We’ve got not one — but two! — killers on the prowl this week, and while one is the mysterious serial killer from our detective’s past, the other is a man with enough money and influence to believe he’s above the law. Well, not if our demon judge has anything to say about it…
EPISODES 7-8
Raise your hand if, after last week’s cliffhanger, you fully expected Bit-na’s neighbor to get murdered in the name of plot progression? (*raises hand*) Surprisingly, the single mother lives to see another episode thanks to the harrowing (more like bumbling coincidental) efforts of Man-do and the landlady, who just so happened to hear Single Mother’s cries for help while on their way home from Bible study. I don’t know who this figure in black is, but one thing’s for sure, he seems kind of amateurish. I mean, what seasoned killer drags a woman kicking and screaming to a well lit alleyway, and then, when he’s caught mid-act, sticks around long enough for two idiots to whip out a cell phone and shine a light in his eyes?
Despite these rookie mistakes, the writers and Detective So-young want us to believe that this man in black is the elusive “J” serial killer that murdered Da-on’s family because his knife — which looks suspiciously demonic in origins, BTW — matches the weapon used to kill Da-on’s parents and brother. When So-young makes the connection, she and her colleagues intentionally leave Da-on out of the loop, but the other detectives aren’t so great at subtlety, and they should be thankful that Da-on is distracted by another serial killer: Bit-na.
After Bit-na intervenes and rescues So-young’s daughter from a bullying incident, Da-on is back to seeing Bit-na in a slightly more positive light. You know, classic case of the hero seeing a sliver of goodness in a textbook evil being and getting it in his head that he can save her from her innate nature. It’s with these thoughts in mind that Da-on seeks counsel with Basement Halmoni, remembering her earlier prediction that either he or Bit-na would die if they remain together. For some reason, Da-on instinctively knows that Basement Halmoni’s previous statement was more than the senile ramblings of an older woman who simply disapproves of the cocksure judge living on the second floor.
To be fair, it’s been pretty obvious from the get-go that there’s something mad-sus about Basement Halmoni, but Da-on doesn’t have the same omniscient knowledge as us, the viewers with an online certification in K-drama tropes and foreshadowing. So it’s a bit of a logic-facepalm that he freely drops the demon bomb around her. Yeah, that’s right. He spills everything — Bit-na’s demon identity, the fact that she killed him and then brought him back to life, you know, stuff you don’t normally bring up around your neighborhood grandma — under the blind faith that she will believe him. And she does.
Completely unfazed, Basement Halmoni explains that she knew Da-on’s parents and that a long time ago someone asked her to protect him “no matter what.” In order to fulfill that promise, she tells Da-on to move out and get far away from Bit-na if he wants to live and avoid her pessimistic premonition. Having said her peace, Basement Halmoni dismisses him, and once he’s gone, she turns to look at her reflection in the mirror and we see her true form, which is — dare I say it? — angelic looking.
Although Basement Halmoni couldn’t have been any clearer, Da-on chooses to ignore her advice and opts to plow ahead with his investigation. But first, a hiking trip with all the building tenants — including Bit-na, who, despite what she may have told him the night before, totally wants to be around him. It’s this very hot-and-cold aspect of her personality that, Da-on admits, keeps him confused. Just when he thinks Bit-na’s latest demon antics are the final straw for him, she does something nice (like assisting So-young’s daughter) that makes him care for her and want to open up to her.
He’s currently back to being enamored with her, so in a moment of vulnerability he reveals more about his family’s deaths and the guilt he harbors for not being able to save them. Bit-na doesn’t set out to console him, but given that she couldn’t stab him and send him to hell, she spits straight facts when she confidently assures him that he didn’t kill his family. Those are magic healing words for Da-on’s spirit, and — coupled with spirits of the alcoholic variety — Da-on becomes a blubbering love-sick puppy. Before he spouts more nonsense that will embarrass her, Bit-na lugs his drunk ass to his apartment, where he asks her to pick either the nice or naughty lane and stay in it. Bit-na insists she’s bad, but Da-on is equally emphatic that he sees the good in her. It’s just a shame he’s so confident that she killed those three people.
Bit-na, who has been confused this whole time by Da-on’s confidence that she’s behind the forehand branding murders, discovers the source of his conviction when she opens his closet and finds the crushed Cola Z can he found at the scene of her second murder. As you can imagine, Man-do gets quite the earful for his failure to properly recycle her can, but Ah-rong thinks he got off lightly. Normally, Bit-na would be a lot madder, and why did she ask the lesser demons to leave Da-on alone? Suspicious, Ah-rong tells Man-do to report back to her if he ever sees Bit-na cry.
For the time being, though, Bit-na is back to her baddie ways because a new murderer-of-the-week has entered her courtroom. This time our killer is a sadistic CEO (cameo by Oh Eui-shik) who kidnapped, tortured, and murdered the leader of the union workers (cameo by Kang Shin-il) protesting the working conditions of his company. Sadistic CEO had some thugs do the kidnapping and murder part, but he personally used the union worker as a target at the driving range before having his thugs disguise his murder as a suicide. Despite the coverup, it’s obvious to everyone CEO is guilty. There’s even an audio recording on the victim’s phone proving that Sadistic CEO beat up the union worker. Unfortunately, Sadistic CEO has everyone — from the police chief to the prosecutor — in his back pocket, and there’s no evidence proving the union worker’s death was anything other than a suicide.
Desperate to learn the truth, Da-on turns to his resident demon if she has any sort of superpower that could prove his suspicions. Sure enough, Bit-na has another parlor trick up her sleeve, and when she touches the body of the union worker, she’s able to see the moments leading up to his murder. However, she lies to Da-on and tells him that it was a suicide because she doesn’t want Da-on to interfere with her plans to send Sadistic CEO straight to h-e-double-hockey-sticks. She really needn’t worry, though, because even after Da-on finds a witness who vouches that the union worker was not suicidal, said witness is threatened into giving a false testimony.
And so, Bit-na lets Sadistic CEO off with a slight slap on the wrist and begins plotting an another elaborate torture and death scenario, but she isn’t the only one who has been invested in the outcome of her case. You see, her demonic cleaning crew, who have day jobs as — wait for it — cleaners, knew the union worker and his family and showed their respective concern in a ways that were decidedly not demon-like. One of them personally killed Sadistic CEO’s hired thugs while the other donated money to the hospital where the union worker’s sick daughter was getting cancer treatments. Said daughter was also miraculously cured of her illness thanks to the divine intervention of Basement Halmoni, who definitely plays for Team Angel.
Meanwhile, Da-on still isn’t on board with the demonic judicial system, so he tries, once again, to convince Bit-na to turn over a new, less evil leaf. Bit-na may be softening, but she’s not at the point of abandoning her selfish desire to complete her quest and return to hell. Instead, having learned that he’s the surviving witness in the serial killer case she’s been researching, she baits him with a counter offer to catch his family’s killer on his behalf. Da-on is shaken but he doesn’t bite, insisting that he will catch the murderer on his own and see that he is punished the good ol’ fashioned human way.
I find his trust in the judicial system, however, a bit at odds with what we’ve seen in this drama thus far. Lest we forget, when we first met Da-on, he was on trial in Bit-na’s court, and he seemed surprised by her ruling, suggesting that he was not expecting the law to be in his favor. Add that to the numerous times since that Bit-na has used legal codes to lighten the sentences for the murderers who wind up in her courtroom. Given all that, one has to wonder why he has so much faith in a fallible system — especially when faced with a demonic being whose sole job is to send bad people on a KTX train straight to hell. Well, guess what folks, it’s time for that faith to not only waver but straight up shatter.
You see, Da-on may have let Bit-na leave, but his parting hug when he thanked her for explaining it wasn’t his fault that his family died was also a means to hide a tracker on her. So, after Bit-na does her thing [insert gruesome amusement park themed torture and murder montage here] she drags Sadistic CEO’s body off a ferris wheel and finds a disgusted Da-on filming her with his phone. He got his proof, and to ensure she complies with his arrest, he tosses sulfur powder on her to render her powerless (a neat little trick he learned from Man-do). But before he can drag her off to the police station, he gets a call that So-young, who disappeared while trying to hunt down J, has been found.
Since Da-on took the time to handcuff a powerless Bit-na to the ferris wheel before rushing off, I’d hoped that So-young had been found alive, but sadly she joined a long line of Uncle Bens in dying so that our hero can rise — or, in this case, fall. We flash back to when So-young found Da-on at the scene of his family’s murder, and from there we watch her transition into becoming his adoptive mother. Although the timing of the flashback was too late for me to feel sad that her character has been abruptly ejected from our plot, it did serve well (enough) to show us how important she was to Da-on and, therefore, explain his sudden about-face.
Even though he’d just, hours earlier, insisted that he would apprehend his family’s killer and have him judged in a court of law, So-young’s murder changes Da-on’s mind. When he returns to the amusement park shortly after Bit-na regains her powers, he’s an emotional, rage-filled mess. He destroys the phone containing the recording of Bit-na killing Sadistic CEO, and as he hands over what’s left of the only evidence of her demonic killings, he asks her to help him hunt down J so that he can get his revenge.
Bit-na reminds him that he will go to hell if he kills someone, but he’s fine with that. “After I kill that bastard,” he says, “you can kill me and send me to hell.” Bit-na is pleased and accepts his two-for-one offer, but then Da-on begins to cry. The evolving emotions that Bit-na has no control over flare up, and her heart starts thumping painfully in her chest — bam! Tears. Our demon baddie has fallen for our detective, and there’s no turning back.
We end this week’s episodes with two diametrically opposed characters — good vs. evil — shifting and meeting somewhere in the middle of the morality scale. Bit-na has been growing gradually and showing subtle signs that she’s developing sympathy and love for humans the longer she’s around them and — more specifically — Da-on. I’m a little surprised to see her cry so soon, but it makes sense that she would instinctively shed tears when faced with Da-on’s pain and raw emotion.
Contrastingly, I’m not so thrilled about Da-on’s reversal. Up until the point, the writers have made him such a die-hard lawfully good character — despite literal demons — that it feels like a major cop-out for the writers to pull the death-of-a-loved-one trope card and abruptly reverse Uno his morals. Don’t get me wrong, I’d much rather see him team up with Bit-na and hunt down bad guys than have him stupidly try and arrest a demon, but I wish his character development had evolved at a similar pace to Bit-na’s.
As we head into next week’s episodes, I’m not exactly sure what direction this story will take, but I do hope the writers start circling back to some of the earlier plot threads that are still dangling. Like, what happened to human Bit-na who, as far as I know, is still stuck in hell thanks to a clerical error? And what about the whole Satan and his missing Kylum side quest that was introduced last week? Or Bit-na’s shady ex-fiancé and father-in-law and the redevelopment plotline, who’ve made recurring appearances that just reaffirm what we already know (that they’re rich assholes)? C’mon, writers, cut back on the weekly gore porn and start filling in the holes in your story and character development, please and thank you!