Masked Prosecutor: Episode 3

by LollyPip

Detective Lollypip, reporting for Masked Prosecutor duty! Things start to take a more definitive direction with this episode, and our hero now has a purpose to his masked activities. I agree with previous recaps that the show got off to an awkward start — but with recent tragic events, Dae-chul’s masked avenger now has some real justice to dispense.

EPISODE 3 RECAP

Dad drowns, and Min-hee arrives at the waterside where Dad’s body is being preliminarily examined. Fellow detective Song-ho tells her that the mask the man is wearing is the same one from the CCTV footage. They verify his identity, and even determine that the jacket he’s wearing is the same one.

As Dae-chul searches for his father, he sees a news ticker on a shop-window television: “Dead body of masked serial killer found.” Oh no, poor Dae-chul, that’s a terrible way to find out that your father died.

Ever-suspicious, Min-hee re-watches the CCTV video, muttering that the man on the video doesn’t seem to be as old as the dead man. Moreover, the murdered man, CEO Park, was a judo expert and had scary friends — could he have been killed that easily by an older, out-of-shape man?

Hyun-woong holds a press conference and reports that the masked supposed-serial killer was found drowned. He plays it like it was a suicide driven by guilt and police pressure, twisting the information to make his department look good.

Dae-chul barges into the morgue, pulling rank for access to his father’s body. He draws back the sheet enough to see Dad’s face, and though the pathologist insists he can’t touch the body before the autopsy, he reaches out with a shaking hand to gently close Dad’s eyes.

He takes himself to a pojangmacha to drink soju alone, but a trio of rowdy kids annoy him and he picks a fight. He holds his own in the brawl, using his wrestling skills against the kids. Later he walks down the street, drunk and bruised, and literally lays down in the gutter to cry for his father.

We hear a voice-over from Dad telling Dae-chul that, no matter what, he can never admit he’s his son. Once they clear his name, then Dae-chul can proudly claim him as his father. Meanwhile Dae-chul looks over old news articles of his father’s supposed crimes, and dons a new mask — this time, it’s black.

He listens to Hyun-woong’s press conference, and remembers Detective Park saying that the murdered man was stabbed very skillfully, by someone who knew what they were doing. “He’s the one who killed Father,” he thinks to himself, making the connection between the murdered CEO and his own father’s death.

Min-hee’s team meets, and Detective Park reports that the businesses around now-dead CEO Park won’t even acknowledge that they knew him. Min-hee managed to find the number of the prostitute he visited regularly, but she’s not answering her phone. Min-hee instructs Song-ho to find her and see if she knows anything.

Detective Park raises concerns about investigating a case that the Central Office has already closed, since there’s no chance at a trial. Min-hee argues that catching the bad guys is her entire reason for becoming a policewoman.

Of course, Dae-chul balks at continuing the investigation, because even though it’s horrible how it turned out, it does get him off the hook. Min-hee resorts to almost-aegyo (which looks super-awkward on her) to wheedle some warrants out of him, and they bicker over which is more important — their career, or catching the real murderer.

But when Dae-chul realizes that Min-hee doesn’t believe the man found in the river was a serial killer, and she even becomes emotional over the unfairness of his death, he can’t help but be moved. He steps away to wipe his tears, and texts her from his unregistered phone, confirming that he is the real man in the mask (and following it up with more hearts than ever, awww).

She still doesn’t know his identity, but at least now she knows that her gut feeling was correct, and Dad was innocent. Min-hee catches herself counting hearts and shakes it off, hee. Dae-chul calls her as himself and agrees to issue a warrant, if she finds some evidence.

Dae-chul heads to the scene of CEO Park’s murder to take a look around. He quickly hides when he hears a strange noise, and sees a man sneaking into the apartment from the balcony.

The guy knows exactly what he’s here for — a stack of money hidden in the upholstery of the couch. Full of himself, the man saunters home planning a Hawaiian vacation with his ladylove, but Dae-chul manages to snap a picture of his license plate as he drives away.

The next day, Dae-chul uses his unregistered phone to send the picture of his father’s back to his mother, and a message: Remember this man’s scars.

Hyun-woong’s father Joong-ho presents him with a fancy watch, a gift from President Jo for his help in sewing up CEO Park’s murder case. He cheerily wonders if he was put on the case to protect what his father has, but Joong-ho says it’s what they both own. Hyun-woong asks if what they own is dangerous, and Joong-ho swears nothing like this will happen again.

Hyun-woong turns on the charm when his mother enters, dressed to the nines, and he mentions that she looks so young, asking for a picture of her when she actually was young. Mom says there aren’t any, and exchanges uncomfortable glances with Joong-ho when their son asks if there aren’t pictures of them when they dated in college.

The way he jokes that maybe Mom had another man before Joong-ho, and so is hiding her old photos, feels like he already knows about their shady past. Mom overreacts, and Hyun-woong plasters on an innocent face.

Later, Mom thinks about her ex-husband, and how he’d vowed to come back for her no matter what, even if he has to appear in front of her after he’s dead. She’d seemed upset to lose him, though Joong-ho had been standing in their bedroom with her during the call.

Min-hee crosses another possibility off her list of men who could have assaulted her mother — she’s been having DNA testing done on her list of suspects. Alone later, she says out loud what she couldn’t say to the doctor: “I’m not looking for a relative, I’m looking for the culprit who raped my mother.”

The man who stole the money from CEO Park’s home skips home, only to be whapped upside the head on his front stoop by a masked Dae-chul. He tells the thief to turn himself in, repeating the order and punctuating it with pops to the face each time.

Hyun-woong makes good on his promise to take Min-hee to dinner, and he says that in his opinion, she was smart enough to do better things with her life than become a police officer. She fires back about the high-and-mighty prosecutor looking down on the police, but he says he only came to thank her for giving over the murder case, and she admits she hasn’t completely given up.

On the ride home Hyun-woong asks if she’s dating, but she says she hasn’t got time. He says that if she’s got time to hang onto a closed case, she’s got time to date — namely, him. Ooohhh. Evidently he’s had a crush since high school, and she was even his first kiss, but she just scoffs that that was so long ago it’s not worth thinking about.

No matter how hard Min-hee tries to push him away, Hyun-woong is determined to rekindle their old flame. Min-hee jokes that the statute of limitations has passed, and lets herself out of the car.

As she walks, Min-hee remembers the neighborhood ajummas gossiping about her being a child of rape, and she’d been walking by this very building in the rain when one kind woman pulled her to shelter.

She’d given young Min-hee a rose to cheer her up, which had opened the floodgates and Min-hee sank to her knees to sob. In the present, the building is still a flower shop, and the kind woman still works there.

Min-hee walks home carrying a rose she bought for herself (awww), but she’s startled when Dae-chul, in his mask, literally drops out of the sky in front of her. She starts to run and he yells that he texted her the hearts, which is so adorkable.

He’s hilariously shifty-eyed and seems self-conscious abut the mask, especially when his loud, “I fight for justice!” just gets him laughed at. Min-hee fusses at him for copying the masked killer in the news, but he blusters that she’ll be safe if she follows his clues, because he’ll protect her.

Min-hee spits back that she doesn’t need his help, but she’s got it backwards — he needs her help. Dae-chul tries to slink off on this oh-so-dramatic revelation, but Min-hee stops him to tell him to lose the mask next time, or else. I love that he’s trying so hard to be all mysterious, and she’s not having it.

The thief wakes up to find masked Dae-chul sitting on his bed, looking disgusted. HAHA. Dae-chul puts him in a headlock and tells him to turn himself in, throwing him to the floor and twisting him like a pretzel.

The thief is horrified that the masked man knows of his night-time activities, and nods that he’ll confess to the police. Dae-chul cracks him on the face one more time and warns that this is the last time he’ll go easy on the guy.

Song-ho’s got information from the prostitute, that CEO Park has been going to the Philippines every month for five years, and he’d only been back a few days before his murder. She’d said he’d been talking on the phone with someone, and had been very upset that day.

He’d yelled that he wouldn’t die alone, and would take whoever he was talking to with him. He’d threatened everyone, even “the chairman,” and Min-hee says they have to find the phone records of whoever he was talking with. But Detective Park says they already learned that the phone belongs to a homeless person.

We meet another prosecutor, SEO RI-NA (Hwang Sun-hee), who is the daughter of the Minister of Justice and seems to be a hardass with an angel’s face. She ignores the pleas of her own Chief Prosecutor boss to go easy on a friend of his, telling him that if he doesn’t like her by-the-book approach, he can assign another prosecutor to the case.

Dae-chul and Ri-na are quite friendly, even hugging warmly. He asks for her father’s support, but she doesn’t think it will happen since her father wanted Dae-chul as a son-in-law and was refused. He jokes that he should change his mind in order to reap the connection benefits.

Ri-na tells Dae-chul he’d do better to stand with Song Man-suk from the Central office (the man in charge of the Evil Council of Evil… AKA the Prosecutor’s Society). He rejects that out of hand, but jokes that Song doesn’t have a daughter.

Ri-na seems to carry a torch for Dae-chul, but she’s left sitting alone when Min-hee wanders by and Dae-chul runs to talk to her. Min-hee’s predictably prickly, and Dae-chul is all, “I was just gonna say hi, geez.” So cute. He remembers she said they aren’t close, but when she admits that maybe they’re a little close, he gets all giddy.

The thief sneaks out with his suitcase, heading to the airport early to meet his dim girlfriend. He reassures her that everything is fine, taking himself off to the restroom. He checks the stalls and settles in for some business.

—and looks up to see masked Dae-chul sitting on the stall wall, HA. He finds himself gagged, as Dae-chul tells him he’s missed his plane. The thief breaks, saying that this time he really will turn himself in, but Dae-chul is more concerned with the breaking-and-entering and obstruction of evidence.

He tells the thief that if he returns the money, and tell the cops everything he knows about CEO Park, he’ll forgive the other infractions. The thief swears he knows nothing, so Dae-chul offers him a choice — report him, or beat him up?

Cut to: the thief at the station, returning the money out of good citizenship. HAHAHAsnort. He says that every month, he picked up some money from a subway locker for CEO Park, and they can check the CCTV for the person who left it.

The subway CCTV does in fact show a man leaving a bag in the subway locker, and a quick shot of his face proves that it’s the hitman. Detective Park recognizes him as Lee Jang-kwon, who he caught fifteen years ago for murder. Strangely, though there was plenty of evidence, the Seoul Violent Crimes Unit took him away and he was cleared of all charges. Min-hee asks Park to find Hitman Lee, but not to contact him — it’s the person behind him that she wants.

Ri-na talks with her father about the Just Prosecutor’s Society, of which Central District Attorney Song is in charge. She mentions that it’s only for elite prosecutors, and that it’s all about power. Her father angrily says he wants to weed out all of them, and Ri-na counters that from their perspective, he’s the weed.

Detective Park and Song-ho follow Hitman Lee, snapping pics when he meets with President Jo. When Min-hee finds out that President Jo used to be a detective, she complains that this will be harder than she thought.

Jo tells Hitman Lee to spend the night in a hotel instead of going home, then makes a call to someone who just got transferred to the Gangnam Police Department. It’s not clear what they’re discussing, but Jo asks the person to look into something for him.

Min-hee takes their information about CEO Park (that he owned a building in the Philippines and ran an illegal gambling ring) to Dae-chul, concluding that whoever was behind the gambling ring had CEO Park killed and hired Hitman Lee to do it. Dae-chul asks about the other man in the photos, President Jo, prompting Min-hee to request a warrant to search his office.

Playing the hardnosed prosecutor to the hilt, Dae-chul pretends to reject their evidence, saying their assumptions aren’t enough to go on. Min-hee tells him to use his connections, but he goes all pitiful, saying he’s got none since he just came to the Seoul office. HAHA, he actually agrees when Min-hee says he’s got no guts.

Min-hee storms out of the office, furious at Dae-chul’s lack of spine and the way he waxed poetic about Ri-na’s awesomeness when she came in to be introduced. Song-ho likes her though, because of her father’s connections, and thinks she’ll be of big help to them.

And he’s right, since Ri-na is currently wondering why the Central Office closed up the case when there were so many holes in the evidence. Dae-chul eggs her on, saying there’s got to be someone behind it, and turns the case over to her.

President Jo gets wind of the continued interest in the case and complains to Hyun-woong, who barely quirks an eyebrow to hear that Min-hee is behind it. Interestingly, he displays a bigger reaction to hear that Ri-na is the prosecutor. Jo says he’ll block the police, tasking Hyun-woong with blocking the prosecutor.

Hyun-woong actually declines, based on Ri-na being the Minister of Justice’s daughter. Jo just laughs, understanding now why they’re making such a fuss, and says he’ll deal with it his way and tells Hyun-woong to just clean up afterward. But Hyun-woong isn’t as pliable as before, asking why he has to clean up President Jo’s filth. Oh dear. Jo says that’s between him and his father, so Hyun-woong asks what exactly is between them.

Whatever it is, it bothers Hyun-woong greatly and he sits at home later, drinking alone. When Joong-ho arrives, Hyun-woong slaps on his usual affable expression and says it’s just a difficult case he’s on. He remembers overhearing his father on the phone making arrangements to meet someone at the airport, “since you’re the real CEO of our company.”

But after he hangs up, Joong-ho looks disturbed, and holds Prosecutor Song’s business card. Hyun-woong recalls President Jo’s words that the person you can never trust, is the one you think is your closest friend and business partner.

We see Joong-ho betray Dae-chul’s father to Prosecutor Song Man-suk, who had needed a good case to propel himself to the Central Office. He’d called in President Jo (then a detective) to arrest Dad when he re-entered the country.Joong-ho had gotten great fortune, Prosecutor Song had gotten a promotion, and Jo got an unbreakable connection with two very powerful men.

Now Hyun-woong knows why he has to protect President Jo, and what kind of man his father is. While I don’t think Hyun-woong is necessarily a good guy — he seems more opportunistic than truly bad — he does seem pretty rocked by this revelation.

Staring yet again at the articles about his father and Joong-ho, Dae-chul swears to get his father’s revenge. He visits the Daesang Money Exchange, nearly running into Hitman Lee on the stairs. Lee talks with Jo, who tells him not to kill Min-hee, just put her in the hospital a little bit.

Hitman Lee balks a bit about roughing up a cop, so Jo promises that if he does this one thing, he’ll release the hold he has on Lee. Once Lee agrees and leaves, Jo’s calm demeanor drops and he rages about those police bastards, and how dare they mess with him, as Dae-chul witnesses this scary display through the window.

Min-hee gets her warrants and heads out, but her car has been blocked in and she’s forced to walk. Hitman Lee follows on a motorcycle, planning to stage a hit-and-run. But luckily, Min-hee gets a heads-up text from her masked protector just in time to dodge Hitman Lee as he tries to mow her down.

She falls and Lee aims the motorcycle right at her, but just before he hits her, Dae-chul shows up and throws a rock at his helmet, and the cycle swerves. Dae-chul actually slides down the stair railing on his feet, but his cool entrance is marred when he tries to kick Lee and hits a tree instead, HA.

But he recovers in time to stop Lee’s motorcycle, again just inches from Min-hee, who suddenly seems unable to do anything but sit on the stairs and wait to be rescued. I thought she said she didn’t need a protector? Dae-chul slickly spins her out of the way and grapples with Lee and his Motorcycle of Doom. As he holds back the cycle by sheer force of will, he and Min-hee lock eyes.

COMMENTS

So yeah, as Saya said in her recap last week, there’s just way too many corrupted old men in this show for me to keep them all straight. I’m getting a headache just trying to remember who’s good and who’s bad, who is whose father, who is whose benefactor, and who’s in which evil pocket. I’m honestly confused as to what President Jo is up to, though I’m not sure if that’s because I’m not supposed to know, or the show is just not presenting it’s mystery plot very well. My kneejerk reaction is to just not care all that much, rather than be intrigued enough to want to find out, though I genuinely hope it’s just me being dense rather than a failing in the storytelling. Hopefully things will clear up in future episodes.

Conversely, I do find Dae-chul and his revenge trajectory quite compelling, because at least what the show lacks in clarity, it makes up for in interesting, likeable characters. Dae-chul is such an intriguing hero, because he’s got all these high-flying ideas of being this bad-ass avenger who swoops in and catches the bad guys and saves the fair maiden. Only problem is, though he’s pretty good at swooping at the baddies, the fair maiden wants no part of being saved, and that cracks me right up. And who can blame her, when she’s been on her own her whole life, and her self-appointed savior can’t even make his big Savior Speech without stammering because she intimidates him so badly? It’s adorable that, even after all these years, and after creating this cool superhero alter-ego, one look at Min-hee has him blushing and nervous all over again. (And I adore the running gag where Min-hee keeps almost calling Dae-chul a son of a bitch, but not quite.)

Speaking of Min-hee, I credit Kim Sun-ah’s incredible acting chops for taking such a prickly, angry character and still making us love her and want good things for her. She’s got every reason to be angry, given that her entire existence is due to a terrible act of violence that not only took her mother from her (as I’m assuming her mother gave up on life and died in childbirth), but makes her question her right to even be here every day of her life. Who wouldn’t be incredibly angry at the world, knowing they were the result of a heinous act against a woman, and possibly the reason she died? It’s a testament to Min-hee’s strength as a person that she dedicates her life to catching the man who is responsible for her mother’s death, even though at this point, it’s a near-impossible task. I ache for her pain and probable failure, at the same time that I respect her commitment.

I will admit to some disappointments with Min-hee, who is purported to be a take-no-prisoners cop who can take care of herself and ignores the rules as long as the bad guys are caught. But I fully expected, there at the end when Hitman Lee was trying to run her down, for her to get up and kick some ass along with Dae-chul. But instead she just sat there and simpered like a distressed maiden, waiting for the big strong man to save her, and I think she’s capable of more than that. Come on Show, you have a strong, smart, capable lady-cop here, don’t make her wilt into a silly little helpless female just to the hero can look good! I’d much rather see them team up and fight crime together — make it happen!

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