Mrs. Cop: Episode 4

by LollyPip

Now this is more like it! Young-jin and her new team begin the murder investigation, and it looks like we finally have some brains on board. Do-young is an especially valuable addition to the team, and Young-jin is finally learning to work within the system and still get what she wants. I knew she had it in her.

EPISODE 4

Min Do-young confronts the picketer and takes her sign, demanding that she leave the premises. Witnessing this display, Young-jin gives the sign back to the mother, telling her that she has to get an assembly permit to be here with her daughter. But her daughter can sit on a nearby bench, and she can stand alone — thus, no assembly is occurring, and no permit is needed. HA, I love it.

Do-young takes offense, insisting that it’s the police’s job to enforce laws, not help people break them. Young-jin counters that they were breaking the law and she helped them stop, so what’s the problem?

Jong-ho breaks up the brewing conflict and sends Young-jin inside, poking at her for causing trouble already. When she’s gone, he gently teases Do-young — how could she not recognize the detective whose reputation she idolizes? Oh, her horrified expression is priceless.

Of course Chief Yeom is opposed to bringing Young-jin back to his department, but he’s overridden by his superior. The reporters somehow figured out the truth, that the detectives didn’t even try to investigate Mi-kyung’s death, and that Young-jin is responsible for discovering that it was a murder.

Chief Yeom reports to President Kang that the police will have to find a culprit now. He says it’s out of his hands because the story has gone high-profile, but Kang says that while the police may need a culprit, he needs his son. He tells Yeom to keep his eye on the special investigation team, but Yeom says this is as far as he can go — he can’t help Kang any further.

Young-jin listens to Mi-kyung’s mother talk about her daughter, honestly saying that she hated her daughter’s talent. She herself never amounted to much, and I get the feeling that she worried that having some talent would make her daughter disappointed if she failed. Young-jin swears again to catch her killer so that Mi-kyung can leave the world without any grudges, Mom thanks her sincerely, and both women tear up.

At a bar over drinks, Jong-ho asks Chief Yeom if he knew all along that Mi-kyung’s death was a murder. Yeom lies that he didn’t know until after he saw the report, but he admits that the prosecutors and the girls from that production company have an “arrangement,” and the prosecutors have asked him to cover it up.

Jong-ho wants names, but Yeom won’t give any more information. He does tell Jong-ho to let Young-jin catch the real killer, because he’s also curious who it is.

Technically Jong-ho is in charge of the investigation team, but he introduces Young-jin as the real boss on this case. The first person she notices on her new team is Do-young, who is all respect now that she knows who Young-jin is. Young-jin breaks the ice by smacking Do-young on the butt for being so tall, ha.

Meanwhile, President Kang’s people advise him to just get rid of President Han, the guy who helped make Mi-kyung’s death look like a murder (who is also the president of her production company). Kang thinks about it, then tells them not to silence him — in fact, get him to talk. If he turns himself in, they’re all home-free.

President Kang meets with a young man named Prosecutor Go, and invites him to join him in a round of golf this weekend, which will include Congressman Kim. Prosecutor Go knows this is Kang’s way of bringing him onto his team, and he doesn’t look entirely pleased at the prospect. We don’t see what answer he gives to the invitation.

Secretary Yoon hands over a large envelope of money and papers to President Han, telling him he’ll pay the balance when “the job” is done. When President Han demands full payment up front, Yoon pulls a switchblade on him.

Young-jin briefs her new team on the case details, and Do-young says that she doesn’t believe the suicide note on Mi-kyung’s blog was written by Mi-kyung. Everyone has a unique “voice” when they write, and she took the time to read the girl’s entire blog — the writing style in the suicide note was very different from the rest of the blog posts.

Young-jin orders a search for the IP address so they can figure out how the post was made on her password-protected blog. Do-young nearly expires from happiness when Young-jin tells the rest of the team to be thorough, like Do-young was with this important discovery.

Se-won finds that the management company keeps a strict eye on the trainees’ online activities, and only the blog owners have their passwords. But Do-young discovers that one blog post was edited after Mi-kyung’s death, from an internet cafe. Do-young and Se-won check out the cafe’s CCTV footage, and there’s President Han at one of the cubicles.

Young-jin orders a copy of Han’s phone records, and a tail put on him at all times. It turns out his alibi of being out of town at the time of the death doesn’t check out, either. Now his phone is turned off, and Jong-ho thinks this is a pretty clear sign that he’s involved.

Knowing that this is President Kang’s plan, Chief Yeom tells them to go arrest President Han. He meets with Kang to say that Han will be arrested soon, but that they’ll have to release him due to lack of hard evidence. Kang says not to worry about that, because Han will turn himself in and confess.

President Kang calls President Han where he’s hiding out, and soon after, Young-jin gets notice that Han has surrendered himself. He spins a story about Mi-kyung drinking too much, and when he told her to stop and grabbed her arm, she pulled away forcefully and fell.

Chief Yeom makes a lot of noise, accusing Han of lying, and Young-jin has to order him out of the interrogation room. Han continues that, when he realized she’d hit her head and died, he got scared and ran. He admits that he knew the CCTV was turned off that day at his company building, and that he was the one who turned it off.

Later he gets a female visitor, and whispers something to her that makes her gasp. He tells her to just do as he says and she agrees, though she seems terrified. She’s listed in the visitor log as Han’s girlfriend, though Young-jin looks skeptical.

She hooks President Han up to a lie detector, but Young-jin is more interested in his answers themselves than their veracity. She realizes that he’s quoting word-for-word exactly what he said at his confession. She repeats the questions and he answers in the identical wording again.

It’s clear that Han is covering for someone and that his “confession” is rehearsed, though of course, Chief Yeom argues when Young-jin tries to explain this to him. He orders Young-jin to wrap things up and turn everything over to the prosecutor, leaving her sputtering in frustration. Did you really think he’d changed?

She confronts President Han, saying that no man who just committed murder would stay in a fancy hotel with a woman, ordering steak and wine like he did. She asks why he’s paying for someone else’s crime, promising to find out soon when he dodges her questions.

Young-jin finds Se-won and Do-young cleaning up the special task force room, and Se-won says that a Prosecutor Go is assigned to the case. Of course he is — it’s the same prosecutor who got the lucrative offer from President Kang. Se-won and Do-young urge her to stop, that confronting the prosecutor won’t solve anything, but naturally she ignores advice and goes to talk to him anyway.

As expected Prosecutor Go dismisses her concerns, but Young-jin begs him for more time to catch the real killer. He tells her to behave more like a detective if she’s so determined, and go check out the crime scene again instead of standing here talking to him. Wait, did he just help her? I can’t read him at all.

Young-jin ends up back in the room where Mi-kyung died, though she doesn’t know it, and runs into a couple of officers about to clean up the scene. She allows them to start while she’s looking around, and the woman who visited President Han in prison comes in and goes straight for a particular camera on a shelf. It’s interesting that she insists on taking this camera, since the man seemed to have a collection of them.

She hustles out with the camera and starts to take out the memory card when she gets to car, but Young-jin gets in the car with her and asks for the card. Young-jin gives her a choice, hand it over now and go on her way, or come to the station and they can look at the contents together.

Secretary Yoon tells President Kang that all is going according to plan — President Han is in jail, and the crime scene has been closed. President Kang and Jae-won plan to leave for the Phillipines, but Jae-won asks why he’s got to leave the country now that everything is fine. His father says you can’t trust people, and that he’s not safe until Han has been officially imprisoned.

Young-jin, Do-young, and Jae-duk watch the video on the memory card, which had recorded everything that happened that night — Jae-won’s assault of Mi-kyung, and her fall and subsequent death. They worry that President Han will discover they got ahold of the video once his girlfriend tells him, but even then there’s no reason for him to mention it to President Kang, because he was filming it secretly.

Se-won brings the news that the Kangs are leaving the country in a few hours, so Young-jin sends Do-young to get a warrant for Jae-won’s arrest. She brings Jae-duk with her even though he’s not on the team (though technically none of them are, now that it’s been officially disbanded).

The team pose as travelers at the airport, and when the Kangs arrive, Jae-won notices Do-young and gives her the nastiest wink ever. Young-jin boldly walks right up to Jae-won and places him under arrest, and of course President Kang’s kneejerk reaction is to start issuing threats.

Jae-won makes a run for it, barely getting ten steps before Se-won tackles him to the ground and Do-young cuffs him. I love the impressed grin Se-won shoots Do-young’s way, hee.

Young-jin sits with Jae-won in the interrogation room, and she wipes the smirk off his face by telling him that President Han is in the next room and she just finished talking with him. She requests politely that Jae-won say he didn’t kill the girl, and throws photos of her dead body in front of him.

Of course Jae-won denies everything, and Young-jin repeats several times his claim that he didn’t know her and didn’t kill her, until he explodes in frustration. She whips the laptop around so he can see himself forcing the drugged drink down Mi-kyung’s throat and throwing her down where she hits her head, and he goes satisfyingly pale.

Triumphant, Young-jin asks one last time, “You didn’t kill her, right?” She tells him with a sweet smile to keep saying that, and the prosecution will go that much faster. She asks him one last time if he killed Mi-kyung, and starts to walk out of the room. A tiny voice calls out, “I did it all.” She goads him to speak up until he finally shoots out of his chair to scream, “I KILLED HER!!”

Having seen the whole thing, Do-young waits to tell Young-jin how amazing that was, and Young-jin stops to ask if that was Do-young’s first time to cuff a killer. Do-young says that it was, beaming when Young-jin says she was very composed and good at it. Do-young’s little happy dance once she’s alone is adorable.

Young-jin gives the shortest report ever to Chief Yeom, and when he calls Secretary Yoon he’s immediately put on the defensive — there was video proof, what could they do? President Kang is so furious he’s practically turned to stone, and he orders Yoon to look into Choi Young-jin.

Young-jin brings flowers to Mi-kyung’s resting place, and gives her diary to her mother. Mom looks through it and sees how happy her daughter was, and smiles even as she cries. There’s one photo that Mi-kyung took of her mother on her birthday, though Mom didn’t know it, and a tiny message… I miss you… Mom… Mom breaks down to know that her daughter was so near and she never knew.

Young-jin and Ha-eun go biking in the park, cuddling and playing in the grass while Nam-jin watches. Later Nam-jin tells Young-jin that Ha-eun’s ballet teacher thinks she has real talent, and they discuss the logistics of letting her study dance more seriously. It would require more of a time commitment from Young-jin.

Young-jin drops the bomb that she’s been re-appointed to the Violent Crimes Division, but says that it’s only temporary and she’s declining making it permanent. However, if she gives a firm No, she’ll have to quit her job. Nam-jin blows up at her, and Young-jin wonders where she got that temper, ha.

The next day Jong-ho tries to talk Young-jin into joining his department, but he doesn’t wait for an answer, afraid she’ll say no. He does at least promise to help keep her from being fired if she doesn’t come to work the next day.

She stops for a drink with Jae-duk (I adore their friendship) and to discuss the matter, but his wife Jae-soo takes one look and knows she’s already made her decision. As a mother, she knows that Young-jin is mostly concerned about Ha-eun, and she grouses endearingly that it just ruins the child to be an overbearing mother.

Jae-soo jokes that soon enough, Ha-eun won’t want to speak to her mother at all, ha. Jae-duk wants to go join the Violent Crimes Division with her, but Young-jin still isn’t convinced.

Young-jin goes home to talk to Ha-eun, and I love that she actually asks permission to go back to her old job. She says that she will be busy again, and away from home often, and may even miss Ha-eun’s important days. Ha-eun starts to cry, but Young-jin promises that her mother’s heart will always be filled with nothing but her. ~tears~

Ha-eun bucks up and says that hey, she’s busy too, you know. She’s got ballet and friends and school, and won’t have much time to play with Mom anymore. But she also cries that she’ll always be thinking of her mom, and Young-jin glows with pride and hugs her not-so-little-anymore daughter.

There’s a little celebration when Young-jin shows up for her new job the next morning, with champagne and flowers. Se-won and Jae-duk are assigned to Young-jin’s team again, but she says she’ll need to pick some more team members. The first file she checks out is Han Jin-woo, the ex-Violent Crimes now-traffic cop she beat up, and he looks decidedly unpleased to see her when she goes to talk to him.

Of course, that’s because she intentionally illegally parks her car just to ruffle his feathers, but it takes the wind out of his sails when she offers him a job. She claims she’s trying to make him a better person who doesn’t get beat on by ajummas, ha, and leaves him her business card.

Jin-woo goes for a think by the river, and recalls his girlfriend, who died a year ago. We hear her voice apologizing tearfully, and Jin-woo begging her not to do it — it sounds as though she took her own life. He sighs and points his gun at his own head, tears streaming down his cheeks, but at the last second he puts the gun down and just cries.

Late that night Young-jin takes a call while still in the station, and she groans at the news she receives. She pulls a dog-eared photo of an older gentleman in uniform out of her planner, and cries.

A man is let out of his prison cell and soon finds himself in a car, enjoying the breeze through the window. He muses that it’s too nice of a day to die. He attends the funeral of an older woman, appearing as though he’s family, and he’s alone when Young-jin arrives to pay her respects.

They greet each other stiffly, and Young-jin mentions that his death sentence was converted to life in prison, and now he’s a model prisoner who’s being released in a month. She keeps her comments to herself since he’s in mourning, but promises to see him once he’s released.

She turns to go, but the man says quietly that she probably wanted to kill him, and thanks her for coming. Young-jin doesn’t speak, but only turns to give him an angry glare.

COMMENTS

Okay, now THIS is what I’m talking about! I knew the show had it in itself to do better, and it’s definitely improved by leaps and bounds this week from last week. It’s unfortunate that its shaky first two episodes weren’t better executed, and probably lost a lot of viewers, but I think that those of us who hung in there and gave it another shot are feeling very vindicated right about now. I know I am. I just knew that this drama had more to offer, and it’s starting to really deliver.

Young-jin has grown by leaps and bounds, and she showed much more restraint and clear-mindedness in solving this murder than she would have in the past. She proved to herself that she can still catch the killers, even against opposition from Chief Yeom, and even when all the evidence seems flimsy at best. (And by the way, I do think Prosecutor Go intended to help her when he suggested she check out the crime scene again, and I would love if he turns out to be a secret ally.) Young-jin has shown that, given a similar situation as the last time when she screwed everything up, she now knows how to make better, calmer choices and can catch the murderer within the law. The problem is, she’s made a very powerful enemy in the process, and I worry for what President Kang is going to do now that she’s on his radar.

Most notably, I just love this new team that’s forming, and I hope Jin-woo gets on board sooner rather than later. He seems on the brink of a breakdown, and could use a purpose and maybe even some friends. I didn’t see that coming, with his past loss and his suicidal thoughts, and it makes him about ten thousand times more interesting (though unexpectedly tragic). We’ve barely even touched on his character, and I already love him and want him to be happy.

I’m assuming that Young-jin will be getting Do-young on board as well, which would be a good move for the team and a benefit for Young-jin herself, as well. I think Do-young especially could have a lot of influence in keeping Young-jin on the right path when she wants to lose her temper and go off-course. I just adore Do-young already for her wide-eyed admiration of Young-jin, while she manages to still get things done in a timely and thorough fashion. She seems quite intelligent and brave, and willing to go above and beyond for her job — though if she has one flaw it could be that rigidity she displayed at the top of the episode, where she got a bit heavy-handed with the picketer. Hopefully she and Young-jin will be good for each other in that way — Young-jin can show Do-young how to be a more creative problem-solver, and Do-young can keep Young-jin from flying out of control when she gets emotional. (Also a quick nod to Lee Da-hee, who I’ve mainly seen in antagonist roles. She’s really impressing me with her capability as a protagonist — she’s freaking adorable, and I did not see that coming.)

I’m still left wanting more mother-daughter screen time, mainly because Young-jin and Ha-eun are just so cute together. Ha-eun is such a little carbon-copy of Young-jin, and it’s the most adorable thing ever. I know that the whole point is that Young-jin’s job takes her away from her child, but that doesn’t mean they never see each other. These two are the emotional heart of the show, and I get all misty whenever they have a scene together where they end up hugging and crying. More of that, please!

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