Lookout: Episodes 11-12

by CandidClown

Oh man, the stakes are mounting as we delve deeper in our character’s backstories. We finally find out about at least one of our sidekicks, but bringing up the past may have some ugly consequences for the future. I hope Do-han has several back-up plans in place because while he does spin a lovely tangled web, Suji may lead her fellow cohorts into a coup before he can complete his master plan.

 
EPISODE 11 RECAP

At the church, Suji gets the call that the kidnapper/molester, Jang-soo, has just picked up a woman in his taxi. Both Kyung-soon and Bomi urge her to go after him, but as she starts to head out, Suji remembers that the light on the confessional booth had stayed lit even after the priest had left, meaning someone was still inside.

She slowly walks over the confessional’s other door, but when she yanks it open, there’s no one there. She hurries out, and as she drives away, Do-han emerges from the shadows behind the church, watching her.

Jang-soo drives through the night, his victim now unconscious in the backseat. Yikes, did he drug her? Not far behind, Suji follows Kyung-soo’s directions as he monitors Jang-soo’s route via the tracker that Suji had placed on his taxi earlier.

Bomi worries that there are few CCTVs along the current route and she might lose visual on the car, but Kyung-soo assures her that he can follow the GPS signal. Of course, right at that moment, Kyung-soo loses the signal and Suji is driving blind.

Following the last known location, Suji comes upon a car that had just been in an accident and realizes that Jang-soo must have done a hit-and-run with it, knocking off the tracker she had placed on it. Spying a nearby shadowy bridge, Suji guesses that she knows where Jang-soo is headed.

In the shadow of that very bridge, Jang-soo pulls over and starts looting through the woman’s belongings, pocketing cash and her necklace. Then he leans into the car, grinning lecherously as he looms over the unconscious woman. Ick.

Fast-forward a bit and the woman wakes up in the back of the taxi, unharmed, except now it’s Suji who’s driving the car. She drops her off at home where the girl’s father is waiting, and the young woman stumbles out of the car, glancing at the driver’s side before Suji drives off.

Suji pulls over in a remote area and opens the taxi trunk to reveal a bound and unconscious Jang-soo. She tells Kyung-soo to call the police since they can’t just let him loose to prey on someone else. Kyung-soo and Bomi are skeptical since they still haven’t found any evidence to tie him to his past crimes, but Suji has figured out that Jang-soo stole something from his first victim, Se-in.

Rewind to Jang-soo leaning over his unconscious fare, when Suji had shown up and knocked him out cold with a quick punch and kick. She found the necklace he took from this woman and realized that he must have also taken Se-in’s necklace (which had been missing when she died) as a souvenir, then pawned it off much later.

Kyung-soo posts a message looking for the jewelry on every social media site, and sure enough, a woman recognizes it. The next day, the news reports that a civilian came forward with a crucial piece of evidence (the necklace) and Jang-soo was once again arrested on charges of robbery and rape.

As an added bonus (or problem?) the woman that Suji saved comes forward. Apparently that one glance at the driver’s side was enough for her to identity Suji and now the news has a new spin on their story: The fugitive Jo Suji rescued a girl from a released sex-offender before he could re-offend.

Do-han watches the news, thinking about Suji’s “confession” and how she wished she could see her daughter in her dreams. He looks over at his evidence wall, staring at Suji’s picture, and murmurs, “This is just the beginning. I can’t let you do what you want.”

At his school, Shi-wan walks into a silent classroom and finds his desk littered with pictures of famous psychopaths. I’m not sure if this kid is capable of emotion, but he looks hurt by the photos. Se-won, Soon-ae’s daughter, watches his reaction closely.

Assemblywoman CHAE HYE-SUN (Song Sun-mi) makes an appearance outside the Prosecutors’ Office, arriving amidst a sea of reporters. She addresses the cameras, coolly stating that the prosecutors owe the public a straight answer in regards to the fugitive Jo Suji, and if her claims about her daughter being murdered are true, then Chief Prosecutor Yoon has no right to become attorney general.

Security tries to prevent Assemblywoman Chae from entering the building, but the poor guy is no match for her Laser Eyes of Justice and the wall of reporters behind her. Do-han watches all of this from within the building and reports it back to Yoon, who looks vaguely unhappy at the woman’s appearance.

Grandma is working at her restaurant when she gets a call from none other than Suji. Ducking around a corner, Grandma answers the phone pretending that she’s talking to a friend to keep the two detectives siting nearby from getting suspicious. Mother and daughter are both wiping away tears as Suji apologizes for calling so late.

Still hiding form the detectives, Grandma casually mentions that she put a beautiful framed drawing up on the wall, smiling as she says it’s a family heirloom. Up on the wall, we can see that she framed and mounted the picture that little Yoo-na had drawn of her mom catching bad guys.

We flash back to better times, when Suji had carried a sleeping Yoo-na home the day she picked her up from the center. She’d shown Grandma the drawing her daughter had made, bursting with pride. Joking, Suji had told Grandma to have it framed since she was going to make it a family heirloom. Back in the present, Suji smiles to realize that Grandma is talking about Yoo-na’s picture.

Suji asks Grandma to wait just a bit longer since she still has to keep her promise to Yoo-na. Grandma is barely holding back her sobs as she quietly apologizes, saying it’s all her fault (since she lost Yoo-na that day). Suji cries harder, insisting that it’s not. She tells her mother that they shouldn’t say the word sorry to each other anymore, because the people who hurt their family will be the ones saying sorry. Grandma can only nod weakly into the phone.

Suji returns to Kyung-soo’s lair and she gives him her phone, saying she used the hacking skills he taught her. Oooh! We rewind to her encounter with the priest, and she had set her phone to clone his during their conversation, the same way Kyung-soo had cloned Woo-sung’s. Very smooth.

Kyung-soo plugs it in and the call record shows that the priest had been the one to text Bomi a warning, alerting them before the cyber team could catch Kyung-soo. Suji shares her theory that the priest is a smokescreen, while their real boss is actually someone very close to the investigation hunting them.

Sweet Kyung-soo thinks it doesn’t matter since the boss saved them before they were caught, but Suji spells it out for him: The boss used them as bait for his own purposes, sending the police after them, then saving them at the last minute.

Kyung-soo and Bomi start to panic, wondering if everything they’ve been told is a lie. The boss had promised both of them revenge, and Bomi frets that she’s been waiting for her turn, while Kyung-soo worries that he has someone to find. Suji answers that the only way to uncover the truth is to find the boss. It’s enough to push Kyung-soo into starting a trace on their mysterious leader’s phone number.

Do-han returns to his car and gets a call from a secret phone in his glove compartment. It’s the priest calling and as Do-han answers, Suji, Kyung-soo, and Bomi listen in on the call. The priest reports that he sent Do-han’s message, but he worries that “that woman” is onto them, revealing that he met Suji.

Do-han immediately asks if the priest had his phone on him. Upon confirmation, Do-han grimaces, telling him to toss the cell. He then hangs up and removes the SIM card from his secret phone, crushing it under his car tires as he drives away.

The lookouts don’t know who the priest is talking to, but luckily, Kyung-soo still managed to pinpoint Do-han’s location, and all three reel to hear that the call came from the Prosecutors’ Office. Looks like Suji’s theory was spot-on. Just then, Bomi gets a delivery from the boss.

Bomi retrieves the envelope and reads the note: There are three suspects. Find the real culprit. The pictures of the three suspects flutter to the floor as Bomi starts to have flashbacks of her family’s attack, hyperventilating to remember her murdered parents and her sister’s terror as she was dragged away.

Bomi sends the photos to the other two, but Suji wants to focus on finding the Boss, since this could be yet another trap. Bomi cuts her off, “I’m doing this. It’s not a trap. Even if it is, I don’t care.” Suji realizes that this case must be related to her, and Bomi recites in a dead voice, “November 15, 2012. A murder case broke out…”

On November 12, 2012, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Bomi is in high school. She cheerfully rolls her skirt up a few inches and puts make-up on, but she’s promptly caught by her older sister when she exits the school. The two of them banter as only sisters can, with Unni taking back the make-up as Bomi whines that she’s old enough to wear it.

Bomi runs home to her family’s restaurant, dodging the delivery guy as she flounces up to her dad to ask for ten bucks. Her mom quickly hustles over to tell Dad not to give her money, as she’ll use it to buy make-up she’s not allowed to wear. Apparently this is an old argument as Bomi pouts at her mom and Dad smiles good-naturedly at the pair of them. Even the restaurant chef joins in the fun, needling at Mom to let Bomi have the cosmetics.

Mom remains firm and Bomi stomps out, passing her uncle along the way. Back in the restaurant, a U.S. Army soldier takes note of the very full cash register.

Oh no. Late that night, Bomi stumbles out of her room and walks by her parents’ room. Through the open door, she sees the American soldier holding wads of money… while another figure stabs her father in the gut. On the bed, Mom is already dead with a stab wound to the chest.

Bomi backs away in shock and the soldier yells at his partner that they were only supposed to rob the place, not kill anyone. Bomi dashes to her sister’s room and Unni snaps awake at Bomi’s crying. She hands her the phone and quickly pushes Bomi under the bed, whispering for her to call the police.

Unni goes to close the bedroom door, but it suddenly bursts open. The attacker laughs, “You?” then he knocks her down and Bomi watches in horror as her sister is dragged out of the room.

Bomi fumbles with the phone, but her sister screams once from the hallway, then the soldier’s voice echoes, calling his partner crazy for killing the daughter. Bomi trembles under the bed, as her family’s killer walks out of the apartment.

Sometime later, she manages to crawl out from under the bed and sees her sister’s body in the hallway, a pool of blood on the floor. She slowly reaches up and closes the bedroom door, shutting herself in the room and sobbing against the door.

In the present, Bomi continues her story, “…Two robbers walked in and killed the entire family except for one. That’s me.”

EPISODE 12 RECAP

Do-han visits Prosecutor Oh, and it looks like exile is treating him very well since he has a cushy job as a lawyer in a beautiful office. (I guess we should call him Lawyer Oh now.) Full of his charismatic smarm, Do-han says that the forced resignation was actually a blessing in disguise. Oh remarks that Do-han achieved his dream of becoming close to Chef Prosecutor Yoon, but he doesn’t seem to bear a grudge against his old protégé.

Do-han laments that Oh is so gracious to not hold any ill will towards the chief prosecutor, sighing that if only Yoon felt the same…. This piques Lawyer Oh’s curiosity perfectly, and Do-han shares a rumor he heard that Yoon plans to get rid of anyone who could cause him problems before his election hearing. Lawyer Oh isn’t worried, until Do-han gives him a look.

Lawyer Oh remembers a conversation he had with Chief Prosecutor Oh five years ago. Turns out, Bomi’s family case fell under Oh’s prosecution. With the presidential elections just around the corner, Chief Prosecutor Yoon had worried about the repercussions of charging a member of the U.S. Armed Forces, so Oh had asked what he wanted him to do.

Returning to current day, Lawyer Oh relates the story to Do-han, and Do-han surmises that Oh “belonged” to Yoon since that day, so he must have a lot of dirt on the man. He advises Oh to stay quiet and not draw attention to himself.

In her room, Bomi tells the others that the prosecution on her family’s case stalled, and the main suspect fled the country. Without him, they never found the accomplice and the investigation stopped. Soon after, all trace of the case disappeared.

Suji urges her to rethink going after this, since the boss could be manipulating her desire for revenge to suit his own plans. Bomi argues that she’ll just use him back. Hearing her determination, Suji agrees to work the case. Kyung-soo jumps onboard as well, and Bomi looks touched at their support.

That night, Kyung-soo researches Bomi’s family’s murder, sighing to see the proof of her tragedy. He calls her and gently asks if this is the reason why she can’t leave her room, because she’s scared that the culprit could be anybody. The “scared” bit ruffles her feathers, and Bomi snarks back that she’s not scared — she’s just comfortable indoors.

Kyung-soo adds that there must be so many places she wants to go but can’t. (Oh boy, stop while you’re behind.) Not realizing that he’s just rubbing salt in the wound, Kyung-soo is caught off-guard when Bomi starts yelling at him that she doesn’t want to leave. He yells back that he was just worried about her, and soon they’re both shouting through their phones until Bomi hangs up.

Kyung-soo tosses his phone away, then hangs his head, muttering that that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. He actually apologizes to the phone, half-yelling, “Sorry for saying all those things without thinking it through!” Pffft. Dummy.

Suji strolls by, casually noting that isn’t the right way to apologize. Kyung-soo pouts that he was trying to be nice, but Bomi got mad at him. Suji suggests giving her a present instead, though Kyung-soo doesn’t know what to give someone who never leaves their room. She tells him to think about what Bomi would like, which leaves him even more confused than before and fussing that his head hurts.

By herself, Bomi remembers when she was interviewed after her family’s murder. She identified a picture of the U.S. soldier, but couldn’t give any information about his accomplice aside from the detail that he was wearing sneakers and his voice sounded familiar.

Afterwards, she hides in the bathroom and overhears two policewomen discussing her family’s case. One of the women remarks that if her whole family was murdered, she would wish that she’d died with them. In the stall, Bomi silently weeps, looking like she agrees with the woman.

Soon-ae picks up her daughter, Se-won, at her school. Se-wan sees Shi-wan in the rearview mirror and hesitantly asks her mom if she’s sure that Yoo-na was murdered. Soon-ae wonders why she’s so curious, and Se-won mutters that it doesn’t seem like Shi-wan could have done something so terrible. Soon-ae warns her daughter to be careful of him, calling him more dangerous than he appears.

Little does she know, that dangerous boy is watching the pair of them as he leaves the school. Unconcerned, he keeps walking, but suddenly stops to remember that Soon-ae was there when Suji held him hostage. Soon-ae’s car drives past him, and the little psycho grins the creepiest smile.

Shi-wan returns home to find his mom hosting a few of her friends, and the women compliment Mom on her handsome son. He acts every inch the perfect son, but seeing his smile makes Mom uneasy. She asks him if something happened at school and Shi-wan maintains his small smirk, saying, “Just something interesting.” To her credit, Mom looks as creeped out as I am.

Do-han meets with Chief Prosecutor Yoon to assure him that Assemblywoman Chae poses no threat to him, since even if they re-open the investigation into Yoo-na’s death, they won’t find anything. He tries the stir the pot by hinting that the opposing sides may try to sway Lawyer Oh to help them, since Yoon cast him out. The ploy fails, though, as Yoon brushes the idea off. As Do-han walks out, he overhears Yoon make a call to someone, saying, “I need you to step up again.”

Do-han rides the elevator down, then walks headfirst into Eun-joong outside the doors. Eun-joong guesses that he was just doing damage control with Chief Prosecutor Yoon, but Do-han waves away the accusation, coyly noting that Eun-joong seems to be stalking him.

Eun-joong warns that he can’t talk his way out of this one, since the media is watching Jo Suji’s case so closely. Do-han just gives another grin, sidling up as he assures Eun-joong that they all want the same thing: to catch Jo Suji.

Our three musketeers look into the first suspect from Bomi’s case, her uncle. Kyung-soo trails the man as he goes on a shopping spree, then remotely activates the mall’s fire alarm, using the ensuing chaos to nick, clone, and return Uncle’s phone. Clever.

Kyung-soo reports back that Uncle has become rich in the last five years, after he pretended to be acting for Bomi in order to sell her family’s restaurant in her name.

The other two suspects are the chef, Yang Dae-chul, who has since opened his own restaurant in another town, and the restaurant’s delivery boy, Kang Jin-gu, who disappeared after the murders. The chef is currently in the hospital, so the team decides to investigate Uncle for now.

Suji instructs Kyung-soo to continue tailing Uncle. The poor kid whines about being on foot patrol, but Suji sweetly reminds him the he was the one who told her to avoid CCTVs since the whole city is searching for her. Heh, he agrees, demonstrating the very definition of “grin and bear it.”

Bomi spies on her uncle that night, using the camera from his hacked phone. As she watches, Kyung-soo calls her to show her something. He sends her a video and aww! Its different shots of her hometown. Kyung-soo went walking around her entire neighborhood, talking videos of where she used to live.

As Bomi watches, speechless, Kyung-soo calls her on her lie that she didn’t want to see her home again. He says that even if the people and friends are gone, even when there’s no one there to welcome you, places and homes still hold memories. Tears pool in Bomi’s eyes as the video starts to show snippets of her old apartment complex, but unfortunately, the images stir up memories of her family’s attack.

Kyung-soo offers for them to solve the case together so Bomi can return home, but that’s the wrong thing to say given the trauma she experienced there, and she snaps that she doesn’t want to go out. She ends the call and puppy Kyung-soo is left sputtering that she hung up on him again. Oiy vey.

As the night deepens, both Suji and Kyung-soo fall asleep. Only Bomi remains awake, watching her uncle via his hacked phone, so she’s the only one to see the intruder dressed in black enter Uncle’s apartment. Crap!

The man calmly crouches on top of the sleeping Uncle and starts strangling him. Uncle awakens, choking, and the man demands, “Where is Seo Bomi?” Bomi’s eyes widen and she stares while her uncle tries to eke out that he doesn’t know where his niece is. The man growls at him to stop lying, saying he won’t fall for it this time. (This time?)

Uncle croaks out that he really doesn’t know, but the man just squeezes harder, growling, “We’ll find out soon enough. When her uncle dies, the niece is duty-bound to attend the funeral.” With that, he crushes the last breath out of Uncle, and Bomi can do nothing but watch as her uncle’s feet slowly stop kicking.

Bomi calls Suji, but she’s too panicked to do more than gasp out, “The killer. I know who it is.” Suji yells her name, but Bomi is hyperventilating too much to answer. She quickly calls Kyung-soo and tells him to trace Bomi’s phone, revealing that Uncle is dead. Suji rewinds the recording to witness Uncle’s murder, and sees that his attacker then strung Uncle up to make it look like a suicide.

Kyung-soo finds Bomi’s address and Suji runs off to make sure the girl is okay, instructing Kyung-soo to find out where the killer went after leaving Uncle’s apartment.

Suji races to Bomi’s building, while Kyung-soo heads to Uncle’s apartment building. He’s able to hack the CCTV footage into the parking garage, but the attacker isn’t showing up. Spying a car near the building entrance, he breaks in and hacks the car’s black box.

Kyung-soo sits in the car, waiting for the video to load, then gets the bejesus scared out of him when the car’s drunken owner pops up from the back seat. Luckily the guy mistakes Kyung-soo for a designated driver and slurs out his home address before passing out again. Pah.

Kyung-soo sneaks out of the car and watches the video, which confirms that the attacker hasn’t left yet.

Kyung-soo wanders through the parking garage, when suddenly he sees the attacker sitting in an SUV. Showing an alarming lack of tact, Kyung-soo goes wide-eyed and quickly spins around. The sudden movement catches the man’s attention and he gets out to follow as Kyung-soo shuffles away.

Kyung-soo tries to convince himself that the man didn’t see him, but he peeks over his shoulder and sees the guy right behind him. He starts to have a mini-freakout, then breaks into a run. The man in black gives chase, pulling a knife out of his jacket.

 
COMMENTS

No! Do not hurt my Kyung-soo! You hear me, Show? I forbid it! You already took Yoo-na, leave the adorable puppy hacker alone. Grrrr.

But poor Bomi! I knew that whatever happened in her past had to have been bad since it was traumatic enough to force her into her hermit-style hiding, but I hadn’t suspected it was this bad. To watch her whole family murdered right in front of her, then the added pain of survivor’s guilt combined with the injustice of her family’s killer(s) going free? I now completely understand how she transformed from that cheerful, innocent girl into the jaded young woman we know. And, on top of that, she once again could only watch as her last remaining blood relative was strangled to death, virtually in front of her. I really hope Suji can find a way to break into her impressively locked apartment because this girl needs a hug, stat.

In spite of its tragic nature, I glad that we’re starting to find out the backstory of at least of one of our surveillance-duo, and I especially appreciate Kyung-soo’s efforts to help Bomi. As the extrovert in their relationship, it makes sense that Kyung-soo would be the first to reach out, wanting to find some way to connect with her and get her out of the hermit-cave. That video he made for her was just beautiful and I was sad that it failed to help when he put such thought and effort into it. Still, the boy has a lot to learn and I was happy to see him turn to Suji for advice. He’s still young, and Suji is a parent without a child, so it felt so natural for the two of them to gravitate towards each other.

Strangely, I’m getting more curious about Shi-wan and his father. It seems that Yoon has spun a very tangled web in his rise to power, and Do-han’s carefully assembled team all have grievances to bear against the chief prosecutor. And yet, Yoon still has this air of righteousness about him as he constantly puts down Lawyer Oh and Do-Han, dismissing them as crooked prosecutors or social climbers and acting like his is the squeakiest of clean records. He once spouted the idea of a respected Prosecutors’ Office, yet in the same breath, decided to bury the murder of a seven-year-old girl to preserve that image. And what is with his constant lack of expression? It’s like he’s trying to become the personification of the very justice system that he’s promoting: A perfect serene mask hiding a core of corruption.

Yet the sins of the father are eclipsed by the son, since Shi-wan has already surpassed Daddy Dearest in the creep factor. He definitely has his father’s ability to mask his emotions, but then that psychotic grin pops out and I swear my shivers get shivers. This kid legitimately scares me because I just can’t get a handle on him. What is it that he wants? As far as I can tell, he hasn’t killed anyone since Yoo-na, which makes her a special case. So what was it that set him off? And how much does his mother know? She’s starting to look scared around him, but I can’t tell if she’s sacred for her son, or scared of him.

Argh! How is it that this episode answered more questions than any other, and yet I’m left with more questions than ever?

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