Life on Mars: Episode 9

by Helcat

Life on Mars comes back punching after a breather week, and Tae-joo has one thing on his mind: vengeance. Tae-joo’s Dad’s death gets Tae-joo tangled with a deadly gang leader, and he runs smack into one of the biggest corruption rings he’s encountered at the worst time. But when you have conviction and a rough-and-ready team at your back, sometimes things can work out.

 
EPISODE 9 RECAP

Tae-joo watches his father shot dead in front of him, and collapses.

Elsewhere, young Tae-joo hides alone in the darkened tunnel, sobbing and afraid. The police officers mount a hunt for the young boy, and finally find him. Tae-joo gently takes his young self in his arms. Both child and adult Tae-joo scrutinize the team, before child Tae-joo buries his face away.

Back at his apartment, our Tae-joo mindlessly watches TV while the scene of his father hitting the young woman flashes through his thoughts. The old man from before (who is the actual lead actor from the ’80s TV show Tae-joo is watching, Chief Inspector) speaks to him through the television: “Don’t blame yourself. There’s nothing you can do now, Detective.”

Tae-joo’s face hardens as he disagrees, “No, there is something I can do. I will find a way to go back.”

At the morgue, Tae-joo barely keeps it together as Dr. Park informs Tae-joo that Dad was killed with a .389 bullet, and asks if its true that the Seongho Gang are the ones responsible. As soon as Dr. Park is pulled away, though, Tae-joo’s tears fall, and he collapses to the floor beside the body of his father.

Determined to catch Dad’s killer, Tae-joo is quick to order the team to investigate the Seongho Gang to find the link with the man he suspects of ordering the hit, CEO Oh Jung-man. Nam-shik and Yong-ki immediately protest that the Seongho Gang is a well-organized and dangerous organization that more than a few police officers have fallen foul of when trying to investigate.

Unfazed, Tae-joo asks if this means the police shouldn’t do their job, although Dong-chul looks distinctly unhappy when Tae-joo requests that Oh Jung-man be brought in for questioning. Na-young arrives with the news that a muscle relaxant was found on Dad’s clothes, which Dong-chul seeks to dismiss but can’t when Na-young points out that the same relaxant was found on the other murder victim, Go Yeong-suk.

Tae-joo is convinced this means the same person killed them both, and only Oh Jung-man fits that description. Dong-chul firmly tells Tae-joo that there’s no point in considering Jung-man a suspect, and hurries out of the station before Tae-joo can stop him. At least Na-young doesn’t seem daunted when Tae-joo asks her to compile a list of the Seongho gang members for him.

With a heavy heart, Tae-joo takes Dad’s box of possessions to give back to Mom. He discovers that young Tae-joo can’t remember anything of the traumatic scene he witnessed, so adult Tae-joo advises Mom to tell the boy that his father has gone back to Saudi Arabia. Mom tearily accepts the box of clothes and the baseball.

Coldly focused, Tae-joo hunts down Oh Jung-man at the hotel he’s staying at, and bursts in on a golf-club-wielding Jung-man, just as he is about to take (another) swing at a bloodied woman at his feet. Jung-man is so cocky that even when Tae-joo introduces himself as a police officer, Jung-man orders him to come back later.

Jung-man is in for a surprise though, as Tae-joo refuses to leave, handily dispatches Jung-man’s resident thugs, and promptly announces that he is under arrest for assault. Jung-man shark-smiles as he apologizes for not recognizing Tae-joo to begin with, and offers his hand… which Tae-joo slaps a pair of cuffs on.

In the interrogation basement, Tae-joo asks Jung-man when he came back to Insung, and whether he ordered Dad’s and Yeong-suk’s deaths. Even half-dressed, Jung-man is a cool customer as he notes that Tae-joo must be new around here and smirks, saying, “I can’t stand it when other people touch my things. If they were standing in front of me, I wouldn’t order anything… I would murder them myself.”

Before Tae-joo can question him further, Dong-chul interrupts and flings the interview recorder against the wall to smash it into smithereens. Obviously familiar with each other, Jung-man knowingly smiles at Dong-chul and apologizes for not coming to greet him earlier.

Furious, Dong-chul yells at Tae-joo that he told him to wait before he arrested Jung-man. Just as angry, Tae-joo replies that he wasn’t going to wait when it looked like Dong-chul never wanted the investigation to start, and pointedly asks if he’s really that intimidated by Jung-man. Affronted, Dong-chul tries to tell Tae-joo that he isn’t intimidated, and that Tae-joo doesn’t know everything.

Sure enough, head detective Kim Kyung-se appears at the top of the stairs, looking very put out… and we cut to the disheartening scene of Kyung-se wishing Jung-man goodbye, let go as a free man. Dong-chul quietly sneers, “What a scene.”

It isn’t the only indignity Dong-chul has to suffer, either, as a basket of (expensive) fruit is left on his desk from Jung-man’s lawyers. Although Yong-ki is particularly taken by the bananas, Dong-chul rejects the bribe as he asks, “What, do they think we’re a bunch of monkeys?”

Tae-joo meanwhile, bitterly confronts Kyung-se and tells him that he is going to apply for a search warrant for Jung-man. Knocking Tae-joo on the back foot, Kyung-se asks whether he even wants to go back home, and Tae-joo hesitantly asks if there’s a way. Kyung-se agrees that of course there is—so long as Tae-joo keeps quiet. From the way that Tae-joo brushes the imprint of Kyung-se’s hand from his shoulder, I don’t think he likes that advice.

By the time Tae-joo comes back, Dong-chul has left to return the fruit basket to Jung-man. Tae-joo follows, and finds a jovial Jung-man surrounded by beautiful women (including the one he had beaten earlier), the fruit basket sitting out near an extra whiskey glass. Jung-man informs Tae-joo Dong-chul was called away on a business matter.

Tae-joo watches from afar as Dong-chul handles the “business matter” and makes a big show of rejecting an envelope of money from an “appreciative citizen.” Dong-chul is just about to accept the package when he becomes aware of Tae-joo, and quickly covers by slapping the money to the ground. Dong-chul blusters that he isn’t that kind of cop, in the face of the clearly confused man, but Tae-joo has already slipped away.

He’s back to the scene of his father’s murder, trying to retrace the killer’s steps as he heads deep into the forest beside the railway tracks… where he finds a dropped inhaler.

Tae-joo hurries back to the station to ask Na-young to process the evidence, and is disappointed (but not surprised) to hear that his search warrant for Jung-man has been rejected. When he asks where everyone is, Na-young answers that they’ve gone home (lol, Tae-joo), which means it’s left to just the two of them to exhaustively draw up profiles of the Seongho gang members.

When Tae-joo makes Na-young a cup of coffee, she smiles and notes that it’s always her making coffee for other people, so it feels weird to receive a cup—but it’s good. Na-young asks whether Tae-joo ever gets tired, since he never stops working or takes a break.

This reminds Tae-joo of their broken cinema date, which he apologizes for—but Na-young tells him it doesn’t matter since she got the tickets for free anyway. Nooo, it does matter, Na-young.

Tae-joo is pulled away for a disturbance at Jung-man’s club, where a man beats a woman, and only stops when Tae-joo pulls him off her and chucks him out the door. Alone in a private booth, Tae-joo recognizes the woman, Kim Young-ok, as the one that Jung-man beat up as well. She acerbically asks if Tae-joo is Tarzan or something, since he keeps rescuing her.

Young-ok refuses to go to hospital when it’s futile because she will be beaten again shortly, and tells Tae-joo she has a debt to work off for Jung-man. She asks why Tae-joo hasn’t arrested Jung-man yet since he is a murderer—and tells him that Jung-man lied about going to Seoul. Jung-man was in Insung, Young-ok continues, and he ran out on the morning Dad died with his gun after receiving a phone call.

Excited, Tae-joo asks Young-ok to go on record with this information, but she declines and states that she doesn’t want to die by Jung-man’s hands—especially not now that her debt has paid off and she can finally return to her hometown. Young-ok asks if Tae-joo doesn’t want to return to Seoul, and he replies feelingly, “I do. But I can’t seem to.”

The two end up commiserating and sharing (copious) drinks, although it seems to hit Tae-joo harder. Young-ok dreamily says that when she goes back home, she’s going to open her own dressmaking shop and points to her handmade scarf. Tae-joo can’t properly admire it as his head drops to the table, unconscious. Remnants of powder dot his shot glass.

Young-ok brings him back to a bare room, and Tae-joo catches glimpses as she arranges him on the bed, but isn’t strong enough to push her away. Intercut is a doctor looming over Tae-joo and asking him if he’s okay. It isn’t until morning that Dong-chul finds Tae-joo… handcuffed and half-naked.

At the station, Yong-ki leers at Tae-joo’s antics, and Na-young balefully slams a cup of coffee in front of him and stalks off, while Tae-joo hangs his head in shame. Tae-joo attempts to go after Na-young, but dizzily hears the doctor in the present time tell him the medicine they administered almost worked—if he gets any more, he should be able to wake up.

Meanwhile, Dong-chul was up to antics himself last night—but Nam-shik astutely points out he got caught and kicked out by his wife. Galled, Dong-chul asks if Nam-shik has been stalking him, ha! Tae-joo tries to persuade Dong-chul to investigate Jung-man and relays what Young-ok told him last night.

Astounded that Tae-joo could still be this naive, Dong-chul yells that everything Young-ok said was probably just a lie to get Tae-joo naked—so that Jung-man could embarrass him by posting his nude pictures.

Glum, Tae-joo visits Young-ok, who doesn’t do a very good job of pulling off blasé as she tells Tae-joo that thanks to him all her debts are paid. Rather than get mad, Tae-joo simply tells Young-ok that she should go home and do something she likes doing—and drops a ferry ticket before her. Touched, Young-ok stares after Tae-joo as he leaves.

Outside, Tae-joo spies Dong-chul berating Jung-man for messing with one of his people. Jung-man cheerfully answers that Dong-chul should have kept his men in line then, but Dong-chul warns Jung-man that they aren’t friends and he’s getting very sick of him.

Still vexed, Na-young tosses a folder in front of Tae-joo and meaningfully tells him that she doesn’t have any right to ask about his personal life. Socially clueless Tae-joo doesn’t understand and lets her leave without explaining, but runs after her when she stumbles on her way out.

He comes to a stop in the hallway, at the sight of a casually dressed and un-made-up Young-ok. Smiling shyly, Young-ok tells Tae-joo that she’s going back home, and hands him the as-yet unprinted photographs of himself.

Tae-joo starts to apologize for how he behaved that night, making Young-ok gently tease that he’s so innocent. Nothing happened between them. Looking happier than she ever has, Young-ok thanks Tae-joo for what he has done and leaves.

Tae-joo slides a glance at Na-young, and catches her satisfied smile before she has time to cover it and walk away.

That night Dong-chul waits for Tae-joo outside his home, proffering a bag of food as penance, which Tae-joo rigidly refuses.

Dong-chul crowds his way inside anyway, though he isn’t much use to hard-working Tae-joo, as he sits eating chicken and dancing to pop on the TV. Tae-joo derisively says that Dong-chul really must be intimidated by Jung-man when he refuses to help, which riles up (the admittedly easily riled) Dong-chul.

Despite their bickering, the two fall asleep together. Tae-joo awakes to Na-young’s soft knocking (and literally steps on Dong-chul to get to her) but it’s a double dose of bad news—the inhaler only had Tae-joo’s prints on it and the forensics team has been pressured off working on the Jung-man case any more. Na-young sweetens the moment, though, as she apologizes to Tae-joo for misunderstanding him before she leaves. Aww.

Awake now, Tae-joo becomes aware that the TV is speaking to him again, but this time, it’s a doctor and nurse. Uh-oh, they’re saying that medication alone isn’t enough to bring Tae-joo out of his coma—and their recommendation is to give up on him. Tae-joo screams at the television that they can’t give up… and turns around to Dong-chul staring at him.

Dong-chul asks the crazy man in front of him what he thinks he’s doing, and answers the ringing phone, still considering Tae-joo.

Young-ok has been murdered. The two head down to the river, where Young-ok’s body has been pulled from the water.

Picking the absolutely worst moment, Yong-ki gloats that he knew this was going to happen all along, and laughs without any humor that Tae-joo must be really sad since he spent a night with the woman.

Bristling, Tae-joo shoves Yong-ki backwards and asks if he thinks this is funny. A person is dead. Deadly serious, Yong-ki retorts that he knows—and it was Tae-joo that killed her. Damn, that’s brutal.

Dispirited, Tae-joo asks Dong-chul if there’s finally enough to start an investigation. Dong-chul wearily tells Tae-joo that one of Yong-ki’s fellow graduates poked his nose in like Tae-joo’s doing, and now he’s working as a shoemaker because three of his fingers were cut off and his leg is lame. There’s no point investigating when the police can’t even get a warrant.

His tone forbidding, Tae-joo replies that they won’t need a warrant, and that maybe it’s time they fight fire with fire.

Energized by Tae-joo’s conviction, the team jumps into action, investigating the surrounding area of Young-ok’s murder for clues (finding a footprint), and enlisting young children to sneak away Jung-man’s bodyguards shoes for prints. They even manage to hold off a suspicious Kyung-se (just about) with another display of Na-young’s fighting prowess.

The team meet up at Tae-joo’s house for another covert meeting, which really seems like an excuse to hang out, and before they can really settle in, the war drill blares out and forces them to turn off all the lights.

Of course Dong-chul, Yong-ki and Nam-shik take this opportunity to fall asleep—and of course Tae-joo and Na-young stay up poring over documents by torchlight. They narrow it down to ten people and decide to get some rest, when Dong-chul sits bolt upright. He slams his fist down, and declares he knows who the footprint belongs to.

Which is how Dong-chul and Tae-joo end up huddled in a freezer interrogating one of Jung-man’s gang members tied to a chair in only his undergarments. Unrepentant about their necessarily unusual methods, Dong-chul moves to hit the truth from the thug, but Tae-joo stops him.

Instead, Tae-joo pours liquid all over the gang member and warns him that at this temperature, it will only take 15 minutes before he starts to lose feeling to frostbite. Tae-joo comments to an impressed Dong-chul that this way there is no evidence of police brutality.

The man holds out for a good ten minutes, while Dong-chul and Tae-joo chill (snerk) safely outside the freezer. But he finally breaks when Dong-chul merrily informs him that even his penis might need to be amputated if he stays in there any longer. Except the thug didn’t kill Young-ok at all—Jung-man strangled her himself with his bare hands.

Dong-chul and Tae-joo storm righteously into the middle of Jung-man’s hotel room, and it is very satisfying to see the smug look on Jung-man’s face get wiped off as the police inform him he is under arrest for the murder of Kim Young-ok. Even better, they find the gun that probably killed Dad in his room.

At the police station, Dong-chul gleefully lays out all the evidence they have, but Jung-man still thinks this is a joke and just says of course he was at the river—because he went night fishing there. As if to prove Jung-man’s good humor correct, an angry Kyung-se halts the interrogation.

Outside, Kyung-se warns Dong-chul that he was supposed to stay obedient, and orders him to let Jung-man free. Dong-chul triumphantly says that they have evidence to link Jung-man to Dad’s murder, but just then Na-young arrives and dismally informs the team that the gun Jung-man owns has never been fired.

Kyung-se tells the team they need to let Jung-man go free, but Dong-chul puts juuuust enough pressure on to give them one more hour. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that the rest of the team members turn their backs on Dong-chul as he manhandles Kyung-se to indicate they won’t step in.

An idea sparks in Tae-joo’s head. He goes back to the interrogation room and hands Jung-man a mug, sloppily spilling the liquid all over the table and Jung-man’s hands. Jung-man sniffs it suspiciously, and laughs that it’s alcohol—Tae-joo isn’t such an amateur that he thinks Jung-man will get drunken loose lips, is he?

Tae-joo asks Jung-man if he knows that Young-ok dreamed of becoming a designer—and in fact, made her own scarf. The scarf that Jung-man killed her with. Almost like he’s giving a lesson, Tae-joo states that Young-ok used a very particular dye—one that is difficult to wash off, doesn’t give off any color… but shows up black when combined with alcohol.

Tae-joo grabs Jung-man’s hands and slams them over. Black stains betray him. The team celebrates.

Hauled away in handcuffs, Jung-man calls back to Tae-joo, “You got me a great gift. I promise I’ll make it up to you.” Dong-chul, the rascal, rudely gestures back to Jung-man and sticks his tongue out at a frustrated Kyung-se. Oh, you.

But later, Na-young points out to Tae-joo that this means they still don’t know who killed Dad. Tae-joo purposefully says he will find out who did it.

Dong-chul slings an arm round Tae-joo’s shoulders, and asks if it’s time for them to go “home.” But when Dong-chul stops outside Tae-joo’s house, he says that he should go in alone, since Dong-chul’s wife is waiting for him tonight.

Earnest for once, Dong-chul asks Tae-joo to tell him when he’s sick since hiding it makes it worse, and promises not to tell anyone about his problems last time. Dong-chul says, “Sometimes life can be hard. I’m too ignorant to know what it’s called, though.” He tells Tae-joo he left something to make him feel better in his bedding.

Ha, it’s a blue magazine. Trust Dong-chul.

Feeling better, Tae-joo takes a walk, passing his Mom’s beauty salon as he does so. On it are scrawled ugly messages of “murderer” and “go home” but it’s a commotion out back that really draws Tae-joo’s attention. Two boys attack young Tae-joo, trying to claw away the stickers his dad left for him, while another young boy protects Tae-joo from their blows.

Adult Tae-joo steps in and sends the two bullies running. He smiles fondly as young Tae-joo and his friend messily devour the ice creams Tae-joo buys for them. Tae-joo’s friend jumps up to run home, and young Tae-joo calls after him, “Goodbye, Min-seok.”

Ohhh. Tae-joo realizes where serial killer Min-seok knew him from.

Adult Tae-joo races after Min-seok but can’t catch up with him. Min-seok runs up to an adult shrouded in darkness and hugs him…as the man raises an inhaler to his mouth and breathes deeply. The man stares down at Tae-joo, who is completely unaware of the danger and the answer he is looking for so close by.

COMMENTS

Well, Tae-joo did it. He has been integrating slowly, and he finally understands the team, and times, enough that he goes against his own rigid rules to get answers from Jung-man’s thug. And thankfully, this didn’t feel like a breaking of Tae-joo’s morals, just a slight bending. Tae-joo did try to accomplish it through legal means first, but the system was too corrupt to deliver any kind of justice that way, and Tae-joo recognized that. On the other hand, I firmly believe Tae-joo’s character is too honorable to allow corruption for anything less than the pursuit of justice and continue to act as the necessary conscience of the team. Its undeniable that 1988 is changing our Tae-joo though, and is going to make it very hard for him to go back.

It takes Tae-joo’s combination of fury, freshness, and focus to believe that there is a way that Jung-man’s outfit can be taken down. It’s clear that Dong-chul and Yong-ki might once have believed something similar, but they were disabused of the notion, so Dong-chul did what he could—he protected his team and stayed out of Jung-man’s way. The sheer look of delight on Dong-chul’s face when he realizes that Tae-joo might actually have a plan that would work to take down Jung-man was heart-warming. Dong-chul is a low-level, petty kind of corrupt with the beating heart of a true police officer. Yong-ki, as well, showed some true depth in this episode. His distasteful jokes and antagonism of Tae-joo gave way to sharp-edged truths, and it isn’t hard to believe that Yong-ki’s apparent apathy is actually defeatism in the face of too many crimes committed by too many people he can’t touch. Yong-ki still has a long way to go, but I saw the glimmer of a better man in this episode.

I still can’t quite figure out Kyung-se or his motives. He’s definitely corrupt, but worryingly, he also seems to know something about Tae-joo’s secrets. The question is, does he actually know anything, or has he just cannily intuited how badly Tae-joo wants to go home? Either way gives Kyung-se the means to manipulate Tae-joo, but the former would be so much worse given that I’m sure he isn’t benevolent and would try to stop Tae-joo for his own ends. Although the team managed to elude his grasp in this episode, Kyung-se is a menacing presence and I foresee him becoming a bigger problem now that the team have explicitly thwarted him. They may just have painted a target on their backs by doing the right thing.

I’d like to praise the pacing of this show, which so far has been impeccable and surprising. For example, I figured out a split second before it was revealed that young Tae-joo’s friend was actually Min-seok, and fully expected the show to string along adult Tae-joo’s discovery for another episode or two and dangling a frustrated audience. But they didn’t—the show immediately tipped its hand, propelling the action along nicely. The serial killer question has been expertly woven in from the beginning (which, I should note, was not an overarching theme in the original BBC series and a nice twist to give a grander narrative force to the story) and is now being threaded back in just as Tae-joo is really starting to fit in in 1988. The relationships in the team have evolved so naturally that I didn’t even question it when everyone came back for a group-hang at Tae-joo’s. The mystery is gathering pace now as well, with inhaler man and young Min-seok knowing each other and connecting to Tae-joo’s life in 2018. All in all, I’m glad that the mounting tension for our end-story has been judiciously doled out and the fast paced action has me excited each week to see this show.

Mystery of the episode: Who is the man with the inhaler? He’s definitely grooming young Min-seok into carrying on his serial killer lineage, right?

Tune of the episode: Dong-chul getting his groove on during bromance time with Tae-joo to Kim Wan-sun’s “The Dance in Rhythm” was adorable.

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