Bad Prosecutor: Episodes 3-4

by meryl

Our delinquent prosecutor continues to use the unlikeliest methods to proceed with his investigation into what is turning out to be a series of murders that seem to hide a much bigger, more sinister picture. Good thing he has a reliable crew to help him.

 
EPISODES 3-4 WEECAP

We start off this week by backtracking a bit on how Jung made it from the custody of airport security to stirring up a frenzy at the very public promotion ceremony of Deputy Chief Lee.

While in custody, Jung is playing card games with his fellow detainees, but his fun is cut short by the arrival of Ah-ra, who is there to berate him (again) and ask him what he plans to do next after creating a mess. Smirking, Jung simply tells Ah-ra that he has a plan… the plan being to escape from the airport security’s custody. How? Using the good old I-need-the-toilet strategy combined with some amazing parkour across restroom stalls.

Racing to the ceremony venue, Jung is ready to barge in and announce to all the alleged corruption of Deputy Chief Lee. Unfortunately, he ends up being too early since the event was postponed for an hour. Well, no matter – he then hides under the podium instead for a grand yet fun entrance.

After Jung addresses the media, a reporter asks him if he has any evidence to back up his claims. Despite Do-hwan’s attempts to thwart him, Jung ends up getting the hostess bar owner on video call, where the latter admits to everything Jung claims. Which is why Do-hwan gets an earful from Deputy Chief Lee.

At the interrogation room where our hero is once again being held, Do-hwan tells him he will probably be facing many years in prison because of his actions at the airport. But after some gloating, Do-hwan himself gets some unfortunate news that Jung is being released. Ah-ra comes to the rescue, but it’s really Tae-ho who got him out.

Jae-kyung ends up scolding Jung for his actions, warning him he’ll end up in a worse place if he continues his investigation. But despite saying inspirational yet “cringey” things about the prosecution, he even gets called “old school” by Jae-kyung, someone who looks much older than him.

When Jae-kyung returns to the office and finds the runaway dog there beside a waiting Chul-gi — oh wait, it’s not the runaway dog. It’s Jung’s dog: Coco. Cute! Jae-kyung looks for him, but Jung is already out with Ah-ra.

Joong-do and Eun-ji are in an abandoned warehouse with a few gangsters (a.k.a. her old minions) guarding the hostess bar owner. Unfortunately, Do-hwan finds them and gets the witness out. Do-hwan brings the hostess bar owner back to the prosecution office and makes him retract his statement in front of the press, making Jung look like a violent troublemaker who coerced him into talking. Which, fair, Jung really is, but he’s got the right intentions.

When he sees the news, Deputy Chief Lee becomes excited again about his upcoming promotion, especially when several flowers congratulating him arrive. But Jung isn’t giving up this easy.

At the secret hacker lair, he gathers Ah-ra, Chul-gi, Joong-do, and Eun-ji to plan a heist into the Deputy Chief’s office to get the USB containing photos of him and the hostess who was murdered. Everyone’s trying to discourage him, but they push on anyway, much to the consternation of the by-the-book Ah-ra.

Surprisingly, they raid the office while the deputy chief’s there, with Joong-do infiltrating and hacking into the safe, Eun-ji and Chul-gi waiting to throw the tear gas into the building, and a masked Jung waiting to grab the USB. Poor Joong-do got tear gassed too early. Oof, it’s always him!

After the heist crew escapes, the deputy chief enters his office and discovers the scene of the crime, finding the USB gone and missing. He tells Do-hwan to look through the CCTV footage, but a reluctant Ah-ra has already covered their tracks, deleting the evidence.

The next day, Deputy Chief Lee confronts Jung, but our hero has already released the evidence to the media, once again stirring a frenzy and preventing the deputy chief from getting the promotion he wanted. Recognizing defeat, he admits to Jung that he is not the murderer of the hostess, despite being with her on the day she died. Oh no! It’s being pinned on him?! Who is it?

Elsewhere, Do-hwan asks for the truth from the hostess bar owner: is the deputy chief really behind the kill? But the hostess bar owner says he saw someone else that day, which was captured through the dashcam of his car. He gives the dashcam footage to Do-hwan, who sees someone with a fidget spinner leaving the murder scene.

Meanwhile, Jung goes to check the deputy chief’s alibi, which he does confirm through CCTV footage. After setting up a meeting to discuss the truth, Jung gets surprised when the deputy chief suddenly falls from the building — just before their meeting! This is going to be pinned on him, isn’t it?

But then, what is obviously a murder is framed as a suicide. Jung brings his suspicions to Ah-ra, who gets approval from Tae-ho to investigate the case. But he’s also looking a little sus — oh no.

While Ah-ra and Jung are out looking for evidence, Chul-gi stays at the Civil Affairs Division office, awkwardly smiling to try to stop Jae-kyung from finding out what Jung is doing. It only buys him a few more seconds because Jae-kyung immediately notices Jung is gone. He calls, but Jung immediately rejects the call, saying it’s fine to ignore him because whether he answers or not, he’ll just be scolded anyway. LOL.

After finding the legal way too slow, Jung decides to make Joong-do hack into Deputy Chief Lee’s call history to speed things up. He finds a friend of the victim in the call list, so he quickly sets up a meeting. There, he finds what the deputy chief has been looking for: an MP3 player.

Elsewhere, Ah-ra is on standby for the deputy chief’s autopsy. A quick look at the body shows evidence that there was foul play involved, but the official autopsy indicates suicide. That medical examiner is sus!

After they receive results, Jung and Ah-ra regroup. Ah-ra tells him they should stop investigating since the official paperwork already say it’s suicide. They don’t have enough ground to stand on. She always discourages him, being so strict and straight-laced. Doesn’t she know foul play when she sees it? Doesn’t she watch dramas and recognize that there’s corruption everywhere?

Well, no matter, Jung won’t give up, and spends the night at his desk looking for evidence. Jae-kyung offers him some ramyeon, asking him why he keeps on doing what he’s doing when he knows he’ll get in trouble for it. “Because no one else will do it if I don’t,” is his answer. Aww, our righteous troublemaker has his heart in the right place, even if he mostly uses a lot of questionable tactics.

When Jae-kyung asks him to take out the newspapers to the trash, Jung finds a headline that says the medical examiner who worked on the deputy chief’s autopsy has a history of fabrication — or at least allegations of! That’s still enough ground to stand on.

Thank you, Jae-kyung, for making Jung take out the trash. Despite discouraging Jung regularly, it seems like Jae-kyung is also carrying some heavy baggage, especially with Tae-ho. Which is probably why he’s also discreetly helping Jung. Jae-kyung has also apparently met with the deputy chief just before his death — he’s the one who received the important-looking MP3 player!

Even if the family is mad at him, Jung immediately asks the deputy chief’s daughter if they can do a second autopsy. She agrees when he tells her that there might be foul play at work.

To keep things under wraps, he decides to sneak out the body and get his own medical examiner. Jung also contacts an anatomy professor (cameo by Kim Jung-young) to discreetly do the autopsy, though he did need to turn on the charm — even if said charm is making cringey jokes.

He entrusts the sneaking out to Chul-gi, Eun-ji, and Joong-do — with Joong-do playing the role of a corpse. They do successfully get the body out, but in the chaos, Eun-ji and Chul-gi forget that Joong-do is inside the coffin! He’s about to be cremated in place of the deputy chief. Oof, poor guy always gets the short end of the stick. The crew does end up rescuing him, but only after nearly frying him in the cremation machine themselves. Phew!

While all that is happening, the justice minister is being coerced into appointing a certain someone as the new chief prosecutor in place of the recently murdered deputy chief. It’s the powerful Kangsan Law Firm chairman SEO HYUN-KYU (Kim Chang-wan) who wants it to happen.

At first, he sends out his son and heir SEO JI-HAN (Yoo Hwan) to send the message. But when it isn’t immediately followed, he shows up himself to confront the justice minister, hitting the latter enough to break his nose. Damn.

At the prosecution office, Do-hwan also faces jeers, after his “ladder” suddenly ended up dying. Desperate, he approaches Tae-ho, promising to do whatever he asks of him and be his sword, but he still gets rejected. Ouch.

As it turns out, the new head that Chairman Seo has been pushing for is Tae-ho! He has been hiding behind a persona at work, painting an image of himself as righteous and unambitious. But he really wants to climb up the ladder, same as anyone else. He has been in cahoots with the chairman, and they’re close enough that he calls him “hyung.” Damn, so Tae-ho’s a bad guy then?

The next day, Tae-ho arrives at the prosecution office being greeted as the new chief, still donning on his unambitious, solemn persona. Meanwhile, Jung eagerly waits for the autopsy report. It turns out his hunch is right, because the second autopsy confirms there may be foul play at work!

Unfortunately, as he and Chul-gi prepare to continue investigating, Do-hwan arrives with a warrant of immediate arrest for Jung. He’s charged with the murder of deputy chief. Jung did get framed!

It’s a little disappointing that Tae-ho seems to be a bad guy. He did look sus, but I was hoping he just had a solemn personality. Being a villain in such a position sounds cliché, but I suppose the series is tackling corruption in the prosecution, so it also makes sense that he’s a villain. Still, I hope the show doesn’t disappoint.

I also didn’t like how Ah-ra didn’t really get any character development this week. It seems like she exists just to be a mother hen to Jung. Every time Jung does something, she tries to stop him, but fails and ends up just going along with it. I hope she eventually gets more involved in the schemes instead of being an afterthought, because right now, it seems her character could be written out of the show and the plot would still move forward. Sigh.

But as always, Jung and his crew don’t disappoint. There were a lot of wild shenanigans from them this week, and each one provided a good laugh. But D.O. is really the main highlight of the show for me. He’s doing so well as this delinquent prosecutor whose heart is in the right place, but who goes about it in the wrong way that. Here’s to more crazy Jin Jung shenanigans in the next episodes!

 
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