Two Cops: Episodes 3-4

by LollyPip

With the setup out of the way, it’s time to dive into the meat of our story as our heroes learn to deal with their new situation. It’s quite a shock to find yourself in someone else’s body and living their life, but our charming con man figures out a way to make it work in his favor. But as he sets out to clear his name, he forgets to ask something very important—what happened to the original owner of his new body?

 
EPISODE 3 RECAP

In a hospital bed, Dong-tak’s eyes open, and he sits up grumbling, “I almost died because of that damn detective, Cha Dong-tak.” A nurse enters the room (cameo by Park Jin-ju), and he wonders to himself why she’s calling him Cha Dong-tak, when he’s Gong Su-chang.

He gets up to look for his clothes, but when he catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror, he lets out a bloodcurdling screech. After bouncing off the wall several times, Su-chang stares at his reflection in horror and asks the nurse why he’s in that bastard’s body (I’ll be referring to the character by the soul’s name, so when Su-chang is in Dong-tak’s body, I’ll call him Su-chang).

She says condescendingly that he’ll be fine soon, and when she calls him by Dong-tak’s name again, he stammers that this is not his body. He figures out that his soul must have been transferred to Dong-tak’s body somehow, but when he suggests this to the nurse, she calls him crazy.

He gets upset, and his voice goes shrill as he protests that he’s not crazy, and he really is in the wrong body. He closes his eyes, then starts to fling his upper body around, trying to throw his soul out of Dong-tak’s body. LOL!

When it doesn’t work, Su-chang jumps back into the hospital bed, but he remains unsuccessful at evicting his own soul. It suddenly occurs to him to wonder where his own body is, and it takes him a few tries to make the nurse understand that he’s asking about Su-chang’s body.

She tells Su-chang that the man who came here with him is still unconscious and in intensive care. He works himself into a frenzy as he goes to see his body, and he doesn’t hear reporter Ji-an calling to him, since she’s calling to Detective Cha.

She catches up to him and gapes when he bites her head off for talking to him. She follows him into the elevator and says he looks better than she expected, making him wonder why this total stranger is saying he looks fine when he’s far from fine.

Su-chang takes a second look at Ji-an and asks if they’ve met before, thinking that she looks familiar. Since she believes she’s talking to Dong-tak, she guesses that he must have hit his head. Su-chang suddenly seems to remember her, but he only asks if she’s a doctor.

He runs off when the elevator door opens, and he finds his body lying in a coma in intensive care. The sight hammers home the reality of his situation, and he fights to breathe, then tries again to shake his soul out of Dong-tak’s body.

HAHA, he looks like he’s angry-bowing, and when the nurse comes in, she tells him sweetly that he needs to leave because too much stimuli could kill the patient. Su-chang asks if his body could be in this condition permanently, and the nurse’s hesitation confirms his worst fears.

The nurse, whose name is DA-JUNG, just happens to know Ji-an. Ji-an tells her that Dong-tak was in an accident and doesn’t seem to know her now. She thinks it’s all an act, an elaborate plan to avoid her.

Da-jung sighs that at least he’s doing better than the guy who came in with him. She tells Ji-an that they say that patients in a coma have “gone on a picnic,” as if their souls are roaming around without their bodies.

Su-chang makes his way back to Dong-tak’s room, but he freezes in the hallway when he sees rookie Sung-hyuk and his whole team in the room eating chicken. He goes inside cautiously, uncomfortable to be around so many cops.

He gets back in the bed and tries to hide under the covers, but the guys insist on talking to him, calling Dong-tak the toughest cop in the division and bragging that he even took down murderer Su-chang.

Su-chang sits up and demands to know who they’re calling a murderer, then remembers who he’s supposed to be and lamely mutters, “Sure, I’m the best…” He tries to finagle some time off after his accident, but Detective Yoo orders him back to work immediately.

That night, Su-chang sits staring out the window, seeing his own reflection in the glass. He tells himself that he couldn’t die while being blamed as a cop-killer, which may explain how he ended up in the body of a detective. He decides to use Dong-tak’s identity as a cop to clear his own name.

He checks out Dong-tak’s physique, guessing that he must be in good shape. He finds a medallion around his neck with an engraved J on it, and he briefly thinks it looks familiar before dismissing it as irrelevant.

The following morning, Su-chang shows up at the police station, and he does a decent job of impersonating Dong-tak if not for his frantically darting eyes. He follows Detective Park to his desk, awkwardly trying out several chairs before finally finding Dong-tak’s desk.

He’s terrorized by the messy state of Dong-tak’s area, and he’s particularly offended by an old, stinky pair of sneakers under Dong-tak’s desk. He spots Sung-hyuk and confirms that he’s his partner, then instructs Sung-hyuk to dispose of the shoes.

Detective Yoo shows up and asks them to be sure and turn in their guns for inspection. Su-chang is delighted to learn that he has a gun, but he wilts when he’s told that they all turned their guns in already, and won’t be armed for the next few days.

Later, Detectives Park and Lee spot Sung-hyuk heading to his locker with Dong-tak’s shoes. He confesses that he’s not going to throw them away but keep them as a souvenir, and the sunbaes wonder why Dong-tak would want them tossed when they’re the cherished pair that his deceased partner, Hang-joon, gave to him.

At the broadcasting station, Ji-an draws attention as she wails that she needs a good story. Reporter Na-mi asks Ji-an’s partner what her deal is, and Mi-nam says she’s paying for her promise not to get in Dong-tak’s way.

Ji-an bellows that she can hear them, so Mi-nam loyally changes tack and berates Na-mi for gossiping, hee. He asks Ji-an what she’s going to do, and she decides she’ll try to strike a deal.

Su-chang sidles up to Sung-hyuk to ask about the witness who supposedly saw him the night Hang-joon died. He’s surprised when Sung-hyuk says the guy wasn’t detained, since he’s a witness and not a suspect.

Detective Park joins them, all smiles because Hang-joon’s case is closed, and Su-chang asks if he doesn’t feel bad for that Su-chang guy since he’s still unconscious. But Detective Park says that he’s safer in a coma, since Dong-tak will kill him when he wakes up.

Detective Lee informs everyone that thug Yong-pal is planning to sue them for being beat up by a cop, and they all peer at Su-chang confusedly when he demands to know what kind of cop beats people up in this day and age. Heh, he can tell from their expressions that it was him. They decide to let Yong-pal go since they don’t need him anymore, but Su-chang perks up to hear that the thug knows something.

He learns from Sung-hyuk that Yong-pal had a very close relationship with his mother who died, so he goes to talk to him armed with this information. Yong-pal is eating, and he’s bewildered by the detective’s odd behavior as he cheerfully decides to call Yong-pal “hyung.”

Su-chang tells him that he had a near-death experience, and that ever since then, he’s been able to see dead people. Yong-pal dismisses him until he says there’s an old woman sitting in a chair in the corner, describing Yong-pal’s mother’s prominent mole.

When he sees Yong-pal’s pupils dilate, Su-chang knows he’s got him. He says the “ghost” is worried Yong-pal will upset his stomach by shoveling down his food, and Yong-pal goes wide-eyed and starts chewing more carefully.

Su-chang says this reminds him of his grandmother, who always fed and cared for him even when he got into trouble in his youth. He says she would always tell him to be good, which is why he became a cop. The story makes Yong-pal burst into tears, and he sobs even harder when Su-chang begs the “ghost” to stop crying.

Yong-pal is released, and Su-chang and Sung-hyuk follow him closely. They listen to the clone they made of his phone as he calls a lackey and discovers that someone who’s very good with knives recently came to Korea. Su-chang gets excited, sure that he’ll be clearing his name soon.

He’s called back to the station to meet with Ji-an, who’s claiming that he nearly assaulted her, and since Su-chang doesn’t know any better, he’s forced to go along with her. Ji-an says she’ll drop the charges in exchange for detailed information about his violent crimes cases, and she’s taken aback when he easily agrees.

He does make sure to say that he’s not the same person he was yesterday, meaning it literally. Ji-an promises not to get in his way, but Su-chang tells her that on the contrary, she should stay very close to him. He coos that he’s good at protecting pretty women, and I’m pretty sure he just batted his eyelashes at her.

He walks her home and asks if she’s not afraid of police stations, and she brags that Korean women are really brave. Su-chang argues that men like women who get scared and act girly, but Ji-an gives him the stink-eye and says that women actually hate that, not that he believes her.

She takes offense to his speaking casually and calling her “Song,” so Su-chang turns on the charm and asks what nickname she’d like him to call her. She recoils from his smarmy wink and asks if he’s into her, and when he denies it, she says she’ll take a pass.

His interest piqued, Su-chang asks what her answer would be if he were into her, but Ji-an says she’d still pass since she doesn’t like detectives, because she knew one who was a liar. Su-chang wonders why her not liking detectives upsets him, and he guesses it’s really the lying part she hates.

He wonders if she also dislikes swindlers, since they’re good at lying, and he suddenly seems to care a lot as he asks if she hates detectives or swindlers more. He wills her to say detectives, and he actually looks like he’s been punched in the gut when she says she hates swindlers more.

Su-chang tells Ji-an that there are swindlers who don’t cheat the old, the sick, or the kind, but she says they’re still swindlers. He just keeps digging his hole deeper, until Ji-an is left staring at him incredulously.

Her expression seems familiar, and Su-chang suddenly remembers where he met her before. He recognizes her as the pretty woman that his accomplice Bong-sook robbed, and with an almost fond smile, he says that it’s nice to see her again.

 
EPISODE 4 RECAP

They arrive at Ji-an’s home and Su-chang decides to call it a day. She jokes that she worried he’d want to invite himself over “for ramyun,” but he takes her literally and says he doesn’t like ramyun because he had it so often when he was in an orphanage.

He says he does like rice, and that she can make him a meal sometime later. Ji-an looks surprised, and Su-chang says her expression makes his heart flutter. He starts to walk away but turns back, and Ji-an takes a deep breath, making him ask why she’s surprised again.

He tells her to only get surprised three times a day, and asks cheekily if she knows how pretty she looks when that happens. Ji-an narrows her eyes, thinking how different he seems today.

Su-chang goes looking for his partner Bong-sook, but she recognizes him as the detective and makes a run for it. He chases her for a bit, yelling that it’s him, strangely shocked that she doesn’t recognize him.

He gets a little depressed, wondering if he’ll have to live as Dong-tak for the rest of his life. He goes back to visit his body and asks himself what will happen if he never gets to go back. He decides to stay positive and tells his body to hang in there, but he complains about the fact that his body is handcuffed to the bed.

Ji-an gets a call from an old friend of hers, JAE-HEE, a prosecutor who’s finally been given a position in Seoul after working in the countryside. He calls her “kid” and Ji-an asks after Jae-hee’s father, the chief prosecutor, thankful for his past support of her. Interestingly, her comment seems to make Jae-hee uncomfortable.

Ji-an asks Jae-hee if he knows the new prosecutor assigned to Hang-joon’s murder case, mentioning that she feels it’s being closed too quickly. He says he doesn’t know, but something about the way his eyes waver makes me think it’s him.

While out with Sung-hyuk, Su-chang catches his reflection and grumbles about Dong-tak’s lack of style. He buys himself a new leather jacket, then leads Sung-hyuk to a pool hall where he greets a man he calls Snakehead. Belatedly, he realizes that Snakehead has no idea who he is, and is terrified because he’s a cop.

Snakehead assumes he’s here to ask about a drug dealer named Jong-gu, so he tells him where to find the guy and swears he had nothing to do with it. Su-chang gets frustrated that his friend doesn’t know him, but Snakehead just tells him the exact location of this Jong-gu person.

Su-chang heads outside for some fresh air, and a strange woman sits and tells him it’s going to snow. It’s the same fortuneteller who did Dong-tak’s reading, and she introduces herself as Miss Bong, but her odd manner freaks Su-chang out.

She recites a poem and offers to draw him, and when she’s finished, her childish picture still manages to look eerily like Su-chang. He takes the picture and leaves, and Miss Bong says dreamily, “He met his real partner at last.”

Passing a mirror, Su-chang stops to glare at Dong-tak’s reflection. He looks at Miss Bong’s drawing again, and it suddenly occurs to him that she saw the real him. He goes running back, but she’s gone.

The Yong-pal clone phone rings, but the connection is bad, so all Su-chang and Sung-hyuk hear is something about a warehouse and security footage. Su-chang forgets himself and asks what they’re saying, alerting Yong-pal to the fact that they’re being listened to. He ends the call, and Sung-hyuk laments the fact that they didn’t get anything they can use.

But Su-chang is a swindler, and he has some tricks up his sleeve. He finds the PC room where Yong-pal is hanging out, swipes a customer’s phone, and slips it into Yong-pal’s pocket. The customer calls his phone to find it, and when it rings, a bewildered Yong-pal holds it up in confusion. Su-chang is right there to arrest him for pickpocketing.

He takes Yong-pal to his doctor friend, ties him down on the operating table with tape over his mouth, and draws a map of his organs on his shirt. The doctor is almost as nervous as Yong-pal when Su-chang tells him to just scramble Yong-pal’s organs a bit, and the terrified Yong-pal indicates that he’s ready to talk.

As soon as Su-chang removes the tape, Yong-pal becomes a fountain of information. He says that the con man they arrested for Hang-joon’s murder is innocent, and that there’s security footage to prove it. Su-chang thinks he’s lying, since all the footage the cops collected was damaged, but Yong-pal insists that there are cameras in the area that the cops don’t know about.

After being freed, Yong-pal explains that the warehouse near where Hang-joon was killed is used to make fake goods, so there are hidden cameras all over the place. The doctor says that they just need to get into the warehouse and copy the footage, and they’ll find their killer. Su-chang thinks that he doesn’t care about the killer; he just wants to prove it wasn’t him.

He and Sung-hyuk head to Ji-an’s prosecutor friend Jae-hee’s office for a warrant to search the warehouse (ah, so he is the prosecutor on the case, I knew it). Jae-hee refuses, since the case will be officially closed tomorrow, and he tells Su-chang to follow proper procedure next time.

Su-chang complains about Jae-hee’s stubbornness, but Jae-hee just says he’s following the rules. Su-chang goes off on a hilarious rant about how they won’t catch the bad guys by following rules, and that being a cop sucks, and how awful it feels to be accused of something you didn’t do.

He sounds like a straight-up nutjob, and it gets him removed from the building. Once he’s gone, Jae-hee tells his assistant to find out everything he can on Cha Dong-tak.

Back at the station, Sung-hyuk offers to go in and talk to Detective Yoo first, leaving Su-chang. Ji-an pops up and scares him half to death, but he rallies and asks flirtatiously if pretty girls are allowed to scare people. Ji-an reminds him that she can still sue him for harassment, and leans in close to ask about the evidence he found.

Su-chang takes her to the scene of Hang-joon’s murder, where they spot several hidden cameras. One points directly at the spot where Hang-joon was attacked, and Su-chang decides that he needs to get inside and get a copy of the footage.

There’s no way the counterfeiters will let them inside, but Su-chang grins and says to Ji-an, “I have you.” A short time later, the thug watching the cameras sees a couple making out near the building, so he gets up to chase them off.

Of course, they’re not really making out, but just for a moment, we see Su-chang’s true self as he smiles down at Ji-an with what looks like real affection. Ji-an warns Su-chang not to con her, and he teases that he can hear her heart pounding. He asks which she dislikes more, detectives or frauds, and she frowns and answers detectives.

Smirking, Su-chang calls her a liar, pointing out that she always looks to the left when she lies. Ji-an warns him not to think that she’s going to continue helping him investigate, but he says they can make this one exception.

The door rattles behind them, and Su-chang hides Ji-an, then goes to confront the thug. He leaps at the man with Dong-tak’s signature flying kick, but he hilariously misses and smacks into the wall. PFFT.

The thug whirls him around and he cowers, but Ji-an saves him by whacking the thug upside the head with a brick. They locate the camera room, and soon find the footage showing Hang-joon being stabbed by a man in a black motorcycle helmet.

Su-chang saves the video and they start to leave, only to find themselves facing an entire gang. Yikes. They tie Ji-an to a chair and make Su-chang kneel on the floor, and when the boss arrives and learns he’s a cop, he asks why he’s here.

Su-chang says truthfully that he just wants the video footage, promising to ignore the illegal business. He musters what little courage he possesses and tells them to let Ji-an go free, but the boss orders them killed.

PWAHAHA, Su-chang is such a wuss that he starts shrieking in pain before the thugs even touch him. Soon they start swinging their weapons for real, and Su-chang tries to run. He’s as bad at escaping as he is at fighting, while in the meantime, Ji-an is knocked over and uses a piece of broken glass to cut the ropes binding her hands.

She grabs a thug’s arm and takes a big bite, and he backhands her to the floor. Su-chang bellows and gets in a couple of punches, but he’s wildly outnumbered. He’s punched in the mouth, and the blood triggers a forgotten memory: Skidding tires, a flipped truck, a little boy crying for his injured father.

As he’s distracted, the thugs attack, and he’s slammed back against a concrete pillar. The impact literally knocks Su-chang’s soul out of Dong-tak’s body, allowing Dong-tak’s soul to resurface. Ji-an runs to him and he asks why she’s here, and if she’s hurt.

Strangely, Su-chang’s soul is still there, watching the scene in confusion like a ghost. Dong-tak tells Ji-an that he doesn’t know what’s happening but he needs her help, then asks her to stay at least twenty meters away from him.

She steps away and he turns back to the thugs, apologizing for the one-sided fight. The thug boss taunts that he was acting like a scared baby, and Su-chang’s soul grumbles that he wasn’t scared, he was just waiting and watching, ha.

Watch the scene

The badass cop is back!

 
Dong-tak knocks out the first thug with one punch, then gives the rest his speech about knowing taekwondo, hapkido, judo, and kendo, and many ways to break a leg. He tells them to pick their style, and he’ll pick which part to break.

They lunge at him, and despite his confusion, Dong-tak proceeds to take them down one by one with kicks, punches, and flying leaps. Finally there’s just the boss left, and Dong-tak knocks him out with a half-hearted right hook. He turns back to Ji-an and takes her by the wrist, leading her out while Su-chang’s soul watches wistfully.

Ji-an finally gets her chance to report her own story. In his office, Chief Prosecutor Tak laughs and laughs as he watches her report that Su-chang was cleared of murder charges and the murder investigation will be reopened. His son Jae-hee lets himself in, looking disturbed.

After her broadcast, Ji-an gets a text from Dong-tak asking her to answer some questions later.

Dong-tak visits Su-chang’s body in the hospital, remembering how Su-chang swore he was no murderer. He apologizes for not believing him, then reaches down to unlock the cuff around his wrist.

Lying on another bed, Su-chang’s soul says that if Dong-tak had believed him, he wouldn’t be lying there unconscious. He tells Dong-tak to be sorry until the day he dies, and even after that.

The nurse tells Dong-tak that visiting hours are over, and as he leaves, he complains that the other patient in the room is awfully noisy. The nurse looks around, but the other beds are empty. OMG, did Dong-tak hear Su-chang?

At the station, Dong-tak views the security footage that Su-chang recovered of Hang-joon’s murder. He pauses the video at the point where the attacker is trying to stab him, and he zooms in to see a tattoo of a pair of wings visible on the back of the attacker’s neck. He holds the lighter that was found in Hang-joon’s jacket and murmurs, “Hang-joon hyung, who’s the bastard who did this to you? Who’s trying to kill us?”

He looks at a calendar, where he’s circled in red the last four days that he can’t remember, with the words, “Where am I? Who am I?” written above them. He remembers Detective Park saying that he’s been acting very strange, and wonders what happened to himself during those four days.

In the lobby, Su-chang paces, wondering if Dong-tak could really hear him and if he’d be able to help him. He starts to head to Dong-tak’s desk, but the lights suddenly go out, and he and Dong-tak find themselves in the dark.

A figure in a black motorcycle helmet creeps into the detective’s office, and Dong-tak hears something and turns around. The figure pulls out a wicked-looking knife, and on the other side of the door, Su-chang looks terrified.

 
COMMENTS

At this point I’m pretty convinced that Jo Jung-seok is an acting (not to mention action, because how awesome are these fight scenes?) genius. How does he manage to mimic Su-chang’s expressions, mannerisms, and even vocal inflections so perfectly? I was worried that it would be difficult at first to figure out which soul is in Dong-tak’s body, but it only took a minute before I could almost literally see Su-chang in Dong-tak’s face. I’m also glad to see that Su-chang’s comatose state doesn’t mean that we’ll never see him as himself, since it appears as though his possession of Dong-tak’s body won’t be a permanent condition.

I was actually happy that when Dong-tak hit his head and Su-chang was evicted, his soul still hung around, and that Dong-tak can apparently hear him (I’m hopeful that he can see him, too). It would be great if they can still interact with each other when Su-chang isn’t in control. Maybe they can come to some body-sharing agreement, because I really liked the foreshadowing of their bromance when Hang-joon said that he wanted to introduce them.

Watching Su-chang trying to integrate into Dong-tak’s life cracked me right up, because he’s so awkward and clumsy whenever he attempts to behave like a cop. I live for the moments when he forgets himself and starts ranting about how stupid the whole situation is, and it’s just lucky he can blame the accident for “Dong-tak’s” odd behavior. I think he’ll eventually learn how to better pass as a detective, but I do hope he doesn’t lose his quirky sense of justice, because it’s my favorite thing about him.

I appreciate that the first hour was all about Dong-tak, then in this second hour, we got to learn more about Su-chang. He’s charming and glib, but it seems to cover up a pretty sad past, from what I can tell. He’s mentioned growing up in an orphanage, probably orphaned by the accident he saw in his flashback, and I have a feeling that he uses his brilliant mind to scam people not because he wants to, but because he doesn’t have any other choice. He does have a code of honor, of a sort, and although he’s a total flirt, we haven’t seen him be truly disrespectful to a woman. In fact, I was more bothered by Ji-an threatening to file a fake sexual harassment complaint to get a good story than anything Su-chang has done. I found it disingenuous of her to vilify swindlers, then pretty much swindle “Dong-tak” into giving her information.

I’m actually looking forward to getting to know Su-chang even more than Dong-tak at this point, because Dong-tak seems very straightforward, personality-wise. But something Hang-joon said in the premiere keeps popping up in my brain: that he wanted Su-chang to meet Dong-tak because they’re very alike. They don’t seem so at this point, not even taking into account how Dong-tak was before Hang-joon’s death. I’m wondering if they come from similar backgrounds but took different paths in life, making them similar not in personality, but in circumstances. Regardless, I’m anxious to see them interact more, and I’m happy that the story seems to be providing a way for that to happen. They had great chemistry in the little time we saw them together, and it would be a damn shame if we didn’t get to see a lot more of it.

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