The cases get a more serious this week as the body count climbs up. Thankfully, the villains aren’t as cunning as they think, and our heroes aren’t as bumbling as they appear. Though the odds are never in their favor, with a bit of gumption and teamwork, our heroes manage to pull off the impossible and save the day once again.
EPISODES 3-4
The shenanigans continue with our newly formed unit as they dive headlong into danger. While their methods may be unconventional (and even questionable at times), their sense of justice remains strong and bright in a sea of corruption and ne’er-do-wells. Of course, Young-han and his team’s integrity are more like liabilities to their superintendent who wishes they follow his orders for a change — especially when it comes to keeping his pockets full of coin. His latest asinine command is to have the entire precinct guard Lee Jung-jae in his upcoming meeting, but our motley crew have bigger concerns than protecting the underworld leader.
A string of bank robberies grips the nation, leaving a trail of innocent deaths in their wake. As the incidents get closer to Seoul, it catches Young-han’s attention, and with the help of his team, he devises a plan to stop these criminals once and for all. In the midst of all these preparations though, Young-han forgets about the date he planned with Hye-joo as thanks for saving his life.
In order to make it up to her, he visits her bookstore in his new suit and fixes her broken shelf. As they mend their relationship and get to know each other better, she asks about the scar on his wrist, and he tells her that he got when he was a student soldier — a nightmare that still haunts him. After hearing his answer, she buys him a bracelet to cover up the scar, leaving Young-han even more smitten than before.
Though I’m sure Young-han wouldn’t mind spending more time with Hye-joo, duty calls. Thanks to Ho-jung’s sleepless (and bathless) nights, they discover a pattern in the robbers’ operations and realize that the next hit will be on the day of Lee Jung-jae’s meeting. They also piece together the clues about which bank will be targeted, and through a game of rock-paper-scissors, Sang-soon goes undercover as a security guard. In case things go awry, Sang-soon also drugs the branch manager, ensuring that no one has access to the vault, and his rather unethical decision pays off since the team’s plan veers off course.
The first hitch is their superintendent who knew his troublesome unit was up to no good, and like any rational person, he chose to escalate the situation by throwing them in a holding cell. This means Sang-soon is the only one at the bank when the robbers charge in, making their original plan to nab the criminals outside obsolete. The team, at least, accounted for this, and with some crocodile tears and emotional manipulation, they convince an officer to release them in time to initiate plan B.
Unfortunately, they run into a second problem: the robbers take a hostage for their getaway, and it’s none other than Hye-joo. Dressed as one of the robbers, Young-han flashes his bracelet to Hye-joo who recognizes it, but not long after, the other robbers start questioning his identity, too. Our daring leading lady makes a distraction — fulfilling a childhood dream in the process — and her moment of staged hysteria allows Young-han to catch the robbers by surprise. As they fight in the tight jeep, Young-han swerves away from a pedestrian and crashes into a parked vehicle. Though the leader tries to escape, he finds himself surrounded by officers on all sides. Since the superintendent didn’t want to come, Young-han brought the robbers to him.
Despite actively hindering the team on the bank case, the superintendent takes all the credit for the splashy arrest, including a hefty cash award. The crew doesn’t mind the loss, but why let their scumbag boss take the money when they could spread rumors that he donated it all to orphans, instead. Speaking of orphans, 1950s Korea has no shortage of problems, and the next one that lands in unit one’s lap is a distressed mother looking for her kidnapped baby.
In a grim turn of events, a military platoon uncovered a grave of infants, and after some sleuthing, Young-han learns that the missing baby was part of the group. The horrors don’t end there, though. As the team digs deeper into this case, they uncover a child trafficking ring led by an infamous pro-Japanese swindler who makes my blood boil. There’s a special place in hell reserved for people like her, and Sang-soon, in particular, agrees with my sentiment. As an orphan himself, our mad dog feels a special connection to this case, and the abuse he witnesses hidden underneath the gaudy exterior of the orphanage reminds him of his own past experience in a broken system meant to protect the weak and powerless.
However, without solid evidence, our team cannot touch the demon director since she rubs elbows with the elite and uses her connections to avoid arrest. Thus, our heroes work from the outside in and track down a cosmetic saleswoman who kidnaps children to fuel her gambling addiction. They also gather evidence from the clinic in cahoots with the director, and these two crucial testaments give the team enough justification to raid the orphanage and make arrests. Alas, her two underlings — the ones doing the actual dirty work — take the fall for their boss who eagerly pretends to be just as much a victim as everyone else.
The demon director uses her status again to get away, but this time, her connections backfire. When Sang-soon presents a young orphan who testifies against her, the director must prove her innocence to the higher-up ladies of society. Her fancy clothes can only hide her hideous nature for so long, and soon, the director shows her true colors. Without anyone to shield her, the team arrests her for a slew of crimes, including infanticide.
Now that the truth is out, Young-han and his crew hold a funeral for the murdered babies who were cremated without proper rites and give their families a space to grieve. While our heroes weren’t able to save everyone, at least this story has a happy ending with the orphans going off to safer places under Sang-soon’s watchful eye. As for the demon director, she met a grisly end by the hands of the underling she abused — her past misdeeds finally catching up to her. The episode then closes with Young-han on a date with Hye-joo, and they finish the night with a confession and kiss. Granted, the real ending is a death of a beloved character close to our hero, but I’ll leave that for next week.
While the cases were definitely heavier than the ones from the premiere, the overall tone stayed the same thanks to the show’s zippy pace and the characters’ offbeat reactions. With the right expectations and mood, I’m finding Chief Detective 1958 a surprisingly delightful watch. Sure, there are problems with the show objectively, and under scrutiny, it would crumble like a sand castle in the rain. But am I enjoying this wacky ride filled with oddball characters? Yes, very much.
Though Young-han is clearly the center of the show — and I’m finding Lee Je-hoon’s performance growing more stable with each passing episode — it’s Lee Dong-hwi as Sang-soon who has caught my attention. The orphanage case, especially, highlighted our mad dog and gave his character depth without dismissing the humorous aspects of him, either. The little idiosyncrasies we learn about him during his introduction are given context, and despite his backstory, he never wallows in self-pity. Rather, he uses his experience to help others like him, and there’s something about gruff characters with hearts of gold that make me want to root for them every time.
Granted, I think the charm of the drama is in its characters (unsurprising if you’ve read my opinions before), and the creators have done a good job so far creating kind and memorable heroes as well as starkly despicable villains. Usually, this black-and-white depiction of good and evil feels inauthentic in most stories — particularly those that involve cops — but Chief Detective uses these delineated characterizations to emphasize the almost superhero-esque portrayal of their protagonists against their comically evil foes. The setting also helps, rooting the story in the past when things operated a bit differently, giving the show some leeway and a generous dose of suspension of belief.