok interrupts–Ma-ri made her way up with her own skills, not because of nepotism.

If they’re jealous, they should just be jealous since it’d be less pathetic than what they’re doing now. He walks on and greets Ma-ri. He tells her there might be a connection between Eagle Cap and the Avocado case. Woo-hyuk rushes in, Ma-ri was right about the reflection in Avocado’s last broadcast.

At the substation, Yoo Ryung is studying a map of the tunnels. She rewatches the security footage of the hooded figure following her and vaguely remembers seeing the figure holding a wire after she was attacked by Won-tae.

She has a flashback to the day Yoo Jin was kidnapped, she’d clutched her phone and heard Yoo Jin on the other end saying her neck hurt and that she couldn’t breathe. Yoo Ryung could only cry and yell out for Yoo Jin.

Back in the present, Yoo Ryung is certain the perp who took Yoo Jin was trying to kill her too. She takes a gun from the safe room determined to catch the bastard.

In the high-res image, a distinctive eagle emblem is visible and Ji-seok immediately identifies the man as Eagle Cap. They piece the clues together and speculate that he steals women’s wallets and tracks them down to their homes. There’s a good chance there are more victims and they need to find them.

Ji-seok gets up to head back to the substation, but Ma-ri stops him and tells him Yoo Ryung can look into it. He tells her that he’s actually going back because he is worried about leaving Yoo Ryung alone, and at that Ma-ri insists they work on a composite sketch then and there. The delay tactic doesn’t work and Ji-seok heads off, much to Ma-ri’s disappointment.

In the tunnels, the hooded figure is rolling a suitcase along. We jump back to the recent past, as the hooded figure stops on the tracks to unzip a suitcase. When it’s opened up, we see a bloody Yoo Jin twisted and packed inside.

In the present, the Subway Ghost continues along the tunnels with the suitcase before climbing up onto the subway platform.

The Subway Ghost flips the power switch, engulfing the station in darkness. Yoo Ryung senses something’s wrong and the sound of a suitcase being rolled through the halls grows louder. She accidentally knocks her gun to the floor then searches frantically for it, but a sudden silence falls.

Yoo Ryung walks to the door and reaches for the door knob just as the Subway Ghost opens the door. Face to face, the Subway Ghost reaches out and chokes her but at the sound of Ji-seok calling out for Yoo Ryung, the Subway Ghost melts back into the darkness. Instead of giving chase, Yoo Ryung locks the door in fear.

Ji-seok finds Yoo Ryung curled up in a corner, teary-eyed. She stares at him with wide eye as he checks to see if she’s okay, answering each question with silence. When he asks if something happened, the dam breaks and Yoo Ryung sobs her heart out.

As they get ready to sleep, Ji-seok asks straight out if Yoo Ryung is hiding something from him. She looks so anxious and there was that hooded figure tailing her. Yoo Ryung lies and tells Ji-seok that the hooded figure was simply a random pervert. She was just taken aback because she’s scared of the dark. To comfort her, Ji-seok brings her a candle and leaves the curtain between them slightly open. He tells her to wake him if she gets scared.

Back at his lair, the Subway Ghost crumples up Yoo Ryung’s picture and goes back to look at one of the locked chests. Yoo Ryung apologizes to a sleeping Ji-seok for disobeying his orders and walks back into the tunnels with her gun. She goes to the hidden passageway and yells in frustration. On the way back, Yoo Ryung finds a ripped piece of clothing and wonders what it’s doing there.

The next morning, Yoo Ryung blindsides Ji-seok with a request for a different partner. Ji-seok asks if she’s mad he left her alone the previous night. She lies and tells him they don’t work well together.

That prompts Ji-seok to tell her to follow him to the meeting room. Ji-seok can’t believe what he’s hearing and blows up at her. He tells her that no one could bear the burden of her as partner, which infuriates Yoo Ryung.

Peeking in on them, Man-jin and Soo-ho aren’t sure if the two are fighting about switching partners or if they’re having a lovers’ quarrel. Ji-seok suggests they take time to cool off. In the meantime, they should solve the Avocado case first. That piques Yoo Ryung’s interest and Ji-seok tells her Eagle Cap is a suspect and they need to visit the other known victims. There’s no time to lose.

The Subway Ghost heads to a telephone booth and makes a call. The young woman on the other end is relieved to hear that someone’s found her wallet. While on the phone, she opens the door to Ji-seok and Yoo Ryung and they overhear that she found her wallet. Yoo Ryung asks why she originally thought it was stolen and the woman explains that she scanned her card to get on the subway, but when she got off, her wallet was missing.

None of the victims they visit are at home, and their friends and families all say the women seem to have disappeared after a night of clubbing. Ji-seok asks Soo-ho to obtain footage from surveillance cameras near the victims’ homes. Impatient, Yoo Ryung tries to break in one of the victim’s homes but Ji-seok stops her. He misinterprets her actions as her way of expressing that she doesn’t want to be partners with him.

Back at the station, the team look over the footage and check the victims’ credit card activity. Man-jin and Soo-ho find that all the victims are alive and well, they just haven’t been going home. At Metro, Woo-hyuk also identifies Avocado, alive and well in the CCTV footage.

Yoo Ryung finds it weird that none of the victims are going back home and she thinks the investigation should continue. Before Ji-seok can reason with her, she turns to leave. Ji-seok stops her and scolds her for not fixing bad habits and Yoo Ryung throws his words back at him–he can’t seem to break his habit of going back on his word. He wonders if this is the reason why Yoo Ryung doesn’t want to be his partner and agrees to continue investigating the next day, secretly hoping it’ll change her mind about switching partners.

The next day, Yoo Ryung and Ji-seok approach Park Yoo-mi at a convenience store she’s been frequenting. They take their conversation to a cafe where she tells them she only got her wallet stolen, nothing else happened. Ji-seok notices her nervously scratching a stain on the table and excuses himself to call Ma-ri. At his request, Ma-ri re-watches the footage of Avocado and notices her shrink back when a man walks past her.

Yoo Ryung and Ji-seok arrive at Metro for a meeting, and Ji-seok heads in first. Woo-hyuk and Ji-seok ride the elevator up together and Ji-seok suddenly asks if Woo-hyuk ever lost respect for his superiors. Woo-hyuk cheekily asks if Ji-seok’s referring to his ex-girlfriend (Ma-ri) or Yoo Ryung.

Ji-seok tells him Yoo Ryung doesn’t want to be partners anymore, but Woo-hyuk tells him that it doesn’t mean she doesn’t like him. As they walk out, Yoo Ryung runs up to ask Woo-hyuk for a private moment.

Yoo Ryung tells him that she’s certain that the hooded figure she saw was the Subway Ghost. She gives him the ripped piece of clothing she found in the tunnels and asks him to run an analysis on it for her. He should also keep a lookout for a suspect with a shoulder spasm. Her last request? Keep this a secret from Ma-ri because Ji-seok would get in trouble. Woo-hyuk asks her why she doesn’t want to be partners with Ji-seok anymore and she tells him she doesn’t wanted lose focus. He immediately guesses Yoo Ryung likes Ji-seok but she denies it, saying that she just doesn’t want to depend on him.

The four of them convene to discuss the signs of sexual assault all of the victims are exhibiting. Ma-ri noticed that Avocado would flinch when men walked pass her, while Ji-seok noticed their victim wiping things incessantly. Eagle Cap targeted victims who were his “type,” women with short hair who lived alone. The victims weren’t able to go back to their homes out of fear and didn’t report it out of shame and guilt.

When Yoo Ryung makes a comment, it raises Ma-ri’s hackles and she tells Yoo Ryung that Ji-seok was her partner back when they were in the major crimes unit. Yoo Ryung says the two work well together and Ma-ri asks Ji-seok if he works well with Yoo Ryung. He’s silent and Ma-ri takes that as confirmation that it was a silly question.

Ma-ri asks Woo-hyuk how he would describe a partnership where one person makes a mess and one has to clean up afterwards. Woo-hyuk guesses that the partner who cleans up the mess probably really likes the partner who makes the mess. There’s an awkward tension at that answer and Ma-ri quickly changes the subject. She determines the case to be a serial sexual assault case and orders them to forward the case to the major crimes unit.

Yoo Ryung objects and says they started it and the subway police should be the ones to investigate. Ma-ri reminds her that they have other important cases to solve like the subway serial murders. Yoo Ryung stands her ground and tells Ma-ri that she’ll meet with all the victims herself.

Ma-ri dismisses Yoo Ryung’s resolve and comes face to face with an angry Commissioner Kim. She scolds them for sitting around instead of going out and investigating. They shouldn’t be passing off a serial sexual assault case. Ma-ri reminds her that they only have two months left to find the Subway Ghost, or Commissioner Kim has to resign.

The commissioner takes her to task for putting her job before solving a case and compliments Yoo Ryung for her compassion for the victims. She orders Ma-ri and her team to work with the subway police on the case.

On the elevator, Woo-hyuk suggest they switch partners to make it easier for them to work together. He asks Yoo Ryung to be his partner, and when Yoo Ryung agrees, Ji-seok’s angry reaction surprises everyone.

 
COMMENTS

Ji-seok, just tell her you love her! Woo-hyuk is such a contrast as he’s so straightforward about his feelings and it’s making Ji-seok react. Just when I thought Ji-seok and Yoo Ryung were taking a step forward in their romance, Yoo Ryung takes a step back. It does make sense in the larger scheme of things as she’s hyper-focused on catching the Subway Ghost, but the scene where they bonded after their silent dancing party melted my heart. Their colleagues have already caught on that there’s something more between them, but it looks like Ji-seok and Yoo Ryung might need more time to admit anything to themselves. I’d like to see more Ji-seok and Yoo Ryung romance time, but there’s still so much crime to solve.

This episode clarified a few things, like we finally got to see who the Grasshoppers are, and we know now that they are not connected to the Subway Ghost. They’re just a group of young guys who crave the spotlight, or at least Grasshopper Hyung does. I’m curious to see what their next move is and I can’t help but wonder if the case may lead to Yoo Ryung learning something about the tunnels or how the Subway Ghost transports the bodies without being seen.

While we’re on the topic of heartbreaking things, seeing Yoo Jin in that suitcase…it was terrible seeing those little bits and pieces of what happened to Yoo Jin. Yoo Ryung’s insistence that her sister fell victim to the Subway Ghost has been right all this time but no one was listening. It’s no wonder she’s so determined to uncover the truth and so willing to go things alone.

After all her tunnel trips, it’s the Subway Ghost who ended up seeking her out and it’s a little ironic that they finally faced each other in the station rather than in the tunnels. I think she’d been so focused on tracking the Ghost down, she never really thought about how she would react if and when she found him. In the end, she froze, so thank goodness Ji-seok arrived before it was too late.

After facing the Subway Ghost, Yoo Ryung changed. I think she found herself wanting to keep Ji-seok safe and couldn’t stomach the thought of him (or anyone) getting hurt because of her. It was so sad seeing Ji-seok’s devastation when Yoo Ryung turned her back on him and asked for a new partner.

I wish Yoo Ryung would open up and explain to Ji-seok why she joined the subway police and what she’s doing late at night in the tunnels. I think Ji-seok would take her seriously and she could use help from her partner. Not to mention, there’s strength in numbers!

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