The Good Detective 2: Episodes 13-14

by solstices

The cracks in our master manipulator’s schemes are starting to show, and our detective pair is steadily closing in on the truth. As our villains grow more aggressive, however, our protagonists’ loved ones find themselves faced with danger.

 
EPISODES 13-14 WEECAP

A reinvestigation of Tae-ho’s car turns up Na-na’s fingerprints where they shouldn’t be — on the driver’s seat belt buckle and the steering wheel. Ji-hyuk theorizes that the unbuckling sound recorded on the black box was Na-na’s doing, and it turns out that the police officer in charge of Tae-ho’s accident raised the exact same doubts. That officer was transferred to the countryside immediately after the case was wrapped up, which suggests he was probably on the right track.

Na-na calls Ji-hyuk to her mother’s old residence yet again, where she asks him to leave the force and become her personal bodyguard instead. Without a moment’s hesitation, Ji-hyuk flat-out rejects her, and she declares that they’re enemies now.

Fishing for sympathy yet again, Na-na tries to draw a common link between them using their mothers’ deaths, but Ji-hyuk challenges her version of events. Having found out from a news article that Na-na was at the scene of her mother’s death, he wonders if her mother truly died to protect her, or if she fabricated her past and lived her lie for so long that she grew to believe it.

After Ji-hyuk leaves, Na-na thinks back to the past, and we see that she caught her mother right before she overdosed on pills. Her mother asked Na-na if she would join her, but Na-na shook her head, and her mother swallowed the pills right in front of her own daughter. Back in the present, Na-na desperately whimpers that she wasn’t at the scene.

Since Yong-geun’s in prison for his crimes, Na-na’s moved on to find someone else to do her dirty work for her. Ki-jin is the next mouse to be caught in her trap; in exchange for his loyalty, she promises him a large sum.

Except instead of the bank transfer she’d promised, Ki-jin discovers a bag of cold hard cash in the trunk of his car, surrounded by parking lot CCTVs. With that, Na-na has a hold over him, and it’s too late to back out now.

The Incheon team digs into Dong-jae’s disappearance, and they find out that he was given a car on the day of his release from prison. That car had a location tracker hidden in it, so that Dong-jae’s boss GU JAE-CHUN (Lee Ho-chul) could find him and exact revenge, thereby conveniently eliminating him. A CCTV recording reveals that the person who gave him the car is Ki-jin, meaning Dong-jae’s murder was premeditated.

With this newfound clue, Ji-hyuk surmises that Dong-jae was killed off because he confessed to Tae-ho that he wasn’t responsible for Hee-joo’s death. In other words, the true culprit silenced Dong-jae to keep their crime concealed.

Oh no, Grandpa finds out that he may not have much longer to live, and that he’ll have to undergo surgery soon for what seems to be a malignant tumor. As a final act of goodwill, Grandpa goes to the chicken restaurant to give presents to Do-chang’s family, aww.

Apparently there’s only one chicken restaurant in town, because Dong-jae’s lackeys enter right after. They begin a very audible conversation about how Dong-jae only cleaned up the crime scene, and how he didn’t actually kill Hee-joo. Of course Grandpa’s sitting within earshot, and he overhears the entire conversation.

Following up on that lead, Grandpa goes to visit Dong-jae’s older brother Dong-soo, in the hopes that he might know something about the case. Dong-soo’s also having a hard time because of his brother’s involvement in the case, and he brushes Grandpa off brusquely, not wanting to be involved any further.

Despite being the bereaved family who has every right to resent Dong-jae and his brother, Grandpa extends his empathy to Dong-soo. This act of kindness touches Dong-soo, and he relents. Catching up to Grandpa at the bus stop, he gives Grandpa a duffel bag that belonged to Dong-jae, which contains Hee-joo’s bloodied clothes and shoes from the day she died.

Back in his shoe shop, Grandpa grieves over Hee-joo, but Na-na walks in at the worst timing ever — and she sees Hee-joo’s belongings spread out right there. She leaves without a fuss, but afterwards she pressures Ki-jin to deal with it posthaste. Na-na claims that she’s afraid Sang-woo will exploit this newfound evidence to overturn his guilty verdict, but her vehemence seems to raise suspicion in Ki-jin.

In any case, Ki-jin follows through on her orders, and Grandpa gets abducted and taken to the very spot Hee-joo died. Meanwhile, Ki-jin steals the duffel bag from Grandpa’s shop, only to be interrupted by Eun-hye. She’s come looking for Grandpa, since he hasn’t been picking up her calls.

Just then, she gets a fabricated suicide message from Grandpa, which has her breaking into his shop in a panic. Ki-jin immediately restrains her, muffling her screams, while up on the mountain, the gangsters knock Grandpa out.

As Ki-jin yanks her head back to blindfold her, Eun-hye manages to catch a glimpse of Ki-jin’s reflection in a mirror, though she doesn’t know who he is. He does a poor job of tying her up, and not long after he leaves, she manages to free herself and call Do-chang.

Our detective team immediately searches the forest, where they find Grandpa hanging from a tree and rush to rescue him. Grandpa is sent to the hospital, while Ji-hyuk stays at the crime scene to uncover whatever traces he can.

Luckily, the gangsters fled in a rush upon hearing our detective team approaching, so they weren’t able to clear their tracks in time. They’re taken in for questioning, where our team intimidates them into revealing that someone ordered their boss to eliminate Grandpa. Oy, I know they’re absolute lowlifes for attacking an elderly man, but the smacking that our team delivered felt uncomfortably excessive instead of being funny.

On her way into the police station, Eun-hye crosses paths with Ki-jin and instantly recognizes him. Except she openly approaches his car and then attempts to chase after him when he drives off, which obviously doesn’t get her very far.

Just as I’m wondering why Eun-hye didn’t simply take a photo, though, she pulls out a sketchbook. Presenting an extremely accurate drawing of Ki-jin to our detective team, she tells them about how she caught him rifling through Grandpa’s stuff.

Our team puts two and two together, and they conclude that there must be evidence on Hee-joo’s clothes that links back to the actual culprit, since Dong-jae kept them as insurance. While searching through CCTVs, they discover that Na-na visited Grandpa’s shop on the afternoon of the attempted murder.

Ji-hyuk goes to confront Na-na about it, but she has the gall to blame him for what happened to Grandpa, accusing him of creating more victims by stubbornly digging into a case that has already been resolved. Ji-hyuk pointedly asks whether the culprit would stop if he does, and Na-na replies that if she were the culprit, she would.

Now that he’s out of jail, President Cheon has dinner with McQueen’s CEO MICHAEL CHA (Jo Tae-gwan) to discuss how they’ll move forward with the TJ-McQueen alliance. Since McQueen is a foreign company, that won’t go over well with the general public, which means they need a scapegoat.

After the dinner, Na-na calls Michael to meet her, by which I mean she literally sends a car to pick him up so that he can’t refuse. She gets him to update her on the TJ-McQueen developments, and he tentatively suggests that she fly to the headquarters in the States to meet McQueen’s president.

Michael frames it as his own idea, telling her that the choice is entirely up to her. However, Na-na catches him in the lie — she points out that he has a habit of speaking in English whenever he’s untruthful about his feelings. Michael demurs, and she dismisses him, only to hurl her teacup in his direction as he leaves.

Na-na’s paranoia is getting the better of her, and she demands to know if her father instructed him to send her to the States so that he can kill her off there. Screaming at him, she accuses him of joining hands with her father to get rid of her. Michael doesn’t rise to the bait, and he simply tells her to forget he ever mentioned going to the States, before leaving her to stew in her anger.

Na-na has dinner with President Cheon, and it’s a strained affair. President Cheon instructs his own daughter to lower herself even further, such that she’s out of his sight, and Na-na asks placidly if she ought to kill herself to pacify him.

Confessing that she was the one who blew the whistle on him to the Blue House and got him arrested, Na-na declares that she still holds her mother’s death against him. For once, instead of putting up a strong front, Na-na displays a rare moment of vulnerability and confesses that she’s honestly scared that he will kill her.

Except it seems that was all for show, because Na-na secretly recorded their conversation. Back in her office, Na-na edits the audio file, though it’s not clear how she plans to use it just yet.

Ki-jin takes Eun-hye into custody and attempts to intimidate her, though Eun-hye refuses to be cowed. He shifts the blame for the incident at Grandpa’s shop onto her instead, claiming he only restrained her because she was obstructing official police duty. As if that wasn’t despicable enough, Ki-jin even makes low blows at her family background.

Do-chang and Ji-hyuk arrive just as the two exit the interrogation room, and Ki-jin acts all smug and gloats right in their faces. That is, until Ji-hyuk pulls out his phone to make a call, and the color drains from Ki-jin’s face as a phone rings in his pocket. Ooh, it’s the burner phone Ki-jin uses to contact Boss Gu — he’s been caught red-handed.

Our team tracks down the locations where the burner phone was used, and one of them is a forensic lab. It turns out Ki-jin made a personal request to have Hee-joo’s clothes analyzed, and since Do-chang and Ji-hyuk are in charge of Hee-joo’s case, they convince the lab tech to share his findings.

He reveals that the bloodstains on Hee-joo’s dress came from multiple people, not just Hee-joo herself. However, it’ll take a while for the results to come back, and our detective pair ask the lab tech to call them once he’s confirmed who else the bloodstains belong to. (No points for guessing who.)

Na-na opens an exhibition gallery in remembrance of Hee-joo, which is obviously a PR move to gain public favor by exploiting her passing. In addition, she also does an interview with an international news outlet, revealing publicly that she reported her father’s corruption and her brother’s crimes in an effort to restore TJ’s integrity. Na-na’s really doing all she can to paint herself in an altruistic light, huh.

At the exhibition gallery, Na-na addresses the attendees in a performatively heartfelt speech about Hee-joo. Except she intentionally didn’t take her insulin shot, and as her diabetic symptoms act up, she collapses to the ground. Just then, Ji-hyuk receives a call from the lab tech — the other bloodstains on Hee-joo’s clothes belong to Na-na.

Well, it took an awfully long time to confirm what we’ve already guessed since several episodes ago. I wish it was a more suspenseful ride here, but the show is quite heavy-handed at doling out its hints, which often makes its reveals fall flat.

The show is plodding along to its finale, and while I’m hoping it has some twists in store for its final hours, I have to admit I don’t have my hopes up high. After weeks of having my expectations dashed, it’s difficult to give the show the benefit of the doubt anymore.

I think the show was simultaneously overambitious and underachieving; it had the elements that could have made up a complex and compelling plot, but it failed to execute them well, often wasting their potential instead. One obvious example is Tae-ho, but another underutilized character is Bo-kyung.

She finally reappeared this week to hand in her resignation in the face of TJ’s intention to file a lawsuit against our detective team, but it felt like an offhand way of wrapping up her arc. That resignation was a long time coming, so much that I’d forgotten about it. Plus, I wish the show explored the parallels between her and Hee-joo more, as well as the connection between Tae-ho’s guilt towards Hee-joo and what seemed like an initial soft spot towards Bo-kyung. There was so much to mine, but the show didn’t bother with it!

This drama relies too much on contrived coincidences to move its plot along, which breaks immersion and diminishes its storytelling. How many more conversations will be conveniently overheard, and how many more coincidental run-ins will lead to a crucial clue? The deus ex machina is a plot device that feels like a cop-out, and in this drama it just comes across as lazy writing.

I do find myself laughing at the funny moments, but it does feel like the drama is sacrificing character growth and organic plot development in favor of its humorous scenes. It’s a shame, because I do think the plot had potential if given a fresh take or attention to detail. Instead, the drama fell back onto clichés, cutting short the progression between plot points and painting the story in broad strokes. With only one week left, I hope the drama at least delivers a satisfying conclusion for our characters.

 
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