All good things — and Good Job — must come to an end, but our drama reaches new levels of suspense with its conclusion. Our villain isn’t going to go down without a fight, and it’s all hands on deck as our detectives (both amateur and police) team up to bring him to justice. But don’t worry, there’s plenty of romance and giggly cuteness, too.
EPISODES 11-12 WEECAP
Although we ended our penultimate episodes with a long awaited hot-and-steamy kiss between our leading couple, our finale immediately dumps a cold bucket of water on us in the form of a flashback to Sun-woo’s mother’s death — talk about a mood killer. In the aftermath of his mother’s murder, Sun-woo wandered the hospital hallways in a daze and stumbled upon a young Sera, who was suffering from a nightmare. With no one around to comfort her, Sun-woo takes her hand, and so, it turns out our leading couple did officially meet as children.
I personally could have done without this added little detail, but the drama does try to connect the tragedy of the past to the present by showing these two coming full circle. This time it’s Sera who’s comforting Sun-woo through the lingering effects of a nightmare, and we get a slightly more condensed replay of last week’s kiss. It’s decidedly less hawt this time around with the murder and traumatized childhood memory still fresh on the brain, so I wish they’d just skipped the kiss and transitioned into our adult characters waking up after the kiss — with matchmakers Na-hee and Jin-mo watching them sleep, like two proud ajummas who have successfully set their kids up on a blind date.
Sun-woo wakes up from his nap with Sera with a clearer head and a nagging feeling that something is off about Wan-soo’s attempted suicide. That’s right, Wan-soo is still alive — albeit unconscious — and Sun-woo isn’t the only one who questions the circumstances of Wan-soo’s overdose and suicide letter. Tae-joon, who has been given a temporary stay from prison due to his father’s condition, believes the attempted suicide is extremely out-of-character, and Gwang-ki’s cop intuition is tingling hard enough that he’s willing to meet with Sun-woo and swap notes.
Sun-woo reports that he saw Wan-soo’s hyperlipidemia medication on the table next to the sleeping pills, suggesting he took them around the same time. But why would a man intending to kill himself worry about his cholesterol? Sun-woo advises Gwang-ki to test Wan-soo’s bloodwork to confirm if he’d taken the medication prior to his overdose. If the test comes back positive for traces of the medication, then they have a valid reason to suspect foul play. Gwang-ki agrees to do the test, but under the condition that Sun-woo keeps Sera out of the investigation. For once, the two men agree on something.
If Wan-soo didn’t try to unalive himself, then there’s only one possible suspect for the attempted murder: Jae-ha. Gwang-ki wastes no time cranking up the heat to make their prime suspect squirm. He approaches Jae-ha and reintroduces himself as a fellow alum from the same orphanage. Not only is he now a police detective, he tells Jae-ha, but he also overheard Jae-hae’s conversation with Angel Ajumma way back when and knows that Jae-ha is Wan-soo’s son. In short, he’s mad sus of Jae-ha.
At the same time, Sun-woo sends Director Hong off on a solo spy mission to collect Jae-ha and Wan-soo’s DNA to prove that they’re father and son. After collecting a strand of Jae-ha’s hair, Director Hong sneaks into Wan-soo’s office and scours the furniture with a blacklight, looking for another strand of hair for the DNA comparison. He’s almost caught in the act — leading to a very humorous hiding spot — but it turns out Sun-woo wanted Director Hong to be spotted by Jae-ha. If Jae-ha knows that they’re suspicious of him, then the anxiety might cause him to slip up and make a mistake.
But enough of this spy stuff. While the boys have been off gathering evidence against Jae-ha, Sera has been left to her own devices, patiently waiting for Sun-woo to do damage control and handle the aftermath of Wan-soo’s “suicide” and the scandal caused by his written murder confession. But all of the alone time has given Sera the freedom to overthink her suitability for Sun-woo. She’s worried that her childhood connection to his mother will bring back bad memories for him. Na-hee, however, reminds Sera that her worries are not an issue for Sun-woo. Sera deserves happiness and shouldn’t shy away from it.
And so, Na-hee helps Sera arrange a star-gazing date with Sun-woo. There’s a lot of giggling between the two women over this chosen date because, apparently, a sure-fire way to see stars during sexy times — if you know what I mean — is to first do some actual star-gazing. But neither Sera nor Sun-woo are overly romantic, so Na-hee and Jin-mo crash — er, save — the new couple’s first date, bringing with them all the necessary picnic accouterments (e.g. wine, food, and camping chairs) to take the date from blah to ta-dah!
In the middle of the double date, Gwang-ki calls Sun-woo, so Sun-woo and Jin-mo excuse themselves, telling the ladies that they’re going to get some more food for their picnic. Once they are out of earshot, Sun-woo returns Gwang-ki’s call and learns that Gwang-ki and Dong-hee have followed Jae-ha to the very same campground where Sun-woo and Jin-mo had been having their double date. At the same time, Sun-woo notices a shifty looking individual (Jae-ha’s goon) watching him.
Sun-woo explains the situation to Gwang-ki, and tells him to go protect Sera. In the meantime, Sun-woo and Jin-mo — who comically claims to have been conditioned to take beatings from his mom and teacher — stay back and fight off Jae-ha’s goon. From a distance, Sera’s super-vision catches sight of the scuffle, but then she spies Jae-ha watching her through a pair of binoculars. While he’s shocked that she can see him from so far away, she’s even more surprised to see that he has blue eyes, which he’s been hiding behind a pair of brown-colored contacts.
Seeing Jae-ha’s blue eyes triggers the memories that had previously manifested as her nightmares, and she faints from the shock. When she wakes up, Jae-ha and his goon have escaped, but she now remembers everything, including the fact that she witnessed Jae-ha deal the death blow that killed Sun-woo’s mother. She blames herself for Angel Ajumma’s death, wishing she’d tried to save her instead of watching passively in fear, but Sun-woo assures her that his mother’s death is not Sera’s fault.
The team regroups briefly in the batcave before going their separate ways. Sun-woo and Jin-mo join Gwang-ki and Dong-hee to search Jae-ha’s apartment, and Na-hee leaves Sera to sleep off some of her trauma while she bakes Sera some comfort food. Unfortunately, what none of them are aware of is that Jae-ha’s goon stole Sun-woo’s employee ID during their tussle, and so Jae-ha was able to key into Sun-woo’s office and find the elevator down into the batcave.
By the time Sun-woo and his growing investigative entourage return to the batcave, it’s too late. Sun-woo and Jin-moo can only play back the CCTV and watch in horror as Jae-ha corners Sera, chokes her into submission, and kidnaps her. Like every vindictive bad guy who takes the hero’s woman hostage, Jae-ha uses Sera as bait to lure Sun-woo to him. He calls Sun-woo and instructs him to come — alone — to the spot where it all started: the woods where he killed Sun-woo’s mother.
While Sun-woo drives straight to where Jae-ha has taken Sera, the rest of the crew is delayed checking out an alternate location that proves to be a boobytrapped dead end. Jin-mo pulls up the tracker he secretly installed in Sun-woo’s watch, but when the team hops in their cars to follow, their tires are blown out by the spikes Jae-ha left in the road. Suspecting that Jae-ha has set up an equally elaborate trap for Sun-woo at his true whereabouts, they have to hoof it the rest of the way to the orphanage.
And the trap Jae-ha has set for Sun-woo seems plucked straight from a Dudley Do-Right cartoon, except instead of tying the damsel to some train tracks, he’s bound Sera to a chair and strapped a bomb around her neck. When Sun-woo locates Jae-ha at the spot of his mother’s murder, Jae-ha explains the situation to Sun-woo: don’t do anything funny — or else I’ll push this button and Sera will go boom! Sun-woo is instantly submissive, allowing Jae-hae to beat and kick him, and Sun-woo gets down on his knees and begs Jae-ha to let Sera go.
Instead, Jae-ha continues to read from the villain’s handbook and monologue all his grievances, revealing a massive inferiority complex on top of his already complex daddy issues. His jealousy clouded his perception, and he was never able to feel Angel Ajumma’s sincerity. All he saw was pity, so, yes, he killed her when he thought it would endear him to his father.
Unable to contain his rage, Sun-woo lunges at Jae-ha, but after a little more wrestling, Jae-ha puts Sun-woo in a headlock. Until — whack! — Sera hits Jae-ha over the head with a rock. Sera, who is far from a damsel in distress, managed to undo her bindings, cut the wire that disarmed the collar bomb, and come to her man’s rescue. That’s my girl!
Jin-mo and the rest of our heroes finally arrive on the scene, but they’re too late to capture Jae-ha, who has fled into the woods. Luckily, Jin-mo taught Sun-woo well, and Sun-woo came up with his own plan B. While he was fighting with Jae-ha, he slipped his watch — which he knew Jin-mo was tracking — in Jae-ha’s pocket, enabling Sun-woo to follow Jae-ha for one last physical showdown.
This time, without Sera in danger, Sun-woo goes full tilt and unleashes 20 years of pain and anger, but as he picks up a rock and aims to smash it at Jae-ha’s head, he realizes this is exactly what Jae-ha craves. He wants to corrupt Sun-woo and make him a murderer, too. Sun-woo struggles, looking ready to give into his fury, but then the scene abruptly cuts to Jae-ha being loaded into the back of a squad car.
It’s all over for Jae-ha, especially since Sera had the forethought to grab a voice recorder before she was kidnapped. She recorded Jae-ha confessing that he killed Sun-woo’s mom, which means he can’t lie and pin the murder entirely on Wan-soo.
With Jae-ha arrested, our drama winds down to an end with a series of optimistic and fluffy moments. Even Tae-joon seems to be on the path to a redemption arc when Sun-woo explains to him that he has a son — a son that his own father tried to kill.
If Tae-joon is willing to admit to his crimes and atone for them, then Sun-woo promises to speak with Ah-ra and put in a good word for him. It’s still her decision, of course, whether or not she will let him meet his son, but demonstrating that he’s trying to be a better man than his own father will likely improve his chances. And speaking of Tae-joon’s father, Wan-soo wakes up.
With the fate of our villains out of the way, the story turns to our various couples and platonic pairings. Director Hong is still annoyingly attentive to Sun-woo but completely useless at helping pick out a necklace for Sera, so Sun-woo gives Sera a more meaningful cross necklace that his mother once gifted him. They sweetly exchange I-love-yous.
But as they’re leaving the restaurant that Sun-woo rented out for their fancy date a paparazzi snaps photos of them. News that Sun-woo is dating a normal woman hits the internet, and even though Director Hong is able to suppress the reporters, there’s not much he can do about the netizens.
Gwang-ki is outraged by all the nasty, speculative comments about Sera, so he hunts down Sun-woo and goes through the whole protective big brother routine. But after Sun-woo apologizes and calls Gwang-ki hyungnim, Gwang-ki softens. He’s practically putty in Sun-woo’s hands after Sun-woo loans him some expensive detective gear. Gwang-ki even calls him dongsaeng, and now Sun-woo is part of their found family! Dawwwww!
But that’s not the last we see of Gwang-ki. He needs a romantic conclusion, too, but he’s totally dense and has no idea that Dong-hee has been crushing on him. Her eyes practically roll out of her head when he tries to guess the identity of her mystery man. Miraculously, after he watches her take down a perp with a kick to the head and body slams another on the ground, he finally recognizes his partner’s attractiveness.
“About time you notice,” she says as she cuffs her perp, and I applaud her snarky confidence. I’m extremely disappointed that we did not get more of her, so who do I have to call to get a Dong-hee and Gwang-ki buddy cop drama bankrolled?
Moving back to our lead couple, they pay Sun-woo’s mom a visit. Sera apologizes for not being able to protect Angel Ajumma, but she promises to protect her son. As they leave the cemetery, Sun-woo tells Sera about his latest business venture, which is not a detective agency. Instead, he’s establishing a foundation designed to help teenagers who’ve aged out of protective services to become independent, and he wants Sera to run it.
But what about the detective agency? Well, even though Jin-mo’s law practice has been flooded with requests after it was leaked that he was somehow connected to the private detective that aided the police in arresting Jae-ha, it’s not like a big-shot chaebol can be a full-time detective, right? What about part-time? And what if they only take cases for people who really need it?
Maybe later, because first Sun-woo wants to take vacation with Sera, and in order to make it happen, he steals the RV that Jin-mo had rented for him and Na-ee. (Don’t worry, folks, Jin-mo has tickets to Paris as a plan B.)
After parking the RV for the night, Sun-woo prepares some tea for Sera, and she says that she wants to drink tea with him every day. Sun-woo objects to the implied proposal, but only because he plans on proposing. Cue a very happy Sera who plants a bunch of kisses on his face. In response, he throws a blanket over her and sweeps her up in his arms and boasts that he’s stealing her — wrapping up the drama with another cute nod to Bossam: Steal the Fate.
Okay, it’s not really the end, because there is an epilogue in which Sera forces Sun-woo to stop the RV when she recognizes a location mentioned in one of the many requests for their unofficial detective agency’s help. With some reluctance, Sun-woo agrees, and our couple undergoes a wardrobe change. Jin-mo and Na-hee join them — because apparently solving mysteries is more fun than Paris — and our favorite detective team gives us a thumbs up.
It almost feels like the setup for a sequel — like an open-ended promise for more detective cases to come — but, thankfully, that likely isn’t the case. Unless it’s the aforementioned buddy cop spin-off focusing on Gwang-ki and Dong-hee, with some special cameo appearances from the other cast members, I’m not interested in a sequel. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve fully enjoyed metaphorically hanging my brain on the coatrack by the door and just enjoying this wacky ride, but a large part of this drama’s appeal is its oversimplification. Simple doesn’t need — or deserve — a sequel.
I never got around to watching Bossam: Steal the Fate (it’s on my list!), but even so, this drama still somehow managed to feel like an alternate universe fanfiction that someone cooked up because they weren’t ready to say goodbye to those characters. Again, this isn’t so much a complaint as it is an observation. There were many parts of this drama that were intentionally added for the fans — of both Bossam and old school K-drama tropes and silliness — and I found that to be extremely fun, even if the writers seemed to have run out of ideas near the end and reached back into the 1950s to find tropes that they could exploit.
As someone whose feminist ideals are constantly at odds with my appreciation for over-the-top romantic tropes that are totally rooted in sexism, I appreciated that this drama managed to find a happy balance that appeased my warring sides. I’m an absolute sucker for the moment just before the hero typically rescues his lady — the moment when he reveals how passionately he loves and cares for her through his palpable fear, which hits him like a wave before he rushes to save her. The drama absolutely nailed this clichéd moment during Sun-woo’s showdown with Jae-ha, but it didn’t deliver it at the expense of our heroine, who still had the strength and intelligence to save herself.
Overall, I’ve enjoyed this drama, and I will miss the laughs and the characters — especially Jin-mo. Jung Il-woo is massive eye candy, and his on-screen chemistry with Kwon Yuri is off the charts, but I’ve always loved a man who can make me laugh. I’ve got my eye on you, Eum Moon-seok. If your next drama isn’t a comedy, I’m going to be extremely upset!