Tunnel: Episode 5

by Saya

The spotlight’s on Sun-jae this episode as he and Kwang-ho spend the hour marooned at a crime scene, using nothing but their wits to solve it. There’s something pleasantly old-fashioned about the proceedings that harks back to classic mysteries, and the unrelenting rain provides a sufficiently moody backdrop. And come rain or shine, throwing our resident chalk-and-cheese detectives together is always going to be, at the very least, entertaining.

EPISODE 5 RECAP

In the pouring rain, Sun-jae checks out the site where the latest dot-murder victim was found. He makes a call to medical examiner Dr. Mok and asks him to use his connections to obtain the autopsy findings. There’s nothing at the scene, he says, and Dr. Mok tells him, “The fact that there isn’t anything could be a clue, too.”

Sun-jae answers immediately when his phone buzzes again, thinking it’s Dr. Mok, but it’s his father instead. Dad reminds him that it’s his mom’s death anniversary, but Sun-jae has no intention of going.

He thinks back to his grandfather’s death when he was in high school. He had arrived at the hospital moments too late, and found a photo clutched in Grandpa’s fist. Grandpa had written a note on the back, expressing sorrow at not catching the culprit. Culprit? he’d thought to himself, having believed that she died of illness. Dad arrived then, his face is finally revealed as the soldier-husband of the dot-murder victim.

Later, Sun-jae left home, spurning a medical career in favor of joining the police. He told Dad that he would attend his mother’s memorial rites only after bringing her murderer to justice. “Does it make sense to carry out her memorial rites when we couldn’t even catch her killer?” he asks Dad in the present.

Kwang-ho shows Sung-shik the speeding ticket that was sent to the other Kwang-ho, and tells him about his encounter the day he arrived in this timeline. He’s more certain than ever that it’s no coincidence, and that Kwang-ho is the key to why he’s here and how to get back home. He’s stumped by how little information he can find about him, and Sung-shik says they’re still searching for his phone and car.

Kwang-ho asks if he’s found Yeon-sook yet, telling Sung-shik that he wouldn’t understand, not being married. But Sung-shik sheepishly shows him a wedding band and says he’s been married twenty-five years. Lols, that beats a newlywed for sure!

Jae-yi smiles over a thank you card Soo-jung (the little sister from last week) sent her. Dean Hong smiles too, saying that it’s the first time she’s her like this. She gently advises Jae-yi look after her own wellbeing. On being asked whether she’s seeing anyone, Jae-yi replies, “I have a stalker.”

Sun-jae rushes out of the station, bumping Kwang-ho on the way. When they hear there’s been a death, Kwang-ho follows. On the way, he asks Sun-jae why he’s obsessed with that serial killer Jung Ho-young, but he characteristically makes no reply.

Two years ago. Sun-jae questioned Jung Ho-young about the murder of a nurse. “Shall I tell you something really interesting? I killed more people,” Jung said, leaning forward, adding that it was a case went unknown and unrecorded. Having caught Sun-jae’s attention, Jung fell into helpless cackling. Later, Sun-jae thought about how there was no record of his mother’s case, either.

His then-partner escorted Jung away, but Jung asked to use the bathroom. While there, he smashed open the cast on his arm and retrieved a knife, with which he then stabbed his guard. Hearing his scream, the partner rushed in, but Jung stabbed him, too, and got away. The partner crawled out to warn Sun-jae, who barrelled outside to look in vain for his runaway.

Back in the present, Kwang-ho mutters that Sun-jae never replies, and remarks on his all-black get-up: “You’d think someone died.” At his black look, Kwang-ho scoffs that he’s not scared of him.

They reach the rest stop where their case occurred. It’s still bucketing down, and the officer on the scene takes them to the body of CHOI HONG-SEOK lying in the bathroom. Kwang-ho takes in the fractured skull and concludes it was grudge-driven. The officer tells them that it’s unlikely anybody’s left the stop since the weather has made it impassable.

Kwang-ho hops into the Choi’s truck for clues. He finds a photo of him in boxing kit, and guesses that he was hit from behind. Sun-jae, meanwhile, takes photos of each vehicle’s license plates, and notices a damaged headlight on one car.

They head inside and introduce themselves to the six people waiting. “Who’s the bastard playing innocent after killing someone?” Kwang-ho asks. Each person turns away from his look.

Meanwhile, Sung-shik’s police van is trapped in a sea of mud on the way to the rest stop. A returning police van tells them to turn back since there’s no through road after a bridge got flooded, too. But they go on ahead, leaving Sung-shik and his boys stranded. That’s evil!

Sung-shik calls to tell Sun-jae that they can’t make it in with the forensic team, but the call cuts off as they lose reception. They figure the culprit is among the six, and the first suspect they interview is a government official more concerned about a function he meant to attend than the fact that someone is dead. He’s the owner of the car with the broken headlight, but can’t explain it and claims the black box is broken, too.

The next suspect is a teacher, who explains that he stopped off to buy a drink. Kwang-ho asks him about the broken glasses he’s wearing, and he says it happened during a game with his colleagues. Sun-jae notes that he’s dressed too lightly for the weather, but the suspect points out that he was just in his car.

The third suspect is the one who found the body: a young man who turns out to be a baseball player well known for his various misdemeanors. Kwang-ho notices blood staining his shoe and observes that the victim’s blow could have been caused by a baseball bat.

Back at the police station, Sung-shik receives the license plate photos Sun-jae finally managed to send, and the team get on it.

The fourth suspect is an actress. Kwang-ho asks her if she was running away after killing someone. “That’s right,” she replies… and bursts out laughing. The detectives groan. The fifth, a shifty-looking tow-truck driver, complains about being held.

Their last suspect, the owner of the rest stop, is chattier. He tells them that the government official arrived first, followed by victim Choi, then the teacher, then the tow-truck driver, and finally the actress and the baseball player together. But once the interview is over, he looks decidedly suspicious.

The detectives reckon that one or all of the suspects are lying. They grab the pile of car keys and head out to search for the murder weapon. Kwang-ho discovers a baseball bat in one car and a hammer in another, both clean. He tells Sun-jae the real weapon must be hidden away, and they return to the body.

Kwang-ho probes the wound and Sun-jae snaps at him, but Kwang-ho barks back that they need the information. He extracts a gravel-like fragment which he deduces is cement, and thinks that Choi was struck with something made of it.

Sun-jae notices a blood trail which he follows to the disabled toilet next door. Opening the lid, he finds the bowl full of bloody water and fishes a bloodstained brick out of the cistern—cement, just as Kwang-ho predicted.

They confront the owner with the brick, but he argues that that he’s never seen the guy before today and had no reason to kill him. But his eyes flicker away, and Kwang-ho follows his line of sight to discover a hand-painted sign forbidding entrance to heavy goods vehicles.

That makes Kwang-ho question his story, and the owner admits Choi was a regular—he always just used the toilets and never bought a thing. But he swears he didn’t kill him, even admitting that he had found the body first but was afraid of being suspected.

Suddenly realizing something, he says the killer must be the tow-truck driver, who is an ex-con. In the Hwayang incident room, Sung-shik hears that it was Choi who reported the guy for a hit-and-run.

When the detectives return to the suspects, they find the tow-truck driver on the run. Kwang-ho beats on his car window to get him to come out, but Sun-jae just pulls out his gun and shoots… the tire.

They bring the driver back inside, but he gets riled up when the owner tells everyone about his connection to the victim. Wielding a mop, he yells that it wasn’t him, but they’re interrupted by the sudden arrival of… Jae-yi?

Kwang-ho uses the distraction to disarm and handcuff the guy. When the detectives ply her with question, Jae-yi simply asks for a coffee. “The culprit was captured,” she tells them, explaining that that the killer escaped on the express bus that had stopped here earlier. Since the communications were down, she came to tell them personally.

The atmosphere lightens immediately, and Kwang-ho uncuffs the tow-truck driver. Sun-jae takes Jae-yi away for a word and Kwang-ho mutters to himself that those two have something going on. Well you ain’t a detective for nothin’, eh.

In private, Jae-yi admits to Sun-jae that she was lying to make the killer drop their guard. The air between them is charged when Kwang-ho interrupts their (literal) tête-à-tête, and Jae-yi cheerfully tells him, “What you’re thinking is correct.” Hehehe.

Night falls. Sitting a little apart from the suspects, the three of them discuss the lack of evidence. Kwang-ho points out that they’ve yet to uncover a motive in any of their suspects. While he talks, the other two shift impatiently, until finally Jae-yi decides to check out the body and Sun-jae follows her out. “I’ll do it by myself, then,” Kwang-ho sighs.

Sun-jae has the key to the crime scene, but Jae-yi says she can go by herself. “I’m in the process of stalking you right now,” he replies, gaze intense.

Remaining inside, Kwang-ho speculates on the possibilities. His thoughts are interrupted by the government official yelling at the teacher for spilling ramyun on his expensive suit. Kwang-ho breaks it up and starts cleaning, and the teacher helps. Kwang-ho’s impressed by his speed and efficiency, and the teacher says it’s because he’s been on his own since his wife died. Luckily, they didn’t have children, he tells Kwang-ho.

Kwang-ho sighs and tells the man that the hardest part of being a detective is delivering the news of a victim’s death to the family. He thinks back to when he had to tell baby Sun-jae’s father about his wife. “You never forget the look on their face at that moment,” he says, and adds that without fail, every person collapses.

The teacher—who’s been looking increasingly gaunt—buckles at those words, but gets back to his feet right away, attributing it to low blood pressure. He goes out for some air, leaving Kwang-ho staring after him.

Jae-yi examines the scene of the body, noting that Choi’s cell phone is still there, which means the perp isn’t saved in it. Going outside, she looks over at a bench and imagines the scene of Choi bumming a light from the unseen killer sitting next to him.

Sitting in the spot herself, she finds two cigarettes—one no more than a butt, and the other (on what she thinks is the perp’s side) nearly unused. She wonders what made that person drop it without finishing. Sun-jae quietly watches her work.

At the police station, Sung-shik has acquired the victim’s cell phone history and he immediately dispatches the Tae-Min duo to meet the last person. Forced to abort their meal, they waspishly leave their still-cooking pot ramyuns as offerings for the chief. Lol.

Sun-jae finds an empty suit-cover in one of the cars. Armed with umbrella and torch, he searches around the site until he finds a black plastic sack.

Our Tae-Min duo question the person on the call list. He’s the owner of a boxing gym and says he and Choi were army peers. “Is there anyone who would want to kill him?” Min-ha asks.

Pondering the teacher’s reaction earlier, Kwang-ho thinks he must be the culprit, but there’s no evidence. “Let’s go ask him if he killed him,” Jae-yi suggests. Blinking, he says, “Agasshi, you and I really don’t suit each other, do we?” and points out that she doesn’t answer either, just like Sun-jae.

That very moment, Sun-jae bursts in. “I think I’ve found the perp,” he pants. The sack he found contained a discarded suit covered in blood, and even the perp’s wallet. The photo inside shows a family of three. Yup, it’s the teacher, along with his wife… and a son?

The three of them return to the main room, where the teacher—whom we’ll now call TEACHER KIM—is sitting apart from the others. Jae-yi doesn’t mince her words, and announces to them that she lied earlier. “The culprit is in here,” she says, “and this time, we’ve really got him.”

Approaching him, she says he must have asked himself what good prison could be when it wouldn’t bring back his son, but knowing the pain of losing a child, he went on to inflict that pain on someone else. “How cruel people are,” she muses, “Isn’t that so, Teacher?”

Teacher Kim seizes a knife and brandishes it at them before holding it against his own throat. “I didn’t mean to kill him at first,” he gasps.

At the boxing gym, the owner shows the detectives a photo and points out a young man. Choi killed him, he says, and tells them how Choi routinely used his juniors are human punching bags. One time, this kid accidentally blocked a blow, causing Choi to injure his wrist. He went wild and beat the kid to death. He never apologized, and the parents were distraught.

Tears running down his face, Teacher Kim tells them that his heartbroken wife ultimately followed her son into death. “I told her to forgive him, when he was such a worthless bastard,” he howls.

We flashback to Teacher Kim sheltering from the rain. He offered the man already there—Choi—a light, before recognition dawned. He tells the detectives he was going to just go his way, but then Choi complained to Teacher Kim about the rain making his wrist ache. He used to be a boxer, he boasted, but some jerk injured him.

“What did you do to that person?” Teacher Kim asked. “I killed him,” Choi replied. Teacher Kim’s cigarette fell from his hand, and Choi laughed that he was joking. Livid, Kim stormed into the bathroom behind Choi, picking up a brick at the door…

The electricity goes out in the present, and the team clear the others out. Sun-jae asks Teacher Kim if killing Choi changed anything. Kim says Sun-jae doesn’t understand, but Sun-jae says he does.

“I wanted to hunt down and kill the criminal who [killed] my mother. But what would it change?” he asks. He tells Teacher Kim that it was already over when his son died. He says that after he joined the police, he understood that they couldn’t undo what had already happened.

Crying, Teacher Kim turns the knife back on himself, but Jae-yi rushes in to block him, grabbing the blade with her bare hands. The men leap on him and Kwang-ho cuffs him while Sun-jae anxiously checks on Jae-yi.

After Kim is taken away, Kwang-ho rounds on Jae-yi for her putting herself in harm’s way. She insists she’s unhurt and leaves. Before Sun-jae follows, Kwang-ho asks if he’s pursuing Jung Ho-young so hard because of his mother, but Sun-jae tells him it’s none of his concern.

“I’m sorry,” Kwang-ho says, stopping him in his tracks. “I understand now why you chase the culprit with such persistence.” Closing the distance between them, he adds, “If I can help you in any way, let me know.”

Meanwhile, Sun-jae’s father performs the memorial rites for his mother alone, wearing the tie that she had been bringing him the night she was murdered.

The rain clears by the next day, and the rest of the team finally rolls in. Kwang-ho asks Sung-shik if he’s the one who called Jae-yi, but it’s the first Sung-shik’s heard of her being there at all. They’re both very confused, while she’s currently nowhere to be seen.

In the back of a police car, Sun-jae gives Teacher Kim the photo of his family that he retrieved from the discarded wallet. “I thought you should have this,” he says.

Jae-yi walks down an empty road, blood dripping from her hand. On the phone, Dean Hong tells her that she’s on the way, but when her ride arrives, it’s Sun-jae who emerges. He kneels to look at her hand and she tells him it’s nothing big. Uncovering a gash, he asks, “It’s nothing big even when it’s like this?”

As he bandages her hand, he tells her she should say she’s hurt when she’s hurt, or else silence will become a habit. He asks if she was like this since her parents died, and admits he overheard her in the hospital.

He tells that when she says something is no big deal or it’s commonplace, he hears the opposite. He offers to tell her his story (“It’s no big deal, it’s commonplace”) but she says she thinks she’s heard it already.

Kwang-ho is in a funk on the drive back, thinking of how Teacher Kim must have lived after losing his son. He asks Sung-shik how he dealt with his own disappearance thirty years ago, and Sung-shik tells him he used to drink every day. Sighing, Kwang-ho wonders how Yeon-sook took it: “I hope she didn’t cry too much.”

We sojourn to the past: Yeon-sook tearfully scrubs at Kwang-ho’s socks so hard that they get holes. Her friend (or sister?) urges her to give up on him and think of the baby. She puts her arms around her and Yeon-sook cries into her shoulder.

In the present, Sung-shik stops the car. He finally admits that he hasn’t been able to trace Yeon-sook, and raises the possibility that she’s missing. Horrified, Kwang-ho gets out and starts walking. “As long as I can find 1988’s Park Kwang-ho, I can go back. I’m going back,” he repeats fiercely.

Elsewhere, a white car lies crushed and abandoned, hidden under brambles. That doesn’t look good at all…

COMMENTS

I’m sorry to say it, but I found the case of the day disappointingly straightforward (and I feel churlish admitting it). I thought, Twisty cases are hard to write! We can’t expect them all the time! But when they teased us with the possibility that all the suspects could be lying, I was excited, getting flashbacks to all the twisty mysteries I’ve ever watched or read (I’m thinking Murder on the Orient Express-style!).

But where a story is lacking in twists, I expect it to make up in emotional depth, and I don’t feel like that happened. Maybe it’s just my mood, but I didn’t really feel emotionally invested in anything this episode, which is weird because I really like Sun-jae, and I like the growing relationship between him and Jae-yi. But maybe it was pushing the ship too hard? They have a natural chemistry which is offbeat and occasionally a little black, but perhaps there was one lingering gaze too many, because something about it felt heavy-handed and unsubtle this episode. That said, I did genuinely enjoy those interludes, but…well, I can’t really put my finger on it. Maybe I just like them being weird with each other (like the stalking!) rather than normal. (Also, who did call Jae-yi there?)

What really bugs me is that nearly all of the revelations about Sun-jae this hour are things we already figured out ages ago. I knew he was that baby the second we discovered his name back in episode 2, so as a reveal, it was ineffective—compare that to the timing of Kwang-ho and Sung-shik reuniting, which was just right. It seems like it’s past time for Kwang-ho to make the connection between the baby and the adult so we can get on with the story (maybe it happens in 6? Don’t tell me!). Today’s case feels like it’s more just a framing device to introduce Sun-jae’s backstory, and that bothers me, because while you could argue the same about Jae-yi in last episode’s case, that one carried more emotional weight and plot tension for me. What do you guys think?

After studying the pictures again, I’m also convinced now that the murderer at the confessional last episode really is Jung Ho-young. Again, it’s a little too straightforward, but let’s hope that there’s more to it and that this isn’t Gap-dong. It’s too early to run out of mysteries! (And now I think I really do want Dr. Mok to be a killer of some kind. This is what happens when you have ideas—you get attached to them).

Still, despite the case this episode being a bit simple, the central mysteries are as compelling—and tantalizing—as ever. We really need to get more than three-second snippets of Other Kwang-ho, and what surprises me about his car is how it looks like it’s been there so long (could it be… thirty years?). There’s still so much we don’t know, and I hope that now we’ve given everyone their backstories, we can focus a little more on the overarching storylines, the time-tunnel rules, and of course, the interactions between our central four. I find the Kwang-ho/Sung-shik pair act as a counterweight to the Sun-jae/Jae-yi pair, so with Sung-shik getting decidedly less screentime and Kwang-ho as a mostly solo act, things felt a bit off-kilter as a result. Hopefully they’ll restore the balance by the next episode—Sung-shik brings a lot to the table, dammit, I want him there ALL the time.

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