Bad Prosecutor: Episodes 5-6

by meryl

As corruption in the prosecution deepens, our bad prosecutor is forced into hiding after being framed for murder. Still, even in the shadows, he and his crew work hard to prove his innocence and catch the bad guys.

 
EPISODES 5-6 WEECAP

Just as he plans to delve further into the lead he found, Jung ends up being charged with the murder of Deputy Chief Lee. According to Do-hwan, the prosecution has found “evidence” in Jung’s home, so Jung can’t really reason his way out of the immediate arrest.

As is the pattern in this show, Jung gets arrested for some misdemeanor — this time, charged with murder — but he also quickly gets away with it. It doesn’t even make sense anymore. Is the prosecution just that incompetent? The plot armor is strong with this one.

Like a mother who heard her child got into a fight at school, Ah-ra quickly confronts Do-hwan about the arrest. He warns her off helping Jung, implying that she might very well lose her job if she does. But Ah-ra simply tells him to stop ordering her around before leaving him behind.

She visits Jung in the interrogation room with Chul-gi, where they reconvene and consolidate their information. Jung brings up his suspicions of Tae-ho, recalling how he’s the only other person in the prosecution who knew what they knew. Ah-ra brushes it off, but she looks like she’s only convincing herself.

Before they leave, Jung tells Chul-gi to get him some ox bone soup for lunch. It’s actually a secret code to give him the handcuff key through the soup, which is so rich you can’t see to the bottom — this is how they’re able to hide the key in the soup.

Of course, while Jung gets the handcuffs off his hands, he’s still locked in the room. He has to wait for the guards to come back and fight his way out. Chaos ensues, with lots of running and parkouring around the prosecution office.

Meanwhile, Tae-ho walks around his new office, savoring his new title as Chief Prosecutor. He also recalls how he eventually accepted Do-hwan as his minion and ordered Jung’s arrest. Not a surprise, but wow — how much corruption can there be in an office?

He heads out to meet with Chairman Seo, who gives him instructions to promote a list of people to certain positions. Tae-ho isn’t able to say anything back, but when he leaves, he expresses his frustration about being treated like a puppet.

We get back to our runaway prosecutor, who has been hiding in Do-hwan’s car waiting for him. Jung chokes Do-hwan with the seatbelt and forces him to drive away, and of course, they end up in a car crash. I don’t know why he thought that would work. Dramatic effect, maybe? It didn’t help though.

Bleeding heavily from a head wound, Jung isn’t able to go to a hospital for treatment since the prosecution would be able to track him there. So he goes to Jae-kyung, who despite initially discouraging Jung always ends up helping him in his times of need (and who has also been taking care of his dog Coco, who is now named Snowball, lol).

Jung studies the autopsy report, but sees something off, so he asks for Jae-kyung’s perspective. The older prosecutor gives him a hint: the crystal meth found in Deputy Chief Lee’s body in the autopsy was used as a sort of truth serum. Amazed by his deduction, Jung asks Jae-kyung: how did you end up in the civil affairs division? “By having an attitude like yours.” Oooh, is this another hint of his past with Tae-ho?

Elsewhere, after getting explicit instructions from Tae-ho to look for Jung, Ah-ra reluctantly investigates the people she knows surrounding him: Eun-ji and Joong-do. In the middle of doing her nails, Eun-ji is forcibly taken into the prosecution along with Joong-do. Ah-ra updates them about what’s happening with Jung, but she eventually lets them go, claiming they don’t have enough information, but really so that they can help Jung.

Our bad prosecutor does call Ah-ra to confirm that he’s okay. Ah-ra informs him that she’s been ordered to hunt him down, but still tells him to be careful: “I’ll come after you myself and get promoted, so don’t let someone else catch you.”

Following the lead on the drug, Jung tracks the distribution chain to gangsters that can be identified with dragon tattoo on their necks. The crew gets to work, infiltrating the gangsters’ night club. Unfortunately, just as they find the dragon tattoo gang, a police team arrives for a drug bust, creating chaos and making the gangsters go on the run.No matter, Jung uses his father’s motorcycle to easily catch up with the gangsters. He beats them up and secures their list of clients.

The next day, in a deserted warehouse, Jung meets with Ah-ra to ask her to look into the clients on the list, suspecting that the murderer’s name is there. However, Do-hwan has learned his lesson and has Ah-ra tailed.

After a lot of parkouring on stairs and rooftops (is this show an excuse to let D.O. parkour around?), Jung is able to escape by a hair’s breadth He makes it to his motorcycle, readying to go — that is, until a masked man ambushes him, stabbing him several times. Oh no!

As Do-hwan and his men look for Jung around the area, Ah-ra tries ringing Jung, finding him in a corner, bleeding and unconscious. She grabs him and tries to head to the hospital. But Jung recovers enough consciousness to tell her not to go to a hospital.

Instead, Ah-ra brings her to Jae-kyung, who calls Jung’s anatomy professor (also his friend) to tend to his wounds at his house. Throughout the night, Jung remains unconscious, suffering from a nightmare where he relives his dad’s car accident. Ah-ra looks on worriedly, while tending to his wounds.

The next day, Chul-gi, Eun-ji, and Joong-do arrive to visit Jung, rushing in and fussing over him. “Jin Jung and the three siblings,” Ah-ra says cutely.

At the prosecution office, Ah-ra meets with Tae-ho who pretends to be worried about Jung. Apparently, Do-hwan has also seen the bloodstains and reported back to Tae-ho. The new chief prosecutor asks where Jung is, but just as she promised Jung, she doesn’t tell anyone, including Tae-ho. Instead, she promises to receive punishment for disobeying him after she catches everyone involved in this evil scheme.

Afterwards, Tae-ho immediately heads to Chairman Seo, saying that he shouldn’t have ordered the attack on Jung, because he’s already handling the issue. But the arrogant Chairman Seo implies that Tae-ho is useless if he isn’t able to wrap things up quickly.

Looking into the list of drug clients, Ah-ra finds the connection to Chairman Seo. Apparently, his chief secretary is listed as a buyer. Following the lead, she meets with Chairman Seo’s son at their law firm’s office, but she notices that he’s a little too interested in the case. After she leaves, Chairman Seo has his people dig into her background.

Meanwhile, back at his house, Jae-kyung is forced to endure Jung’s abysmal cooking (he makes an extremely black soy bean stew!). So Jae-kyung decides to eat out instead. But unfortunately, that’s where they see that Jung has been on the public wanted list on the TV.

Ah-ra confronts Tae-ho, but gets brushed off. She also gets ostracized at work due to the rumors spreading that she’s helping Jung (which is true). She mostly ignores it, but when one of her staff members is disrespected, she retaliates — with violence, slapping a food tray on the head of one of the other prosecutors. Why is everyone so violent on this show? Are they showing us what a bad prosecutor is? Sigh.

Elsewhere, the three siblings get to work. Chul-gi looks for the GPS history of Do-hwan, while Joong-do and Eun-ji disguise themselves to go to the alleged meeting place of Do-hwan and his mysterious boss. When they get the CCTV footage, Jung sees that it’s really Tae-ho.

While he’s stuck at home, Jung isn’t just lying around. After confirming Tae-ho meeting with Do-hwan, he’s able to connect the dots now that he knows Tae-ho’s in on it. But he wouldn’t be Jin Jung if he just sat around waiting for other people to do the hard work. So he goes out and breaks into Do-hwan’s house. He brings a USB from Joong-do that can hack into the computer, where he finds crucial evidence in the chat messages between Tae-ho and Do-hwan.

After escaping from Do-hwan’s house, Jung and Ah-ra meet at the baseball stadium. Ah-ra arrives looking frustrated because of what happened at work, and she becomes more conflicted about this new discovery regarding her mentor.

She asks Jung if she can pretend not to know anything, but Jung gives her time to think about it. However, he also tells her that she needs to make a decision soon, because time is of the essence if they want to catch Tae-ho. She doesn’t take too much time, because even before Jung leaves, she already asks him what she needs to do.

Later that night, Ah-ra meets Tae-ho at his house. She promises to never disobey him again, if he tells her the truth. To prove herself, she gives up Jung’s location — oh no! But it’s actually all part of the plan. She keeps her phone on all the time so Jung can keep listening in. But Tae-ho calls her out and tells her to turn off her phone. And catches her again with a listening device disguised as a pen.

When she gives both of those up, she demands for the truth from Tae-ho. In an angry outburst where he slaps her in the face (WTH!), Tae-ho tells her he had no idea about the plot to kill Jung, but he also had no choice in the matter of framing Jung as a murderer. Tae-ho tells her to prepare herself for getting kicked off the force, but she promises that she’ll get him back for that slap.

All of these are part of their plan though. Because there’s a third listening device hidden behind Ah-ra’s phone case. Jung grabs the phone from Tae-ho himself, calling him a crook and telling him his career is over. Is it really, though? Hmmmm.

I don’t know if it’s just me being distracted, but we’re halfway through the series, and I still feel like the plot is moving so slow. We don’t know much about Tae-ho still, and we don’t know his history with Jae-kyung. We also don’t know the significance of Jung’s memories with his dad. It’s also unclear what made Ah-ra so loyal to Tae-ho, though that is slowly changing now. And the big baddie that is Chairman Seo is still shrouded in mystery. Like, what else does he do other than be rich and powerful? Is that all there is to these characters? Am I expecting too much from them, or are they all just meant to be flat characters?

There’s also so many action sequences that they all feel repetitive. I get that this is Jung’s specialty as a character, but didn’t he also top the prosecution board exam? So shouldn’t he make more logical decisions? Case in point: choking Do-hwan in the car. That didn’t make sense at all. I also felt uncomfortable watching Jung ignore the shaken girl in the night club in favor of tracking the gangsters. I understand that his priority is to follow the lead he has, but it seems a little out of his righteous and just character for him to ignore someone in need like that. Some things just aren’t adding up for me.

Well, for all intents and purposes, Jin Jung is showing us what a bad prosecutor would look like, so I suppose in a way the show is successful if that’s the goal. I do hope we see more plot (and even character) development in the latter half of the series. Please don’t disappoint, Show!

 
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