IRIS: Episodes 14-15

by kaedejun

First off, I have to apologize – I have made several mistakes, in my last recap and before, which episode 14 made very clear.

When Hyun Joon drops Seung Hee off after she’s released by the North Koreans, he drops her off at (his and) Sa Woo’s home – not hers.

And secondly, when Mi Jung makes the phone call, I made the incorrect assumption that she called her sister. She really called Vic. I should have realized it when putting the scenes together and following Mi Jung’s train of thought – but hehe…that’s what happens when you make assumptions, right!?

Also, the female North Korean agent I’ve been calling Young Bum this whole time? Just because I wasn’t sure what her name was? Yeah – she’s Dae Hyun. Young Bum is the guy who saw Seung Hee kill his colleagues in NSS. Just realized it when I saw the translations for episode 14. So sorry for the confusion!

So! Let’s get on with episodes 14 and 15!

Episode 14

I’ll preface this with: GOODNESS – so many things get revealed and confirmed! A shower of jellybeans came my way!

Sa Woo deletes all camera footage of the assault and leaves before Sun Hwa and Hyun Joon arrive. Guns drawn, they check the premises – but there’s nothing to fear. Everyone in the building is either dead or gone. Hyun Joon makes his way up to Yoo’s room. He remembers his last words, which were quoted from a particular chapter in the Bible. Hyun Joon searches for a Bible in the room and opens up to that page. He finds a small box embedded into the book containing an ID card with medieval designs on it that says ERHARD, and a silver crown keychain.

As they return to the hideout, Sun Hwa asks who the other person in the video was, and Hyun Joon says it is Sa Woo. He had hoped that when Sa Woo pointed the gun at him in Hungary, he was simply unable to disobey orders. He never imagined that Sa Woo would be part of IRIS.

Later that day, Baek San goes to the supermarket to buy some groceries, where his wife meets up with him. (Kind of cute but really weird to see the stern Baek San in a supermarket.) In the distance, he spots the back of Vic, but doesn’t get a good view before Vic disappears. Mrs. Baek San asks if he knows the person, but Baek San says no.

At NSS, Mi Jung gets a message, and immediately leaves the office. She runs out to the bridge – and there, she meets up with Vic. She tells him, “I told you not to come.” (Meaning Seoul – she had called him to leave Seoul in the last episode) Instead, he suddenly kisses her…

…And the next morning, Mi Jung wakes up to find Vic making coffee for her. She tells him to leave, but he asks about her. She says she won’t leave because of work, and so Vic replies, “If you’re not going, then I’m not going.” (Insert passionate kiss here that was completely censored.)

Sang Hyun reports to Baek San about a new case – a house full of dead bodies and many guns. Baek San tells him not to investigate it any further, as they cannot spare any anti-terrorism agents towards solving an internal affairs case. Hyun Kyu later catches up with Sang Hyun to update him on the dead bodies at the house but Sang Hyun tells him they’re transferring the case to someone else.

Hyun Kyu stops him – the body he is examining right now is a match to a skull comparison he did for Sa Woo before the shootout happened. Dun-dun-DUN!

Chul Young broods in his office, rethinking over Director’s Yeon’s words to him. Yeon sends for him, and warns him once again that if Chul Young does not follow his orders, he will be returned to the North, where he will no doubt demoted or even imprisoned. Director Yeon asserts that his actions will lead to a revolution against their current leader, who has done nothing for them.

Chul Young stands and gives his decision: He will work with Director Yeon.

Back at NSS, Sang Hyun asks Manager Hwang, who is head of internal investigations department, if Baek San gave him any orders in regards to Sa Woo. Manager Hwang says he received none, from Baek San or otherwise.

Chul Young meets privately with CY Sidekick and updates him on what has happened so far between him and Director Yeon. He orders his Sidekick to keep a close eye on Director Yeon, and he will find a way to meet Sun Hwa first.

Baek San meets with Director Yeon for a walk. Director Yeon says that he will report the nuclear attack as the work of a resistance group. He has decided on a date, but refuses to divulge that just yet to Baek San. Baek San asks for a favor – can he get rid of Kim Hyun Joon for him before D-Day?

In the distance, Sang Hyun watches the exchange.

Leader Kang receives the order to kill Hyun Joon and Sun Hwa. Hwang Soo offers to do it, but Leader Kang tells him to hold off on it first. They need a group meeting with everyone else.

Dae Hyun (the girl agent I’ve been mistakenly calling Young Bum this whole time; also known as Tae Young depending on the translator) says that the nuclear assembly is nearly done, and Young Bum (the other guy who saw Seung Hee at NSS) is to check for escape routes. In the middle of this meeting, Sun Hwa and Hyun Joon return, but they are stopped by guards. Hwang Soo comes out and tells them that they are both on standby and have no reason to be part of the meeting.

Therefore, with no new information, they’re only lead is the ID card.

Sang Hyun visits Seung Hee at her house, to inform her of his suspicions against Sa Woo and Baek San. Meanwhile, men are outside of Seung Hee’s house, watching.

Hyun Joon visits an odd building with too many medieval coat of arms and shields decorating the outside. He hands the person inside the ID card, who then registers him in. He asks for a “book,” but Hyun Joon hands him the keychain instead. He is led to a lavish room where a small security box is kept. Inside are car keys and a note saying “B4.”

Hyun Joon goes down to the parking lot and unlocks a very, very fancy and sleek black car. There is nothing inside the compartments that give him a clue to anything, so he starts the car. The computer in the car asks for his fingerprint, and immediately, it gives him a destination to drive to.

However, there are people on his trail – most probably Baek San’s men – and Hyun Joon weaves through traffic to escape them. He finally evades them when he makes a sudden switch in lanes and exits the highway.

He reaches a heliport, where more security agents meet him and pat him down for weapons before allowing him to board the helicopter. Inside sits Secretary Jung.

They fly off to a mysterious location and go up an oddly shaped building. More guards screen Hyun Joon before allowing him to go up to the glass room at the top of the building. The President is there, waiting for them.

The President recognizes Hyun Joon right away as the man who saved his life, along with Sa Woo. However, he is surprised to find out that Hyun Joon was accused of treason and presumed dead.

Hyun Joon: I assassinated Chairman Yoon Sung Chul.
President: Under whose orders did you do such a thing?
Hyun Joon: It was NSS Director Baek San.

Hyun Joon describes IRIS for the President, who can’t believe what he’s hearing. Secretary Jung shows the President the footage of Baek San killing Yoo as evidence of Baek San’s true character. Hyun Joon confirms that he has the list of IRIS members that could incriminate Baek San, but they cannot arrest him just yet. They don’t have a complete list or know Baek San’s boss just yet, and on top of that, Hyun Joon can find out the location of the nuclear weapon from the terrorists he works with, who are taking orders from IRIS.

When Secretary Jung returns to the Blue House, the other advisors bug him about where the President was. His disappearance and the changes to the summit plans make all of the advisors uneasy about whether the President even trusts them or not. Baek San joins the meeting late, and the President has Advisor Hong bring Baek San to him.

On the way, he tells her that despite Secretary Jung and the President’s suspicions, their plan must go along as planned.

The President asks Baek San what his personal opinions are in regards to the summit, even though NSS is not supposed to have any political leanings whatsoever. He’s on to Baek San, and the following conversation is basically his way of letting Baek San – and IRIS – know that nothing can change his plans for reunification.

Baek San: I think that the nuclear terrorist attack is something prepared by the opposition force. Your wishes on unification, changes to the North’s political structure, to those who do not wish for the Korean peninsula to be united, it will probably be a bad scenario.
President: Who are “they”?
Baek San: Pardon?
President: The forces opposing…who are they?
Baek San: Sorry, sir. I’m not sure if I didn’t understand the president’s words correctly…
President: That’s all right. No matter what dangers I may face, I’m going to go through with the summit this time. Whoever may be interfering with the summit will not be forgiven.

Sang Hyun meets with Seung Hee at a bar. He tells her to continue acting cool in front of the spies following her, and also to find out where Hyun Joon is. They need to know why Hyun Joon joined the terrorists, and who Sa Woo and Baek San are working for.

As Seung Hee goes to a gym class, a man dressed all in black conspicuously follows her around until she goes into the women’s locker room. Seung Hee calls up the police, who then have a talk with the men waiting outside the gym. She leaves the gym by taking the stairs. She misleads the spy by putting her lipstick down as a doorstop, and leaves through a back entrance, right into Jung In’s car.

Jung In and Seung Hee drive to the Suk Soo facility to start their search for Hyun Joon. They call up Sang Hyun, and Mi Jung begins to track their movements. There is only one road that they could have taken, which has several speed bumps. Seung Hee counts the seconds between the speed bumps, using the intervals she measured when she was transported to their next hideout, to figure out where the truck went.

They see a CCTV camera above a road, and Seung Hee has them check the footage for the truck, and then track the path of the car. However, Sa Woo comes up behind Sang Hyun. He and Mi Jung lie to Sa Woo and say they cannot contact Seung Hee.

Sang Hyun gives Mi Jung access to a server room so that she can locate where the truck was last seen and send the destination to Seung Hee. At the same time, Sa Woo is notified of her actions and heads off to stop Seung Hee before she comes into contact with the terrorists.

Sun Hwa and Hyun Joon figure that Dae Hyun is actually the one assembling the bomb, since she is nowhere to be seen. Hyun Seok comes up to the two of them and signals for Sun Hwa to come out with him. He hands her his cell phone and tells her that Chul Young will be calling soon, but that Leader Kang cannot find out. Yay for Hyun Seok! I knew that Hyun Joon-helping-with-the-luggage-incident had to pay off sometime!

Chul Young and Sun Hwa arrange to meet at Riverview 8th St – where there is a viewing area under the bridge. However, when Chul Young gets there, the place is full of agents. He tries to get away, but there are too many that surround him right away.

Knowing he cannot fight off all of them, he lets himself be taken away to another location where this time, he is the one getting interrogated – by none other than Hyun Joon.

Episode 15

Hyun Joon punches Chul Young and fires a couple of shots in his direction, demanding to know the location of the nuclear bomb.

In another room, Secretary Jung and Sun Hwa observe.

Chul Young, once again seated, spills everything he knows to Hyun Joon. He can no longer help Hyun Joon with his revenge because he himself was betrayed by Leader Kang. He also has no idea what IRIS is, but if anyone is involved with IRIS, it’s Director Yeon.

Back at the hideout, Leader Kang asks where Sun Hwa and Hyun Joon are, and Hwang Soo says they should just kill them already since they’re always missing. Hyun Seok reluctantly reveals that Sun Hwa received a call from Chul Young and left soon after that. Leader Kang calls up Director Yeon, who tells him to kill them now.

Before Chul Young is let go, Secretary Jung makes a request: the war can only be stopped by Chul Young’s decisions to help them. Chul Young asks to speak to Sun Hwa, and takes a deep introspective look on himself that makes me love Kim Seung Woo even more:

Chul Young: I can think of times when I should have realized that I was being used. After we failed to protect Yoon Sung Chul, for me to be reinstated so quickly, that wasn’t something that is possible in our party. But even then, I never suspected Minister Yeon Gi Hoon even once. I was blinded by my loyalty, to our party and our people, or so I thought. But I realize today, that it was my personal ambition, and that breaks my heart.

Jung In drives Seung Hee up to a plaza where there are several tall buildings; one of them houses the terrorists’ hideout. Seung Hee leaves by herself, and she goes through several buildings’ basements, hoping to recognize one of them.

Sa Woo, meanwhile, has several of his agents searching for her in the area.

Jung In phones in to Sang Hyun, but just as he tells her he will send more agents, Baek San’s henchman comes up to him and arrests him for treason in front of Tae Sung. Tae Sung rushes off to tell Mi Jung.

Seung Hee spots Young Bum entering a building and hides behind a pillar, but she is caught by Sa Woo instead. He suspends her from duty, and she accuses him of trying to protect the terrorists because he would not send in additional agents to the building. She says that he’s changed too much, but he throws it right back at her – she was the one that changed, and it was all because of Hyun Joon. He’s only trying to put her back on track with her life.

Chul Young returns to the hotel, where his Sidekick tells him that Director Yeon is looking for him, and might be suspicious of his actions. Chul Young tells the Director that he’s only been looking into escape plans for when the bomb is to go off.

Director Yeon tells Chul Young that they have powerful people backing them up. When the bomb goes off, Head of National Security Lee Tae Soon and the Marines will begin the coup d’etat. The army will surround Pyongyang, and if the US prepares to attack them, the North Korean army will use their nuclear weapons to attack the UN forces. Reunification will be stalled, and Lee Tae Soon will take power.

Chul Young returns to his room and has Sidekick scramble the signals. He calls up Secretary Jung, who then passes the message along to the President. The President broods over his past conversations with Baek San, Secretary Jung and Hyun Joon. He regrets now handing Baek San the position of Director to NSS, thinking that Baek San would have told him all of NSS’ actions.

Hyun Joon and Sun Hwa return to the hideout, where several North Korean agents await their arrival with guns. At the same time, Seung Hee is being driven away by two other NSS agents, while Sa Woo and a few other agents enter the hideout building. But when the car stops at a railroad track because of an oncoming train, Seung Hee takes this opportunity to knock out the agent beside her, take his gun, and escape.

Sun Hwa sees no one in the meeting room and everything is packed up.

Sa Woo checks out the basement equipment room, where a North Korean agent catches him. He is forced to put down his gun, but suddenly, the North Korean is shot dead…by none other than Hyun Joon.

This time the tables are turned: Sa Woo is unarmed, and Hyun Joon is pointing a gun at Sa Woo’s chest. Hyun Joon asks: How long has Sa Woo worked under Baek San and IRIS? Sa Woo refuses to divulge. He tells Hyun Joon to just kill him – “It was a hellish life for me as well. Hurry up and end it.”

However, Hyun Joon spots several North Korean agents searching for him, and immediately Sa Woo and Hyun Joon leap into action. Sa Woo grabs his gun from the floor and the two of them (temporarily) work together to shoot down all of the North Korean agents. As soon as they’re dead, Sa Woo points the gun at Hyun Joon and shoots him. Hyun Joon barely makes it out of the way, with one of the bullets grazing his cheek.

Cue reminiscing scenes of their friendship!

Hyun Joon gathers his strength and yells across the room: He blamed Baek San and NSS for Sa Woo’s actions in Hungary, but knowing that Sa Woo was part of IRIS was the biggest betrayal that he’d felt.

Sa Woo retorts: Hyun Joon had NO IDEA how much he suffered and had to give up these past years. (I don’t either, but ok.)

They shoot at each other, Sa Woo having come to the conclusion that the only way for everything to be OK again is for Hyun Joon to die. But Sun Hwa comes down and starts shooting at Sa Woo, and so he runs, knowing that he’s outnumbered.

They figure that Leader Kang wanted them dead before they moved to their new location, and so they start going through the dead bodies, trying to find someone who is still somewhat alive and can tell them where the new hideout is.

They bring one agent to a local doctor. Hyun Joon forces the doctor to wake the injured man up with Atropine. He wakes up temporarily, but doesn’t reveal anything. They only find a car key on him, and decide to go down to the parking lot to check it out.

Sun Hwa and Hyun Joon find a black van, and they take out all of the belongings in it, including the GPS system. As they leave, they are blocked by traffic, and newly escaped Seung Hee is walking towards them, back to the building that she was going to investigate. However, they miss each other, and Seung Hee only sees police cars outside the building.

Advisor Hong is suspicious of Secretary Jung, and she relays her concerns to Baek San. He tells her that she may have to “take care of the President,” a prospect that she is not looking forward to.

Baek San goes in to question Sang Hyun. Sang Hyun snaps, saying that nuclear terrorism is not going to benefit anyone if 150,000 lives are going to be sacrificed. However, Baek San reveals his true side and says that if those lives are needed to protect the security of South Korea, then it’s worth it.

After Sa Woo finds out that Seung Hee is once again missing, he goes in to talk to Sang Hyun. He wants to know where Seung Hee could possibly be, but Sang Hyun is shocked and betrayed by Sa Woo’s change. He had thought of Sa Woo as a younger brother, and is angry to see that Sa Woo would so easily change sides just because Baek San is holding something over him. He reminds him that he is acting contrary to his true nature.

Meanwhile, Baek San’s henchman comes to Hyun Kyu’s office to ask if he’s seen Mi Jung. Hyun Kyu says he has no idea, but once the man leaves, he tells Mi Jung to wake up. She was hiding under the white sheet on the examination table.

Jung In picks up Seung Hee and gives her a gun and new phone. However, they have no new leads. They contact Mi Jung to have her find areas that had high radioactivity at any moment. When the uranium capsule was taken out of its case and put into the detonator, there would have been heightened radioactivity somewhere.

Sun Hwa and Hyun Joon go through the van’s belongings. The GPS system has a list of locations that the car has been to. They decide to go to the more frequented areas, but those areas are busy intersections or historical locations with no sign of the terrorists. They check the GPS again, and decide to visit the location where the car only visited once.

Mi Jung’s satellite tracking alerts Baek San’s henchmen, and they catch her in Hyun Kyu’s office. She’s already found the location, but she tries to hide the screen from the henchman’s view. He leads her out and asks her what she was doing. Mi Jung reports everything, and he orders her to inform Seung Hee of the location. He then calls Sa Woo with the location.

Secretary Jung meets with the doctor that Hyun Joon had brought a North Korean agent to. Based on what the doctor witnessed, he and the President conclude that Hyun Joon has lost track of the terrorists, and has no idea where the bomb is. They decide to arrest Director Yeon.

Sun Hwa and Hyun Joon make their way to the building and find the room where Dae Hyun assembled the bomb. The weapon is already gone. They hear footsteps and a door creaking open. Guns ready, they raise the gun – at Seung Hee.

Comments:

These two episodes were so full of information. It’s nice to see that everything is coming together, except everything fell into their place so quickly that it makes me feel like the series could end by episode 18. (In fact, the preview for episode 16 was such a spoiler for me that I was sad for a few days and I have not gotten the courage to watch it yet! But I will.)

Chul Young joining the side of the “good guys” happened so fast, that it put me on a tailspin. I understand his viewpoint about the nuclear weapon, but I would assume his patriotic feelings for North Korea would take precedence over choosing to join the South Koreans. On top of that, we saw who was on which side in episode 15. Advisor Hong became firmly on the side of the “bad guys,” and Hyun Seok was undoubtedly on Leader Kang’s side (even though I was hoping he’d be on Sun Hwa and Hyun Joon’s side.) And all of a sudden one of the advisors – the Head of National Security – did something that finally had some substance! He was no longer just a side advisor that played devil’s advocate to Baek San during meetings, but was finally informed of what was happening with NSS thanks to Manager Hwang and was equally suspicious of NSS as Secretary Jung.

And Sa Woo – so many people told him that he was acting out of character in episode 15 that I’m sure there’s going to be a last second switch of allegiances. Or else, Sa Woo will remain a mystery to me in regards to his character.

The only character that is slow in developing is Vic. He had just a couple of scenes in episode 14, and the reasons for his actions are so inexplicable that they’re suspicious. I want more T.O.P.! (and not just for eye candy! …well, sorta.)

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