Trap: Episode 5

by Regals

As the investigation closes in on the group of hunters, both sides set their own traps to try to ensnare their opponents. But things aren’t necessarily as they seem in this dangerous cat-and-mouse game, and successfully taking out one adversary can leave you completely exposed to another who is just waiting for their time to strike.

 
EPISODE 5: “Blind Spot”

The morning after the encounter with CEO Hong’s aide, Dong-kook and Seo-young remain shockingly unscathed. Further, Seo-young managed to secure the aide’s DNA in the scuffle, and he was caught on CCTV.

Meanwhile, Woo-hyun barges into the police station with a gun drawn, and uses it to gain an audience with the police commissioner. Woo-hyun demands that Dong-kook be put back on his son’s case, and threatens to use his media position as a platform to ensure he gets justice.

Outside Woo-hyun’s house, Dong-kook posits that CEO Hong’s aide isn’t so careless as to leave so much evidence behind and leave his witnesses alive, and surmises that there might be an ulterior motive for the attack.

Later, Woo-hyun meets Dong-kook and Seo-young under a busy bridge to ask for their continued help in the investigation.

He recounts to the detectives a story about his juniors, including Secretary Kim, who first uncovered CEO Hong’s connection to the hunters. Since then, Woo-hyun and his undercover team of juniors fought to uncover the truth of CEO Hong’s depravity.

One night, Secretary Kim’s other colleagues followed CEO Hong to a secluded country road, only for CEO Hong and his cronies to ambush them. The reporters were both killed by the men, though they managed to record CEO Hong as he taunted the reporters just before killing them.

That night, Secretary Kim burst into the newsroom to report that her two colleagues were missing, and that she received the incriminating audio of CEO Hong’s taunting. But Woo-hyun orders the recording be seized and continues on with his broadcast as if nothing happened.

As the staff in the newsroom try to drag the frantic Secretary Kim away, they recoil when they see a trail of blood streaming from her legs. Turns out Secretary Kim was pregnant with one of the reporter’s child, and the stress caused her to miscarry the baby.

Woo-hyun explains that he did not think the recording was conclusive enough to take down CEO Hong, so he chose to keep it under wraps. Since then, he used CEO Hong’s investment to start a business together so he could keep a closer eye on the businessman and gather more evidence.

But Woo-hyun suspects CEO Hong knew his intentions, and seduced his wife before luring them into their hunting game so he could watch Woo-hyun suffer.

Still with no evidence to implicate CEO Hong, the hunting group continues to expand its reach, and all Woo-hyun now possesses is a list of the group’s members with nothing else to back up the charges against them.

Seo-young tries to contact her boss to get his help with gathering intel on the list of members, but when they get to his office they find that he decided to take a holiday for the next week to lay low.

Seo-young reveals that her boss holds a large amount of data on the serial hunting cases, including DNA from the hunters that were found at the crime scenes. Though she notes that the DNA does not match CEO Hong.

Seo-young actually went undercover herself as an escort, and managed to secure CEO Hong’s DNA by biting him when he went in for a kiss. But none of the data is still in the office, and all Seo-young finds is the remains of the documents her boss burnt in the trash can earlier.

The team try to find where the boss went on his vacation, but as they near the area, they stumble on a motel surrounded by emergency vehicles. Seo-young darts inside to see her boss hanging from the ceiling, killed by someone and posed as a suicide.

Outside, Dong-kook and Woo-hyun go over the situation, and the detective quickly refutes the official conclusion of suicide. He ponders whether the hunters are expanding their hunting grounds and openly toying with the police now.

Dong-kook brings Seo-young and Woo-hyun to his apartment to try to cheer up the despondent young profiler. Dong-kook tells them that the bed in the apartment was his son’s old bed that he held onto and maintains because he feels comforted by the thought that his son might be watching him sleep on it.

But Seo-young finally snaps from her stupor to challenge Dong-kook’s thinking. Not being able to let go of their loved ones is a disease, she argues, and bemoans that they’re the people who risk everything to bring terrible people to justice, yet they get nothing but suffering in return.

She weeps inconsolably as she recounts the words of wisdom her boss once gave her, “If you don’t want to die while doing this line of work, you better get famous.” His warning led Seo-young to pursue her television appearances, as he argued, “No matter how scary they are, if you’re famous, they can’t kill you so easily.”

Later that night, while Seo-young finally rests on the bed, Dong-kook’s wife and daughter show up unannounced. His wife thanks Dong-kook for getting Detective Jang to deliver her all of the savings that he collected from overtime over the years, much to Dong-kook’s confusion.

Dong-kook meets with Detective Jang, who actually gave his own savings to Dong-kook’s wife after finding out about her restaurant’s financial trouble.

But Dong-kook is suspicious of where Detective Jang procured such a large sum, and also wonders how CEO Hong’s aide knew to show up at Woo-hyun’s house while the detectives were inside, almost as if he was deliberately sent there to set himself up as a scapegoat.

And, Dong-kook notes that Detective Jang was the only person who knew that the detectives were heading there. Even during Dong-kook’s son’s case, it was Detective Jang of all people who got a promotion at the end of the case.

The evidence, while circumstantial, does certainly paint a negative picture for Detective Jang, and Dong-kook demands to know if his suspicions are true. But Detective Jang firmly rebuffs him, denying his connection to the case.

Later, Dong-kook meets Reporter Ko, and he gets the reporter to print the details behind what happened to Woo-hyun’s family in the mountains. Seo-young, then, goes on television to talk about the case where she confirms the report, and subtly threatens CEO Hong without fully revealing his identity.

The hunter group watches the broadcast with keen interest, with the evil young hunter’s group angry at CEO Hong’s group for leaving such an obvious trail for the police.

That night, Dong-kook and Woo-hyun sneak out of the hospital, carefully evading some thugs who seem to be searching for them, but they are spotted driving off on their way out.

In the car, Woo-hyun reveals that he thinks his wife is still alive. He shares the memory of the hunter asking why he went to his son first, which he confirms is because he knew of Yeon-soo and CEO Hong’s affair, but now we see that Yeon-soo is not bound like Shi-woo, apparently not captive.

But Dong-kook comforts him that he might be imagining it, as trauma can sometimes distort memories, and urges Woo-hyun to try to move on as Seo-young advised them.

Dong-kook also notes that he changed his tune on Woo-hyun, no longer angry at him for turning him away years ago, and now respecting the anchor’s refusal to give up in his quest for justice.

They arrive at the mountain, and Woo-hyun quickly uncovers the crossbow he left there days ago. But just then, CEO Hong and his aide sneak up behind them with guns drawn, boasting about how easy it was to catch up to them with all the cops at the hospital on their side.

But Dong-kook simply pulls out his own pistol, and shouts out to Reporter Ko lurking in the bushes nearby recording everything. CEO Hong’s aide tries to chase the reporter down, and Dong-kook sprints after him. Meanwhile CEO Hong and Woo-hyun grapple each other for control of the shotgun.

Seo-young arrives nearby with a group of reporters, and when a shot rings out they all storm toward the sound to see what is going on.

At the same time, CEO Hong’s aide catches up with Reporter Ko, but Dong-kook is just behind them, gun trained on the aide. The aide casually challenges Dong-kook to shoot him, but Dong-kook can’t pull the trigger, and the aide disarms Dong-kook with a crossbow shot.

Dong-kook and the aide fistfight, with Dong-kook doing surprisingly well given his history with fights. Eventually, though, the aide gains the upper hand, and with Dong-kook taken down, he grabs the detective’s pistol and points it at him.

As those two fight on the high ground, so do Woo-hyun and CEO Hong below them, and when CEO Hong pulls a knife to try to regain control, a gunshot flares nearby.

The shot was from Seo-young, flanked by a gang of reporters with cameras rolling, and she proclaims that CEO Hong is finished. CEO Hong submits, dropping his weapon, and starts to reveal his side of the story.

But just then, a bullet flies through his skull. His aide stands atop the hill, having just killed his boss cleanly, and turns the gun on himself. He tells Dong-kook that the cops won’t be able to do anything now, and pulls the trigger again, killing himself.

The next day, Dong-kook goes to pick his daughter up from school and gets swarmed by the other kids who now see him as a hero after watching the media footage from the fight on the mountain. Min-joo, at least can be happy now that all the kids are being nice to her because of her dad’s celebrity.

As he drives Min-joo home, he calls Seo-young to thank her for lending him her car so he could look cool for his daughter, and she reminds him that once he’s done there’s still a lot of work left to catch the rest of the hunters.

Seo-young trips over the laptop Woo-hyun used when he wasn’t able to speak, and she decides to check it one last time. She’s alarmed by what she sees, and goes back through Detective Bae’s notes.

Meanwhile, Woo-hyun prepares to head out from his home when the doorbell signals Seo-young’s arrival. She came to bring all of his stuff back from the hospital, but she apparently senses something off as she uses her phony interior design interest as an excuse to look around the house.

She searches through the house while he prepares to leave, though she feigns that everything is normal and even helps Woo-hyun tie his necktie.

He averts her gaze while she helps and she casually flirts with him, but when he awkwardly responds she notes that most men would not react to her flirtations in that way, almost as if Woo-hyun doesn’t know how he is supposed to respond.

She wonders if Woo-hyun needs to learn how to respond through reading about it, and motions to a book she found earlier about psychological blind spots. She wonders if Woo-hyun was able to use his own perceived weaknesses to best CEO Hong.

She theorizes that Woo-hyun knew CEO Hong would think he had the upper hand, and questions whether she and Dong-kook might be falling into the same trap, failing to see what Woo-hyun is hiding because of their incorrect perception of him.

Woo-hyun seems dumbfounded, unable to counter, just half-smiling back at her as she cuts through the facade. She calmly heads out without a word from Woo-hyun, who eventually collects himself and makes a phone call to someone unknown.

Seo-young calls Dong-kook again and insists that they meet up, frantically keeping her eyes on other drivers, paranoid that someone may come after her now. She reveals that there was something that they both missed in the investigation, and that they need to meet immediately to look into it.

But just then, the brakes on the car (which is actually Dong-kook’s since she lent her car to him instead) stop functioning, and she careens off the road into the ditch, rolling several times before landing upside down.

Flashback to Seo-young checking the computer that Woo-hyun nearly destroyed earlier, and she checks the search history to find “the face of a father who lost a child” in the results.

She recalls the information that psychopaths need to learn how to emulate emotions since they can’t feel them naturally, and realizes that the reason Woo-hyun searched for that was because he is a psychopath himself.

Seo-young tries to crawl from the wreckage, but a masked man sets off an explosive device, engulfing the car in flames.

Meanwhile, Woo-hyun considers Seo-young’s accusation against him, wondering if he really was that awkward, before bursting out into a devilish chuckle to himself.

 
COMMENTS

Whoa. Well this certainly went in a way different direction than I was expecting. I guess we should start with Woo-hyun because his reveal calls into question pretty much everything we’ve learned so far. The search results definitely suggest that Woo-hyun actually feels zero connection to his son, since he specifically needed to learn how to act to sell himself as a grieving father. But then this completely flies in the face of his testimony that he specifically chose his son over his wife, because now we know he specifically can’t make an emotional decision like that. So is Woo-hyun just completely making the entire hunt up then?

But at the same time, we still know this hunter organization seems to exist and are at least somewhat involved in what actually did happen. We also know from the Russian waitress’ testimony that they hunted using the cafe previously. So, we also can’t even really confirm that the hunt didn’t take place. I feel like I could go in circles for hours trying to figure this out. There’s just so many questions that arise from this twist because it essentially clouds 95% of the back-story we learned leading up to that point. I can’t even really wrap my head around it right now. It changes everything. What a wild twist! Great stuff!

Now with that said, I kind of question what exactly Seo-young was doing at the end there. She basically cracks the key to the entire case and the first thing she does is… go tell the psychopath that you know he’s a psychopath? The whole crux of this entire twist is that Woo-hyun is in their blind spot so they don’t think to look into him, but couldn’t she completely reverse this on Woo-hyun by not exposing that she’s on to him. Woo-hyun thinks he’s in their blind spot so he thinks he is in the clear, and instead of using that to go after him, you just tell him, and then he kills you. Seems less than an ideal tactic.

And the problem now, is that Seo-young basically told Dong-kook absolutely nothing about her epiphany, so he’s completely in the dark. How is he supposed to figure out that Woo-hyun is apparently in on this whole thing when he’s got really no good reason to suspect him? He’s completely sold on the perception of Woo-hyun as this vengeful dad, much like himself, and the fact that he kind of sees himself in Woo-hyun should certainly make it way harder for him to overcome his bias and actually take a close look at the anchor. As it stands, Woo-hyun seems completely poised to avoid suspicion entirely, and it’s kind of all Seo-young’s fault for the way she handled it. It’s going to be an uphill battle if they’re going to turn the tables on him now.

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