Again My Life: Episodes 7-8

by DaebakGrits

Things get interesting this week as our time-traveling lawyer plots to remove one of our bad guy’s pawns from the chess board. Nothing is ever simple when it comes to our lawyer, though, and his complex plan involves a successful matchmaking attempt, media manipulation, and the capture of a serial killer. Piece of cake, right?

 
EPISODES 7-8 WEECAP

Following the drug bust, Hee-woo interrogates the Yuchae gang leader and convinces him to flip on his high-ranking partners or else he will take the fall for all their crimes. Hee-woo gets the intel from the gang leader that he needs and holds a press conference to announce that their drug case uncovered the corruption of some of Gimsan’s prominent city officials.

But before Hee-woo can announce the identities of the individuals involved, Min-guk interrupts and hands Hee-woo his cell phone. Seok-kyu is on the other end of the call, and he tells Hee-woo to leave out the local assemblyman from his report to the press. It’s an order that came down from Tae-sub through Seok-hoon, and Hee-woo complies, knowing that he will have to lose some battles in order to win the war.

Although he didn’t catch all the bad guys with this particular case, he did gain another ally: LEE YEON-SUK (Choi Min), a for-hire bruiser on the Yuchae gang’s payroll. Given that he’s a first-time offender, Hee-woo lets him off with a light warning, but Hee-woo’s generosity doesn’t end there. He also pays off his mom’s medical bills, and so, when Hee-woo and the rest of the Gimsan team transfer to the Seoul office, Yeon-suk happily tags along and adds an impressive amount of muscle to Team Good Guys.

Back in Seoul, Seok-hoon — who has made a deal with Tae-sub and is now Chief Prosecutor — pulls Hee-woo aside and asks him to be his little office spy. He’s suspicious of why Seok-kyu would return to Seoul and wants Hee-woo to report on Seok-kyu’s comings and goings. The encounter makes Hee-woo’s spidey senses tingle. Why would Seok-hoon trust Hee-woo when he was the one who made the deal to bring Seok-kyu to Seoul with him and JI SUNG-HO (Kim Young-jo)?

Hee-woo’s intuition proves correct, and he sniffs out a surveillance bug in their office. Instead of getting rid of the listening device, Hee-woo plots with Seok-kyu and Sung-ho to use the bug to their advantage. They stage conversations in the office, which Hee-woo then reports back to Seok-hoon to prove he’s a loyal underling.

Hee-woo’s sunbaes invite him to the latest meeting of the secret Hanguk Lawyers Club, but the dinner meetings he was invited to during college were like local chapter meetings, whereas this one is like the equivalent of a national convention. All the biggest names in politics are present, and Hee-woo notices that none of them begin eating, not even after thirty minutes have passed. They’re all waiting for Tae-sub to arrive, and his delay is an obvious power play that they all abide by.

Following dinner, as per the club’s tradition, Tae-sub meets with the youngest member, who just so happens to be Hee-woo. As Tae-sub prepares and pours tea for Hee-woo, they discuss the relationship between government officials and prosecutors. It’s obvious that Tae-sub is trying to read Hee-woo’s moral compass.

Although Tae-sub doesn’t suspect that Hee-woo has ulterior motives, he reads Hee-woo well enough to know he cannot be controlled with force. Tae-sub warns Seok-hoon that — when it comes to taming someone like Hee-woo — the master isn’t the one holding the leash, but the one feeding him. Seok-hoon, however, doesn’t heed Tae-sub’s warnings, and as Hee-woo continues to report everything Seok-hoon overhears through his listening device in their office, he becomes complacent in his confidence that he’s Hee-woo’s master.

Hee-woo is invited to another fancy social gathering attended by Seoul’s elite. Among the attendees, he spies SUNG JIN-MI (Park Na-eun), a pianist he arrested for embezzlement in his past life. Seeing her gives him an idea: introduce her to Il-hyun and kill two birds with one stone. Acting the part of the world’s greatest wingman, he charms Jin-mi and establishes a good report with her before introducing her to Il-hyun. They hit it off and begin dating.

Not only does Il-hyun’s personal life appear to be on the rise, but he’s also been handed two important cases. The first is an investigation into Mirae Electronics’s bank accounts, which was initially Min-soo’s case, but the president of Mirae Electronics is one of Tae-sub’s allies. Tae-sub pulls some strings, and Il-hyun is given the case with orders to pamper the company president and keep him in holding until the media dies down, which leads to Il-hyun’s other case…

Joo-suk, a medical student, has been arrested for the murder of his girlfriend, and it has all the right elements to create a sensationalized story — one that can dominate the media and bury news pertaining to Mirae Electronics. Il-hyun and his backers ensure that the murder case is the leading story for every news outlet.

The stark contrast between how the Mirae president and the medical student are treated during interrogation is disturbing and reveals Il-hyun’s true nature. He bows politely and feeds the company president expensive sushi, but he yells and does his best to get a forced confession from Joo-suk, who continuously pleads his innocence. Before this, I just assumed Il-hyun was a massive brown-noser, but seeing him bully Joo-suk made me eager to see how Hee-woo’s plan would pan out.

Hee-woo begins by giving Han-mi paparazzi-like photos of Il-hyun acting lovey-dovey with Jin-mi. He tells her to share them with her coworkers in the entertainment department, and once the photos are leaked on every news outlet, Il-hyun’s connection to the soon-to-be-exposed criminal is undeniable.

Next, he tasks Seok-kyu and Sung-ho with investigating Jin-mi’s embezzlement while he tries to find the real killer in Il-hyun’s other case. He meets with Joo-suk in secret and asks all the questions Il-hyun should have been asking. He uses Joo-suk’s testimony to profile the killer and find an alibi for Joo-suk.

Hee-woo has drinks with Min-soo, but things are a bit tense because Min-soo is still pissed that Il-hyun took his case from him. He’s also a bit suspicious of Hee-woo, and says he can’t read him (just like he can’t read women lol) or figure out whose side he’s really on. Is he with Il-hyun and Team Tae-sub, or against them? This, of course, explains all the shifty looks Min-soo has been giving Hee-woo behind his back. At this point, Hee-woo admits that he did a background check on Min-soo and knows that his father was a disgraced assemblyman who was framed for crimes he didn’t commit. And who framed him? Tae-sub, of course.

Min-soo is still distrustful that Hee-woo is actually on his side, so Hee-woo convinces him to watch Joo-suk’s trial so he can see first-hand how he’s manipulating the bad guys. At first, it appears lawyer KANG MIN-SEOK (Lee Jae-woo), who Hee-woo hired for Joo-suk, is going to lose against Il-hyun, but then Kang-jin and Gyu-ri enter the courtroom. Kang-jin whispers in Il-hyun’s ear, and he relays new information to the courtroom: the charges against Joo-suk must be dropped because the real killer has been apprehended. Il-hyun’s disappointed face is downright punchable.

Through a series of flashbacks we discover that Hee-woo asked the now underworked Min-guk to obtain a list of violent offenders living in the area of the murder. One of those names just happened to belong to a serial killer Hee-woo remembers from his past life.

Hee-woo then gave Gyu-ri enough intel to find the body of one of the killer’s victims, and after a couple nights of staking out the killer’s home, they were able to follow him to his body-dumping ground and catch him disposing of evidence. (P.S. I just love how everyone easily accepts Hee-woo’s weak explanation for how he knew where a serial killer was dumping bodies). A brief interrogation scene shows the killer confessing to the murder of Joo-suk’s girlfriend, and with the murder case closed, Mirae is back in the news.

Il-hyun finds out that Seok-kyu is investigating Jin-mi, and goes into protective boyfriend mode. Unfortunately, during his threat to Seok-kyu, he name drops and suggests Seok-hoon has his back. This doesn’t sit well with Seok-hoon, who eavesdrops on the conversation through the bug he planted in Seok-kyu’s office. So in retaliation, Seok-hoon tells Seok-kyu to get a warrant and go after Jin-mi. But things don’t end there. This is a plot to take down Jin-mi and Il-hyun, remember?

As Hee-woo somehow predicted, Tae-sub decides that the best way he and his allies can survive this scandal and the public’s growing distrust in the prosecution is to feed them a sacrifice: Il-hyun. So Seok-hoon — on Tae-sub’s orders — asks Hee-woo to investigate Il-hyun’s corruption. Hee-woo feigns hesitation, pretending he’s slightly uncomfortable going after a colleague and sunbae, but after leaving Seok-hoon’s office, he smiles. Everything is going according to his plan.

 
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