Mrs. Cop: Episode 5

by LollyPip

Young-jin’s first order of business is to finish assembling her team, which turns out to be a lot more amusing than anyone could have imagined. Their first case could reel in a bigger fish than they expected, but a sudden case creates a temporary distraction. Meanwhile the new team is having growing pains – will they be able to get along well enough to solve these cases?

EPISODE 5 RECAP

Young-jin speaks with an ajussi at the funeral of a woman, and the air is fairly crackling with animosity between the two. He acknowledges that she probably wants to kill him, but thanks her for coming anyway.

She’s so lost in her thoughts that she nearly rear-ends a truck, and we see that ten years ago, she’d been to visit this man in prison. Evidently he’s responsible for her father’s death, and she says in a defeated voice that she doesn’t see how he can go on living. Even after a decade, she still feels like she’s dying. That’s why she’s here — to go on living.

The man says it sounds like she’s forgiving him, and she says she’s ready to do just that if he sincerely begs. He says he’s sorry, but not to forgive him. Young-jin complains that he’s just pretending to be pathetic, and orders him to ask for forgiveness. She grows furious, screaming at him, but he only calmly says that someday, he will ask for her forgiveness.

A woman pickets a construction company, with a sign saying that her husband’s death on the job wasn’t an accident — ah, it looks like the site of President Kang’s big construction project. She’s joined by a more organized group of picketers also staging a protest, who tell her to get lost.

The police arrive, led by Do-young, and they stand in between the woman and the organized protesters as if to protect her. Jin-woo is on traffic duty, and he moves as if to step in when the protesters get rowdy, but Do-young orders him back to his station.

Do-young and Jin-woo get into a verbal scuffle of their own — he wants to calm down the protesters, while she’s more interested in asserting her authority. Their distraction allows the protesters to grab the picketing woman and throw her to the ground, and Jin-woo runs in to help the woman. He’s hit by a bat-wielding protester, and that flips a switch — he starts throwing protesters around right and left.

When the dust settles, Do-young asks him if he’s a gangster or something, attacking people who have an assembly permit. Okay maybe they had a permit, but they attacked a woman and none of your cops did anything. Jin-woo just blandly says that he’s off the clock now and goes home, heh.

That night, Jin-woo drinks soju and eats instant ramyun alone in the dark, and he gets a text from Young-jin telling him to stop being such a coward and give her an answer on the job offer. He throws the phone down and covers his head with his pillow.

Do-young approaches Young-jin at the station, and asks to be made part of her team. Jae-duk laughs, because she could get promoted faster if she stayed in the regular police department, but Do-young says she wants to catch criminals. She swears to do anything Young-jin asks of her, and won’t leave without an answer. Did Young-jin just snort-laugh?

Do-young means it too, even plunking herself down to lunch with them, which Jae-duk thinks is just the funniest thing ever. Her eagerness wins over Jae-duk, and her good looks don’t hurt with Se-won, either. Finally Young-jin agrees to let her on the team — if she can bring a certain criminal in within three days. Of course, she doesn’t realize that Young-jin mostly gave her the test to get rid of her.

A hesitant Jin-woo arrives, saying that he’ll join the team, but his deadline was yesterday and Young-jin says he’s too late. He accepts this easily, but she stops him and gives him one more chance — the same chance she gave Do-young, to bring in a criminal within three days.

The problem is, she gave them both the same criminal, a man named Bae Dal-hwan. Jin-woo doesn’t even take the info sheet, just the man’s photo, and Young-jin laughs at his back that he’s really out of it. Se-won and Jae-duk know that Dal-hwan is impossible to catch, and assume that Young-jin doesn’t mean to hire either hopeful, but she keeps her thoughts to herself.

Do-young goes about her search methodically, deducing Dal-hwan’s probable location based on recent traffic tickets. Each ticket was given out for a different luxury car but all in the daytime, so he’s not working as a designated driver.

Jin-woo, on the other hand, goes to some loan shark contacts of his (who call him “hyung-nim,” interestingly) and pays them to find anyone who might know Dal-hwan. Jin-woo’s just full of secrets, isn’t he?

The man who apparently knows Dal-hwan, some guy named Carlos, prefers to pull a knife on Jin-woo than tell him where Dal-hwan is. Jin-woo takes down his cronies in about three seconds, and Carlos hits his knees respectfully. He stammers that he hasn’t seen Dal-hwan in a while, so Jin-woo tells him to find someone who has.

Jin-woo’s search takes him through the seedy underbelly of the city (I love how he just wearily sighs when he has to chase another scummy guy), while Do-young questions mechanics and aegyo’s local police. Jin-woo finds Dal-hwan first, and of course the man makes a run for it.

Do-young has found his location too, arriving just in time to see him escaping after throwing a passing woman at Jin-woo. She pulls her car over right in his path, and opens her door to trip him when he passes. She sits on him and cuffs one hand, Jin-woo arrives and cuffs the other hand, and they stare at each other in surprise when they realize who it is.

HAHAHA, they each handcuff themselves to Dal-hwan, and sit for a nice long argument over who actually caught him. When they hit the subway for the ride back to the station, Dal-hwan is so embarrassed that he actually offers to pay for a taxi himself, then loudly yells to anyone who’ll listen that he’s not really a bad guy. This is the best thing EVER.

There’s another argument when Jin-woo urgently needs a restroom, and neither he nor Do-young are willing to uncuff themselves from Dal-hwan. Jin-woo finally relents, but when he comes out of the bathroom, Do-young and Dal-hwan are gone. Of course.

With one hand now free, Dal-hwan nicks a hairpin from a woman’s bun, surreptitiously picks the lock on his cuff, and runs. He trips over a biker allowing Do-young to catch up, and she nearly gets him re-cuffed before he breaks free again. Jin-woo shows up and takes down Dal-hwan, and they double-cuff themselves to him again.

This is how they present him to Young-jin, each claiming to be the one who really caught him (Do-young caught him first, but Jin-woo takes credit for catching him again when she lost him). Poor Dal-hwan is frazzled and meek after his bad day, asking why Young-jin did this when he promised to be good and she even got him a job. She apologizes, saying she didn’t really think they’d bring him in, and lets him go. Wait, so he didn’t even do anything? HA.

Now Young-jin has a problem — which of them does she hire? Se-won thinks it’s only fair to hire them both, since they did bring the guy in. But Jae-duk gives her an out that technically, they were supposed to bring him in alone, and neither of them did that. Young-jin calls for a vote, and it’s unanimous — both of them are hired.

They go out for drinks at Jae-soo’s (Jae-duk’s wife) restaurant, and Young-jin makes the team assignments. Since Jae-duk would rather be fired than partner with either new hire, he’s paired with Se-won (who’s thrilled to no longer be the maknae now that there are rookies to boss around) and Do-young and Jin-woo are paired together. This is gonna be so fun.

Do-young asks why Young-jin calls Jae-soo “Chief Hong,” and Young-jin explains that it’s because she’s been the heart of the Violent Crimes division for a long time. She knows how it all works, takes care of the detectives, and knows more than most rookies.

Jin-woo goes outside for some air, and Do-young joins him to try to make a fresh start. She knows he doesn’t like her, but she promises to do her best as his partner. He pulls age rank a little and says he’ll be using banmal from now on — he’s not mean about it, but it puts Do-young in her place.

The new team drink, dance, and sing all night, and Nam-jin finds them in the morning, passed out together like a pile of puppies. Of course, she makes sure to take pictures before waking them. She threatens to put the photos up on the police website, but they all just go back to sleep.

President Kang meets with another powerful man he’s got under his thumb, and mentions how he helped him get rid of his company and set up a monopoly. He wants the man to do something for him, and he eagerly agrees, but we’re not privy to the details.

Do-young is so excited for her first day at work in Violent Crimes, taking over all of Se-won’s previous rookie duties. They work out their social awkwardness, him allowing her to use banmal since he’s younger, but her calling him Sunbae Lee since he’s her work senior.

Their first case is a sex trafficking ring that preys on kids who have run away from home. She passes out information sheets on the “runaway families” that the kids form on their own, and sets everyone to work finding the kids and looking for the internet ads that target them.

Some time later, a couple of thugs skulk through the hall of a seedy motel, and burst into a particular room, only to find Young-jin in the bed pointing a gun at them instead of the ajussi they were expecting. The men run out of the room, only to run smack into the rest of the team, and are promptly arrested.

The scam is that they recruit teenage girls to sleep with men, then blackmail the men. While they’re talking to the thugs outside, one of them gets a call from a “President Wang,” and Jin-woo wonders if it’s the same President Wang that’s one of their bosses. Young-jin tells the thug to answer the call as normal.

The thug claims he’s never seen President Wang and only takes orders from him by phone, so they’re forced to let the young girl they just rescued stand and wait as bait.

The team groans at the interruption when a murder is called in near their location, and when Jong-ho calls Young-jin, she doesn’t even say hello but starts in complaining about why her team can’t go to the murder scene. He just tells her that Chief Yeom is on his way to the scene, and to get there before him. Argh.

Young-jin decides to continue with their plan to bait the customer and see if it’s the same President Wang, so the young girl waits in the square for him to show up. She’s nervous so Do-young takes her a drink, and a suspicious-looking man walks by just as the girl addresses Do-young as “Detective.” Oops.

Of course President Wang never shows, so the team pulls out and goes to the murder scene. Jong-ho fusses at Young-jin for taking her sweet time, so that now she has nothing at the crime scene investigated to report to Chief Yeom when he arrives.

The victim is a young woman in her early thirties whose throat was cut, but there are no fignerprints on the scene and no murder weapon. Chief Yeom assumes this means the killer wiped down the scene before leaving, but Young-jin contradicts him — it could have been a boyfriend.

She states that the boyfriend was even here the night of the murder. The victim’s entire apartment and wardrobe are devoid of color, everything in shades of grey, except for one thing — a set of matching bright red lingerie drying on the rack. The bright color must be a boyfriend’s preference, since the victim’s style is one of no color at all.

There are also two wineglasses in the sink, so the victim must have had a glass of wine with a lover, then was killed. Ha, I love her saucy wink at Jong-ho, after his comments that she wouldn’t have anything to tell Chief Yeom.

Back at the station Young-jin begs Jong-ho to give this case to another team, because murder cases take all of your free time. The news that there’s a one million won bonus for solving the case makes her pause, but she doesn’t agree to take the case until Jong-ho ups it to two-and-a-half million won (about $2100). Do-young watches them negotiate and shakes her head.

She’s still disgusted when the team sets up a ladder game to determine who gets the bonus when they’ve solved the murder, and she finally explodes. Why are they playing a game instead of investigating? Young-jin argues that the reward will just motivate them to work harder.

The team go to speak with a Professor Jung about the murdered woman, Eun-jung, though I notice his wife looks more nervous than he does. Young-jin asks when he last slept with Eun-jung, all, “Ma’am, you knew your husband was cheating, right?” when everyone looks scandalized.

Young-jin says that Professor Jung was caught on CCTV at Eun-jung’s apartment around the time of her murder, and informs him that he’s the prime suspect but she doesn’t think it was him. It will be simpler for him to answer her questions than arrest him, so she asks him to just cooperate.

After, when they’re walking back to the car, Do-young asks if Young-jin shouldn’t have been more respectful and not asked Professor Jung those questions in front of his wife. Young-jin says his wife already knew, and anyway she’s not interested in helping cheaters hide their lies.

Do-young turns to Jin-woo for understanding that Young-jin was ruining a perfectly good family, but Jin-woo deadpans that a man cheating on his wife isn’t part of a perfectly good family. Good point. He tells her not to argue so much, and just watch and learn while at crime scenes.

Jae-duk and Se-won check out the flower shop where Eun-jung worked, and report that a female employee didn’t show up for work today. Do-young questions a deliveryman, who says he heard Eun-jung and Professor Jung arguing the night she died.

Do-young works late into the night, even checking Professor Jung’s phone records. Wow, he called Eun-jung more than he called his own wife. Do-young starts to call Jin-woo but stops herself, and keeps working alone.

Young-jin watches the CCTV, where it’s clear that the man who visited Eun-jung on the night of her death was Professor Jung. But then a woman shows up onscreen, and runs out soon after. Her face isn’t visible on camera, but the license plate of the taxi she speeds off in, is.

Young-jin accesses the black box of that taxi, and now she sees the woman’s face. At first she doesn’t recognize her, but then she snaps her fingers – Young-jin knows who it is.

COMMENTS

I’ll just admit right here that I still have no idea what this show is about. The mother-daughter aspect has pretty much gone by the wayside, and I hope that’s just because we still seem to be in the part of the show that’s setting up the main conflict. I’m guessing the main point is “President Kang is a bad guy, and we need to stop him,” but each episode really seems to be about a totally different thing. We didn’t even see President Kang but for a few moments (that i didn’t understand, if anyone can enlighten me I’d be ever so grateful) and Young-jin’s daughter wasn’t in this episode at all. So I’m a bit confused at this point.

However, since things picked up last week and now that the team has been formed and is getting to work, I kinda don’t mind that I still don’t understand what the driving conflict of the drama is supposed to be. The characters are great, and I love how they’re coming together as a little team (and, I’m assuming, will continue to bond even more), so whatever they do at this point is fine with me. Chase sex offenders, investigate murders, take down President Kang and expose Chief Yeom’s corruption — it’s all good with me. Maybe that makes me a little shallow as a recapper, but I’m also a viewer, and as a viewer it’s my opinion that Mrs. Cop is becoming a show I’m watching mostly for the fascinating relationships between the characters. But that’s not to say that I’ll be happy if things stay this way — eventually they’re going to have to give us a conflict and a plotline that gives us a compelling reason to keep watching to the end. And if Young-jin’s struggle to balance her work and family life doesn’t ever happen like we were promised, I’m gonna get grumpy.

I’m especially happy about the way the team is shaping up, and how each team member is such a unique and fascinating character type. There’s Young-jin, the no-nonsense but quirky leader whose methods may seem strange but always make sense in the end; Jae-duk the workhorse; Se-won the insecure maknae who’s worried that people care more about his looks than his skill. But I still especially love the newbies Jin-woo and Do-young, and I adore that they’re partnered, because they make such a great pair of opposites.

Do-young is such a classic rookie — starry-eyed and idealistic, determined to use the exact letter of the law to take down the bad guys. But she’s already beginning to learn that her idea of a pitch-perfect police force all working together towards a common goal isn’t the reality, and her disillusionment is darn cute. Luckily she’s got a pretty damn good teacher in Young-jin, who knows how to work the system and look at things from a different angle, so that even though she may come at things in a way that seems wrong at first, she always knows exactly what she’s doing. I’m looking forward to watching Do-young learn to do that, too, because she’s definitely got the intelligence, if she can learn to relax a little.

Jin-woo is still a mystery, and such a sad one at that. All we know about him is that he had a girlfriend who died, possibly by her own hand, and that he was there when it happened. This gave him a core of rage that’s bubbling just barely under the surface, and it comes out at any opportunity (Young-jin even had to warn him to be gentle with the pimp he was arresting). Lucky for Jin-woo, his fighting skill is good enough to keep him from getting hurt, but that can’t last forever. He’s going to have to learn to simmer down and control that rage, and address the root cause of it, if he wants to stay on this team without getting anyone killed.

But I’m still enjoying the new flow of the show — it just feels like it’s settled into its groove, and hopefully that will continue. It’s a shame that the rough first couple of episodes probably ran off a lot of viewers, but I’m glad I hung in there. Even without a firm direction (yet?), the show is a lot more enjoyable than I would have expected, and I can only see it getting better.

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