Insider: Episodes 15-16 (Final)

by solstices

The final battle is a bloody and brutal one, with every one of the game’s players finally going all in to duke it out. Sacrifices are inevitable, but they’ll stop at nothing to attain their goals — including our hero, whose plans are one step away from coming to fruition.

 
EPISODES 15-16 WEECAP

Soo-yeon wraps up a freshly-dead Chairman Do in plastic, dragging him into a secret room. Once the corpse is safely hidden away, that’s when the weight of what she’s done finally sinks in; as the adrenaline wears off, the tears finally well up in the privacy of her car.

There’s no time to wallow in emotions, though. Soo-yeon finds out about Lam’s intention to have Yo-han killed, which brings us back to the beginning of the first episode. Over a payphone call, Soo-yeon warns Yo-han that the men escorting him are out for his head.

Thus begins a breakneck chase, ended only by the timely arrival of Soo-yeon. Yo-han escapes in her car, where he quickly notices that she’s behaving oddly.

However, a call from Hae-do interrupts him before he can question her about it. Hae-do’s holding Seung-hwan hostage, forcing Yo-han and Soo-yeon to head back to the casino.

While Soo-yeon waits for Ro-sa’s backup, Yo-han heads into the casino’s main office alone. Thankfully, Seung-hwan’s ability to read lips comes in handy, and he realizes that Hae-do instructed his minion to assassinate Yo-han from behind.

With a subtle flick of his eyes, Seung-hwan tips Yo-han off — and just as the minion raises his knife, the lights cut out, allowing Yo-han to gain the upper hand.

It turns out the blackout was the work of the Yang brothers, who have come to reclaim their throne. A full-out brawl breaks out between Yang’s and Hae-do’s men, while Chairman Yang and his henchman head to the office and make quick work of Hae-do’s minions.

Except in a surprise move, the henchman suddenly turns against Chairman Yang and stabs him several times, before Yang finally manages to shove him off. Seung-hwan urges Yo-han to secure Chairman Yang as leverage against Yang Hwa, who’s steadily making his way upstairs too.

Yo-han can’t do much when Hae-do pulls him into a fierce tussle, though, leaving the henchman free to advance upon Chairman Yang — but Seung-hwan moves faster, and the knife plunges into his abdomen instead. Noooooo! Seung-hwan!!

Seung-hwan grimaces in pain, but he doesn’t falter, even when the henchman drives the blade into him again. In a flashback, we see that Seung-hwan had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, leaving him with little time to live.

Bleeding out, Seung-hwan eventually collapses to the floor, and the henchman ends up stabbing Chairman Yang anyway. But Yang Hwa arrives just then, and he yanks the henchman off before brutally bludgeoning him to death.

Hae-do flees in terror, and Yo-han scrambles over to Seung-hwan in a panic. Gasping for breath, Seung-hwan ekes out that Yo-han should have listened to him, back when he first advised Yo-han to stay out of this seedy underworld.

With a trembling hand, Seung-hwan gives Yo-han a USB and asks him to take care of his daughter. Then he falls limp, eyes turning glassy, and it’s all Yo-han can do to take the USB with renewed resolve.

Meanwhile, Jae-sun arrives at the casino lobby in the aftermath of the carnage. Unfortunately, that puts him in the perfect position to be stabbed by Hae-do as he charges blindly out of the elevator. Hae-do belatedly realizes who he just assaulted, and then he stabs Jae-sun several more times before running off.

Honoring Seung-hwan’s dedication to the cause, Yo-han heads straight for the injured Chairman Yang. He cuts a deal with Yang Hwa — hold off the incoming police squads, and he’ll make sure Chairman Yang’s life is saved.

They make it out, but the next morning, Yo-han and Soo-yeon’s faces are plastered all over the news as wanted criminals. Believing that this spells the end of their plan, Soo-yeon finally confronts Byung-wook head-on.

She recounts the heinous way he ruined the lives of her and her mother, but he’s utterly unrepentant, asserting that the world is simply unfair. Patronizingly, he advises her to run while she still can — to which she aims a gun at him in response.

Byung-wook’s reduced to a panicked, pathetic mess in front of the gun’s muzzle, as he snivels and pleads for her not to shoot. It’s a tense moment, and Soo-yeon steels herself to pull the trigger — only to be stopped by Yo-han.

Coaxing the gun from her hands, Yo-han kneels in surrender, and the pair are taken into custody by prosecutor Woo-jae. The two are afforded privacy in an interrogation room, where Yo-han reveals that he’s uncovered the whereabouts of Lee Tae-gwang’s elusive video.

Flashback time. With only the limited supplies of Yo-han’s underground doctor, Chairman Yang is on the verge of death. With his dying breath, he asks to see his brother, then tells Yo-han to find Lee Tae-gwang’s video — it contains incriminating evidence against Byung-wook.

Heeding Chairman Yang’s advice, Yo-han visits Tae-gwang in the hospital, where he’s looking much healthier than before. Tae-gwang reveals that gambling den operators use debts to hide their secrets, which prompts Yo-han to investigate Seongju Prison’s debt ledgers.

Ah, that’s what was in the USB that Seung-hwan gave to Yo-han! After Woo-jae secretly releases her from detention, Soo-yeon tracks down the debts until they finally lead her to a safe with Tae-gwang’s USB.

That evidence is enough for Woo-jae to indict Byung-wook for aiding, abetting, and instigating murder. Byung-wook receives a text from Woo-jae inviting him to meet Yo-han and Soo-yeon at the Goldman Casino, and he heads over, stepping over the police lines. It’s almost laughable how Byung-wook squeamishly tiptoes around the bloodstains on the floor, as if his own two hands aren’t already stained with the blood of the innocent.

In the manager’s office, Yo-han presents Byung-wook with extensive evidence of his crimes — from the debt ledgers, to Yang Hwa’s recorded confession, and finally Tae-gwang’s video of Byung-wook’s illicit dealings with the Macau triad.

Byung-wook sneers, thinking himself invincible with Annie’s backing. Except a bruised and beaten Annie is dragged into the room, and Lam emerges from the shadows. She’s on Yo-han’s side now, after he offered to bury Tae-gwang’s video in exchange for her cutting Byung-wook loose.

Desperately, Byung-wook calls Chief Prosecutor Hong, but the only response he gets is an automated dial tone — Chief Prosecutor Hong has cut ties with him, too.

In the wake of his son’s sudden death, Chief Prosecutor Hong’s suspicions about Byung-wook had taken root. His investigations uncovered a recording of Byung-wook instructing Jae-sun to go to the casino and check Soo-yeon’s identity, which led him to his demise.

It’s all over for Byung-wook, who’s taken to court. He admits to all his crimes, vowing internally to survive at all costs and take revenge on Yo-han. How the tables have turned.

Before the judge can deliver his verdict, however, prosecutor Woo-jae requests to play one final piece of evidence — Tae-gwang’s video. Wait, they’re releasing it after all?

Yo-han takes the witness stand to explain that Byung-wook was merely a cog in the system controlled by the Deep Pockets. In order to eradicate their insidious grip on society, he pledges to expose their inner workings with his knowledge as an insider.

Later on, Byung-wook is kidnapped on the way to prison. He comes face-to-face with Hae-do in an abandoned warehouse, but Soo-yeon soon takes over, scaring Hae-do and his men off with her gun.

With zero hesitation, she shoots Byung-wook in the knees, effectively crippling him. Since he refused to kneel in penance till the very end, she’ll make him suffer just like she had to. Injecting him with a high dosage of meth, she condemns him to a life of suffering from severe withdrawal symptoms.

Yo-han meets with Seung-hwan’s wife and daughter, informing them of the lifelong care program they’re now recipients for. Thanks to Soo-yeon’s foundation, they’ll never have to worry about money again.

Ohmygod, the reason Seung-hwan knew sign language wasn’t simply for his undercover persona in prison — he’d learnt it for his deaf daughter. Sobs, my heart. Seung-hwan, why’d you have to gooooo!

Now that Soo-yeon’s finally gotten her revenge, Yo-han urges her to walk away from the vicious cycle and live peacefully. The Deep Pockets can’t get to them now, not when their identities have been exposed. Soo-yeon thanks him for all that he’s done for her, and they part ways.

Then she walks into a police station, looking more at peace than she’s ever been, and turns herself in for murder. Soo-yeon ends up in prison, ganged up on by intimidating cellmates, but somehow I have a feeling she’ll pull through — just as she always has.

Yay, Woo-jae gets promoted to the Corruption Investigation Agency. In his spacious new office, he banters lightheartedly with Yo-han, until a news report catches their attention. CIA commissioner candidate Jung-gyu has been pulled out of the running due to criminal charges, and taking his place is none other than Jin-hyung. What??

We rewind, and it turns out that Jin-hyung has been further ahead of the game than he’d seemed. He was the one who instigated Chairman Yang’s henchman to turn on him, in order to manipulate Yo-han into bartering with Yang Hwa for his testimony. Once Byung-wook was ousted, a spot naturally opened up for Jin-hyung to usurp, allowing him to become Shinseondong’s new right-hand man.

Yo-han heads out to resolve this matter, but before he can get in his car, someone catches his eye. It’s a masked man — looking exactly like Sun-oh — who tilts his head at Yo-han as if in greeting.

Right on cue, a bag is pulled over Yo-han’s head and he’s yanked into a van. The unidentified kidnappers deliver him to a temple (what a way to come full circle), where he’s greeted by National Intelligence Service agent IM HEE-SOO (Ha Joon).

The NIS is after Lam, and Yo-han is their only avenue to get to her. In voiceover, Yo-han narrates that the cycle of corruption only continues on, no matter how many times it’s torn apart. Yet if one does nothing and simply gives up, nothing changes.

Yo-han chuckles, then gazes straight at the camera, as if readying himself to take down his next enemy. Our insider is back in action.

Phew, what a show. When evil is so deeply ingrained and intertwined into the upper echelons of society, protected by their sheer wealth and powerful connections, how can they be taken down? How can a flawed system bring to justice the very people it is controlled by?

Insider asks these questions, and answers with a vigilante hero forced to operate outside of the law. Left to fend for himself by a legal system that could not — or would not — save him, Yo-han had to seek his vengeance and deliver his justice with his own hands.

It’s ultimately quite a bleak outlook; even when our team brought Byung-wook to trial, that was only made possible by Woo-jae’s under-the-table assistance. Yo-han wouldn’t have been able to get this far without Soo-yeon, Seung-hwan, or even Bon-chul, suggesting that in order to counter those who break the law, one needs to be willing to do the same.

It’s clear that Yo-han’s time in prison was a harsh awakening to the cruel brutality of the world. Using Byung-wook’s own words against him, Yo-han had declared that he was finally holding the hilt of the sword that is the law, and would finally declare judgment upon him.

Yet judgment is not for any single individual to mete out; it ought to be handed down by the law. There’s a reason justice is represented by a set of scales, not a sword.

I wonder how much of Yo-han’s conscience weighs on him; it’s one aspect I wish the show dedicated more time to exploring, since Yo-han’s emotional landscape is so interestingly complex. He grieved deeply over the death of little Min-ho, yet he was willing to sacrifice former ally Bon-chul — he couldn’t not have known that giving him up to Jin-hyung was akin to sending him to his death.

Even so, our protagonists are heartbreakingly sympathetic in their quests for revenge; characters like Yo-han, Soo-yeon, and Sun-oh were forsaken by the law, unable to find salvation in it, and instead had to take matters into their own hands. But that begs the question — can vigilante justice be true justice, or does it veer into well-intentioned extremism?

I think the scene where Yo-han confronted Jin-hyung about his murder of Detective Kwon also ties into this theme — Jin-hyung kept referring to his actions as a “mistake,” except murder certainly isn’t a mere slip-up. It was chilling how little Jin-hyung thought of a life, enough to eliminate one for standing in his path to career ascension.

Jin-hyung had justified it as a necessity, a mere removal of an obstacle to prevent it from jeopardizing everything he’s worked so hard for. Yet this is the same excuse that led people like Byung-wook, Chairman Do, and the Yang brothers further into sin as their crimes snowballed. Chasing blindly after greed (or revenge, or anything really) can easily morph into a slippery slope down to hell.

What’s to say that this line of reasoning won’t end up being co-opted by vigilante heroes too? A life sacrificed for a greater cause, a villain extinguished to uphold the morals of society. Does this not simply perpetuate the cycle of revenge and murder?

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, I’d like to thank you for your patience as my weecaps grew longer and longer each week — there was just so much happening in this show, and so many layers to every plot, that I always struggled to choose what I could trim out. Admittedly, there were times even I struggled to keep up; I do think the show could have benefited from slightly less confusing editing, given its convoluted plot.

Still, the show delivered twist after twist with satisfying payoffs, delving into the depths of depravity in order for our hero to claw his way back up. Yo-han was principled but morally gray, keeping us viewers on our toes and outmaneuvering his enemies while never losing his compassionate side.

Soo-yeon was an equally formidable character in her own right; I respected her courage in fighting her battles, and her resilience despite all that she’d been forced to endure.

And of course, Seung-hwan’s staunch loyalty made me shed tears for him, and Sun-oh played hard to get till the very end, haha. Though that ending does hint at him returning to play a larger role in a second season, if it ever gets made. (I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for Kang Young-seok’s future works, whether they’re on the small screen or the theatrical stage!)

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Insider — it was a heavy watch each week, but its mind games kept me intrigued, its characters had me captivated, and its story raises some very poignant and timely questions.

 
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