Insider: Episodes 11-12

by solstices

It’s finally time for our hero to launch an offensive, and his master plan takes off in full swing. Backed by a myriad of allies, some expected and some unpredictable, he’s about to beat his enemies at their own game.

 
EPISODES 11-12 WEECAP

Yo-han visits his grandmother’s grave to lay out an offering, and he’s soon joined by Jin-hyung. Astutely, Yo-han asks if it’s Byung-wook who wants his head, since there’d be no reason for Jin-hyung to make such a drastic move otherwise.

Jin-hyung counters with his own question — why is Byung-wook so fixated on Yo-han? In response, Yo-han offers to share his story, and that gets Jin-hyung on board.

In another flashback, we see how Yo-han and Soo-yeon had convinced Seung-hwan over. Hah, as expected, he can’t turn down their offer when such a large sum is involved.

Seung-hwan’s skeptical about their ability to fool Sun-oh, though, until Yo-han counters that it isn’t them — it’s Seung-hwan who’s going to pull the wool over Sun-oh’s eyes.

He does just that by pretending to be his driver on his stakeout for Director Jin, but when Sun-oh gets off to ambush her, Seung-hwan drives away the moment he’s out of sight. Jin-hyung’s men abduct Director Jin before anyone else can get to her, leaving Sun-oh empty-handed.

Meanwhile, Yo-han successfully pulls off his card switch trick, beating Chairman Yang and winning the very VIP room they’re sitting in. Unfortunately, Chairman Yang is a sore loser, and he gets his men to lock the doors.

He pulls a knife on the dealer, but Soo-yeon halts him in his tracks with a gun aimed right at him. Chairman Yang scoffs, thinking it fake, but she shoots a bullet right into his thigh. No toy gun, this one.

Yo-han and Soo-yeon change into staff uniforms so that they can wheel the injured Chairman Yang out in a cart without arousing suspicion. It isn’t long until their names and appearances are broadcasted over the announcement system, though, and Soo-yeon finds herself surrounded in the main lobby.

Just in the nick of time, the lights go out — and by the time they come back on, Soo-yeon’s made her escape. The camera pans to the person that helped her by cutting the lights… Wait, it’s Hae-do???

Turns out Yo-han had saved Hae-do from the grave after he’d been cast out by the Yang brothers, and he’d offered the Bukyeongpa gang in exchange for an alliance with Hae-do.

Soo-yeon makes it safely to their hideout, where she begins hacking into the Goldman slush fund system. Back in the casino, Yo-han incites a tussle with Yang Hwa, though it quickly becomes a losing fight.

We soon see why, though — Yo-han had coated his fingertips with an animal tranquilizer, and he takes advantage of Yang Hwa’s lowered guard to smear it on his skin. Yang Hwa collapses, and Yo-han uses his iris to pass the Goldman system’s two-factor authentication.

Right in front of Yang Hwa’s eyes, Yo-han transfers all the money into an account for Min-ho. He’s finally avenged his death.

Sun-oh finally catches up to Seung-hwan, but the moment he gets into the car, Seung-hwan knocks him out with chloroform. A police car approaches, and Seung-hwan escapes in the nick of time — leaving an unconscious Sun-oh for the police to find.

They’re ecstatic about it, since Sun-oh has a hefty bounty on his head, courtesy of Chairman Yang. Sun-oh is taken straight to Chairman Yang’s clutches, where he and his brother demand to know where Director Jin is. Of course, Sun-oh doesn’t know, which only means his interrogation gets prolonged.

Yo-han also has pursuers hot on his heels, though he manages to shake them off and jump into a conveniently-placed taxi. Except the driver is Jae-sun, and he brandishes a pair of handcuffs — then laughs.

He’s not here to arrest Yo-han; rather, they’re in the same boat now, since Chairman Do has forged an alliance with the prosecutors.

Thanks to Jae-sun’s help, Yo-han escapes unscathed. He advises Jin-hyung to drive Director Jin out to a faraway location and let her go, since dragging her around anywhere only puts them at risk of being caught.

Now that they’ve detached themselves from Jin-hyung, Yo-han and Soo-yeon enact the next part of their plan — catching Sun-oh.

Yo-han makes a call to Yang Hwa, offering the stolen slush funds in exchange for Sun-oh. He walks straight into the lion’s den, brandishing his phone and threatening to donate all the money if the Yang brothers don’t hold up their end of the deal.

It works, and Yo-han gets Sun-oh out before tossing the phone with Min-ho’s account to Yang Hwa’s men. Seung-hwan acts as a decoy, while Yo-han and Soo-yeon drive off with Sun-oh in the trunk.

Soo-yeon asks how Yo-han’s going to explain the missing funds to Chairman Do, but he’s got it all covered. Thanks to Sang-ki, who specializes in underground financial transactions, two accounts have been created under Min-ho’s name — one corporate, and one personal.

A transaction between two accounts under the same name doesn’t arise suspicion, which means it goes through immediately. The Yang brothers can only watch helplessly as the balance in Min-ho’s corporate account drops to zero before they can retrieve even a single cent of it.

Though the rescue plan was a success, Yo-han fails to get a confession out of Sun-oh. With Min-ho dead and only his social media posts left, there’s insufficient evidence to prove that Sun-oh murdered Yo-han’s grandmother.

Later on, Soo-yeon asks Yo-han why he’s hesitating to deal with Sun-oh, and if he’s truly going to leave him to the law instead of taking revenge. Yo-han admits that he’d vowed to rip his grandmother’s killer apart with his own hands, but when he looked at Sun-oh, he saw both himself and Soo-yeon in him.

It’s clear that despite Sun-oh’s apparent betrayal, Yo-han still feels empathy for him, and he asks Soo-yeon to give him some more time.

A smug Chairman Do gloats that his plan has succeeded, but Yo-han soon nips his elation in the bud. Instead of transferring The Skin Nation shares to Chairman Do’s Dosan Holdings, Yo-han’s established his own YH Holdings. On top of that, he has a message from Shinseondong — Chairman Do’s fired.

A flashback reveals that Yo-han had filled Shinseondong in on Chairman Yang’s mismanagement of their slush funds, and offered to deliver their money back to them — in exchange for the position of Goldman Casino’s manager, as well as the new correspondent for Shinseondong.

It’s all over for Chairman Do, who’s sedated and taken to his usual grave-digging spot under Bon-chul’s watch. Sun-oh’s taken there too, and Bon-chul reveals that Chairman Yang had Sun-oh’s father killed in order to take in his young gambling prodigy of a son.

The revelation stuns Sun-oh, and Bon-chul leaves him with a scalpel and a tied-up Chairman Do. A series of flashbacks reveal that Chairman Do had ordered Sun-oh to kill Yo-han’s grandmother in order to isolate him and steer him towards working for Chairman Do, though we don’t see Sun-oh actually carrying out the deed.

Sun-oh raises the scalpel to strike Chairman Do, but he collapses and passes out from the blood loss first. Chairman Yang arrives with his henchmen, having received the address from Bon-chul, and he takes both men away.

Whoops, looks like that wasn’t actually part of the plan, since Yo-han confronts Bon-chul for taking matters into his own hands and throwing Sun-oh away. Bon-chul lets Yo-han listen to the recording he took, in which Chairman Yang tells his men to take Sun-oh to the incinerator. Noooo.

Yang Hwa also receives a text from Bon-chul, containing Soo-yeon’s address. He immediately heads over to capture her, only to walk straight into a trap laid by Jae-sun. Yang Hwa is arrested for the attempted murder of Hae-do and taken into custody.

Annie fires both the Yang brothers, and instates Yo-han in their place. He’s officially the new manager of the Goldman Casino.

Elsewhere, an unconscious Sun-oh is dragged into a makeshift incinerator. The henchman sets the wooden planks on fire, trapping Sun-oh inside — but right as the door closes, Sun-oh opens his eyes.

After all the trials and tribulations he’s been through, Yo-han is finally climbing his way up the ladder of the illicit gambling realm, and it’s so satisfying to watch. Just as he was once made use of, he’s learnt how to take advantage of his enemies’ blind spots to catch them off guard. It’s like reading your opponents’ tells and habits at the gambling table, except with life or death as the stakes. Yo-han isn’t afraid to go all in, and the high risk often means high rewards.

I particularly like how he’s managed to convert prior adversaries into allies, by exploiting discontent amongst the bad guys and offering their underlings exactly what they truly desire to entice them into switching sides. It creates a network of grudging but loyal allies, since they can’t betray Yo-han without compromising their own self-interest.

At first, I questioned the need for so many antagonists, since the sprawling cast had me scrambling to keep up with names for a while. But this episode washed away my reservations, because it’s finally starting to all come together, and I like how the diverse villains each fill a niche that adds personality and color to the show.

Sun-oh continues to break my heart, both with the way he looked so disbelieving that Yo-han came to save him, and with the reveal of his tragic backstory. He’s been manipulated since too young an age, and it’s absolutely appalling how thoroughly Chairman Yang and Chairman Do traumatized him, all to mold him into an obedient little pawn. I can’t wait for him to enact vengeance upon his abusers.

The drama has a way of making us root for its characters, even (or perhaps especially) those who are morally gray; one such example is Seung-hwan. His one-track mind towards money is amusingly endearing, and I’m glad Yo-han’s found an ally in him. Sun-oh did mention that Seung-hwan’s suffering from an illness, though, which has me worried. I’m not ready to lose him just yet!

And of course, I can’t leave out Soo-yeon, whose quiet strength and suppressed vulnerability are wonderfully portrayed by Lee Yoo-young. I like that her fortitude isn’t unwavering — on the contrary, she does waver, but she always finds the resilience to forge ahead anyway. That’s true courage in my book.

 
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