Could it get any more intense?! The penultimate week of Adamas sees a lot of our characters coming together and uniting over a common goal, but at the same time, factions of power are forming, rifts are suffered, and lives are lost. What a set of episodes!
EPISODES 13-14 WEECAP
This show just does not stop! Rather than lose steam, Adamas is doing the exact opposite and every episode seems to get more and more intense. Did I mention it was intense? Also, we finally have our long-awaited twin switch this week, though it was quite minor, since precedence was given to all the backstory and extended flashbacks. I knew we had a great collection of actors in this drama, but they really knocked it out of the park this week. I think I still have goosebumps!
We pick up with Soo-hyun visiting Lee Chang-woo in prison, this time wiser and armed with a lot more info. He eventually reveals that he now knows Lee Chang-woo is his biological father, and this scene is not only exploding with amazing acting, but quite a chunk of backstory that I’ve been itching to see play out.
We see the infamous events from 22 years ago through Lee Chang-woo’s eyes — everything from how he found out that his son was actually sons to the adamas-stealing scheme that Team Leader Lee convinced him to partake in. Lee Chang-woo says he knew that Lee was playing him. Even though his greed made him agree to the scheme, it sounds like he expected Lee to kill him and take all after the theft was executed and the fake adamas put in the real one’s place.
In the present, Lee Chang-woo tells Soo-hyun that he gave and stuck by his false confession in order to keep the boys safe. He knows now, as well as they do, that once that secret is revealed, their heads are all on the chopping block.
Turns out the prison scene and the flashbacks are the calmest parts of our episodes this week — elsewhere, everything goes haywire. To start, Chairman Kwon decides to test Tae-sung’s loyalty/usefulness and takes him to the creepy “fishing” location where far too many people have died.
And waiting there all tied up for interrogation is… Team Leader Lee, definitely not dead, even after being poisoned! It’s a hair-raising scene with him and the chairman, but after the chairman realizes that Lee truly doesn’t know where the real adamas — he says he has no reason to keep Lee alive. Oh, and Tae-sung can do the deed to prove himself. Heo Sung-tae’s acting blew me awayyyy this week, and this scene is only the first of it. Anyway, he kicks a tied up Lee into the water, but we find out later he’ll be rescued and that keeping Lee alive was a part of the deal Hye-soo and Woo-shin made.
Meanwhile, more mayhem! The SIH is, as expected, offered up as a scapegoat for the terrorist attack and is forced to disband. Hyuk-pil in particular takes the weight of the thing; I really like this character even with all of his terrible ways. Later, we find out that he’s retained four of his most trusted agents, and they’ll help our other good guys, and protect Soo-hyun in particular.
But before that can happen, even more mayhem! Dragon Lady Kwon doesn’t have long for this earth — she gets poisoned in prison and moved to Hye-soo’s hospital where she’s about to get offed by Team A, until Hye-soo saves her. This will all become important later.
But before that, Woo-shin masquerades as his prosecutor brother and talks to the inmate responsible for the prison massacre that opened our drama so many episodes ago. He gathers a whole bunch of info about how the whole thing was ordered by Haesong to get rid of one man in particular (so there was a lot more to it then just the death penalty political scheming).
Back to Tae-sung — he officially loses his sh!t after everything that he and the SIH have been through, and all the lives lost to no avail. He grabs a gun from his secret armory, marches into the chairman’s office, and shoots him in cold blood. It’s insane. The chairman is secretly rushed to Hye-soo’s hospital, where all is kept top secret and the entire VIP ward is cleared for his benefit.
He survives, and no one is pleased. Hyun-jo is like a caged rat and just wants the succession to be finalized before he dies; Tae-sung is still determined to kill him and plans to do it with a pair of scissors; but Hye-soo, who also wished he had died, has a far more nefarious plan in mind.
Hye-soo has been squirreling away power while her husband loses it — she has amassed enough of it now that she sits coldly in the VIP room in a red dress while a deranged-looking Dragon Lady Kwon is let into the room.
Her fury is more terrifying than ever, and Chairman Kwon might have woken up, but he doesn’t stay awake long. His faithful servant stabs him in the heart with her walking stick blade, claiming that since he has her son’s heart, she has the right to it. Gosh, this scene is horrifying and yet mesmerizing; we’re at Greek tragedy levels at this point! And so, Chairman Kwon is dead. The death will be covered up. Hye-soo claims control of Haesong.
Meanwhile, our favorite novelist and our favorite prosecutor have hatched a plan, but we don’t know the full details yet. Soo-hyun is met by Sun on his way out of the prison (ugh, I really hate her, and no amount of horrific backstory can fix it), and she makes creepy taunts towards him. Then we jump to Woo-shin, who’s in his car and there’s this uncomfortable moment where he’s stopped by a truck and he knows something isn’t right…
Before we know it, Woo-shin is captured in a shipping container with Lee Chang-woo… but it’s kind of all going according to plan? We learn that the boys are now both GPS tracking enabled, and that they’ve been rapid texting each other all of a sudden because of this plan of theirs. In the words of their father: “What have you two done?”
Soo-hyun and Seo-hee are tracking Woo-shin’s location and are off to the rescue, but OMG it’s a real nail-biter. A Team A agent is there, and starts torturing Woo-shin (via a hammer to his hand)(the hand with the tracker in it), and I don’t know who is in more agony — Woo-shin himself, who eventually passes out from the pain, or his father who has to watch. But what I do know is that in the war of Song twins in my heart, I am swinging more towards Woo-shin. I just love his sharp mind, and his bravery wowed me in these episodes.
Anyway, his tracker goes out, and Soo-hyun mutters in the car what we’re all screaming from our couches: “Woo-shin, please stay alive!” The Team A agent is trying to get the location of the adamas out of Lee Chang-woo, but the only thing that Lee Chang-woo gets out of is his handcuffs. Which he then uses to kill the agent and save his son.
They emerge from the shipping container just as Soo-hyun, Seo-hee, and the remaining SIH agents find them, and even though it’s a bloody and heartbreaking moment, it was squee-worthy. Woo-shin collapses onto his brother, and our team of good guys are finally forming a single front.
There is something so incredibly satisfying about the way the drama brings together all the characters at this point in the story. While they all go into hiding together, they’re joined by Tae-sung, and it really feels like a family reunion. So many players from so many plots, all in the same room, all on the same side! But not for long.
Everyone might be together, but they don’t see eye to eye, and we linger with the characters for a while here as they interact and try to figure out what to do next. This chunk of scenes is just jaw-droppingly good — raw, desperate, and full of all the tension each character is feeling. There are several heated exchanges about how far they are willing to go. Will they cross the line and act like Team A to take down Team A? Or will they seek justice while themselves remaining just?
Every single exchange here was amazing, but my favorite was definitely Woo-shin — still a mess after being tortured – who limps into the room and tells them there’s another way. But rather than agree, it’s more standoffs, whether between him and Lee Chang-woo, or Soo-hyun, who literally has to be dragged away by Tae-sung and the SIH cuties.
In the end, Soo-hyun decides to stay with the “cross the line” team to take down Team Leader Lee, while Seo-hee and Woo-shin are excused — and I don’t know which one is more heartbroken. Still, I love the subtle moment Seo-hee and Soo-hyun share before he turns to leave.
Back at his apartment with Seo-hee and Dong-rim, Woo-shin does what he does best: stare thoughtfully off into space and figure things out. We’ve seen him do it many times before, and now he does it while listening to Lee Chang-woo’s statement to his brother — all while his hand shakes from the trauma it endured.
Then, in this absolutely delicious chills-inducing moment, Woo-shin finally realizes where the adamas is hidden (good grief, Ji Sung’s ears were even acting here!!). This scene — and the way the whole thing played out — was so completely satisfying that I don’t even mind that I figured out where the adamas was about four episodes ago. Also, I love you Woo-shin.
One of the main arguments during the family reunion was the deal Woo-shin cut with Hye-soo. No one else thinks she can be trusted, and after this week’s episodes, I’m not sure if they’re wrong!
Team Leader Lee survives death #2 and is called to the Haesong mansion along with Mr. Jung. They march into the chairman’s office and who is seated on the throne but Hye-soo herself! She’s kept Lee alive as a part of her deal with Woo-shin, but she also claims that she wants to be partners with Team A, and prepares to hatch yet another deal with Team Leader Lee. She wants him to take out the SIH (which she calls the biggest threat to Haesong), and Lee agrees since there’s a little someone he wants to kill too.
Hye-soo also wants to know who was responsible for the hit on her beloved Min-jo, and we learn it was a directive straight from Hyun-jo to Sun. I don’t trust Hye-soo one bit, but what I do trust is her love for Min-jo. I think that will win out in the end (but don’t quote me if I’m wrong!).
While Woo-shin rushes out after his eureka moment, Seo-hee has her own and heads out to talk to her much-hated Candidate Hwang, where she tries to convince him to turn on Haesong.
And then finally, we have Soo-hyun, Tae-sung, and the rest of the SIH, who discover the coordinates of a previous Team A hideout thanks to Soo-hyun being smart, the deceased agent reading Woo-shin’s book, and the fact that Lee Chang-woo is giving them a lot of much-needed insight on how Team A functions.
They locate and infiltrate a creepy abandoned tourist motel, and it’s super suspenseful as they wander through the building (oh, Adamas, why do you keep doing this to us!). What they find — in a moment of real horror — is basically a mass grave of all the people Team A has “disappeared” for Haesong. It’s positively hair-raising. And it’s a mean cliff-hanger too, because we have to wait a whole week for our finale episodes. There’s a ton to pull together still, but the action — and characters — have reached such a crescendo that it’s glorious.