Player: Episode 11

by Regals

With no idea who they can trust in the prosecution, our team are on their own to try to convince the last remaining witness from 15 years ago to join their side. But as always, even when it looks like they’re out of the woods, the bad guys always have some sort of contingency in place that our team needs to watch out for.

 
EPISODE 11: “A means to an end”

Chairman Cheon interrupts Ha-ri’s meeting with CEO Jo, and Ha-ri does his best to fight off the legion of thugs that Chairman Cheon sics on them.

Outside, Ah-ryung sees the police arrive and realizes Ha-ri is in danger, so she springs into action and whirls their van into the parking garage to break up the fight. When the van arrives, CEO Jo flees the chaos, so Ha-ri chases after him while Jin-woong and Ah-ryung tag in to take on the gangsters.

Byung-min gets out to help too, but Chairman Cheon immediately grabs hold of him and Byung-min becomes completely paralyzed with fear. Ah-ryung intervenes just in time to stop Byung-min getting hurt, and the team escapes to follow the pursuing Ha-ri.

Outside, the thugs corner CEO Jo in an alley, but Ha-ri pounces from behind and staggers the thugs enough to make a getaway with CEO Jo. They finally lose the tailing gangsters by climbing down off a rooftop out of sight of the chasing men.

Finally safe, CEO Jo starts to suspect Ha-ri is only pretending to be the broker, but Ha-ri convinces him by feigning that helping CEO Jo isn’t worth all this trouble.

At the prosecutor’s office, the deputy chief explains to Prosecutor Jang that they need to catch CEO Jo before the shadowy broker does, but Prosecutor Jang elects to ignore Ha-ri’s call, leaving the prosecutors in the dark as to where the fugitive is.

Ah-ryung calls Ha-ri to arrange a pickup from the hiding place he and CEO Jo are in, but in the middle of the call she notices a news report about Prosecutor Jang heading a team which is meant to catch CEO Jo, and Ha-ri can’t believe Prosecutor Jang would betray him like that.

The police sniff out the hiding place, but Ha-ri and CEO Jo can’t get out in time, so they try to hide within the building. They almost get away with it, but the police find CEO Jo in a cabinet and Ha-ri has to intervene again to save him.

Ha-ri drags CEO Jo out to the street, and Ah-ryung arrives just in time to sweep them up and drive away from the police. The team reconvene at their headquarters for the night and plan to flee the city in the morning when things quiet down.

Before they call it a night, Ha-ri tracks down a visibly-shaken Byung-min, who seven months prior was viciously assaulted by Chairman Cheon, beaten to a bloody pulp for crossing his former boss.

Ha-ri reminds Byung-min that the first time they met Ha-ri promised to never let Chairman Cheon get his hands on Byung-min. Ha-ri adds that Byung-min is a strong person, and though the words seem to comfort Byung-min, he seems especially stressed about the earlier encounter.

Meanwhile, the shadowy broker gets a call from his minion, who is holding an unknown person captive in a warehouse as part of one of their plans.

The next morning, Byung-min appears to be in much higher spirits, and with the team ready to head out, Ha-ri wakes CEO Jo to get ready. The fugitive, though, instinctively pulls a knife on Ha-ri, showing how 15 years on the run left him with extreme paranoia.

As they prepare to leave, Byung-min speaks to Ha-ri in banmal, which raises CEO Jo’s suspicions about the credibility of Ha-ri’s supposed business. Ha-ri takes the opportunity to force the rest of the team to use respectful language when talking to him. Ha.

At the prosecutor’s office, the deputy chief finds out Ha-ri’s identity, and issues an APB for his immediate arrest alongside CEO Jo.

Meanwhile, the team arrive at a police checkpoint, and CEO Jo hides in the back while they try to con their way through. The police let them go, but as the van is about to leave, they get the APB for Ha-ri, and ask him to step out of the vehicle.

When Ha-ri steps out, he immediately takes out the first police officer, Jin-woong and Ah-ryung get out to help out as well, and they quickly dispose of the entire squadron at the checkpoint. Ha-ri sees the APB for himself, nonplussed.

In Prosecutor Jang’s office, they get the report of Ha-ri’s team escaping the checkpoint, and they mobilize to go search for the escapees. Chief Maeng insists that Prosecutor Jang stay behind, but Prosecutor Jang shrugs him off, suspicious.

The team try to catch a ferry, but the police are swarming the area, so Ha-ri improvises a plan to steal a boat instead, and it works without a hitch.

Elsewhere, a pair of rookie cops get a call about CEO Jo being in the area, and they set out to catch him on their own to get a special promotion.

Ha-ri takes the team ashore and gets them to disguise themselves while he finds a way to get them transportation. After he leaves, Ah-ryung notices a familiar looking house and heads off to investigate it.

Ha-ri convinces some grannies to loan their truck to him, and he calls Dr. Jo to inform her of the status of her father, and tells her not to worry about them.

Ah-ryung tracks down the building she recognized, and the name above the door reads Cha Dong-soo. Ah-ryung asks a neighborhood ajumma about the house and finds that the man who lived there died around 15 years ago.

Just then, though, Ha-ri arrives with the truck, so Ah-ryung has no time to hear the whole story. As they drive off, however, the woman seems to recognize the name Cha Ah-ryung.

Not long after, both Chairman Cheon and his men, as well as the rookie cops, arrive in the area to search for the fugitives, and the cops get a good lead on Ha-ri’s location from the grannies who gave him their truck.

CEO Jo directs the team in circles, so Ha-ri pulls him out for a chat away from the rest of the team. The cops happen upon the truck and see Ha-ri and CEO Jo sneaking off, so they follow stealthily behind them.

Ha-ri convinces CEO Jo to trust the team and head to the hiding spot for the money, but before they can head back Ha-ri gets tased and the two cops capture CEO Jo and the now-unconscious Ha-ri.

When neither man comes back, the rest of the team worry about what happened, and Byung-min realizes Ha-ri still has the GPS tracker golf ball on him, so they use that to pinpoint his location.

Meanwhile, the cops head back to the station with their prisoners, but a car drives in front of them and blocks their way. It’s Chairman Cheon and his thugs, and after they take out one of the cops, the other decides to free Ha-ri and CEO Jo so they can help fight back.

Ha-ri climbs out to start a brawl, and not long after Ah-ryung and the boys arrive and jump in to help as well. Ha-ri chases after CEO Jo, who flees amidst all the chaos, while Jin-woong and Ah-ryung clean up the remaining gangsters.

CEO Jo manages to lose Ha-ri and head toward his hidden cash, but is distracted by a young girl and her father nearby. He reminisces about the last time he saw his daughter 15 years ago, when she bought him a watch with her first paycheck, which he still wears to this day.

CEO Jo eventually finds the crate with his money, but when he reaches for the key he finds the golf ball in his pocket, and Ha-ri is right behind him, having used the ball to keep track of him.

Ha-ri, whose cover was blown by the policemen earlier, warns CEO Jo to give up on the money, otherwise the shadowy broker will ensure he is killed and won’t get to use it.

CEO Jo surmises that Ha-ri must be working for the shadowy broker, since he always has two plans for dealing with every situation, and Chairman Cheon was plan A, but that failed.

Ha-ri, however, argues that he wants the truth from 15 years ago to be uncovered so he can catch the shadowy broker, and tells CEO Jo to testify as to what happened so justice can be served.

CEO Jo doesn’t believe Ha-ri, though, so Ha-ri asks if he would believe Doctor Jo instead, and this freezes CEO Jo.

Ha-ri reveals that his father was framed and killed because of what happened 15 years ago, and that his mother died from shock not long after as a result. Even Ha-ri believed his father was guilty back then, and resented him for all his life.

But he tells CEO Jo that even to this day, Doctor Jo is different. She never blamed her father, and her only request of Ha-ri was that he bring her father back safe. Ha-ri’s words bring CEO Jo trembling to his knees, bawling uncontrollably.

On the roadway, Prosecutor Jang stops Ah-ryung and the boys after the brawl, and he offers to explain everything to them in regards to the prosecution’s efforts to catch CEO Jo.

At the crate, Ha-ri urges CEO Jo to reveal everything he knows about what happened back then, and promises to catch the shadowy broker himself.

Byung-min leads Prosecutor Jang and his team to the crate, and they unload the large mountain of cash inside while taking CEO Jo into custody.

The next morning the prosecutors transport CEO Jo, but Doctor Jo turns up right before they leave, so Prosecutor Jang lets CEO Jo talk to his daughter before leaving. CEO Jo tearfully makes his way toward her while both the prosecutors and Ha-ri’s team watch from a distance.

But as the two are about to embrace, someone pulls a gun out of their pocket, aims, and fires one shot directly through CEO Jo’s skull, blood spattering all over a stunned Doctor Jo as her father crumples to the ground in front of her.

Chief Maeng stands behind them, gun drawn, and everyone turns in shock as he too falls to the ground and turns the gun on himself. The prosecutors manage to pull the gun away from him before he can shoot himself.

Chief Maeng cries out as the prosecutors restrain him, and Doctor Jo weeps over the body of her father, unable to do anything. Ha-ri recalls what CEO Jo said earlier about the shadowy broker always having two plans, and realizes this is what he meant.

 
COMMENTS

Brutal. Poor Doctor Jo waits 15 years to finally see her father again and then watches him get assassinated right in front of her eyes. CEO Jo was so tragic already, as Ha-ri noted when he pulled the knife on Ha-ri, who was just trying to wake him up. He endured 15 years of fear and in the end was willing to give up the extremely large pile of cash he owned just to be able to live with his daughter again. He didn’t seem like a bad person, and more a victim of circumstance than anything else.

Which brings us to Chief Maeng. I talked previously about the writing being a bit too heavy-handed, but I also said that Chief Maeng was probably the only person in the prosecution outside of Prosecutor Jang that was trustworthy, so I guess I need to give them a little credit here for not making his betrayal too obvious (even if trying to stop Prosecutor Jang from going after CEO Jo was a giant red flag).

I’m curious what motivated Chief Maeng to turn, and how long has he been on the other side? I’m inclined to believe he is not the mole that’s been ratting on the investigation all along, and that this is a more recent turn, perhaps during that paternity vacation Prosecutor Jang sent him on. Whatever the case may be, I would imagine there’s still some mole within the prosecution, especially since the shadowy broker always has a backup plan if his first one fails, and Prosecutor Jang is going to need to figure out who it is with haste or they’ll never be able to track the broker down.

As for Ha-ri’s investigation, it’s hard to imagine a bigger setback than this. He finally had a witness who could help clear his dad’s name and point them in the direction of the broker, but in one fell swoop he’s back to square one. There aren’t even many direct links to the broker in the first place, as even the big players involved like Chairman Cheon don’t seem to actually know who the broker is. I worry that Ha-ri and company are not going to be able to find a way to actually unmask the man behind everything, especially since he is so meticulous with his tying of loose ends like CEO Jo.

RELATED POSTS

• Premiere Watch: My Secret Terrius, Heart Surgeons, The Third Charm, Player
• OCN’s Player is ready to clean out all your dirty money
• Song Seung-heon, Krystal and rest of the Player cast meet for first script read