Life on Mars: Episode 5

by Helcat

Family can mess with your head, but it adds an extra wrinkle when you are a time-traveler and they don’t know even know you are family. The longer that Tae-joo stays in the past, the more of his memories return—but it remains to be seen whether this is actually a good thing. But at least he might have a new friend who won’t be afraid to bust a few heads if everything gets out of hand.

 
EPISODE 5 RECAP

Tae-joo sleeps fitfully, punctuated by the ringing telephone that goes unanswered, his recurring nightmare racing through his head. Except this time, more of the scene becomes clear, as young Tae-joo sees a woman in white running through a forest.

Tae-joo’s mother’s voice gently reassures him (almost as if she knows he is having a bad dream), “You’ll definitely wake up, so don’t be scared. I’ll always be by your side.”

Young Tae-joo looks on in horror through a hole in the wall, as the woman in white is beaten… and a man pops up right in front of Tae-joo, startling him. Whatever he sees, Tae-joo stumbles back, screaming.

Adult Tae-joo wakes up with a start, to police chief Dong-chul accusing him of sleeping on the job, and a worried nurse in his head proclaiming that he’s going into shock. It looks like something is seriously wrong with Tae-joo. His head spins, and Dong-chul smells the culprit… carbon monoxide poisoning.

Dong-chul scoops up the weakened Tae-joo and hauls him outside out of danger (but not before Dong-chul bangs Tae-joo’s head accidentally-on-purpose against the door frame a couple times, snerk). Dong-chul and fellow officer Na-young both frantically work to revive Tae-joo—though he prefers Na-young’s gentler methods to the rough slaps Dong-chul doles out.

Fortunately, Tae-joo is fine, as he is taken to the all-purposes doctor, Dr. Park (who tries to wheedle some good food from Dong-chul’s visiting mother-in-law, ha).

Except, Tae-joo isn’t fine, not in 2018. In the present, Tae-joo’s doctor warns him that he is suffering from dangerously high pressure in his brain, and that he may experience decreased consciousness until that has been stabilized.

Tae-joo desperately tries to find the source of the voices, but stumbles back as he opens a door to a room of blinding light. It is only at the sight of two children playing doctor that he is pulled back to 1988.

The brush with danger makes Dong-chul aware that he should know more about his subordinate, and asks whom he would contact in case Tae-joo were to die. Tae-joo answers that he only has his mother, because his father died while he was young from an accident overseas.

Reluctantly, Tae-joo thanks Dong-chul for saving him. Dong-chul takes it as ungraciously as he can, by pretending that there must be something wrong with Tae-joo still, ha.

On a roll, Dong-chul also makes it awkward with Na-young, asking what she was even doing at Tae-joo’s place alone—are they perhaps dating? Na-young quickly protests that she’s here because they couldn’t get in touch with the chief, so she needed to report directly to Tae-joo that there had been a complaint of theft.

Which brings Tae-joo and Dong-chul to Tae-joo’s mother’s salon. Tae-joo remembers fond scenes of himself as a young child in the salon with his mother and father, and then with just his mother. A picture of Tae-joo’s father sits by a mirror, and before he even picks it up, Tae-joo can remember what is written on the back—a letter from his father working overseas with a promise to watch baseball together when the plum trees blossom.

Tae-joo’s mother walks in. This must be very strange for him, because he can’t help but utter a soft, “Mom.” Mom doesn’t hear it though, and takes the pair to Tae-joo’s aunt, who was the one that reported the theft.

Aunt briefly looks embarrassed when Dong-chul recognizes her from the police station when she previously had made a ruckus, but she’s too shaken to be truly affected. Aunt explains that the thief didn’t actually take anything—he snuck into her room in the night and creepily folded up all her clothes, and organized her makeup.

Even though Aunt had taken enough drowsy medicine that she didn’t initially wake up, the creeper had hung around long enough for Aunt to rouse. In shock, Aunt closed her eyes tightly and clutched the blanket, shaking. The intruder moved slowly towards her, a curious look on his face, but as he got closer, Aunt screamed and scared him away.

Disturbed, Aunt takes comfort from Mom, and explains that up until about a month ago, someone was also making strange phone calls to her. They always came as she was getting off work, and they always hung up without saying anything.

After the interview, Dong-chul can’t make sense of a thief who wouldn’t steal anything, and wonders, “What, is he a maid?” Tae-joo just hunts for clues as to how the intruder got in, and finds a broken bottle near the top of the wall, with blood painted on its surface. Dong-chul grins that the intruder should have cleaned up after himself better, since he has left great evidence behind now.

Tae-joo almost makes a misstep as he tells Dong-chul that there is no man living in this house, since the husband is away working in Saudi Arabia. Dong-chul wonders when he learned this, but Tae-joo quickly covers that it was on a postcard in the salon. This means that the intruder probably broke in knowing that only women lived here.

As the two are leaving, Tae-joo’s mom comes out to thank them for their help. The conversation is rife with meaning as Tae-joo tells Mom that he used to live in this neighborhood with his mom and aunt, big hearts in his eyes. Mom seems lovely, as she smiles over the coincidence that detective Tae-joo shares a name with her son, and adds that her Tae-joo is always dreaming of becoming a cop when he grows up.

Back at the station, officers Yong-ki and Nam-shik crow over how good-looking Aunt is, although Tae-joo gets defensive when Yong-ki blusters that if she didn’t like him, he would just make her. Dong-chul defuses the tension by teasing Yong-ki, “It would be a crime if you liked her, because it’s you.”

Talk turns to how they could even prosecute such a weird crime like this one, though Tae-joo doesn’t seem fazed and speculates that if the intruder had planned anything else, he could be charged with even more than just breaking and entering.

Meanwhile, Na-young has been putting in the solid detective work again, and found a similar case from four months ago. Aww, Nam-shik cutely encourages a pleased Na-young with a thumbs up.

Invigorated, Dong-chul orders Yong-ki and Nam-shik to investigate the general perverts and “emasculated” men in the area, and asks Tae-joo to investigate the other woman’s case. Then turning to the hopeful Na-young… he asks her to make him a coffee. Grr.

But Tae-joo won’t accept this, and asks that Na-young accompany him, since she would be helpful to talk to the victim, woman to woman. A bit wary, Dong-chul nevertheless agrees, and Na-young beams from ear to ear.

Tae-joo and Na-young can’t find the other victim, Lee Joo-yong, at her old address, but a group of card-playing ajummas gossip that Joo-yong moved out months ago because of big trouble with the landlady. Apparently, Joo-yong had complained of someone breaking into her room, and the landlady’s son had even been interrogated as a suspect. Afterwards, Joo-yong moved back to live with her mom.

Dong-chul is back to his old tricks at the police station, as he beats a list of suspects out of one of the local perverts (what, are they in a club or something?), although Dong-chul claims that he must have fallen on his face on the way over. I bet the dog ate a lot of your homework as well, Dong-chul, didn’t it?

It sounds like this might be a dead end though, because the pervert can’t understand why the intruder would only watch the women, and not act on it. He points out, “I think he really must be a lunatic.” Dong-chul evidently agrees, though he adds, “Would you call yourself normal then, you panty-wearing pervert?”

The interrogation is halted at the news that Yong-ki has brought in a suspect—a young man caught peeping outside a girls’ high school. The suspect pleads his right not to talk, but Tae-joo orders Nam-shik to apply for a warrant for his blood to test whether he is a match to the blood at the crime scene. Dong-chul has other ideas, as he brutally but efficiently slams the suspect’s head to the desk and wipes his resulting bloody nose with a handkerchief.

While Dong-chul and Yong-ki pig out over lunch, Tae-joo refuses to eat with them, something which Dong-chul has already picked up on. Tae-joo momentarily has a dizzy spell as the nurse from the present time calls out for an injection to stabilize his brain pressure. Dong-chul scoffs that Tae-joo sure is weak for someone his age, and that if he ate properly this wouldn’t happen.

It’s bad news about the suspect though—he has the wrong blood type to be the intruder.

Na-young comes through again, as she discovers that the victim Joo-yong is still living with her mother. When Dong-chul, Tae-joo, and Na-young arrive at the house though, Joo-yong won’t come out without gentle cajoling from her mother, and sits terrified as all three police officers pile into her barren room.

A nod from Dong-chul prompts Na-young to compassionately ask Joo-yong to help them find her intruder. Clearly traumatized, Joo-yong describes the same pattern that happened with Aunt—it started with creepy phone calls, and folded clothes, but escalated to the intruder lying in wait at night.

Joo-yong awoke on one of these occasions, to the intruder slowly sliding the blanket off her body, but explains that she never saw his face because, “I was afraid that if he knew I was awake he would kill me, so I kept my eyes shut.”

But that didn’t stop the intruder from getting physical, provoked by a ring on Joo-yong’s finger that he claimed wasn’t hers. Retelling the story, Joo-yong clutches desperately at her throat as she remembers the feeling of being strangled and held down by the intruder.

As the rest of the team is briefed, Tae-joo is adamant that this goes beyond mere breaking and entering into stalking. This goes down with varying degrees of success, as Dong-chul is baffled and Yong-ki even claims that watching or following a woman you like is a normal aspect of courtship.

Nam-shik tentatively pushes back on this, and Na-young’s face betrays what she thinks of Yong-ki’s assessment. It is Tae-joo that redirects the conversation back to figuring out how to find a link between Aunt and Joo-yong.

Which leads to a heaving police station, as every man known in connection to either Aunt or Joo-yong is interviewed to determine a link. When the search proves fruitless, Yong-ki whines that they should just give this case up since no one was hurt (but what about Joo-yong?).

To his credit, Dong-chul doesn’t countenance this, and directs the team to think of a link between the two women since they can’t find one in the men they both knew. Although poor Nam-shik takes a stab at it (double eyelids, oh Nam-shik), it is Na-young who astutely points out that the two women were sick when the attacks occurred.

The team has a breakthrough as they realize that the two women shouldn’t have been knocked unconscious by their medicines—the stalker must have chosen this time deliberately. The team suspects someone working at the pharmacy.

Dr. Park informs Dong-chul and Tae-joo that ground medicine is an outdated method, so Tae-joo speculates that it must have been done to disguise the sleeping pills mixed in. Dr. Park can’t confirm this, so they will need to wait for a forensics team to analyze.

Never seeing a corner he couldn’t cut, Dong-chul beckons over unsuspecting Nam-shik and pours the lot down his throat… and not five minutes later, guinea pig Nam-shik is out for the count. Dr. Park notes that it must have been a very heavy dose to work this fast.

It turns out that the pharmacy Aunt frequented is in the same neighborhood where Joo-yong used to live. As if that wasn’t enough to convince Dong-chul, the creepy pharmacist, Park Yong-gun, has an injured hand (evidently from climbing over Aunt’s wall), which clinches it for him—although Tae-joo stops him just before he takes a swing at the man.

Leading Dong-chul outside (with a wrist grab, hee), Tae-joo cautions that it will be difficult to convict Yong-gun if he suspects that he has been discovered and destroys the evidence. Which means one thing…

It’s stakeout time! Dong-chul and Tae-joo follow Yong-gun just in time to rescue his bloodied bandage from being burned up. As Dong-chul says, “Bingo.”

The rest of the team have been hard at work as well. Yong-ki discovered that Yong-gun had an asthmatic wife who died last year, and Na-young informs them that Yong-gun has been submitting stories of his wife to a local radio program, even after her death. The most recent reads, “The sound of her breathing keeps me alive. I hope she’ll always be there to breathe next to me.”

Tae-joo sighs that Yong-gun must believe his wife is still alive, and Na-young correctly guesses that his parents died of illness when Yong-gun was a young child. This guilt made his delusions worse, and Na-young theorizes that Yong-gun must have turned violent with Joo-yong when he realized he was suffering from delusions.

Although this means that the team doesn’t know when Yong-gun might flip on Aunt in the same way, Tae-joo hesitates to arrest him right away. Without proof of Joo-yong’s attack, Yong-gun would most likely be let out on probation. Dong-chul concurs that it would be best to catch him in the act.

That’s how the team ends up trying to persuade a reluctant Aunt that she should act as bait, while the police officers follow Yong-gun.

Aunt doesn’t look too happy with this plan, and she looks even less happy at the prospect of being protected by either Yong-ki or Dong-chul. Yong-ki delights in rubbing it in that Dong-chul was rejected, while Dong-chul futilely protests that he didwin the 1966 Olympics silver medal in boxing.

Welp, in the end, Na-young is the one chosen to stay with Aunt and protect her. Na-young looks giddy at the opportunity, while Dong-chul grumps that she shouldn’t bother with any unnecessary moves like last time, and just call them when things get dangerous.

Yong-ki tries to patronize Na-young for acting like a “real cop.” My heart just melted a bit as Tae-joo counters that Na-young is a real cop and adds in a mutter, “And she’s better than a certain someone else.”

Just as expected, Yong-gun rings Aunt later that night, but just as he is leaving (presumably for Aunt’s house), Tae-joo is hit at the worst time with a splitting pain in his head. In the present time, his doctor orders Tae-joo to be put further in a coma, because his cranial pressure is building to dangerous levels. Tae-joo faints.

From the present time, Tae-joo’s mother’s pleas sound in his head, “Wake up, Tae-joo. You can’t leave us like this.”

With a snap, Tae-joo in 1988 awakens. At breakneck speed he runs straight for Aunt’s house. Instincts kicking in, Dong-chul joins Tae-joo at a dead run, needing only to be told that Tae-joo lost sight of Yong-gun to understand the gravity of the situation.

When they arrive, Aunt is distraught and there is no sign of either Yong-gun, who ran off, or Na-young, who chased after him. Tae-joo and Dong-chul race off, following the blare of Na-young’s police whistle.

Na-young corners Yong-gun, and the two tussle together. Unhinged, Yong-gun manages to gain the upper hand, and climbs on top of Na-young to grip her by the throat.

Before Yong-gun can do any real damage, Dong-chul comes flying in feet first to knock Yong-gun away and to the ground.

Once Yong-gun is subdued, Dong-chul immediately comes to fuss over Na-young for putting herself in harm’s way. Though he does reprimand Na-young for going after Yong-gun alone as a woman, there is no heat to his words, only concern.

Tae-joo meanwhile, believes Na-young when she says she’s fine, and then congratulates her on a job well done. The praise comes as a pleasant surprise to Na-young.

All that is left to do is book Yong-gun, a task normally reserved for the men on the team. When Na-young prepares to leave though, Dong-chul surprises her by asking her to write the report—he says that she was the one who caught Yong-gun after all. From the look on Na-young’s face, this is clearly a great honor.

Despite being soft-spoken, Na-young is direct with Yong-gun about the harm that he caused to the two women he stalked, and that he’s definitely a criminal.

After work, Na-young accompanies Tae-joo to his apartment to show him how to operate his coal briquette heater, but it turns into a sweet mutual appreciation of each other instead. When Na-young tries to thank Tae-joo for helping her, Tae-joo lightly corrects her, “You are just doing what you’re capable of doing, Officer Yoon.”

I swear, Dong-chul must have some kind of special power for ruining moments, because he chooses just then to come in through Tae-joo’s open door. Dong-chul scares Na-young away by insinuating that something suspicious is happening, and playfully teases Tae-joo for chasing after the pretty young officer.

But Dong-chul is here for a lovely reason too—he has come to drop off some of his mother-in-law’s (famously) good cooking. Before he heads out the door, Dong-chul even tries to cover his thoughtfulness up with bluster, “It would be inconvenient for me if you die. So don’t die, okay?” Aww, Dong-chul likes Tae-joo.

Tae-joo looks touched as he unwraps the food, and even though he’s eating alone, he doesn’t look lonely at all.

Unused to social niceties (or having friends), Tae-joo paces in front of Dong-chul’s door the next day trying to find a way to say thank you. Understanding why, Dong-chul good-naturedly tells Tae-joo to stop haunting his doorway, but smirks as he does.

Aunt doesn’t seem right back to her old self, as she comes into the station to give the officers beauty samples as a way to thank them. Unfortunately, Aunt has taken a liking to handsome Tae-joo, and personally shows him how to rub in hand cream—much to Tae-joo’s discomfort, and Yong-ki’s wrath.

Disgruntled, Yong-ki examines his own rough hands and mutters to Aunt on his way past, “What do soft hands matter? Soft hearts are more important.” Lol.

But there’s no rest for the wicked, so there’s no rest for our team either, as they make their way to try and apprehend members of the “Lottery Gang” at a local brothel. Unfortunately, the gang is meticulous at planning, and by the time the police have arrived, they have all scampered. Disappointed, Dong-chul explains to Tae-joo that the Lottery Gang is an elusive scam artist group.

The police work on evacuating the rest of the building for interviews, but one customer proves tricky and refuses to exit the bathroom stall he ran into. Dong-chul picks up a nearby hose and sprays it over the top of the door, and out rushes an embarrassed female worker… and Tae-joo’s father. Uh-oh.

Tae-joo’s memory of his father as a fun-loving, warm dad clashes with the picture of the cheap, grinning man in front of him. A lone tear trickles down Tae-joo’s cheek.

 
COMMENTS

You guys, I am really impressed with this Life on Mars. I had reservations going in that this would be disappointing compared to the BBC drama, because the original gave us not just a wonderful story, it also lived on the strength of its characters. Well, the Korean version is officially nailing it. The characters are similar in broad strokes only (not that I would want them to be an exact match) and everyone is bringing something different, and compelling, to this show. I’m interested in every member of Team Trouble (yes, even Yong-ki) because they are not cardboard-thin constructions.

The central trio is obviously where it’s at though, and I especially love that Dong-chul is meddling in Tae-joo and Na-young’s romance. He’s such a little shipper. Which I welcome, because I think it might speed along the relationship. There is such a natural attraction between Tae-joo and Na-young, an easy camaraderie spiked with romantic connection, that I hope it would happen anyway. But Tae-joo is extremely closed off, and I fully expect the reason he and ex-fiancee Seo-hyun paired up was because she pursued the relationship—Na-young is too timid (right now) to make the necessary first move. But Dong-chul is right there behind Tae-joo, pushing him out of his comfort zone. Dong-chul is good for Tae-joo in more ways than one, as well. I’m getting warm fuzzies from their growing kinship, even though they are such an unlikely duo. You can see the respect Dong-chul is gaining for Tae-joo—like when he turns to Tae-joo to lead the direction on prosecuting Yong-gu—and in turn, Tae-joo is gaining what might be his first ever friend (wouldn’t surprise me).

I have been consistently pleased with the cases in each episode, and this one was no exception. Rather than serving a cookie-cutter police procedural, Life on Mars is taking the opportunity to examine difficult problems in a thoughtful way. The crew of 1988 (apart from Na-young) doesn’t initially understand that Yong-gun is committing criminal acts by stalking women, and it takes Tae-joo pushing for prosecution for the rest of the team to take it seriously. Aunt would have been dismissed out of hand otherwise. Through to the very end, Yong-ki stands in for the voice that doesn’t understand that not all attention is flattering, and can be downright dangerous when there are no boundaries. Although Yong-gun was an appropriately creepy presence throughout the episode, he was also depicted as an upstanding member of the community and not one of the usual “Pervert Parade.” In a touch of realism as well, Joo-yong’s story isn’t continued, and she probably doesn’t recover from the incident in the same way that Aunt visibly did.

What is worrying though is what’s happening in 2018. The situation is growing ever more serious, and I worry that Tae-joo is in real trouble from brain death in the present timeline. I really didn’t like it when the doctor warned Tae-joo that he would need to go deeper into a coma—does this mean it’s going to be harder for Tae-joo to get out of 1988, or does it mean he might stop existing in 1988 entirely? Where would he go instead? There was also that shining white door that Tae-joo opened, which can’t be a good thing. 2018 keeps creeping in to 1988, never letting us forget that Tae-joo is in danger and time is running out—which from my perspective, is starting to feel like the only incentive for Tae-joo to return. Despite the culture clash from his modern sensibilities, Tae-joo is connecting with people in a way he doesn’t in the present. If 1988 is a fantasy, it’s a very clever one, filled with real and flawed people to make it a lived-in world, but one in which Tae-joo has the power to change people the way he wanted to in the present. Will Tae-joo even want to go back to 2018 if he has the choice?

Mystery of the episode:Who was that in Tae-joo’s nightmare at the beginning? Will solving this mystery help Tae-joo return to 2018?

 
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