Mrs. Cop: Episode 16

by LollyPip

It looks like President Kang has finally gone too far, at least for Chief Yeom, who is already under investigation and not happy about being dragged into Kang’s schemes without permission. But the fire at the construction site provides Young-jin with a possible new opportunity to stop Kang, if she can manage to put the clues together, though it may require making a deal with the devil.

EPISODE 16 RECAP

Seung-woo offers to trade information with Young-jin — he’ll tell her how he was so certain President Kang wouldn’t tell that it was him on the black box video, if she’ll reveal why she wants to kill Kang. She tells him that Kang killed her father, and he leans in to tell his secret, in return for a favor.

He asks for Young-jin’s promise to kill President Kang, and she’s so appalled that she leaves without giving him an answer or getting the answer to her own question. Later Seung-woo sits in his prison cell alone, laughing with malicious delight.

Young-jin tells her team what happened with Seung-woo, who they all agree is nuts. Do-young updates everyone on the Western District Gang’s investigation — President Kang has a stake in a hotel and casino near the airport, and the gang manages both operations. Also, as a point of interest, it turns out that Secretary Yoon used to be a member of the gang.

They decide to go after the gangsters and hope that it gets them closer to nailing President Kang. Luckily the second-in-command of the gang just died of cancer and they expect the whole gang to be attending his funeral today. The entire team suits up and Jong-ho gives them permission to use their guns if necessary.

The plan is to wait until after the funeral when everyone is leaving, and arrest them all at once. Do-young gapes at Jin-woo’s arsenal of weapons while he sighs that there’s not much here that will make him look cool today, hee. He chooses a bludgeon and tells her to back him up with her gun. She tells him not to get hit, because guys who get hit are unattractive, and he can hardly hide his cheeky grin. So cute.

Jong-ho asks Young-jin to stay in the car for this one and stay safe, and she can’t resist poking him a bit about getting hurt the last time he helped in a fight. The cops cut off the bus carrying all the gangsters, and it’s an immediate brawl. Young-jin’s team goes in swinging hard while Jong-ho politely asks his group of gangsters to lie down, as a favor to him, HAHA.

Young-jin saves Jong-ho from nearly getting his head busted open by leveling a gangster with her taser, then he returns the favor by kicking a guy who’s about to hit her while she’s nagging him. Jin-woo is surrounded and starting to take a beating, but Do-young quickly takes down her attacker then shoots Jin-woo’s three attackers in the legs. Very nicely done.

She yells that she’s prepared to shoot more of them and orders everyone down, while Jin-woo watches her with the most beautiful look of pride on his face. It works, and the rest of the gangsters are quickly cuffed and arrested.

I actually feel a little bit bad for Secretary Yoon, whose job it is to tell President Kang that his entire gang has been arrested in one fell swoop. They worry that Kwon Sung-chul, the gang leader who’s already in custody, will be so shaken by this that he’ll start talking, so Kang orders the casino and hotel management duties reassigned.

Chief Yeom, still serving his one month suspension, receives a call from an informant. It seems that the superintendent had a meeting with Jong-ho, and that now Chief Yeom himself is being investigated.

Lawyer Kim talks to some reporters about the fire, telling them that KL Group will be paying double the usual compensation to the victims’ families, which is interesting since they were originally protesting because they weren’t being paid. Do-young especially thinks it’s strange, and that it doesn’t seem like a simple PR move to her.

Jae-duk says that with all the money the protest was costing them, it’s probably cheaper to cause an accident and pay off the families than to let the strike go on indefinitely. He’s got a good point, but it still makes no sense for KL Group to offer to pay double compensation. It’s unlike President Kang to be so generous.

Also, the business development director has been replaced after all, the new director being an Army veteran named Cho Yong-chan. Young-jin wants information on him as soon as possible, and she rushes out without explaining why. Knowing she’s well-connected, Jong-ho goes back to Madam Park, who tells him that Cho Yong-chan has been trying to get into Congress and is tight with Congressman Kim.

Young-jin’s team figures out that with this change in management, the potential profit for KL Group when Mi Rae City is finished increases by the tens of trillions of won. Whoa, the double payout to the fire victims’ families is nothing compared to that. But it also means that the fire was no accident, and that innocent people died in the name of money.

Young-jin goes to check out the site of the fire, which is still under investigation. Do-young and Jin-woo ask the jailed gang members but they don’t know anything about the fire, and the injured survivors aren’t in any shape to be of much help. The team go to the memorial for the workers who died, where it really hits home how tragic the loss is when they see the victims’ families mourning their loved ones.

President Kang is cackling over the news articles, of course, only concerned about the profit he’ll gain from this. Lawyer Kim reports that a sixth victim has died, and with the new director starting tomorrow they need to create some different, sensational news so that this situation dies down. She gets Kang’s blessing to leak information they have on a top celebrity’s alleged drug use, then he tells her to go spend some private time with Congressman Kim. Yuck, gross.

He also orders Secretary Yoon to go make sure one of the injured workers, who’s been talking a lot while in the hospital, shuts his mouth. Yoon offers the man a fat envelope of cash to stay quiet, though he doesn’t really have a choice with Yoon threatening his son if he speaks about seeing the arsonist.

Chief Yeom is furious to have been involved in the fire without his knowledge — all he knew was that Kang asked him to make sure there were no patrol cars in the area at the time of the accident. President Kang tries to spin it as if the striking workers were criminals, standing in the way of the economy, but Yeom isn’t so easy to convince these days.

He can’t believe Kang would kill off his own workers just to keep from paying their wages, having already figured out the larger reason for starting the fire. But Kang thinks it’s justified, since by replacing one director he can build more buildings and more apartments to house more people, and create more jobs. Wow, I think he actually believes he’s done a humanitarian thing.

Chief Yeom didn’t mind looking the other way when it was just criminals and gang members affected by it, but doing this to regular citizens is too much for him to swallow. He admits he’s corrupt and willing to sell out, but not when innocent people are being murdered. He tells President Kang that their association is over.

Nam-jin makes jjajangmyun for Ha-eun and her little boyfriend Jae-young, and she’s not above a little silly flirting with him when Ha-eun mouths off about her cooking. They all go to the park, unaware that they’re being watched by Jae-young’s estranged father — the same injured construction worker who was just bribed into silence by Secretary Yoon. I thought he looked familiar.

Despite the threat to his son’s safety, he goes to Young-jin and tells her that he saw the arsonist the night of the fire. He didn’t see him start the fire and he was wearing a mask, but he knows the man wasn’t one of the union workers. He tells her of his bribe and the threat, but he was too ashamed in front of his son to keep quiet.

The bribe is the proof they need that the fire was set intentionally, since why bribe a witness if there was nothing for him to see? Young-jin wants to focus on catching the arsonist, so they plan to re-investigate the scene of the fire and talk to the victims.

Able to look around the site of the fire alone this time, Young-jin notices hooks and clamps attached to the side of the building, where the arsonist climbed in and out safely. She also finds a cigarette butt that she sends for forensic processing.

Do-young and Jin-woo talk to the survivors, then meet with a Doctor Jo (EEEE, surprise cameo by Yoo Yeon-seok!) who tells them he found something strange in one of the autopsy results. But he’s distracted by Do-young’s looks, getting in close and giving her that heart-melting grin, until Jin-woo starts to bristle at him.

He persists in his flirtations, only looking at Do-young when he says that an autopsy showed that one of the victims died by strangulation, which is strange. Normally when there’s an explosion, people’s lungs are damaged by the heat and they die when their lungs fill with fluid. Essentially, they drown. Every victim died this way except one, who died of strangulation and a broken neck. He was dead before the fire caused the explosion that killed the other victims.

Sexy Doctor Jo gives Do-young his business card and asks for hers, which she hands over reluctantly (I know, I don’t get it either). He tries to invite her in for coffee but when she declines, he dangles the results of the DNA test on the cigarette butt to lure her into his office. HAHA, Jin-woo goes in instead, and makes Do-young wait outside.

At the station they report the findings on the DNA test done on the cigarette, which match one of the Western District gang members, Lee Jung-ho. They also tell the rest of the team about the victim who died of a broken neck, who they confirmed with the other workers had been on guard that night.

The puzzle is complete — someone climbed the building, killed the man on guard, and set the fire. Young-jin sends them out to arrest the man whose DNA is on the cigarette. But… didn’t they just arrest the entire gang?

Anyway, Young-jin goes to the gang leader Sung-chul again, but he’s still not talking. They go looking for the arsonist but he’s not at his home or any of his regular haunts, either. That would be because he’s dead, and Secretary Yoon disposes of his body in a river — you’d think he’d be better at it by now, but the body is found pretty soon afterward.

Jae-duk and Young-jin go to Jae-soo’s restaurant to drink and think about what to do next. Jae-duk is frustrated to death at never being able to catch the serious criminals, and Young-jin is uncharacteristically quiet, willing to wait for the autopsy report to make their next move.

She stays late at the office looking through the evidence again, but there’s nothing new to be found. She remembers Seung-woo’s request — he’ll give her information on President Kang if she promises to kill Kang. With no other options, she goes back to see him, just as he knew she would.

She agrees to kill President Kang and demands he tell her what he knows. He’s still willing but insists on a written contract, as assurance that she’ll keep her promise. She writes the contract and hands him the pen and paper, and he writes down his website ID and password.

Later when Young-jin logs onto the site, her eyes widen in shock at the list of names and dollar amounts — it’s a list of people President Kang has been bribing. She talks to Jong-ho, who is reeling from his own discovery that every time there was an incident involving KL Group, there was a flurry of calls between Chief Yeom and President Kang.

But he has no evidence that Yeom was taking any money, so Young-jin asks what he would do if there was evidence. He sighs that he couldn’t handcuff his boss and old friend, and she asks to meet with Chief Yeom before they do anything. Wouldn’t it be better if he turned himself in?

She finds Chief Yeom at his fishing spot, and he says he’s thinking of quitting the force and joining his wife and daughter in the States. Young-jin says sadly that he should go, and he thinks she’s joking at first, but she tells him that she found Kang’s slush fund list. They now have proof of all of his bribes, including Congressman Kim, Prosecutor go… and Chief Yeom.

She’s honest about how she got the information from Seung-woo, who was hired to build the KL Group’s computer security system and was able to hack in and get the list. She offers him a chance to turn himself in before she tells anyone else about the file — she feels she owes it to him after giving him such a hard time for so long.

Chief Yeom almost seems relieved that his secret is out, and asks if she wants to hear his excuse. In answer Young-jin says that she’s always respected him, ever since she was a rookie. He saved her job several times and fought criminals like a superhero, so she just wants to know why he would do this.

He asks for some time to overcome his shame before he talks about it, and she agrees to give him a little time. Before she goes, he thanks her simply for letting him off the hook. When he’s alone he calls his daughter, and looks at her photos sadly.

He drives to the riverbank and turns the recorder on his phone after calling President Kang to meet him. He tells Kang that this is the last time they’ll be seeing each other, and Kang assumes that Yeom’s been fired. Yeom tells him that Young-jin has the bribe list, and that once that list hits the news, Kang is done for.

President Kang laughs at that, saying that Young-jin must be lying or things would have blown up already. Yeom confronts Kang about the fire and the dead arsonist, laughing that he must be planning to kill him, too. He tells Kang that he’s leaving for America, and that Kang is on his own.

Secretary Yoon looks into it, but his sources say that the police don’t have any such bribe list. Further, the KL Group security team says they’ve never been hacked, so there’s no way anyone could have that list. Kang tells Yoon to get in touch with someone named Doctor Hwang, and that with Yeom gone and no longer providing a buffer, they can’t afford to let Young-jin alone.

Yoon thinks it’s smarter to wait and see what happens next, but Kang thinks that Yeom had no reason to lie — Young-jin must have the file and is holding it in secret, for whatever reason. That’s why nobody at the police station knows anything.

Secretary Yoon goes to a remote alleyway and hands over an envelope to a small boy who’s waiting there. The boy takes it to a man working in a laundromat, who opens it to find a photo of Young-jin. This must be Doctor Hwang (cameo by Kim Byung-ok), and he makes a call to assign “the job” to someone named Yong-kil.

Young-jin arrives home late to an empty house, and starts to worry when she can’t reach Nam-jin by phone. Thank goodness they arrive home right then, but Young-jin tears into her sister for keeping Ha-eun out so late and not answering her phone. They were only out seeing a movie and Nam-jin’s phone was set to silent, and she barks back that this is nothing compared to all the worry they’ve suffered over Young-jin’s job.

Young-jin goes to pick up a few things at the store, but she forgot her wallet, and when the clerk recognizes her as Ha-eun’s mom she asks if she can come back tomorrow and pay. On her walk home, Young-jin is suddenly attacked from behind by a man who flings a rope around her neck and pulls her into a deserted building.

Young-jin fights back hard, managing to get her hands between the rope and her throat and gain some breaths. But the man is strong, and no matter how hard she fights, she can’t break free.

COMMENTS

Ooooh nice, that’s a fantastic cliffhanger to carry us into the final week of the show, with Young-jin fighting for her life. I have no doubt she’ll get herself free somehow, and I have a feeling the last couple of episodes will be chock-full of excitement. Now Young-jin is armed with the very thing she needs to put President Kang in jail for a very long time, and I can’t wait to see that happen… though I’ll admit I won’t be sorry if she does get her chance to kill him after all. Goodness knows I agree that the man doesn’t deserve to live, after all the people he’s killed in his greed for money and power.

It was very compassionate of Young-jin to keep the information to herself and give Chief Yeom a chance to end his career himself, with dignity and grace — though really, she should have known he would probably go straight to Kang and tattle on her. Jong-ho just told her that every time they have information on KL Group, Yeom would go running to President Kang to spill everything, so I don’t know why she thought this time would be any different. That lapse in judgment is why she’s currently fighting for her life, and I’m a bit disappointed that “Extrasensory Choi” wouldn’t have anticipated this very thing. Did it really not occur to her that Yeom would tell Kang she has the list, and that he would try to kill her next? At the very least she shouldn’t be walking around at night alone, sheesh.

Chief Yeom hasn’t been the most interesting character by far, but we’ve been wondering what makes him tick since practically the first episode, so it was interesting to see into his head a little, finally. I found the mental gymnastics he must go through to justify his corruption fascinating. I always felt that he did have a code of ethics of sorts, and a line he wouldn’t cross, and I respect that he draws it at the feet of innocent citizens. He’s never really been a villain, in my eyes anyway, because he often acted in ways that helped Young-jin and the team catch their criminals, and even stood up for her several times. I can even see how he could justify taking the bribes from President Kang — who would argue that looking the other way, when criminals and gangs are the ones getting the short end of the stick in his dealings with President Kang, is a bad thing? Surely the ends could justify the means — I’m sure he even told himself he was doing a good thing, letting Kang manage gang members and keep them busy. And while he’s at it, why not make a little cash? If you don’t look too closely at it, it actually makes sense.

The problem is that he’s managed to put the entire Violent Crimes Division in a bad position now that he’s been caught. Every investigation he’s been involved in, going back years, could be pulled back out and re-evaluated, and some of those criminals they’ve caught could be set free on technicalities. Not to mention that probably everyone he’s worked with could be subject to investigation, and innocent people accused. And I wanted to scream when he immediately scurried to President Kang to tell him that Young-jin had his bribe list — that was his last chance to do the right thing, and he blew it. I can’t believe he would do that, right after Young-jin just gave him that heartfelt speech about respecting him despite all of their clashes over the years. That was the moment when all of my benefit-of-the-doubt generosity went out the window. The only thing that could redeem him now is if he plans to use that recording he made of their conversation, to help Young-jin put the slimy President Kang away for good.

Becasue for goodness’ sake, whatever happens, that man needs to be stopped. He has absolutely no conscience or sense of humanity, and even seems to have forgotten his son’s death already. Any person that could actually argue that killing six construction workers is good for the country by creating more housing and jobs, is a looney-tunes nutjob of the highest order. Somebody hand the man a straitjacket, quick!

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