With her team fully (re)assembled, our con artist concocts her next big scheme. As she does, we catch a glimpse into the trauma-filled past that made these characters who they are today. There’s a lot to unpack here, and we’ve only just begun to scratch the surface.
EPISODES 5-6
Now that he’s (sort of) officially on the team, Mu-young gets a peek into the others’ backstories, courtesy of Ringo. The core con team members — Ro-woom, Ringo, Da-jung, and engineer NASA (Yoo Hee-jae) — all met as kids at Jeokmok Academy, where they were trained to be super-criminals-for-hire and kept obedient through torture. Needless to say, the experience shaped them all into very troubled young adults. It also bonded them, but in a dark, complicated sort of way.
Take Ringo for example. At Jeokmok Academy, Ro-woom stopped their tormentors from killing him, but instead of returning the favor, he escaped alone the first chance he got. He deeply regrets betraying her now, and thus devotes himself to satisfying her every whim.
Da-jung is a tougher nut to crack, but she also opens up to Mu-young about (some of) the inner workings of Jeokmok Foundation. She claims the only reason Ro-woom’s parents were murdered is because Ro-woom was planning on returning home to them, but something about the way she says it makes me think there’s more to the story still.
And then there’s Nasa. Whereas Da-jung keeps her anxiety bottled up and her head down, Nasa is a loose cannon — but a magnetic one. Of the bunch, he’s also the most openly terrified of Ro-woom, both because of her un-empathetic nature and for other reasons that we’ll come back to. Post-Jeokmok, he did time for gambling, which comes in handy for Ro-woom’s next big con.
The target is waste disposal company CEO PARK JONG-GU (Kim Hee-chang). The goal? Getting him to squander all his money in the team’s makeshift gambling den under Nasa’s auto shop. Ro-woom strings Jong-gu along for some time leading up to the big event, where they rig the tables with cameras so Nasa can peek at the cards and feed them the winning moves.
That’s when things get a little dicey. The police come knocking, having received a tip about a gambling den in the basement, sending Nasa into a panic attack. Mu-young heads upstairs to help him… and Ro-woom slips out the back door, locking it behind her. It’s only a matter of time before the police swarm in and arrest everyone — Mu-young and Nasa included. Of course, this was Ro-woom’s plan all along. She’s been conspiring with Jong-gu’s wife to ensure he gets not only financially ruined but also jailed for gambling away company money.
Mu-young, however, keeps his cool. Instructing Nasa to remain silent, he steps protectively in front of him as the police — led by none other than Yo-han — enter. Not gonna lie, this was the moment that made me love Mu-young. He lets the cops search the auto shop for a few minutes, repeatedly stating that there is no basement, and shuts down Yo-han’s attempts at goading Nasa into incriminating himself.
Ro-woom can only watch from afar as her plan comes to a grinding halt. Not only does Mu-young successfully divert the police, meaning Jong-gu walks free, but Mu-young secretly had a former client with him at the card table — and that’s who wins all of Jong-gu’s money. Which he promptly delivers to Mu-young.
Now Mu-young has multiple bags of illegally obtained cash from Ro-woom’s various cons, and no solid conclusion on what to do about them. The two attempt to hash out their grievances (Ro-woom: “I told you, this is no job for a lawyer!” Mu-young: “I’m a terrible lawyer anyway.”), but before they get too deep into it, Ro-woom is arrested again. Choong-shik has been murdered in prison, and the killer claims Ro-woom paid him to do it.
The detective in charge of interrogating Ro-woom makes it no secret that he believes she’s guilty — not only for this murder, but also for her parents’. But when he brings her and Choong-shik’s killer in for cross-examination, the killer suddenly changes his tune. He killed Choong-shik because he wanted to, he says, and Ro-woom only paid him for information. His real reason for accusing her? To get this face-to-face meeting and deliver a cryptic message in the form of a drawing.
Only he and Ro-woom know exactly what it means, but it seems to be linked to the person who recently sent her a gift box containing photos of her parents’ murder scene — a person who may or may not be Jeokmok Foundation’s mysterious “Chairman,” who actually ordered the murder. According to Ringo, no one knows who “the Chairman” is (and official records indicate no such person exists), but at some point the officially appointed head of Jeokmok handed the position over to one JANG KYUNG-JA (Lee Tae-ran).
Now, Kyung-ja is CEO of the up-and-coming company Navis Well-Being, and let’s just say the reason Ro-woom plasters Kyung-ja’s magazine photo to her bedroom wall isn’t out of admiration. It’s also important to note that Nasa has still been taking payments from Kyung-ja (our guy is in a LOT of debt), which is why Ro-woom was willing to throw him under the bus with Jong-gu.
But that’s not all Ro-woom has on Nasa. Way back at Jeokmok Academy, he was forced (after much resistance on his part) to build a gun, which he ultimately carved his name on. Guess which gun was used to kill Ro-woom’s parents? Yep, that one. And that’s the real reason Ro-woom got close to Jong-gu’s wife — because their waste disposal company handles old police evidence. With the wife’s help, Ringo and his pals retrieve the gun and deliver it to Mu-young to hold onto until Ro-woom’s release.
This produces some interesting responses from Ro-woom’s team. Ringo seems at least slightly conflicted, but to him Ro-woom’s word is law, period. Nasa runs to Da-jung in a panic, knowing he’s about to be framed, but Da-jung offers no help or comfort. She suspects Ro-woom will set her sights on each of them in turn, and once Ro-woom no longer sees them as useful, all they can do is beg for mercy.
As for Mu-young, he confronts Ro-woom about the gun upon her release, but he also says he understands. He asks her to trust him for just three months. Ro-woom agrees, not letting on that she’s recently learned they share a second past connection: she and her team caused his father’s factory to go bankrupt, which was the catalyst for his family’s implosion.
Whew. There was a lot of backstory woven in throughout the action this week. But between that backstory shedding light on our characters’ motivations and the addition of Nasa, I finally feel like the show has found its footing. I’m always a sucker for a found family with shared trauma and a morally ambiguous mission, but this one gets extra layers of interest for its fragility. Because Ro-woom may be the glue keeping them together, but she also uses fear to control them — in much the same way Jeokmok used to.