The Good Wife: Episode 9

by odilettante

Decisions, decisions, decisions. After that cliff-hanger from last week, Hye-kyung must decide with whom her loyalty lies, and Myung-hee (and Joong-won) must decide which one of the new hires they’ll keep on permanently. More importantly, though, the supporting cast actually gets to leave the office and actually do more than just smirk at Hye-kyung and hand her folders. It’s about time.

EPISODE 9 RECAP

Hye-kyung’s hesitation over whether or not she should go to her husband or answer Joong-won’s call is taken from her (literally) by Tae-joon’s lawyer as he grabs her phone so Tae-joon can escort her onstage. Joong-won sees the press conference — and Hye-kyung standing next to her husband — and leaves her a voicemail, saying that she’s right. They should just leave things as they are.

But then after a moment’s thought, he calls back and leaves a passionate message, telling her that his plan is to love her. He’s loved her for someone time already, and when they meet in person again, they can discuss it. But if she’s bothered by his confession, she can just ignore this message and they’ll act like nothing has happened. Still, he begs her to call him if she misses him or feels anything for him, too.

Chief Prosecutor Choi arrives at the end of Tae-joon’s speech, where he declares he will fight against the corruption that slandered his name, and is led back to prison since his bail has been revoked. He hugs his wife, thanking her for supporting him — while all the reporters continue to photograph “the good wife.” Tae-joon’s lawyer listens to Hye-kyung’s voicemails, and deletes the second one from Joong-won.

Back at the police station, Chief Prosecutor Choi explains to Tae-joon that they’re looking into Guk-hyun’s mysterious death. But Tae-joon isn’t focusing on his nemesis’ threats — instead he can only think about Hye-kyung’s hesitation before joining him onstage, and her ringing phone. Chief Prosecutor Choi also informs Tae-joon that he’s looking into the internal case files that disappeared when Tae-joon was chief prosecutor.

Hye-kyung finally listens to her voicemail — but the only one that’s left is the first one, where Joong-won told her that she was right and they should forget anything happened. She bites her lip to maintain her composure as Tae-joon’s lawyer tells her she’s free to visit her husband — the interrogation is over.

At the gym, Joong-won runs his heart out as he pays more attention to his silent phone than the television playing Tae-joon’s press conference again. The news report emphasizes Tae-joon’s loyal wife, and Joong-won sighs as he realizes Hye-kyung isn’t calling him.

Back at work, Joong-won and Hye-kyung share a long glance, but Joon-ho interrupts it since they’re all on the way to Myung-hee’s office. She tells the new hires that they’ve been doing well, but she and Joong-won will be making a decision soon on whom to keep on permanently.

Even though Hye-kyung wins her cases, Myung-hee thinks she gets too emotionally involved with her clients in her does whatever it takes to prove that they’re innocent, even if it goes against the firm’s original wishes. Whereas Joon-ho always follows the firm’s wishes.

Hye-kyung is ballsy enough to defend herself, pointing out that her clients were glad she was so passionate on their behalf. But Myung-hee says Hye-kyung has been lucky to have clients who have actually been innocent — what would she have done if they were guilty? Being a lawyer isn’t just about winning cases — it’a about making profits.

While Joon-ho smiles to himself, Myung-hee admits that while they still haven’t officially selected which one they’ll choose, she can offer to introduce Hye-kyung to another firm. But Hye-kyung stands her ground — she’ll work until the end.

Afterward, Myung-hee admits to Joong-won that her opinion of Hye-kyung may change depending on how she reacts to Myung-hee’s warning. She also brings up the fact that, now that Guk-hyun is dead, Tae-joon will be more likely to be declared innocent — and Hye-kyung will be more likely to stay by her husband’s side. She tells her brother to just give up on his hope of getting together with her, but he brushes her off, calmly informing her that he and Hye-kyung are just friends.

Joon-ho meets up with his buddies at a club, preemptively celebrating his belief that his job is secure. A few beers (and some hilariously awkward dancing) later, he meets a pretty girl who offers him a party drug, telling him he’ll feel even better soon.

In the middle of the night, Hye-kyung’s phone rings, waking her up. It’s Myung-hee, calling her into the office for an emergency case that they need to work on right now. Joong-won calls Joon-ho, who’s extra bleary-eyed thanks to whatever drug his lady friend gave him. He finally answers his phone and groggily tells Joong-won he’s on his way to the office, but the drugs are kicking in and he can barely stand to get dressed.

Dan arrives at a the scene of the crime to investigate for Myung-hee, only to discover that one of the detectives working the case is an old acquaintance. She tells him she was just passing by, but when she tries to duck under the police tape to follow him, he reminds her that she belongs on the other side. She says that she’ll just watch, adding that she could be useful in helping him catch the murderer.

The woman who was killed is Jeong Si-yeon, a college student who worked as a babysitter and who was killed in her employer’s apartment. The detective assumes the husband did it because the knife is from the kitchen and the alarm was disabled. But Dan points out that the fatal head wound was made by something other than the kitchen knife.

Hye-kyung arrives at M&J law firm just as the husband gets there, too — he got the phone call that something happened just as he was leaving the movie theater, where he was spending his evening. He’s not sure what’s going on, though. His wife, Chae-yeon, is close friends with Myung-hee, which is why she called her for help.

While Myung-hee talks with Chae-yeon, Joong-won interrogates the husband, Park Jung-jin, who admits he was probably the last person to see Si-yeon alive. He’s surprised when Joong-won tells him he’s the most likely suspect, and that he’ll be taking a polygraph. But Joong-won says it’s only so they can figure out how best to defend him court.

Dan calls him, warning him that the police are on their way to arrest their client, so he better hurry up. As he watches the husband take his polygraph test, he tells Hye-kyung that the prosecution will decide in the next 48 hours whether or not to charge him with murder. If they do, the trial will take at least a year or two.

Hye-kyung thinks he’s innocent, because he seemed so genuine in his surprise at why he was called to the law firm. Joong-won says that he hopes that’s true, because it’s easier to defend someone who’s actually innocent. The police arrive just then to arrest him for the murder of Si-yeon, and the clock starts ticking on that all-important 48 hours the lawyers have to convince the prosecution their client is innocent and doesn’t need to go to trial.

Hahahaha, all through this, the happily drugged Joon-ho tries to touch Hye-kyung and Joong-won, but Hye-kyung — who seems the only one aware of Joon-ho’s odd behavior — keeps slapping his hand away. At the Prosecutor’s Office, she and Joon-ho run into Prosecutor Park who cheerfully tells him that he’ll be the prosecutor for this case.

Knowing Jong-won’s ways, Prosecutor Park predicts that the polygraph shows Jung-jin is innocent, and the two men walk away to further discuss the case one-on-one. High-as-a-kite Joon-ho stumbles to follow after them, but Hye-kyung drags him back, asking if he’s drunk. He just seriously tells her that he knows she’s a good person, so it breaks his heart.

Sighing, she tells him that she’ll get him a taxi and make excuses that he’s sick in case anyone asks. He’s hilariously adorable as he follows her like a puppy. Aw, then later as she oversees Prosecutor Park’s interrogation of their client, she does the mother thing as she texts him, asking if he got home safely.

Tae-joon’s lawyer meets with him in an interrogation room, letting him know that he gave Driver Kang money to go back to his hometown, so that’s all taken care of. But to his surprise, Tae-joon solemnly says that he promised his wife that he would start new, and he considers going to prison to be an act of atonement. He reassures his lawyer that he won’t being to prison without a fight, though.

Prosecutor Park goes through Jung-jin’s statement that he sat through a couple of movies, asking if he has the ticket stubs as proof, but Jug-jin says he threw them away. Surprised, the prosecutor wonders if he didn’t at least keep the free ticket the cinema give out due to one of the movies not playing correctly, but Jung-jin says he didn’t think the interruption was worth complaining about.

Except the interruption was just a fabrication on the part of Prosecutor Park, who’s pleased to have caught Jung-jin in his lie. As he leaves the room for a break, he tells Hye-kyung that it will be easier if their client confesses. Hye-kyung asks Jung-jin where he was, if he wasn’t at the cinema, but Joong-won enters the room just then and shuts off the feed recording them, much to Prosecutor Park’s annoyance from where he’s watching next door.

Jung-jin hesitates as he tries to explain where he really was that night, adding that they may not know what it’s like to be unemployed. Hye-kyung understands, though. After all, she was out of work for fifteen years. It turns out he has a secret office that he’d been using as a placee to come up with a phone app — and also as a place to get close to the victim, Si-yeon.

He’d asked her to help him with his work, but they also got physically close — at least according to the nosy neighbor that Dan has found when she went back to the scene of the crime. She texts that information to Joong-won, who confronts Jung-jin. He denies it, only admitting that he asked her to help him write out a storyline for the game. She only went to his office a couple of times.

Hye-kyung is ready to go investigate the office, and Joong-won hurries after her, asking if the reason she wants to investigate it herself is because she feels uncomfortable around him. He reassures her that nothing will happen again, and she cuts him off, telling him she knows. But right now, she’s going to work.

The detective is about to rush off, too, but Dan stops him asking him why he’s ignoring her. He reveals that when Tae-joon was still the chief prosecutor, he had an internal investigation to determine who was taking bribes — which resulted in many staff investigators being fired, herself included. Suddenly, the prosector’s office wants to reopen that case — but the record on Tae-joon is missing, and no one can get ahold of any of the other investigators that have since retired.

Dan denies any knowledge of Tae-jon’s records, and then reminds him that he could still use her help catching Si-yeon’s murderer. He tells her enough that she warns Joong-won the police are headed to Jung-jin’s secret office. He calls Hye-kyung, telling her to get out of there because if they find her inside the office, she could have her attorney’s licensed revoked.

He frantically speeds over to the building as she tries to use the ten minutes she has to find any evidence that will help them in their case. Joong-won reveals that Si-yeon was likely hit on the head with a laptop, and is relieved when Hye-kyung says that Jung-jin’s laptop looks untouched. He orders her to get out, but she wants to look around more, finding a hairbrush and bra, evidence that a woman has spent plenty of time in the office.

Joong-won arrives just as the police do, and he ducks into the stairwell to run up while they wait for the elevator. Hye-kyung realizes that it will look bad for their client if the brush and bra are discovered and goes back into the office to get them. Hahaha, Joong-won buys her time by racing up to each floor and pressing the elevator button, causing the elevator full of cops to stop at every floor. Genius.

As Hye-kyung waits for the elevator to go down, she worries that Joong-won is no longer on the other end of the phone. The elevator doors start to open, but before the police can see that Hye-kyung is standing there, Joong-won suddenly drags her around the corner. Aw, she looks kind of proud of him as he tries to catch his breath.

Back at the firm, Myung-hee asks if Hye-kyung took the evidence because she thought Jung-jin is innocent. Hye-kyung surprises her by admitting she doesn’t know if he is or not, but she remembered what Myung-hee said before: it’s not her job to judge the clients, but to instead to her best to assist them.

Myung-hee seems impressed that Hye-kyung took her words to heart, and when Joong-won asks why she’s bothering in the first place when she’ll just hire Joon-ho, she tells her brother that she’s still deciding. Speaking of Joon-ho, where is he? Wasn’t he also supposed to be working on this case?

Before Joong-won can call to check on him, Dan calls to reveal that, according to the CCTV footage, the last person to get home right before the murder was Chae-yeon, Jung-jin’s wife. Oooo, new suspect! Now it’s time for Myung-hee’s friend to take the polygraph.

Hye-kyung sees a still drugged-and-dazed Joon-ho sitting at his desk, staring blankly at his laptop, but before she can check on him, her phone rings. It’s Tae-joon — he says he just missed her voice, and he asks how the kids are handling the news. She says that he should call them and let them know how he’s doing. He doesn’t need to worry about her.

After she hangs up, she sees one of their coworkers walk over to Joon-ho’s office, and she hurries to intervene. She sets up her work station in his office in order to stop anyone else from coming in, making it look like they’re both working on the same case even though Joon-ho is still happily out of his mind.

Finally, the drug wears off, and Joon-ho wakes up from his stupor at a little past midnight. His first concerns is if the bosses know, but Hye-kyung reassures him that she didn’t tell them. He’s surprised, since it would have been the perfect opportunity to throw him under the bus and make sure she got the permanent position. She just tells him that she has enough enemies — she doesn’t need another.

He marvels at how nice she is, reminding her that he’s competitive. So is she, though, and they agree to play fair until the end of their competition. It’s cute how they cheerfully shake hands with each other. Aw, when Joong-won marvels at how friendly they’re acting, Dan reminds him that that’s the reason he likes Hye-kyung.

Myung-hee pulls him aside to discuss the fact that her friend could have killed the babysitter, and Joong-won says that she can defend Chae-yeon and he’ll defend Jung-jin. They just won’t share information with each other. If they only choose to defend one, it will mean that their client’s marriage will likely crumble. Amused, Myung-hee points out that he’s never been one to care about their clients’ personal lives before.

At least one hopeful sign is that Chae-yeon’s laptop doesn’t show any mark of having been used to hit someone on the head. Dan finds another lead when she discovers a lawyer’s business card in one of the notebooks Hye-kyung took from Jung-jin’s office. Hye-kyung is surprised when Dan immediately calls the number — it’s 1 am, after all. Dan: “Lawyers never sleep.”

In the morning, Jung-jin nervously waits for Hye-kyung to arrive so Prosecutor Park can continue his interrogation. When she appears, the prosecutor cheekily wonders if he’ll actually confess today. Ha, this time Hye-kyung turns off the camera feed herself.

She asks Jung-jin if she knew that Si-yeon met with a lawyer to discuss giving up a child for adoption. She asks him to be honest with her, and he admits that while he’s hidden things from his wife, he has nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, he couldn’t have gotten Si-yeon pregnant because he had a vasectomy.

But someone must have, and Hye-kyung wonders if they can out if anyone went to the hospital with her when she was getting check-ups due to her pregnancy. Dan figures out that the nosy neighbor is the most likely culprit, based on the hospital staff’s description.

Nosy neighbor admits that he did take her to the hospital because she was too embarrassed to go alone. She told him the baby’s father was the husband of her employer, but he told her that he wouldn’t leave his wife for her, which made it difficult for her.

Dan asks Nosy Neighbor if he’ll come down to the police station to give a statement, then asks if he’d mind changing into something a little less casual, so the prosecutors will take him more seriously. As he steps into the bathroom to freshen up, Dan quickly looks around the apartment for his laptop — which looks like it could be the murder weapon.

Afterwards, Prosecutor Park follows Dan and Hye-kyung out of the police station, marveling that they’ve managed to find the real culprit and free their clients. He turns to Dan, thanking her especially for her hard work — but he calls her Ji-young. She tells him her name is Kim Dan, and he laughingly says that he’s bad with names, but once again calls her Kim Ji-young instead of Kim Dan.

Jung-jin and Chae-yeon are reunited and free of all charges. It turns out that Ji-yeon used Jung-jin’s office as a place for her and her boyfriend, the nosy neighbor, to go for fun sexy times. Once she got pregnant, they argued about what to do with the baby — abortion or adoption — and killed her while avoiding being caught by the CCTV.

Myung-hee wonders if it’s true, but Joong-won points out that it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not — what matters is that their clients are considered innocent. He marvels at how mysterious marriage is, and Myung-hee pointedly tells him that no one really knows what goes on between a husband and wife — sometimes they get back together after a conflict.

He then asks if she still thinks that they should hire Joon-ho. When she asks if he’s still gunning for Hye-kyung, he denies it. They should simply hire whomever is the better lawyer.

Over their now-traditional celebratory drinks, Dan tells Hye-kyung she shouldn’t worry about the firm’s decision. This case put her in a new light. Besides, she could have a friend call Joon-ho and pretend to scout him to another firm so he’ll willingly quit M&J.

Hye-kyung tells her that she wants to win fair-and-square. Besides, after being out of the business for so long, she wants to know if she has the skills to make it as a lawyer. If she has to quit, then she will.

Dan goes to the prison to meet with Tae-joon, where she informs him that the prosecution office is looking for the missing file, which Prosecutor Park seems to know about ince e called her by the name she used to go by back then. Tae-joon tells her not to worry about it, and she warns him not to make another mistake like the one that landed him in prison. He also tells her not to worry about Hye-kyung — he’s taking care of her now.

Joon-ho and Hye-kyung wait nervously outside of Myung-hee’s office, waiting to hear who will stay on and who will be let go. When Joong-won, with a serious face, asks Hye-kyung to step into the office first, Joon-ho smirks, knowing that the first to go is usually the one who will be fired.

Except Myung-hee surprises Hye-kyung by welcoming her to the firm, apologizing that she’s about to become a lot busier. Stunned, Hye-kyung thanks her and Joong-won, and then dazedly returns to her office. Joon-ho sympathetically tells her that she’ll find another job soon, but as he enters Myung-hee’s office, Hye-kyung does a little smirking of her own.

Dan is waiting for her, and Hye-kyung informs her that they’ll be working together a lot from now on. Yay!

Tae-Join’s connections report back that Hye-kyung got the job. He and Tae-joon are waiting for Prosecutor Park, who reassures them that he’s sorted out the missing internal file business and Tae-joon has nothing to worry about. Then he hits record on the camera that is set up, which is focused on Tae-joon’s face, and the interview begins.

COMMENTS

Ugh, that deleted voicemail. It kills me. I’m not even going to talk about it because that’s how painful it is, knowing there’s this gigantic misunderstanding blocking Joong-won and Hye-kyung’s longing glances. So let’s think about other things instead, shall we?

I believe this is the first drama I have knowingly seen Lee Won-geun in, and I’ll admit I wasn’t really sure what to make of him. He’s tall and pretty, to be sure, but other than appear out of nowhere to smirk and deliver files, I wasn’t really sure what to make of him. I certainly had no idea how hilarious he could be, and even though I know it wouldn’t fit the story, I could definitely watch him act high-as-a-kite for a few more hours. Just sayin’.

But his predicament — however amusing it might be — definitely helps delineate the differences between Joon-ho and Hye-kyung. If the roles were reversed, Joon-ho would have undoubtedly pointed out that Hye-kyung was under the influence and incapable of doing her job, using it against her to remove her from the case and, likely, the firm. No matter what advice Dan may give him, he’s still the type of guy to reach for any opportunity he can to make sure he comes out on top. Whereas Hye-kyung makes sure to cover for him (and seems genuinely concerned for his well-being), knowing that whatever is going on isn’t normal but also isn’t really anyone else’s business. They are in this fight together, and it would seem cheap and unsportsmanlike to have him disqualified on a technicality.

Then again, Hye-kyung has something she needs to prove, too — that she could win (or lose) based purely on her own merits (or lack thereof). She doesn’t want to treated special because of her name, or her age, or her connections. She wants to know that she is fully capable of succeeding in the career she once use to dream about before Tae-joon was in the picture.

But even when he’s not around, he’s somehow always in the picture, isn’t he? If it didn’t seem too “conspiracy theory,” I’d almost wonder if he somehow set it up for that girl to give Joon-ho a drug that would prevent him from working for a day just to prove that Hye-kyung is the better option to hire on permanently. Tae-joon does seem to have his fingers in a lot of pots and still has a ton of connections that anything seems possible, really. After all, he’s able to inspire the loyalty (or fear) in others that will make them lie, cheat, and steal for him — I could imagine him using that power however he sees fit. As long as it benefits his family, that’s all he cares about. Although, it might be more accurate to say as long as it benefits him, and by extension his family, that’s all that matters.

 
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