ATHENA: Episode 15

by kaedejun

Athena doesn’t have flashbacks – it just has immensely long recaps at the beginning of the episode. It starts off with a refresher on the whole battle scene on the bridge, which, according to the episode special, was one of the biggest action scenes for the series since it required big explosions and closing down a bridge for several days. It’s all good for me – more action!

However, much like the picture above, this episode was once again full of “tense, dramatic talks” that you just want to have boiling over, but takes 40 minutes to get there.

Jung Woo and Son Hyuk shoot each other, and then Son Hyuk throws himself over the bridge. Hells yeah. Not like it’s a death sentence for him – he’s got his Athena agents underwater with an extra oxygen tank to help him swim to safety. Jung Woo uselessly shoots into the water – once again, he’s allowed an Athenian to escape his grasp.

The President is hospitalized due to shock and stress, and Kwon reports in that they’re actively pursuing all the agents that were at the scene or fled, have rounded up the Athena moles, and are trying to identify the “body” of Son Hyuk. Jung Woo, meanwhile, returns to the NTS headquarters to find out that Jae Hee found Hye In and arrested her. Jung Woo heads off to the interrogation room, where Hye In’s being held.

Instead of worried, Jung Woo is effin’ pissed. Why? Because the girl he loves, the girl he ordered to go back and become his enemy, allowed herself to get caught. Whut? So uh, you’d rather her be out there, risking her life for a dangerous cause, than safe and by your side? And betraying her own evil organization for you?

He’s already got her at the collar when Kwon steps inside and sends Jung Woo out. Kwon had been suspicious of Hye In and had hoped to be proven wrong about her. However, Jung Woo’s confession about her identity proved his instincts right. Kwon is understanding though – he knows she won’t get away with her crimes easily, but appeals to her humanity so that she can help NTS take down Athena. Of course, that gets her thinking about all the people she’s killed.

Jae Hee is similarly understanding: she tells Jung Woo that she found the Athena headquarters through her father’s notes, and had found Hye In taking down two guards and trying to escape. Kwon puts Jae Hee in charge of Hye In’s interrogation, and then has Jung Woo help him find all those associated with Athena and Son Hyuk.

The interrogation of Hye In begins. Jae Hee asks Hye In about Palace – a multi-ethnic civilian military organization that made up most of the mercenaries found dead on the bridge attack. Turns out, Athena is a huge, amorphous organization that can exist in many forms, corporations and organizations. Palace is just one of them, and they were behind the stealing of the SNC and kidnapping of Kim Myung Guk. (Sooo – Son Hyuk employed Palace…)

Jae Hee hands over a report of everything they have on Palace and asks Hye In to fill in the blanks. In the meantime, the NTS agents are hunting down each and every Athenian that are hidden within every government organization/corporation. Hye In cannot confirm if she’s the only Athenian within NTS, though; the organization is so huge that no one really knows how many members there are and who is part of what.

Then Jae Hee touches the sensitive part – her father. She wants to know more about Han Jeong Pil and can’t understand why he joined Athena. Unfortunately, Hye In doesn’t know much about Secretary Han herself, but when she says that Athena is a lot scarier than one would think, it implies that Han might have gotten himself unwittingly roped up in the business, or coerced into it. Jae Hee asks if Hye In really killed her father, as Jung Woo says. Hye In surprisingly tells the truth – and I say surprisingly because I thought she wanted everyone to have a reason to hate her. But noooo – she just lied to Jung Woo because she wants just him to have a reason to hate her. Ugh – what Warped-Secret-Agent-Noble-Idiot Syndrome is this?

NTS will be working with – who else? – Chul Young in solving the Kim Ho Gyun assassination. Kwon is perfectly willing to blame it on Athena, despite lacking evidence. Chul Young only wants irrefutable evidence, and if the conclusion on the case is not favorable, he wants South Korea to take full responsibility for the murder. Says the man who planned the assassination.

Meanwhile, Sung Chul is really worried about Hye In – he knows she can’t avoid punishment, but he hopes that her text about the President being a target will help lessen it. But NTS has no control – they are going to send her to the NIS for further questioning, and from there she’s in the hands of the legal system. So Hye In has one last request – to see Jung Woo.

Really? I thought you wanted him to hate you!

So Jung Woo goes in, and this time, he’s not raging mad (and his arm apparently healed in just a couple of days). Hye In just wanted to say goodbye, and tell him that she was most happy when with him. (GAH – *tears my hair out*) She also says that despite being arrested, she felt most safe with NTS and didn’t suffer from nightmares. She feels most at peace now because she knows she’s going to jail, rather than not knowing if she’ll live another day. (WTH!?)

Jung Woo: Now I’m going to have the nightmares that you had.

LOLOL! Woops – was that me laughing aloud?

He regrets not having just arrested her before (Duh) and ending all this pain. (You noble idiots.) Hye In is then taken out of NTS in handcuffs, and she is escorted by numerous guards and two black vans.

Kwon takes his “surrogate son” Jung Woo out for a drink, which really just gives Jung Woo a chance to mope and feel bad about himself for loving a double agent. Lesson #1: do NOT date coworkers. Especially if your occupation is espionage. It will only lead to heartbreak if your coworker is a) a traitor or b) your ex, and yet you’re partners. Kwon tries to make him feel better by pointing out that Hye In’s resolve is shaking and that Jung Woo did have an effect on her. He is jealous that he never had a great love like Jung Woo did. Blah blah – old man, you just made Jung Woo cry.

Back to the fun – Mr. Chang is showing off his card tricks to Ki Soo’s lackey. Mr. Chang is willing to cheat against anyone because he can see right through them:

Chang: You’re an only son, right?
Lackey: What?
Chang: Your dad died when you were young.
Lackey: How’d you know?
Chang: And you grew up lonely with a widowed mother.
Lackey: Hyungnim.
Chang: Your mom still sees you as a kid, right?
Lackey: Mommy…!

Hehe – it was the only moment of good ole comedy in this episode. Anyways, the point is Mr. Chang can’t read Ki Soo, and that prompts a memory within the lackey. There was one time that a man was gambling at the high stakes poker table. We as the viewer know all the players’ cards, and this man was going to lose with just triple Aces, but he bets big anyways. Everyone reveals their cards, and they successively have higher and higher combinations. One of them thinks he’s about to win, when suddenly the man whips out his combination – four Aces. From afar, Ki Soo saw all this, and he stops the man from reaping in the pot. He reveals that the man had a card hidden up his sleeve, and then punches the guy out of his parlor.

Mr. Chang is impressed – he and the lackey just have no idea how the hell Ki Soo can catch all the professional cheaters. That’s when Ki Soo comes in, and he kicks them out of his office and work. He gets called out for a drink by Sung Chul, who finds it weird that Internal Affairs never contacted him again after that harsh “interrogation.” Nevertheless, he finds it a chance to start over and contemplates quitting. While Ki Soo laughs it off, Sung Chul is genuinely worried that his family won’t be cared for. He makes Ki Soo promise to take care of his family if anything should ever happen to him. Ki Soo takes it all as a joke, but Sung Chul is insistent. He agrees to get the veteran agent to shut up and they drink to that.

Sung Chul is also a big mouth – he tells Ki Soo that Jung Woo was in love with an Athena agent, and that’s a useful nugget for him.

Jung Woo and Joon Ho are at the Blue House to meet the President and be formally thanked for saving his life. Funnily though, Joon Ho can smell the liquor on Jung Woo, and Jung Woo is super hungover. 😀 The President is doubly thankful to Jung Woo for saving his daughter in Italy and promises to grant him a favor. While Jung Woo doesn’t answer, Kwon speaks up – they want Hye In to be treated with leniency for assisting them on the bridge attack. The President promises to do his best to help.

Kwon puts Jung Woo on the team investigating Kim Ho Gyun’s assassination, and so he meets up with Chul Young. He still cannot provide concrete evidence that Athena was behind the attack, but he does have proof that before he died, Kim Ho Gyun contacted Son Hyuk, and it was the night before the Presidential assassination attempt. It gives Chul Young some food for thought, since he now has to find out why Kim Ho Gyun and Son Hyuk were working together.

Sean Richard is back! He makes a phone call from a telephone booth to Kwon: he wants to turn himself in to NTS. He no longer has a leader to follow in Athena and is willing to reveal everything for a large amount of money, a pardon, and a new start in a foreign country.

Kwon sends Jae Hee to retrieve Hye In from NIS for additional interrogation; he wants to see if he can get more information from the two of them together. She calls up Jung Woo to tell him what’s up, while Blue House decides that Sean Richard’s demands might be worth the information he has.

Back at NTS, Jae Hee questions Hye In about Sean Richard’s relationship to Son Hyuk. Hye In can’t believe that he would turn himself in like that, but Jae Hee brings up the possibility that Son Hyuk is dead, and so he no longer has someone to follow. The death is actually news to Hye In.

Approved by Blue House, Kwon allows for Sean Richard to be brought in immediately, since Athena is plotting a new attack that he has details on. He wants to meet at the river first, and so Kwon arranges for some agents to go and escort him. However, on the way, they find out that Sean Richard is being chased by another car. Since he’s closer to NTS headquarters than the arranged meeting place, he asks that they allow for him to go in directly. Agents are set up outside of NTS and they shoot at the pursuing car. They let Sean Richard’s car go through the gate, and a couple of agents meet him at the parking lot.

He says he has an injured agent in his back seat, but when the agents look inside, it’s a female Athenian who draws a gun at them. At the same time, a motorcyclist zooms by the agents waiting by the river and throws a bomb underneath a van, killing several guards.

With guns trained on the NTS agents’ heads, the female Athenian and Sean Richard make their way inside NTS. She trains her gun at Chul Hwan’s head, and then accesses the security system, putting NTS in complete lock down. This alerts everyone who doesn’t know what’s happening in the main room, and Jae Hee immediately runs to get Hye In. A few more clicks on the computer and suddenly, Son Hyuk’s magnificent face is on the large screen.

Yes – he’s alive. And healthy. Holding a trigger to the bomb vests that his two Athenians are wearing. And he wants Hye In.

Comments:

Aw hells yeah! NTS takeover!! I love it when the agency gets put under a hostage situation! That sounds so mean, but it’s so juicy. I kind of like the way this one plays out over IRIS, except I cannot – can. not. – believe that TWO agents can take over an entire agency JUST LIKE THAT. Like, really? There were so many NTS agents around that could have taken them down from behind. Goodness. If they walked in with the bombs strapped on their chests, maybe I’d buy it – after all, who wants to shoot a bomber and get blown up too? But at least their takeover method was a little more creative, rather than the sneak-in-as-a-company and then do a hostile takeover. This one required a little more deception.

I have to say, this episode really picked up. I was going to write it off as another boring episode, since the first fifteen minutes was from episode 14, and there was plenty of moping and crying over that thing called loooooove. I honestly laughed at the confrontation between Hye In and Jung Woo, because it was so cheeeeeeeeesy. But then suddenly, pieces were being put to place and Sean Richard wants to come in. (Plus, I really enjoyed a little more light being shed on Ki Soo as a character. His spy skills had to have gone somewhere.)

Athena is becoming a lot more uneven now. While the plot is getting somewhat tighter (because the focus is solely on bringing down Athena now), it’s got its peaks and valleys in terms of quality. Stick to action, because that’s where the drama works best.

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