You’re All Surrounded: Episode 8

by girlfriday

Romance really starts to complicate the relationships in the precinct, and mixed signals do a number on everyone in this episode. We take some baby steps forward in the love department, and then proceed to trip backwards, naturally, because being grown up and growing up are two different things entirely. We also take a big step forward in the overarching mystery—as Dae-gu and Pan-seok continue to chase each other’s tails, we learn that there are more players in the game than we thought.

 
SONG OF THE DAY

San E – “나 왜이래” (Why Am I Like This) for the You’re All Surrounded OST
[ Download ]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

 
EPISODE 8: “One hand’s length of growth”

Pan-seok gets all dolled up for his date and sits nervously in an old restaurant, noting that nothing has changed in this place. But Sa-kyung… oh no… she’s waiting for him at Namsan Tower. Agh, of course you’d each think the first place you met was somewhere different. Of course.

He sits there glugging water for half an hour until it finally dawns on him that he’s in the wrong place. But just as he’s running out of there, Sa-kyung has decided to give up waiting for him. No, just a few more minutes!

She ignores his call and turns off her phone, while he races up to Namsan Tower, skipping steps the whole way up and running at full speed in his dress shoes.

And just when I’m sure that he’ll have missed his shot, he looks up and Sa-kyung is on her way down those very steps. Whew. She doesn’t look inclined to stop, but he grabs her wrist and pleads with her to wait.

She grits her teeth and shoots him a frosty glare, chiding herself for thinking that people could change. She gives him credit for showing up at all, considering that it’s an improvement, but she says it’s already game over and turns to go.

He calls out breathlessly after her, “This isn’t where we first met!” He reminds her that this is where they had their first date, but he was sitting in that old udon restaurant when she walked in with a friend that he knew and they were briefly introduced. That’s when he first laid eyes on her and fell in love. Awwww.

She has her back turned to him, but the moment he says it she realizes that he was right and she was wrong, and cringes to herself. But when she turns around, he’s the one apologizing: “I’m sorry I made you wait.” I might cry.

He promises to do better from now on and call if he’s ever going to be late, and though he knows he can’t change completely, he’ll change one small thing at a time. He asks if she wants to go eat, and at first she says no, but then follows it up with a request to go back to that udon restaurant.

He beams and takes a step forward, and suddenly his legs give out and he goes tumbling to the ground. Ha. It’s embarrassing but at least it gets her laughing. It takes him three tries to stand upright on his jelly legs, but he finally hoists himself up and limps down to her, and puts a hand on her back.

On the island, Soo-sun sits up telling Dae-gu stories about her family and her hometown until he falls asleep. She’s surprised when he dozes off, since he said he has trouble sleeping, but he’s out for the night. She smiles and tucks him in.

He wakes up in the morning surprised that he slept through the night, and goes over to the bedroom doorway to peer at Soo-sun while she sleeps. Suddenly her phone rings and it jolts her awake, shooting him straight up into an awkward show of morning I-was-not-just-watching-you-sleep calisthenics.

The call is from Eung-do, who tells them that the pojangmacha suspect’s partner in crime has been caught, and he confessed to everything. At least they know they’re tailing the right guy; now all they need to do is catch him.

Just then, Dae-gu’s batphone rings. Pan-seok tells Combat Boots that he’s sorry about missing their meeting yesterday, but can see him at noon today. Dae-gu only has one shot off the island if he’s going to make that meeting, so he shouts that he’s going to take a day trip to Seoul and takes the car, leaving Soo-sun sputtering.

He drives down to the dock in a hurry, but wouldn’t you know it—their pojangmacha suspect drives right past him in the other direction. He must’ve arrived on the first boat in.

Dae-gu realizes who he is just as he reaches the dock, and slams on the brakes. He’s frozen with indecision, knowing that if he gets on that boat, the criminal goes free, but if he turns around, he loses his one chance to catch Combat Boots.

He lets out a yelp and puts the car in reverse. Aw, you ARE a cop. He races down the road until he catches up to the bad guy and after chasing him down the narrow road, he finally cuts him off, forcing the thug to stop.

Dae-gu jumps him before he can run away, but the guy gets in a few hits and pulls out a knife in the middle of the fight. Still, Dae-gu gains the upper hand and forces him down to the ground. After cuffing him and reading his rights, Dae-gu collapses in the street next to him, and can’t help but laugh in satisfaction for a job well done.

Once the suspect is cuffed to the car and Soo-sun is with him, Dae-gu sighs that he’s crazy for missing that boat. She drags him aside to tend to his scrapes, giddy over the fact that they caught the bad guy.

He takes issue with “we,” but she reminds him that partners are one body. He calls her soybean powder, which is basically like saying she’s stray crumbs that you can’t shake off, as in riding on his coattails.

She asks what happened to his important thing in Seoul, and he grumps at her not to ask because it’s driving him insane. She teases, “It wasn’t a reunion with your decade-long first love, was it?”

She pinches his cheeks, calling him adorable, and makes a meta joke about this being “special praise.” (It’s what Kim Hee-ae called it when she did it to Yoo Ah-in in Secret Love Affair.)

He wriggles free and clutches his cheeks, looking traumatized. She fixes up his cuts and even blows on them, which just makes him nervous about her puckering up her lips so close to his face. Gah, I love that he’s so hyperaware while she’s just poking and prodding and teasing like he’s a little kid.

Pan-seok returns to the station and asks Eung-do if he looked into Dae-gu’s past yet. He didn’t have a chance to, but he says that Dae-gu’s mom died when he was in junior high and they don’t know about his father.

The age is enough to make Pan-seok wonder if he could be Kim Ji-yong, especially after Dae-gu’s last outburst, which made it sound like he had personal experience with a witness-related second crime. Yay, finally, someone smart enough to connect dots.

He knows it’s reaching, but he decides to go to the orphanage himself, and tells Eung-do to praise the kids and take them out to eat. Eung-do watches him go and sighs that Pan-seok is still so obsessed with that case, though he adds that he has reason to be.

Dae-gu and Soo-sun are greeted with a round of applause as they walk their perp into the precinct. Gook even goes in for a fist-bump, and Dae-gu reciprocates in his stick-in-the-mud way. It’s so cute.

His happy moment fades when he hears that Pan-seok is out on personal business, and he calls his accomplice S to give an update. This time we actually get to see who’s on the other end of the line, and WHAT… it’s Chief Kang! Her full name is Kang Seok-soon.

Okay, I did not expect her to be his informant. She assures him that they’ll have another chance, and to remain steadfast in his purpose. Does this make her evil? I’m pretty sure this makes her evil, which I did not see coming. Either that or she’s convinced that Pan-seok is a dirty cop too.

Pan-seok goes to the orphanage to ask about Dae-gu, but this time the director is prepared with a false story about Dae-gu losing both parents in a bus crash. Pan-seok asks for a picture of young Dae-gu, and she gives him one of a different boy. It works, and he leaves disappointed and wondering if he just jumped to conclusions.

The director tells Dae-gu that she did as he asked, and tells him that someone else on staff remembered seeing a scar on Combat Boots when he came around asking about him the other day.

Dae-gu and Gook share some morning cereal at home, and Tae-il comes out to cook them an actual breakfast (best roommate ever). Gook declines and shuffles off abruptly, while Dae-gu requests extra ham and cheese on his omelette like a little kid.

At work, Soo-sun glides over to Dae-gu in her chair to ask him something, and he gets all self-conscious about her being so close. He pushes her away, and when she tries to roll back, he sticks a ruler out: “Maintain a safe distance.”

She grumbles as she rolls back to her side, and he totally busts a smile while she’s not looking. Someone else IS watching though, and Dae-gu locks eyes with a very curious Pan-seok, who can’t figure out what to make of him.

Over lunch, Eung-do hands Pan-seok a mug shot of a criminal he’s put away four times. His last name is Eun and he has a son—couldn’t Dae-gu be a criminal’s son out for revenge? Pan-seok doesn’t even dignify the theory with an answer.

He admits that part of the obsession is just not knowing whether or not Ji-yong is alive or dead, and decides that he’s going to reopen the Masan case. Eung-do agrees to help him whenever he can.

They get called in by Chief Toad for an emergency meeting, and the whole department lines up. Sa-kyung arrives, and tellingly both Tae-il and Pan-seok light up to see her. Tae-il clocks her smiling at Pan-seok though, and looks miffed.

The all-important meeting is apparently because somebody played a prank on Chief Toad’s car again, and he foams at the mouth, calling it an inside job. He tells the culprit to confess today, or he’ll go digging through CCTV footage and it’ll only get worse. The detectives can barely contain their giggles.

Pan-seok’s team gets called out to a crime scene, where a man was killed in his own bathroom. As the team inspects the scene, the victim’s two sons get into a brawl, each screaming at the other that he killed Dad over the inheritance.

They take both brothers down to the station, where the hyung tells Dae-gu and Soo-sun that his younger brother definitely killed Dad. He’s become a monster in the last few years, living only inside his video games, and erupting in angry fits whenever Dad tried to get him to eat or got in his way. Hyung guesses that his brother killed Dad and didn’t even know it, because he’s so out of touch with reality.

But at the same time, the little bro is telling Tae-il and Gook that Hyung is the one who killed Dad, over life insurance. The older brother is an insurance salesman, and he had come to their father in desperation over making a sale, and gotten furious when Dad refused to help him. We see that Hyung was also in debt and at the end of his financial rope, when he saw a news broadcast about someone murdering his parents for the insurance payout. According to Little Bro, he came into the bathroom to find Hyung crouching over Dad’s body.

The team assembles to go over the evidence, and though the sliver of soap found on Dad’s foot suggests a simple accident, the autopsy reveals no injuries consistent with falling and bracing for impact. That suggests that murder is a possibility, and for now they stick to collecting more evidence.

Gook goes to the crime scene to see if anyone could’ve climbed over the balcony to get in, and Tae-il runs over to grab him, thinking he might fall over. Gook reacts the same way he did at breakfast—distant and grumpy, like he’s mad at him—and Tae-il sighs.

The rookies question neighbors, check CCTV footage and computer histories, and go over what they’ve found. All they know so far is that the younger brother never left his computer once, and the older brother came home and napped, and then found Dad dead in the bathroom, according to his statement. They wonder if it’s possible that someone could kill a parent for money, and hope that this isn’t a murder.

Soo-sun stays up late that night, reading about accidental falls and associated fractures. She then goes to the shower room with a pillow strapped to her head and mounts a camera. Are you doing what I think you’re doing?

Yup, she throws soap on the floor and falls backward onto a mat, trying over and over not to brace herself for the fall. What is the point of even reading the texts if you’re going to test the theory ass-first? She cracks me up.

She does it over and over, but every time her hands reach down to break her fall. In the morning, she presents her findings to Pan-seok like she just cracked the case wide open, and makes him watch the video of her falling.

He has to bite his lip to keep from busting a gut, but he can’t help but find her earnestness endearing, and smiles. She insists that they need to arrest the brothers, because it’s looking more and more like murder is the only possibility.

As Tae-il walks into the precinct that morning, a female officer shyly hands him a present, which seems to be a pretty regular occurrence from his reaction. Gook scowls, and Eung-do pats him on the back to say that he knows what it’s like—he’s been partners with Pan-seok for years, after all. Aw, sidekicks unite?

Eung-do tells Gook to re-write his latest case report without all the flowery emotional interpretation. They only need the facts, and he hands him Tae-il’s report to see how it’s done.

Tae-il asks if he’s being praised, and Gook pouts at being compared, complaining that Eung-do doesn’t understand that Tae-il is totally different from him: “He’s on a different dimension.” Eung-do: “Is he from another star?” Pfft.

Eung-do wonders if they fought, which Tae-il denies. But clearly whatever his secret was, it’s causing issues between them.

Gook answers a call from Mom and takes his anger out on her, snapping that all she ever asks is if he’s eaten, and that she should’ve fed him more when he was young so that he wouldn’t be so short. He hangs up and immediately feels bad for snapping at her.

Tae-il comes after him to ask why he’s being like this, and if it’s because of that secret that he shared. Gook denies it, but he gives him the brush-off yet again.

Pan-seok finally meets with Combat Boots, which I guess means he didn’t go the other day (that or the editor and screenwriter are having a star-crossed moment). They greet each other warily but with familiarity. Pan-seok says it’s been a long time and asks if he’s back for good.

Combat Boots says he returned because he has a debt to repay, and Pan-seok notes the scar behind his ear. Pan-seok asks what he wants, and Combat Boots tells him not to rush things: “Have you found that kid from eleven years ago?”

Dae-gu stays up re-reading the murder case file when Soo-sun calls. (He’s saved her number as Soybean Powder now.) She tries to be coy: “Partner~ did you notice that it’s raining outside?”

He doesn’t catch on at all and asks what she wants, and she calls him insensitive for wondering what any of it has to do with him. She’s sitting huddled in her tent shivering in the pouring rain, and later it finally dawns on him that that’s why she called. Doofus.

She wonders if she’ll have to go sleep at a jjimjilbang, when Pan-seok suddenly calls her name. Augh, you let Pan-seok beat you to the punch? That’s what you get for being dumb.

He asks why she isn’t sleeping in the overnight bunks in the precinct, but she says they’re all full in there. He tells her to get dressed and come out.

Of course Dae-gu arrives on the rooftop with umbrella in hand two steps too late—she’s already gone. He goes down to the women’s bunkroom and considers knocking, but he can’t bring himself to go that far and just returns home.

He keeps looking out the window thinking about the rain, when something catches his eye on his computer screen. Pan-seok walks into view of the spy cam, and then so does Soo-sun. Ack.

Soo-sun tells him that she’s fine to go stay at a jjimjilbang, but Pan-seok basically orders her to just stay here, and he’ll sleep elsewhere. How sweet. Her stomach growls so loudly that it can’t be ignored, so he gets out some ramyun for them to eat.

They get all tangled up in the kitchen looking for a pot, and he’s so hilariously awkward about trying not to touch her. From his reaction you’d think he’s never had a girl over ever.

He suddenly seems gawky as he sits there watching Soo-sun make ramyun. They sit down to eat, and then the doorbell rings. Hee, is it Dae-gu?

Oh crap, it’s Sa-kyung. She’s brought over food, and he starts stammering that someone’s here. You are so making things worse right now.

She can’t hide her shock when Soo-sun comes out, and he tells the story in the most nervous nonsensical way, just spitting out random unconnected phrases: “She was on the roof. There’s rain. Was gonna go to jjimjilbang. Eating ramyun now.” All three of them stand there in the doorway not knowing how to proceed.

Dae-gu fumes in his room and glugs water, trying not to freak out that Soo-sun is spending the night with Pan-seok.

Thankfully he gets called with a distraction when a man he was searching for turns up dead. It’s the man who threatened Mom about testifying all those years ago, and Dae-gu goes to the morgue to identify the body.

He confirms the man’s identity and comes out, but what he doesn’t realize is that Pan-seok got the same news from Eung-do and has arrived just minutes behind him.

He walks in just in time to see Dae-gu come out of the morgue. Omo.

Pan-seok knows it now, in his bones—this is too much of a coincidence to ignore. It takes Dae-gu a moment to even see Pan-seok there, and he stops cold when their eyes lock.

Pan-seok just stares at him intently, and finally says, “You were alive, Kim Ji-yong.”

 
COMMENTS

Aaaaaaaah! He knows! Okay, this is exciting, especially after it seemed like Dae-gu quelled his suspicions with the orphanage fakeout. But Pan-seok is sharp, and I love that he isn’t so easily deterred once he starts to suspect that Dae-gu might be Ji-yong. Now the question is whether he’s relieved to find Ji-yong because he’s the good guy (yes please), or threatened and put on the defensive because he’s the bad guy (say it ain’t so!). I’m just glad somebody knows who Dae-gu is now, because it changes the game and raises the stakes for everyone involved, good or bad.

The real shocker was Police Chief Kang’s involvement, after all her kind words to Pan-seok about the Masan case making him the detective he is today and him needing to move past it and go easier on himself. But if she’s helping Dae-gu to get dirt on both Pan-seok and Combat Boots, does she believe Pan-seok is behind this? Or is she the puppetmaster here, and Dae-gu’s being used unwittingly to help get rid of the only person who might challenge her? I’m so curious about that relationship now, and worried that Dae-gu is in over his head. How deep (and how high up) does this conspiracy go?

So far we haven’t been given enough plot morsels to call it anything more than intriguing, but I care very much about Pan-seok and Dae-gu, so as long as the case is the thing that ties them together and keeps them at odds, I’m on pins and needles every time they learn something new about each other. I hope that the overall conspiracy is nice and twisty just to keep it interesting, because I was pleasantly surprised by the Chief Kang twist and would love to see more of that out of the story.

The romantic entanglements are getting even better, especially now that Dae-gu is clearly sporting a crush. The jealousy is making my day (I was literally shouting, “That’s what you get for spying on people!” when he was forced to watch Soo-sun get rescued from the rain by his mortal enemy because he doesn’t know how to read between the lines). Although I’m considerably less happy about the misunderstanding involving Sa-kyung, because I just want her and Pan-seok to be happy and go on more adorable dates where he trips over his feet like an ungainly teenager. She’ll understand, right? I mean, he adores Soo-sun like a puppy, but he’s clearly head over heels in love with Sa-kyung. I guess I’m more concerned that their misunderstandings will have greater consequences, whereas Dae-gu can stand to spend a night stewing in his own idiocy. For a guy who spends every night nursing his insomnia with dramas, you’d think he’d have a better grasp on rainy days and romance.

 
RELATED POSTS

• You’re All Surrounded: Episode 7
• Kolorful Palette: Hostage hearts [You’re All Surrounded]
• You’re All Surrounded: Episode 6
• You’re All Surrounded: Episode 5
• You’re All Surrounded: Episode 4
• You’re All Surrounded: Episode 3
• You’re All Surrounded: Episode 2
• You’re All Surrounded: Episode 1