Whisper: Episode 5

by odilettante

Power and leverage get tossed around like hot potatoes as everyone vies for the best way to destroy their enemies and save their loved ones (even if that loved one is themselves). Just when you think you know who has the upper hand and the documents to prove it, someone comes along to steal it and shake everything up again. There are no heroes here — there are simply those wily enough to survive.

 
EPISODE 5 RECAP

Dong-joon gives Jung-il a choice: give him back his secretary or Soo-yeon will be arrested on charges of illegal drug use. Soo-yeon looks to her father for help, but he tells her this is a lover’s quarrel, so she should handle it herself. Soo-yeon tells Jung-il that this isn’t their day yet, and he releases Young-joo.

As she walks away, Detective Bae grabs her by the shoulder and warns her to be careful. In response, she punches him in the face and sends him sprawling into the coffee table. So satisfying.

It’s now just Dong-joon and Lawyer Choi in his office, and Dong-joon wonders what would happen if he left Taebaek. Lawyer Choi chuckles, because it means Chief Justice Jang will be delighted at the chance to destroy Dong-joon since Chief Justice Jang’s daughter had a miscarriage after her husband was sent to prison thanks to Dong-joon.

Dong-joon then wonders why Soo-yeon ever agreed to marry him in the first place. A flashback shows a bedraggled Soo-yeon, fresh from the incident at the fishing spot, pleading with her father for help. She takes the blame for leaking the information about the faulty bulletproof armor and for hiring Sang-gu. But with a glance at the blood on his shirt, Lawyer Choi can tell that Jung-il is the one responsible for Sung-shik’s death, and Jung-il offers to postpone their wedding until the situation is taken care of. Lawyer Choi says that the wedding must go through as planned — but with a different groom.

Back in the present, he tells Dong-joon that he intended to get rid of Jung-il after the wedding, but his daughter made it difficult for him. Dong-joon will have to take on Jung-il by himself because there’s no one at Taebaek who can help him. But Dong-joon knows there is at least one person: Young-joo.

They meet in a secluded spot by the river, and Dong-joon is worried about her split lip given at the hands of Detective Bae and his men. But she’s more concerned about the fact that her injury wouldn’t even be an issue if Dong-joon had given the correct ruling in the first place. She asks him what kind of sentence Dong-joon would get if he were to go to court now. Dong-joon: “A suspension.”

She scoffs at his answer, but her phone rings and it’s her mother, letting her know that Dad will be released for a medical check-up tomorrow. She asks Mom what hospital he’s going to, and Dong-joon answers, letting her know it’s one of the best hospitals for someone with a lung disease. That means he knows all about her father’s transfer.

He explains that his “suspension” would come about because he’s helping the victim. Young-joo still can’t believe that he doesn’t have any regrets about his rulings as a judge, and Dong-joon confesses he regrets that he didn’t rule “not guilty” for the Chief Justice’s son-in-law. Because, if he had, he wouldn’t have lost his reappointment case. He regrets that he didn’t cover up the son-in-law’s embezzlement, because then he would have been promoted to an officer of the Supreme Court, and eventually a justice himself.

With fire in her eyes, Young-joo questions why everyone thinks of him as a moral and upright judge, when really he’s nothing but a traitor. Dong-joon promises that he won’t be a traitor again, but right now he’s not even sure of his own convictions. After all, everyone eventually has to compromise in order to survive.

Angry, Young-joo tells him not everyone is like him, reminding him that despite all her father went through, he never once gave up his convictions. And look where it got him, as Dong-joon points out that he’s now in jail. As she starts to protest, he promises her that they’ll get him out.

Now that they no longer have evidence that it was a murder, they’ll have to focus on proof of a motive. The documents that Sung-shik was going to reveal must have been important enough to kill for, and they deduce those documents must be in Soo-yeon’s safe at work. She tells Dong-joon to get the key to the safe while she looks into the body armor case.

In the morning, Dong-joon meets with Secretary Song to broker a deal. If Secretary Song can get a copy of Soo-yeon’s fingerprint, then he’ll make sure Secretary Song has job security for as long as he lives. Secretary Song is amused by Dong-joon’s sudden change of heart, but he’s the type of person who will pin his loyalty on whomever seems to be winning.

Jung-il and Soo-yeon keep a careful eye on Dong-joon, knowing that he’s more slippery than they thought. But Soo-yeon smugly says that there will be a nasty surprise for Dong-joon at the conference. She’s right, because Dong-joon’s greeted by Chief Justice Jang who attempts to crush his fingers in a handshake.

Young-joo’s father goes through preliminary tests at the hospital and then, under police supervision, enjoys lunch with his wife and daughter. He begs her to leave Taebaek, but she refuses. If she doesn’t try to do anything, then he won’t be able to be free. He knows that their efforts are pointless — most of the influential politicians and lawmen are somehow connected to Taebaek.

But that’s why she respects her father, because knowing all that, he still wanted to reveal the truth about the faulty body armor. She tells him to wait just a little while — she’s currently working on a prisoner exchange.

When Dong-joon returns home, he finds Soo-yeon waiting for him. She tells him that Chief Justice Jang will be starting an internal investigation into all judges who may have accepted bribes or otherwise gave preferential treatment. And the first judge he’ll start with will be the former judge who slept with a victim’s daughter.

She shows him a printout of one of the sex video frames that Young-joo had uploaded. Even though the original video has been destroyed, she’s confident that Chief Justice Jang will be able to figure out who’s in the video. In return, she’s taking on his son-in-law’s appeal case.

She asks how it was that night with Young-joo. Dong-joon asks her what it’s like to be with a murderer. With a smile, Soo-yeon tells him that Jung-il got his hands bloodied because of her, so she’ll make sure to clean them up for him. She warns him that she’s promised Chief Justice Jang that she’ll free his son-in-law and put Dong-joon in jail instead.

The next day, as the news breaks about Chief Justice Jang’s investigation, Soo-yeon’s assistant reveals that the son-in-law’s sentence was actually pretty light, considering the courts were going by the doctored accounts and not the ones that showed how much he really embezzled. He actually stole twice as much than was originally reported.

Dong-joon rushes to his mother’s nursing home, where he finds officers carrying out their investigation into personal connections Dong-joon may have had with prior cases. They have an anonymous report that he coerced a defendant’s daughter into sleeping with him and then continued to have contact with her. They want to know what exactly happened the night before his wedding.

Mom, sitting next to him and listening in worry, reminds him that he had dinner with her that night. Her eyes plead with him to confirm her attempt to give him an alibi, and he awkwardly confesses that he was with his mother. The Internal Affairs officers say that this differs from another account, which is that Dong-joon was out drinking all night. They remind his mother that perjury is a criminal offense.

Secretary Song reports to Lawyer Choi that his lunch meeting with Chief Justice Jang has been cancelled since the judge isn’t feeling well today. But that lie is immediately exposed when Chairman Kang arrives, bragging about how well the Chief Justice did during their golf game earlier. Chairman Kang adds that he’s planning to invest in the Chief Justice’s son-in-law’s company once his embezzlement case is over.

He brings up the body armor case, and Lawyer Choi grumpily tells him that he should have just made them properly in the first place. The vests were supposed to protect the soldiers from armor-piercing ammo, but instead couldn’t even stop a normal bullet. Chairman Kang tells him that he spent all his money lobbying to get the Defense contract in the first place, so how could he afford to make quality armor?

But he knows who leaked the reports about the faulty armor, and turning to Secretary Song, asks him if Lawyer Choi put him up to it just so Jung-il would be kicked out of Taebaek. After the chairman leaves, Secretary Song stutters out an apology, adding that he only did what he was told. When Dong-joon calls Lawyer Choi, he hands the phone over to Secretary Song, giving him a new job: help Dong-joon.

Back at the hospital, the doctor tells Young-joo that her father has advanced lung cancer. The doctor counsels her to request a suspended execution of sentence, which means that her father would be on probation as he serves out his sentence. He urges her to do it as quickly as possible, since her father’s tumor is growing.

Attorney Jo, who’s been tracking her movements, reveals this information to Jung-il and Soo-yeon. Jung-il realizes that they now know someone who will testify against Dong-joon.

When Young-joo returns to the office, Jung-il requests she return the book she “borrowed” (as an excuse to steal his wallet), and as she’s putting it back on his shelf, he asks the prosecutor in his office about how one goes about requesting a suspended execution of sentence.

The prosecutor tells him that such requests are rejected nine times out of ten, but since he’s in Taebaek’s pocket, can promise that he’d grant any suspension of Jung-il asks. Jung-il purposefully wanted Young-joo to hear his conversation, since it means she knows that he’s the one who can save her father’s life.

She wonders if he shed one tear over killing another man, then vows that she’ll make sure he cries in the interrogation room. But Jung-il leans in, musing on the fact that he’ll see her tears at her father’s funeral, first. He’d like to help with her father, but in order to do that, he needs her help with the Internal Affairs investigation. After all, they’re both after the truth, aren’t they? 

Young-joo gets a call from Dong-joon, letting her know that he obtained the key to Soo-yeon’s safe. Instead of listening to Jung-il’s plan to get rid of Dong-joon and save her father, she muses that Jung-il would look good in handcuffs and a prison jumpsuit. She refuses to make an alliance with him.

Dong-joon studies the rubber 3D fingerprint that Secretary Song made for him, and then asks where Soo-yeon’s safe is. With a smirk, Secretary Song just tells him it’s “above the law.” Young-joo is ready to sneak into Soo-yeon’s office now and break into her safe, but Dong-joon warns her that they should wait until later that night after everyone’s left for the day.

They’re interrupted by an announcement of an emergency meeting of all the team leads. That includes Soo-yeon, so it’s a perfect chance for Young-joo to get into the safe while Soo-yeon is elsewhere.

The meeting is regarding the Internal Affairs investigation, and Jung-il gives some lip service about protecting Taebaek. He tells Dong-joon that Taebaek existed before he got there and it will continue to exist long after. Attorney Jo stops Young-joo in the hallway and escorts her to the conference room, where Jung-il reveals that “Yeon-hwa” is really Chang-ho’s daughter.

Dong-joon secretly texts a message to Secretary Song as Jung-il gleefully reveals that Dong-joon was the judge for Chang-ho’s trial, and that the connection between them is the sex video. He tells Dong-joon that if he confesses and resigns, Jung-il will help lessen his punishment.

Thanks to Secretary Song, a secretary interrupts to let Dong-joon know that Lawyer Choi wants to see him. Young-joo slips him the fingerprint under the table, and he rises to leave. But instead of going to his father-in-law’s office, he enters Soo-yeon’s, and looks around for where she might keep her safe.

Spotting the row of law books on the shelf, he realizes that the safe is literally “above the law” as he discovers it hidden in the bookshelf. He presses the 3D printout against the finger scanner, and it accepts it — but now he has to type in a numerical password.

Meanwhile, Young-joo keeps her cool in the conference room as Soo-yeon tries to get her to crack. But when Soo-yeon is about to call the meeting to an end, Young-joo, worried that Dong-joon will be caught, suddenly tells her that she’ll confess what happened that night.

Dong-joon only has three tries and ninety seconds to figure out the password, and his first two attempts are failures. Scrambling through Soo-yeon’s personal effects to get a clue what it might be, he spots a Bible on her shelf. Remembering the verse she quoted that day by the lake, he types in the numbers of the chapter and verse. The safe opens literally at the last second before the alarm would have gone off.

He expects to see the documents about the body armor, but is instead surprised to discover that the documents in the safe are regarding Young-joo’s father’s cancer and the Chief Justice’s son-in-law’s embezzlement case.

Young-joo continues her story about how she met with Dong-joon prior to the trial, where, over a cup of tea, he promised to help her if she brought in concrete evidence. Well, that much is true. But Jung-il is impatient for her to get to the crux of the story, and as she starts to talk about the night before the wedding, she sees Dong-joon leaving Soo-yeon’s office.

She quickly tells everyone that they had tea together, and she asked him to help her get a job. She used her friend’s name since she thought it would be difficult if people recognized her as a murderer’s daughter. That’s not the response anyone was expecting, and Jung-il angrily points out the Internal Affairs team will be able to figure out who’s in the video and reveal their true faces.

Young-joo calmly tells him that even before then, people’s true faces will be revealed. With a pointed look at Soo-yeon, she asks to be excused. When Soo-yeon and Jung-il return to her office, she’s shocked to see her safe opened and empty.

Dong-joon calls Chief Justice Jang, telling him he’s on his way to meet him. If he doesn’t want to meet, then Dong-joon will see him in court at his son-in-law’s trial. He’s got the embezzlement evidence with him — the true evidence, not the faked reports for the court.

With this new evidence, he urges Chief Justice Jang to decide if he wants a just world where everyone’s truth is revealed or where everyone’s truth is hidden. He gets a call from Soo-yeon, and hands the phone over to the Chief Justice, telling him that he if he abandons his son-in-law and daughter, then he can put Dong-joon in jail.

Chief Justice Jang answers the phone, informing Soo-yeon that he’s ending the internal investigation. Annoyed, Soo-yeon orders Jung-il to get rid of Dong-joon. His arm doesn’t exactly need twisting.

At home, Dong-joon asks Lawyer Choi for a suspended execution of sentence. He’ll make sure his father’s hospital takes care of the treatment. In response, Lawyer Choi shows him the termination papers for “Yeon-hwa.” The fact that she lied about her identity to get a job is enough to fire her. He orders Dong-joon to abandon her, since she’ll only end up ruining him.

Attorney Jo delivers the HR memo about company reassignments, pointing out that Lawyer Choi is giving all the best lawyers to Dong-joon’s team. But Jung-il is only interested in the line that says “Yeon-hwa” has been terminated.

At a coffee shop, Young-joo hands over the documents she’s accumulated on Taebaek, the corruption surrounding the body armor, and what happened that night at the fishing spot. She tells him to give them to Chief Justice Jang, since she knows the Chief Justice is now at his mercy and the Internal Affairs team will be able to use this information to investigate Taebaek, hopefully causing the company to crumble.

He tells her it’s dangerous, but she retorts that the only person in danger is him. He pulls out an envelope with Taebaek’s logo on it, and as he does so, Young-joo gets a message with a picture of her termination papers. It’s from Jung-il, who then calls her, asking if she’s with Dong-joon and if he’s given her the paperwork showing she’s fired.

Jung-il then tells her that she should abandon Dong-joon before Dong-joon abandons her. He’s only thinking of her father, adding that it would be good for him to have a long life. Looking out the window of the coffee shop, she imagines herself on the bus in her mourning clothes, carrying her father’s memorial photo.

Dong-joon seems to recognize that look on her face, being reminded of when he imagined being on the prison bus as Lawyer Choi made him choose joining Taebaek or going to jail. Following his instincts, he tries calling Jung-il, but gets a busy signal. He now knows who’s on the other line with Young-joo.

Jung-il tells Young-joo to send Dong-joon to the docks tonight, and in return, he’ll send her father to the hospital. Torn by her desire to help her father, she quietly agrees.

After she hangs up, she tells Dong-joon that it was an informant on the body armor case who wants to meet with her tonight, but unfortunately she has other plans. Dong-joon, even knowing it’s a trap, agrees to go in her place.

Later, he visits his father at the hospital to let him know he’s taken care of the legal issues surrounding the plastic surgery center. But he also has a favor to ask. Then he goes to the police station and waits for Hyun-soo, who doesn’t look thrilled to see him.

Jung-il lays out his revised conditions for saving Young-joo’s father. Now, if she brings in the documents she’s acquired, her father will get the suspension. He also requests she drop her request for an appeal, and instead get him to sign a confession that he killed Sung-shik.

She refuses to destroy her father’s life, but Jung-il reminds her that her father only has so much life left in him — better to live it as best he can in the little time he has left. Her mother calls, letting her know that her father will be released on a suspension and that he’s scheduled for surgery. It seems like Mom doesn’t know the extent of Dad’s illness, though.

Jung-il hands over the affidavit, reminding her that he can’t promise a suspension once the prosecution changes, and advises her to hurry and help her father. Young-joo takes the affidavit, but as soon as she returns to her office, she throws it on the floor and immediately calls Dong-joon, demanding to know who he thinks he is.

“A son of a bitch,” he immediately answers. A son of a bitch who ruled as he did in her father’s trial because he wanted to survive. But he tells her that her father needs to survive, too. She warns him that he’s walking into a trap, but he already knows that. He’s wiling to get hurt so that Hyun-soo will catch the bad guys in the middle of the act, causing everyone involved to be arrested — including Jung-il.

As Dong-joon walks towards the meeting place at the docks, Hyun-soo watches in frustration. Sang-gu and his men are waiting for Dong-joon, and greet him by knocking him to the floor.

Young-joo speeds along in her car as she calls Hyun-soo, begging him to not let Dong-joon meet with anyone. He quietly asks what Dong-joon means to her, and she tells him that he’s someone she needs so he can’t get hurt. But all Hyun-soo can picture is the two of them together in the video, and he angrily orders his men to move out.

Jung-il is confident that his plan to get rid of Dong-joon is perfect. He will send him to the Philippines and then release a press notice about him getting caught up in gambling scheme, thus tarnishing his reputation forever.

But Sang-gu has his own plan, and stabs Dong-joon in the stomach. It seems like Dong-joon won’t even make it to the Philippines, and instead will be thrown into the sea to become fish food.

As Young-joo hurries to the docks, she sees Hyun-soo and his men driving the other way. Ohhhh, more betrayal!

Sang-gu’s men load Dong-joon into the backseat of one their cars, but Young-joo surprises them as she crashes into their cars. She takes down a couple of the goons before hopping into the driver seat of the car that holds Dong-joon. They chase after her as she swerves away around the shipping containers, causing them to crash. She reaches a dead end, but when the goons catch up to her, the car is empty. She and Dong-joon have disappeared into the maze of shipping containers.

He’s bloody and weak from the knife wound, and as they hide, Dong-joon tells her to let him go. Her cop friend is waiting, and once Dong-joon is dragged away by the bad guys, Hyun-soo is going to rush in and save him while apprehending everyone else. But before Young-joo can tell him that Hyun-soo has abandoned them, she hears Sang-gu calling out.

Sang-gu walks along the narrow walkway between the containers, banging his knife against the metal as he tells Dong-joon that he shouldn’t hide like a rat. Dong-joon gasps out that he’s right there, yet can barely remain on his feet due to his wound. Young-joo presses her hand against his stomach to help stop the flow of blood as she also tries to hold him up.

One of Sang-gu’s men sees a trail of fresh blood, and as he walks closer, Dong-joon continues to try and tell them where he is. Worried that they’ll be found, and with her hands busy trying to stop the flow of blood, she kisses Dong-joon to keep him quiet.

COMMENTS

I love that Young-joo continually gets to be the knight in tarnished armor who shows up to save Dong-joon in distress. Sure, he’s saved her, too, but all he does is talk to people on the phone whereas she gets to smash cars and punch people, which seems loads more fun. Or maybe I just like seeing tiny Lee Bo-young have to try and prop up giant Lee Sang-yoon. She must have some sort of Do Bong-soon strength to carry him around like that each week. But it does further reiterate that she is a woman of action, willing to throw herself into the fray, whereas Dong-joon prefers to think before acting. Maybe that’s why he’s so tortured. because he can perceive the potential moves of his enemies and yet can only come up with the realization that he’s trapped. Young-joo, however, is the type to believe that if she throws herself harder at a wall, it will somehow move out of her way through sheer force and strength of will.

One of my favorite things about this show is also one of my complaints. Everything moves so quickly that by the time I’ve figured out one motivation and plan, we’ve moved on to the next. I’m so used to a plot-thread lingering for episodes, so to be introduced to something new each week that will suddenly be solved (or destroyed) by the next is both dizzying and stimulating. There’s very little time to rest and catch my breath while I’m watching this show, which makes it thrilling and difficult to be bored.

On the other hand, I have to laugh at how convenient the plot devices are, seemingly thrown in like grenades to remove any obstacle even as ten more spring up in its place. It’s amusing to see just how many convenient coincidences happen at just the right time, such as Dong-joon figuring out the password at the literal last second, or all the phone calls that occur at the most opportune moment to impart information. While I may be incredulous at how everything seems to fall into place so perfectly, I’m willing to roll with it because there’s no time to stop and think when I’m caught up in the story.

There is a part of me that wonders how we could have covered so much story already yet this is only the fifth episode (we’re not even halfway through!). Normally it can take almost a third of a drama, if not the entire thing, for secrets to be fully revealed, but here everyone seems know almost everything. Young-joo’s “secret identity” wasn’t a secret for long, and while the sex video may have been destroyed and therefore is safe from being released to the public (or so it would appear), all the team leads know it was Young-joo and Dong-joon, so that’s another secret revealed. Nearly all the main characters even know that Jung-il and Soo-yeon were behind Sung-shik’s death, too. What is there possibly left to hide?

But I suppose the point of the show isn’t merely that people know the truth, it’s whether or not it can be proven in court — and the steps people take to ensure that the verdict will forever be in their favor.

 
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