God’s Gift – 14 Days: Episode 14

by dramallama

The good, the bad, and the shady are messing with our heads with false leads dropping left and right, but we’ve finally got a good sense of who’s on what side. All the right questions are asked, shedding some light on our original timeline and giving us that small silver lining we need. But it’s hard to tell if that silver lining is actually there or if it’s just another illusion.

 
EPISODE 14 RECAP

Dong-chan analyzes the picture of the president and Tattoo Hand, Hwang Kyung-soo, and recognizes the phoenix tail as the pattern that Saet-byul drew in the Moojin shack. He urgently calls Soo-hyun about the president’s crest and his deduction that Saet-byul’s kidnapping may be a political maneuver.

Soo-hyun glances at one of the president’s bodyguards and recognizes him as Hwang Kyung-soo. As the entourage passes by, Soo-hyun puts the facts together and sees the president’s granddaughter walking by. Acting fast, she snatches the little girl and holds her hostage.

Immediately, the bodyguards surround Soo-hyun with their guns pointing at her. The president is shaken and slowly walks towards Soo-hyun, asking her to calm down. Suddenly, the child’s father jumps at Soo-hyun and knocks her down. The lights turn off, and the bodyguards are ordered to protect the president.

When the lights turn back on, the president and his family are quickly ushered to safety. The child’s father (the president’s son) is found on the ground, injured from the broken vase. Soo-hyun has disappeared, and the bodyguards find the covered weapon that Soo-hyun used: a banana.

Just as the president’s cars drive away, Woo-jin arrives at the scene. Reporters wait in front of the reception hall asking the guests what happened, and we see a woman walking out and suspiciously standing by to make a phone call.

Cut to Soo-hyun and Dong-chan driving away. Oh, phew. She asks him how he found her in the dark, and he points out her shoes. Yu Jin-woo drew spots on her shoes with his glow-in-the-dark pen, so when Dong-chan flipped off the lights, he could find her right away.

Dong-chan starts to express his disappointment in Soo-hyun for holding the child hostage with a knife — she’s a mother after all — but she cuts him off. She is a mother, and that’s why she used a harmless banana to make a scene.

She says that she had no choice at that moment but starts to doubt her decision: they’re probably all out to get her now, right? But Dong-chan reassures her that they won’t act so quickly. If something happens to Saet-byul now, the president could be suspected. Soo-hyun actually bought them some time.

The approval for capital punishment only happened earlier that day, so if they took any public action against Soo-hyun, the president would take the blame for passing the law too rashly. Dong-chan assumes that they’ll keep everything on the down low. She checks the news and as suspected, there is no commotion on the news about Soo-hyun’s threat. Dong-chan says that they should lay low and see what happens before making a move.

Soo-hyun shows concern that they’re facing none other than the president, but Dong-chan doesn’t care. He’s more determined than ever to save Saet-byul and Dong-ho even if they have to rival the president himself.

Back in his office, the president is assured by his chief of staff that no news has leaked and that all witnesses were told to stay quiet. But just as he’s reassured, they turn on the TV and find that one of the witnesses at the scene posted a video of the hostage situation. The president quickly calls for a briefing.

Ji-hoon is at home with the police officers when they see Soo-hyun all over the news. A news anchor comments that Soo-hyun may have reacted with anger to the announcement of capital punishment, which put Saet-byul in further danger. Or Saet-byul’s kidnapping may have been staged by the president to push for capital punishment and raise approval ratings. The anchor also notes that Saet-byul is the daughter of Han Ji-hoon, the lawyer who opposed the president in the public debates on capital punishment.

Ji-hoon’s face is unreadable, but he seems nervous. He goes to his room and takes out his phone to delete a text message. Oh man, more shade.

Dong-chan rings up his items at the convenience store and gets a call from Woo-jin, with caller ID “Bastard Hyun Woo-jin” on his phone. He ignores the call and looks up at the TV, which shows the clip of Soo-hyun holding the child hostage.

Just as he’s leaving the store in a hurry, he gets a text notifying him that Soo-hyun’s mother is in critical condition. As soon as he gets back in the car, he takes out the battery in Soo-hyun’s phone (to prevent tracking) and drives over to the hospital.

At the hospital, Soo-hyun reacts with confusion and then immediate worry, thinking that Saet-byul is hurt. Dong-chan tells her that it’s her mother who’s in the hospital, and Soo-hyun looks repulsed.

She says that she was put into the mental hospital because that woman called Ji-hoon, which made her lose Saet-byul. Never in her life had she relied on her mother. The one time she did, her mother couldn’t fulfill her one request to take care of Saet-byul. She says she doesn’t have time to waste visiting such a mother.

Dong-chan stops her, telling her that her mother was admitted to the hospital because she tried to protect Saet-byul. This is news to Soo-hyun, who was unaware of the refrigerator truck situation.

Escorted by Dong-chan, Soo-hyun heads into the hospital in a hoodie to avoid recognition, but an old man immediately recognizes her. He’s the old man (the abusive stepfather?) who was by her mother’s bedside, and he reports Soo-hyun’s whereabouts with the intention of collecting the reward money.

In his car, Woo-jin talks to his blackmail contact on the phone and demands that he return Saet-byul. He’s done anything and everything Blackmail requested to cover up his past mistake (Young-gyu’s shooting), but he threatens to reveal Blackmail’s identity if he doesn’t return Saet-byul.

Blackmail hangs up on Woo-jin, and he screams in frustration. The station notifies him of Soo-hyun’s location, and he drives off to the hospital.

Soo-hyun finds her mother lying in bed, unconscious. Dong-chan apologizes for not telling her earlier; he thought it would worry her too much. Next to the bed, Soo-hyun finds a basket of clothing, and in Saet-byul’s jacket pocket, she finds the letter.

In it, Saet-byul writes the truth about Grandma. Grandma never came back for Mom, not because she wanted to abandon her but because she was afraid her new husband would hit her too. Just like Mom loves Saet-byul, Grandma loves Mom. Grandma wanted to protect Mom, so Mom should forgive her.

Soo-hyun has a flashback to finding her mother as a young girl. She promised to do well in school, be obedient, and eat very little so she could stay with her mother. But her mother told her to go away without explanation.

Soo-hyun checks her mother’s arms now and finds bruises. She breaks down in tears and apologizes for everything. She has another flashback to her high school days when she beat up other girls for calling her an orphan. Her mother tried to intervene, but Soo-hyun brushed her off as some stranger.

Dong-chan feels uneasy and tells Soo-hyun that they should leave. Soo-hyun promises her mother that she’ll come back and begs her to stay alive.

In the hospital hallway, Dong-chan spots a group of police officers in front of them and Ho-gook’s group behind them. They’re sandwiched in between the two squads, but Ho-gook arrests them first.

Outside the hospital, the team leader on the other squad takes them into his custody and puts them in his car. Ho-gook confronts him, but just as they start to argue, the team leader notices Woo-jin in the driver’s seat of his car.

Woo-jin drives off with Soo-hyun and Dong-chan, and they both eye him suspiciously. Dong-chan asks what’s going on, but he ignores him. He warns them and says that by now, they should know that the people who took Saet-byul are quite dangerous.

Dong-chan calls him out — the rat on the police force was indeed Woo-jin — and asks him for confirmation. He doesn’t reply and pulls over on the side of the road. Dong-chan assumes that Woo-jin is handing them over and yells at him for his betrayal.

Woo-jin pulls Soo-hyun out of the car, and Dong-chan gets even more upset. But Woo-jin unexpectedly unlocks her handcuffs and tells her to stick with Dong-chan, just like before. He throws the keys to Dong-chan in the car to un-cuff himself.

Ho-gook comes from behind, and Woo-jin tells Soo-hyun and Dong-chan to run away. He says he’s going to buy them some time, but Dong-chan is still confused and asks what’s going on. Woo-jin just tells Dong-chan he’s sorry and gets back in the car.

As expected, Woo-jin gets chased and blocked off by the corrupt henchmen. The men come out of the cars with bats in hand, and the police team leader from the hospital comes out with a bat as well.

Woo-jin laughs at how many rats there were on the police force and proceeds to take on the men. Not great chances, especially with the bats, but I applaud his audacity. The team leader strikes him on the head, and he eventually falls to his knees. Three days before the incident.

Woo-jin is kept alive and dragged into his own car. The corrupt team leader fixes his tie and warns him that a dog can’t bite his owner. Woo-jin grabs the team leader’s collar with the little strength that he has left, but he’s easily shaken off.

Woo-jin falls unconscious at the wheel with the horn blaring and the cherry blossoms falling with the wind.

With Soo-hyun waiting in the car, Ho-gook tells Dong-chan to punch him because the moment he gets back to the station, his police career is over. He calls Dong-chan out for his weak first punch, so Dong-chan punches him hard to the ground.

Ho-gook tells him to get on his way and check the car for a file that Woo-jin left him. He insists that he’ll be fine since he can just flash his badge and any car on the road will give him a ride. Dong-chan apologizes and gets on his way. As he leaves, Ho-gook thinks out loud, saying that Dong-chan must have been right this whole time. But he also asks Dong-chan not to hate Woo-jin so much.

Dong-chan takes Soo-hyun to Moojin, where he finds a small dugout — the secret hideout that only he and his brother knew. He hasn’t been back since the incident, so it’s been ten years. Dong-chan leaves to check on his minions and asks Byung-tae about his hacking request, and luckily, he’s got the goods.

Ten years ago, President Kim was an up-and-coming politician, and Grandpa Chu was a strong supporter. The two co-founded a company that suddenly closed five years ago, and that’s when Grandpa Chu started up Angel Foundation on his own.

Hwang Kyung-soo was Grandpa Chu’s right-hand man, and he was treated like his son. But a year ago, he left Grandpa Chu and joined the secret security team for President Kim because he disagreed with Grandpa’s stance on capital punishment.

Also, when Grandpa’s son Chu Do-jin would visit from the U.S., Hwang Kyung-soo would be his temporary bodyguard and chauffeur. Byung-tae pulls up a familiar picture of the car in the Moojin fields. Dong-chan reasons that Hwang Kyung-soo must have killed Soo-jung during his stay in Moojin.

As he walks back, Dong-chan remembers that Ho-gook told him about a file Woo-jin left for him in the car. He finds the police report from Young-gyu’s shooting, revealing that it was Woo-jin’s bullet that hit Young-gyu’s head.

Dong-chan is understandably furious and calls Woo-jin right away. But an EMT answers and tells Dong-chan that Woo-jin was in his car when it rolled off the side of the road. He’s in critical condition and being transferred to the hospital. Dong-chan lets out his anger with some intense mixed feelings, calling Woo-jin a bastard.

After cooling off, Dong-chan climbs down into his hideout and finds Soo-hyun asleep and mumbling Saet-byul’s name. He positions himself to keep the sun out of her eyes and lets her sleep as he sits by her until morning.

When Soo-hyun wakes, Dong-chan goes out to get some food, and she checks the news on his phone. The president’s chief of staff is holding a press conference addressing why Soo-hyun’s threat at the reception was hidden from the public eye.

He explains that Soo-hyun was in a debilitated state of mind and did not inflict any harm, so publicizing the news was unnecessary. He presumes that she reacted to the capital punishment announcement negatively, thinking that her daughter would be put in further danger because of it.

Suddenly, everyone’s phones go off with an emergency alert that Saet-byul’s bloody shoe was found at a park. Soo-hyun sees the news from her phone and remembers the same sequence of events: the news of Saet-byul’s shoe being found was followed by the discovery of Saet-byul’s body.

Realizing that time is running out, Soo-hyun quickly climbs up the ladder but slips on one of the rungs. She lands on a basket with flowers, leaves, and string, used for dyeing fingernails the old-fashioned way with flower petals. Another connection. When Saet-byul’s body was found, Soo-hyun saw her fingernails stained, which means she was here.

Soo-hyun thinks back to Grandma (Dong-chan’s mother), who begged Soo-hyun to help her, saying that a mother would do anything to reclaim her child. Oh no, is it Grandma? It’s hard to believe, but the facts somehow make sense.

Dong-chan knocks obnoxiously on the door of the pharmacy, yelling at the owner to open up. Then he recognizes the owner as the bicyclist he almost ran over when he was last in Moojin.

The owner recognizes him right away as the photo studio’s younger son, giving Dong-chan a nice whack on the head for almost running him over. Dong-chan apologizes and asks if he’s okay. The owner says he’s fine and when Dong-chan asks for medicine, comments on how the small child must still be sick. What small child?

Meanwhile, Soo-hyun searches the hideout for more clues and finds a container with prescribed medication and drawings. Things are pointing in Grandma’s direction…

Dong-chan listens to this new information from the owner, who says that Grandma stopped by the pharmacy to pick up cold medicine for the child. He suspected that it could be meningitis (which caused Dong-ho’s mental illness), so he suggested she take the child to a hospital.

Dong-chan runs back to the hideout with the new lead, but Soo-hyun is gone. She seems to have put together the clues herself and left without him.

Cut to Grandma watching Ji-hoon making an announcement in front of reporters and cameras. He says that he understands Soo-hyun’s actions. The president’s approval of capital punishment was enough to make Soo-hyun fearful for their daughter’s life.

Ji-hoon notices Grandma in the back watching him and continues. He states that if Saet-byul does not come back alive, this will be the president’s fault. He will have to take responsibility.

The president watches Ji-hoon with his cabinet and asks for any updates on Soo-hyun’s whereabouts. His chief of staff assures him that they’ve set out a national search order, so she should be found soon. But the president orders the search to be dropped, realizing their weakened stance. Ji-hoon directly blamed him for Saet-byul’s kidnapping, and if they’re revealed to be searching for Soo-hyun, his administration is done.

Grandma returns home to find a mess. Soo-hyun comes at her and demands that she give Saet-byul back, threatening to kill her. Dong-chan suddenly enters the house and knocks Soo-hyun over. He shakes Grandma, asking her if she really kidnapped Saet-byul. She doesn’t give a straight answer, so Dong-chan assumes the worst and asks if she’s crazy.

At that, Grandma replies that she is crazy. Her son is about to be a victim of capital punishment, and there’s nothing a mother couldn’t do to save her child. She even goes to say that she could kill a person.

In disbelief, Dong-chan repeatedly asks for an answer. What did she do with Saet-byul? Soo-hyun gets back up and begs for an answer. Grandma falls to the ground and apologizes to Soo-hyun. She finally says that Saet-byul is no longer with her. But what does that mean?

Flashback to the night of the kidnapping. On the way to go meet Ji-hoon, Grandma runs into Saet-byul, who is out of breath but relieved to see Grandma. Saet-byul claims that she’s being chased by bad guys, and Mom told her to run away. Scared, she asks Grandma for help.

At that moment, nothing was more important to Grandma than Dong-ho. She hadn’t originally planned on taking Saet-byul, but this was an opportunity to save her son. She has Saet-byul call Ji-hoon, and Grandma tells him that he needs to help prove Dong-ho’s innocence to get Saet-byul back.

Ji-hoon agrees and asks for time to prepare the documents. Grandma takes Saet-byul to the hideout to wait for Ji-hoon’s call. She’s set on letting Saet-byul go as soon as she gets the documents, but she starts getting anxious.

We see that Grandma does flower-stain Saet-byul’s fingernails in the hideout, and Young-gyu starts to notice how strange the situation is. Soo-hyun is worried about Saet-byul, so when is Grandma going to take her back home? Grandma quickly shushes him, changing the subject.

Grandma notices Saet-byul coughing and breathing heavily as she sleeps, and gets scared that Saet-byul may have caught meningitis (like Dong-ho when he was younger). In the background, we see that Grandma fed Saet-byul acorn jelly, and we know that Saet-byul has a nut allergy.

Grandma calls Ji-hoon to tell him about Saet-byul, and he rushes over to give her medical attention. After injecting her allergy medication, he takes Saet-byul in his car. Just as he’s about to leave, Grandma begs for his help on Dong-ho’s case, but Ji-hoon refuses and threatens to report her for kidnapping Saet-byul.

Grandma apologizes and asks for help as Young-gyu jumps in the car, determined to protect Saet-byul. Ji-hoon tells Grandma to back off and drives off with Young-gyu in the car.

Back in the present, Grandma tells Dong-chan and Soo-hyun that both children are in Ji-hoon’s possession, but she has no idea where. With that information, Dong-chan and Soo-hyun head off in separate directions.

Now that he knows Saet-byul is safe with Ji-hoon, Dong-chan directs his focus on his brother and Tattoo Hand. He calls Byung-tae to hack into some surveillance video, but he’s on his way back up to Seoul from Moojin, so he doesn’t have access. He suggests that he ask his other private investigator friend.

Soo-hyun goes home and confronts Ji-hoon. She starts with a well-deserved slap and demands to know why he hid Saet-byul. Again, he says he did everything for Soo-hyun’s sake — Ji-hoon couldn’t reveal that he found Saet-byul when Soo-hyun had made national news threatening the president.

Ji-hoon left Saet-byul and Young-gyu with a trusted colleague, and he calls them to prove to Soo-hyun that Saet-byul is safe. And for once, Ji-hoon can be trusted, as Soo-hyun hears Saet-byul’s voice on the phone.

Ji-hoon leaves with Soo-hyun, telling the police in his house that he’s taking her to the hospital. But it’s not Woo-jin’s team anymore. It’s the corrupt team leader and his squad. The team leader walks into the bedroom and detaches a bug — he heard everything — and makes a call with information on Saet-byul’s location. Uh-oh.

On the drive, Ji-hoon confirms that Saet-byul’s shoe in the park was his doing and explains that the blood was from Saet-byul’s nosebleed. He needed to plant something convincing enough to release Soo-hyun from the national search order.

Saet-byul and Young-gyu are safely playing games with two of Ji-hoon’s colleagues, who are starting to get tired of accompanying the children. Young-gyu proposes that they play hide-and-seek since he used to play that game with his father all the time. I’m praying that these two are still safe and happy by the time Soo-hyun gets there.

Dong-chan finds his PI friend Seol-gu and convinces him to hack into some surveillance videos with quadruple pay for his services. He looks through the clips from the mental hospital and spots not only Tattoo Hand’s car but also Ji-hoon’s car.

He wonders how Ji-hoon wasn’t seen on any of the surveillance footage when they checked the mental hospital previously. Dong-chan concludes that Ji-hoon must have bribed the nurse at the hospital to delete the footage of him there.

They look through all the footage and spot Ji-hoon leaving with Soo-hyun’s clothes, and the jewelry evidence. Seol-gu recognizes Ji-hoon from taking pictures of his affair with Min-ah but also in a more recent photo: one with Brown Bear, aka cheating mob boss from the first episode. The wife came to Seol-gu for his services, and he happened to catch Brown Bear and Ji-hoon’s deal on camera: Ji-hoon left the jewelry evidence under his care. Fate does its job, and Dong-chan and Brown Bear meet again.

While hiding, Young-gyu has fallen asleep in the closet and Saet-byul waits to be found. Suddenly, the closet door opens, and Saet-byul’s face brightens. But it’s Tattoo Hand Hwang Kyung-soo, who kidnaps Saet-byul for real this time.

Soo-hyun and Ji-hoon run into the house looking for Saet-byul, but she’s nowhere to be found. Young-gyu walks down the stairs and says that Saet-byul is still hiding. Soo-hyun knows something is wrong and looks to Ji-hoon for answers.

She realizes that Ji-hoon’s justification for staging Saet-byul’s shoes doesn’t make sense. She wasn’t the target of a search in the original timeline, so his reasoning doesn’t apply. She demands to know why Ji-hoon is manipulating Saet-byul and why the president is going to such great lengths against him.

Ji-hoon denies that the president is involved and goes into a flashback. When he was a new prosecutor, he was assigned to the Moojin serial killings as his first case. After meeting with the suspect (Dong-ho), he felt that something was wrong.

He started to reinvestigate the case and discovered bits and pieces that didn’t fit together. But there was a clear confession and a witness, so there was nothing else he could do. The case was closed…

Until recently, when he discovered the jewelry evidence. Ji-hoon realized that the jewelry pieces in Cha Bong-seob’s possession matched the jewelry on the Moojin victims, so he threatened to use the evidence to reveal the truth.

Soo-hyun asks The Question: Who is the guy he threatened? And the big reveal: It’s Lee Myung-han, the president’s chief of staff, who is currently the top candidate to be the next Minister of Justice.

Ten years ago, he was the chief prosecutor on the Moojin case, and if the case resurfaces with problems, he could lose the coveted position awaiting him.

Soo-hyun doesn’t care about the politics and asks Ji-hoon why he would threaten such a man in power. Ji-hoon apologizes, saying didn’t know he would go so far as to target Soo-hyun and Saet-byul.

Ji-hoon gets a call from our man, who says he’ll exchange Saet-byul for the jewelry evidence. Soo-hyun freaks out because she’s still under the impression that Tattoo Hand took the evidence, but Ji-hoon reveals that he has it.

The realization hits and Soo-hyun looks at Ji-hoon accusingly: Saet-byul was kidnapped because Ji-hoon didn’t hand over the evidence. And in the original timeline, Saet-byul was eventually killed because Ji-hoon never gave it up.

Soo-hyun asks for the evidence, so Ji-hoon calls Brown Bear to bring over the items, but he’s lost them. Dong-chan has the jewelry in hand, ready to use the evidence to prove his brother’s innocence. In good spirits, Dong-chan calls Soo-hyun to meet up with her.

By the river, Dong-chan looks at Saet-byul’s hair clip and breathes a sigh of relief. Assuming that Saet-byul is safe, he throws the clip into the river, just like he threw her clip into the fish tank in our original timeline. Soo-hyun calls him from behind, and Dong-chan asks where Saet-byul is.

Soo-hyun cuts to the chase and asks Dong-chan to give her the jewelry. She needs it to save Saet-byul, so she begs Dong-chan to give it to her. But Dong-chan refuses: He needs it to save his brother.

 
COMMENTS

Our dynamic duo has reached their breaking point, and boy, this conflict is real. It’s not a matter of who’s in the right because they both have a legitimate and compelling reason to use the evidence: family. I was afraid that the show was going to make these two turn on each other. After all the shipping of these two — romantically and just as time-traveling badass partners — it doesn’t seem fair to make their loved ones the two in the Fate prophecy. Please don’t tell me I’m right. We’ve seen both Soo-hyun and Dong-chan be stubborn and selfish, but I hope they’ve grown enough away from that to reach some sort of resolution or compromise. Or even better, I hope they’ve become smart enough to outmaneuver both the politics and Tattoo Hand.

Now to debrief on our goodies and baddies. We’re given another twist in making the president’s chief of staff the political figure behind the job. I can’t say that was unexpected, but again, anything at this point wouldn’t surprise me because everyone’s a suspect. I was ready for some intense makjang elements with the president as the political puppeteer, but I think the chief of staff being the one seems somewhat more realistic. He’s got his reputation to maintain if he wants to step up in power. I find it so backwards that he can’t do the decent human thing and acknowledge his past mistake if he wants to maintain his reputation. But morality and reputation don’t necessarily go hand in hand, and that’s one reason why the justice system is so twisted.

And in the middle of this justice fiasco is Ji-hoon, who is now finally on my good list. We see that all his shade was for good because his original intent was to right the wrong that he helped commit in the Moojin case. I’m not excusing his indecency as a human being (he still cheated), but his motives for protecting Soo-hyun and Saet-byul make sense. He’s a lawyer to the bone, and he acted according to what he believed in, which I find (I can’t believe I’m saying this) somewhat admirable. At least he’s out of the shade now, and let’s hope it stays that way.

Woo-jin is also back on my good list, but I’ve got mixed feelings about this guy. If he knew the identity of this guy and was ready to throw his police career away to do the right thing, why didn’t he do more? He did leave Dong-chan with the truth about Young-gyu’s shooting and sacrificed himself to save our duo, but his character did little to advance the investigation when he had such potential to. Hopefully he recovers and comes back to play his role.

We’ve still got some missing pieces about the real connection with Hwang Kyung-soo, the Moojin killer, and Saet-byul’s kidnapping, but as of now, we seem to have enough to be in the game. It seems that Soo-hyun and Dong-chan are caught up, but now they have a greater issue at hand — the evidence. Three days remain and we have two lives to save. Let’s hope our final week delivers.

 
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