Our hero zeroes in on vested interests and contentious details, edging ever closer to the truth, while our heroine skirts the line of immoral selfishness spurred by a selfless cause. As more layers of the past are peeled back, the shrewd intricacies of a deceased friend’s agenda shifts into focus. Just how much had he been aware of, and how far did he plan ahead?
EPISODES 9-10
Returning to April 2005, we finally see the events of Kyung-tae’s death. Kyung-tae spills fuel in the midst of trying to light a stove in his yard, and while his buddy Gyu-min is in the outhouse, Jong-soo and his cronies show up to beat the living daylights out of Kyung-tae. When Gyu-min next peeks outside, the yard has caught on fire. In the aftermath, a call from Sang-eui sends Joon-seo rushing to Kyung-tae’s house, but by then it’s already too late — everyone has made it out, except for Kyung-tae.
With that, we return to the present day. While Yoon-ho is out, Jae-kyung pays his house a visit, where an on-site investigation reveals Yoon-ho used his wife’s car to commit the Molotov cocktail arson at Myung-guk’s house. Alas, Yoon-ho’s wife capitalizes on Jae-kyung’s brief distraction to call Yoon-ho and warn him of the police’s pursuit. Our cunning taxi driver immediately goes into hiding, emerging only to threaten Tae-jin into helping him evade the authorities, though something tells me Tae-jin’s patience won’t last much longer.
Meanwhile, Chi-hyun updates the rest of the shady trio on Jae-kyung’s suspicions, then asks them why they followed Joon-seo’s instructions so compliantly that fateful night. We aren’t told Jong-soo’s reasons, but we do see Tae-jin’s — Joon-seo knew of his affair with Ji-yeon.
As for Chi-hyun, he has a solid motive — he and Yoon-ho bashed Myung-guk to death and sealed his corpse in the freezer storage, because Myung-guk had been threatening to expose Jong-soo’s drug addiction. Joon-seo coerced Chi-hyun into showing up at the construction site by threatening to call the police to the freezer storage, necessitating that Chi-hyun and Yoon-ho retrieve the body.
Elsewhere, Jae-kyung realizes that’s why Yoon-ho murdered the store owner, because he’d passed by that CCTV on his way to retrieve the body with Chi-hyun. One thing’s amiss though; Chi-hyun has no idea who then moved Myung-guk’s thawing corpse to his home, but it must have taken at least two people to lug him around.
As for our sleuthing trio, it’s Yoon-jin’s birthday today, except Joo-song’s surprise cake winds up waiting forlornly on the balcony while Jae-kyung and Yoon-jin pore over Myung-guk’s research journals. To their credit, they make good progress, realizing that Myung-guk had been meeting with Sang-eui regularly in Pilo-dong — but they’re then interrupted by an unwelcome visitor.
It’s Ji-yeon, who asks that they investigate a pension that Joon-seo opened over a decade ago, then brazenly demands her right to his inheritance. Yoon-jin bristles at her lack of shame, and that’s the exact moment Joo-song bursts out of the balcony with Yoon-jin’s cake. Cue the most awkward birthday celebration ever, lol. Unexpectedly, the occasion shocks Ji-yeon to the point she throws up in the bathroom, and Yoon-jin ultimately connects the dots — Joon-seo’s passcode has always been Yoon-jin’s birthday.
The next day, Yoon-jin seeks out Joo-song for some advice. Having overheard her phone call with her colleague while hiding out on the balcony, Joo-song’s already figured out what she wants to ask. She wants to keep the large sum in Joon-seo’s locked account for herself. Yoon-jin staunchly defends her intentions — it’s better than having the money go to hypocrites like Tae-jin and Ji-yeon, right? Still, Joo-song can’t validate Yoon-jin’s unscrupulous temptation; his bumbling demeanor belies a perceptive mind, and he discerns her guilty conscience, even as she denies it.
Unfortunately, a friend’s dissuasion can’t outweigh a mother’s desperation to provide for her child. Yoon-jin calls Tae-jin to a PC cafe that she booked, luring him in with the claim that she knows Joon-seo’s passcode and threatening to circulate the photos of him and Ji-yeon, in exchange for half of Joon-seo’s money. With no other choice, Tae-jin allows Yoon-jin to enter the passcode — only for it to turn out wrong. Infuriated, Tae-jin strangles Yoon-jin, until Joo-song rushes in. Yanking Tae-jin off her, Joo-song hurls him aside, then carries the unconscious Yoon-jin out. (Yay, Joo-song gets his own heroic rescue moment!)
Circling back to our cops, their current mission is tracking down the drug dealer Jin-wook. Boss Yoon has captured his underling, since they failed to hold up their end of the deal, and she informs Chang-soo that he can drop by and arrest them both in half an hour. Except when Jin-wook arrives, he fatally shoots Boss Yoon with the gun he’d previously stolen from Jae-kyung.
At that very moment, Jae-kyung has been following the hearing aid thug all the way to the same building. He bumps into Chang-soo just as a gunshot rings out, and when they rush into Boss Yoon’s hideout, Jae-kyung recognizes her back room as the place he’d been drugged in.
On the way to the station, the hearing aid thug demands that Chang-soo set him free, threatening to reveal his acceptance of Boss Yoon’s bribes and Jae-kyung’s addiction. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Chang-soo impulsively decides to drive his car right off the road and into a river, diving out of the window at the last second. Chang-soo survives, while the thug dies, but Jae-kyung realizes the window has been rolled down — this wouldn’t have been possible underwater, which betrays that Chang-soo intentionally plunged the vehicle.
Oh no, and just when Jae-kyung and Chang-soo were starting to solidify a rapport! Chang-soo keeps digging a deeper hole for himself the more he tries to cover his tracks, and while I want to believe he harbors good intentions, he’s acting upon it in practically the worst way possible. At the rate Chang-soo’s going, he’s about to implode sooner rather than later.
The same can be said for Tae-jin, who was humiliatingly put in his place by CHAIRMAN WON (Moon Sung-geun) this week. Despite Tae-jin’s outstanding aptitude and fervent drive to lead the Pilo-dong project, Chairman Won reiterates that he’s only useful as a prosecutor, so he shouldn’t greedily aim any higher. Needless to say, the ambitious Tae-jin has already set his sights on greener pastures and vaster horizons, and I think he’s already twenty steps ahead of all his opponents.
Connection doles out its flashbacks in sparse doses, effectively keeping us on tenterhooks regarding the full truth and the exact intentions of its players. Did the fire spark by accident, or was it set deliberately? Was Kyung-tae trapped in the blaze, or did Jong-soo’s squad leave him behind in cold blood? And what fueled Jong-soo’s vendetta against Kyung-tae? I love that the drama sets a breakneck pace with so many reveals, while still shrouding key elements of its core plot in secrecy, and I can’t wait for more.