The deeper our twins dig into the murder case, the more mysteries are revealed, and it’s a race against the clock as the baddies try to get rid of any evidence that can be used against them. Are our heroes gonna make it? I’m not even sure.
EPISODES 7-8 WEECAP
We had a slightly scary brush with makjang this week, but I’m happy to report that the drama was able to keep itself slick and organized despite some hairy and harrowing plot reveals. Was I wrong to doubt?
For all the action this week, not a lot of progress was made on the investigation or adamas-pinching itself… but on the flipside were all those reveals, motivations, and uh, some truly terrifying new characters. And car bombs. Get ready, folks!
Much like last week we’re seeing a little more equity now between our brothers and their storylines, and though we cut back and forth more frequently, their plots (and them!) remain separated. Hopefully not forever, if you catch my drift.
Woo-shin squeezes his way out of a sticky situation with the other maid who’s tailing and trailing: MS. OH (Woo Hyun-joo), and with the help of wads and wads of cash, is able to get some info and aid out of her. Of course, he doesn’t trust her much more than he trusts anyone, but still, info is info.
Now that he knows the adamas is out of the house – and he’s imprisoned in it — Woo-shin’s plan is to pit Dragon Lady Kwon against her beloved chairman. With some info from Ms. Oh (about Ms. Kwon’s deceased son and the chairman’s former heart transplant), and his writer’s brain hard at work (this requires a lot of sitting on the couch and staring into space which is one of the things I adore about this character), he hatches a plan.
We learn with Woo-shin that Dragon Lady Kwon’s young son committed suicide on the very tree that’s outside her bedroom window, and that her comatose son’s heart was the one that saved Chairman Kwon via transplant many years ago. The makjang radar is high at this point, but as this plays out, it becomes as twisty as it does galling — and remains well-written.
Woo-shin writes a chapter of a story that gets right to Ms. Kwon’s psyche: a powerful duke murders his servant’s son and then steals his heart. It sets Ms. Kwon off as much as Woo-shin expected, and the scenes these two share over this are truly masterful, whether it’s her hyperventilating and screaming, or Woo-shin’s chess-like mind working to find out the actual truth.
Pitting Dragon Lady Kwon against the chairman proves harder than he thought, and it’s a horrific moment when he realizes that she also suspected the chairman of “suiciding” her son for his heart, but then buried that thought in her blind devotion. Their relationship is hands down the most terrifying thing ever.
Woo-shin is having equally iffy luck with Hye-soo. Though they are quite open with each other now, and Hye-soo seems all-aboard to help Woo-shin’s anti-Haesong plot, there’s still the lingering feeling that we don’t know all that we need to about Hye-soo… and that she’s capable of more than we might realize.
She does, however, tell Woo-shin not only that Secretary Yoon was the one who brought him to the house as ghostwriter, but that the reason was Hye-soo herself. Thus the story of Min-jo is brought up once again. As predicted, Hye-soo admits they were in love. But then she says that she is sure the chairman had him killed, that he only cared for his eldest son, and worst of all that “angel” Min-jo was volunteering at a prison and got pulled into the Lee Chang-woo case. Right before he died. Oh boy.
Still, with all this information sharing — about the adamas, too — these two are not entirely allied. And later, we see via flashback that Hye-soo visited the twins’ mother before she died to let her know that Lee Chang-woo wasn’t guilty. This case is seriously like a bottomless well of intrigue!
And now we turn to Soo-hyun and his adventures, which get even more intense than last week. At first he’s hiding with Seo-hee in Woo-shin’s apartment, but when a toilet repairman comes in and sets off his suspicions, the whole thing comes crashing down. (Side note: What a freakin’ great bunch of scenes this was, with all of its character permutations.)
The truth of the matter is that the SIH was using Soo-hyun and Seo-hee as bait… because more than Chairman Kwon, they really want Team A, his evil operating arm. We already know how evil they are, but each week convinces us even more so.
Anyway, Soo-hyun and Seo-hee wind up confined yet again with the SIH and their secret + shady ways. But no one can accuse them of not being committed to their cause. They don’t even have identities on paper (except for the leader); that’s how invisible they need to be.
Meanwhile, Team A is busy doing their evil deeds. Team Leader Lee sees to it that all the records and evidence around the Lee Chang-woo case are stolen from the police and destroyed (guess the police never digitized their records in time…). He also secures a hair from Lee Chang-woo himself to satisfy his evil hunch, soon confirming that Lee Chang-woo is the father of our brave and delicious twins.
But that’s not enough. There’s a new assassin brought into the mix — she’s a sassy and psychotic young woman that goes by the name of SUN (Park Hye-eun). That name also just so happens to be the name of Secretary Yoon’s sibling, whose bouquet gift leaves her in such horror that she literally runs away.
I don’t much go for the psycho assassin archetype — especially when they are women in lace tops that can’t seem to sit or stand up straight — but she does the job. She’s terrifying. Her job is to kill Soo-hyun (Team Leader Lee’s new vendetta) and she goes about it through horrible means.
While Soo-hyun is investigating with “Baek hyung” — one of the SIH operators — they find the last bit of evidence from the Lee Chang-woo case that Team A didn’t get to: his father’s body. Though the grave marked with his name was obviously dug up and dealt with, the real body is buried a few graves away. And sure enough, we learn that this was Woo-shin’s doing, and even Soo-hyun has to give him credit for that one, heh.
But then, after that small win of retaining what Soo-hyun calls the best evidence in a murder case (i.e., the victim), disaster strikes. Soo-hyun and Mr. Baek are in the car about to pull away, when a phone rings. It’s from the trunk, which they reluctantly open. Inside is Soo-hyun’s sweet colleague from the prosecution office — tortured and killed by Sun.
Sun just so happens to be sitting on a hilltop nearby observing the whole scene with glee. After making sure that Soo-hyun learns her name (like any true psycho — but also probably a necessary plot point, right?), she detonates a car bomb and they all go up in flames.
Hours later the SIH finds out and the bodies are recovered. Everyone is D.O.A. except Soo-hyun, but the doctors can’t save him and he’s also pronounced dead.
And just when you want to copycat Soo-hyun and punch an inanimate object, we get one more twist by way of Lee Chang-woo himself. The mystery that Woo-shin can’t piece together around the case is why in the world Team A has let Lee Chang-woo live for the last 22 years; why not just kill him and get rid of the whole situation (as is their MO)?
Well, our twist tells a different story, because Lee Chang-woo has a switch flip in his head after hearing Team A mentioned by the guard who keeps an eye on him. In a scary episode-ending moment, he tells the guard to tell Team Leader Lee that his sunbae wants to see him. MOMMY!
With the piles of new plot developments this week, my head is swimming a bit. And while I wish the villains were a little less Villainous, I still really love how twisty the whole thing is, and how well-paced and plotted. Each thread that’s tugged on reveals another huge chunk of the story, and with half the drama still ahead, there’s a lot more to uncover.
I’ll also use the mid-way point as a reason to hope that Soo-hyun isn’t really dead. I mean, I wouldn’t put it past the show at this point — but it just makes so much more sense for the SIH to fake his death instead. Also, I’m just feeling a little greedy for more of the twins.
Oh the plight of a viewer falling more in love with a drama’s heroes each episode! At first I thought I loved Woo-shin more, with his reckless wanderings and fearless behavior, but now I kinda love Soo-hyun and his hot-headed scoffs and kicking of cars. Okay, I love them both. I’m looking forward to the time when this drama brings them together again in real time. That’s gonna happen, right?