Thanks for the recap!!

I had been suspecting the taking advantage of genius children for nefarious deeds angle to explain why Ro-woon is already so good at scamming after spending a decade in jail, but didn't realize the extent of them being tortured physically and psychologically and being forcibly trained and molded into these criminals. It's sort of weird that these kids were forced to commit some truly shady/deadly crimes for Jeokmeok, but were never caught. Then Ro-woon was caught and jailed for a crime that she didn't commit. I wondered how they were able to get set free. And are they free?

I'm not sure if it's all fear. For Da-jung and Ringo, there is a streak of guilt there. It looks like Da-jung did the tracking of Ro-woom's parents so that Jeokmok could carry out the hit. I don't think either one of them will beg for mercy, but they've accepted that they "owe" Ro-woom, even if it means being used and tossed away.

I wonder if Yo-han will end up investigating Jeok-mok too. Looks like a dead acquaintance was in some front-facing prominent role for Jeokmok and ended up dying under mysterious circumstances.

I completely agree with @mistyisles--I finally felt engaged with this show in these episodes, mainly because it focused on one part of the many elements in introduced in the beginning, bringing down the evil Jeokmok academy. I especially liked it when Mu-Young turned the tables on Ro-woom, showing that there is more than one genius con-person. I hope there is a lot more of this, in partnership.

But I would like to register 3 complaints that still fester:

1. The excessive empathy disorder is just totally extraneous and should never have been introduced in the first place. Oh, I'm sure it will come into play at a key moment when Mu-Young will be disabled by it when he has to save someone else on the team, but come on--he has 1. a childhood connection with Ro-woom. 2. a trauma from his Dad's bankruptcy engineered by Ro-woom. Why did the writer feel the need to pile on "excessive empathy disorder?"

2. One of my favorite actresses, Sojin, is being totally wasted in this show. When is she going to get the lead role she deserves?

3. The title is terrible. Is this a translation issue? "Delightfully?" Deceitful? What about "Dangerously Deceitful?" or "Defensibly Deceitful?" Anyway, is there something delightful about torturing gifted children so they can become criminals?

I agree that this week made it much easier to understand and care about these characters. With the exception of Ro-woon, who the writers clearly don't want us to trust or like quite yet, I warmed up to everyone, especially Mu-young and Da-jung.

Mu-young's quiet, steady, and empathetic consistency makes him the perfect foil to Ro-woon, but he's also the only one who appears capable of matching her intelligence. I like his understated, deadpan delivery of lines that clearly surprise her, and that he is empathetic to her without it crossing over into doormat territory. He's naturally protective as well, and his looking out for Ringo and Da-jung really endeared him to me. I'm not quite sure I fully understand his motivations in participating in these schemes, except to save Ro-woon from herself. That tracks with his psychological condition, but I'd think he'd be more conflicted than he is right now considering his profession and obvious strong moral center.

Like mistyisles, I love found families, and this one could work well. But for it to be truly successful, Ro-woon does need to evolve. The show seems to be taking pains to showing us that Ro-woon wasn't born a sociopath while also depicting her as a person devoid of empathy--i.e. a sociopath. We can sometimes see glimmers of normal human emotions in her in that she does protect and care for her fellow Jeokmok mates, but she also seems indifferent to them and completely uninterested in any kind of emotional connection. That has to change at some point for the story and Ro-woon to progress but right now, it's hard to imagine how that can happen.

I know it's not the show's intent but I always find myself picking sides between Moo-young and Ro-woom in their battle of wits. For once it's a show where the ML has to work hard to match the FL's intelligence and that makes it fun.

Seems we're finally getting a sense of Yo-han's connection to things as well. Can't be a coincidence that his dead friend and the also-dead former director of Jeokmok share a last name, right? Maybe he's part of Jeokmok, linked to people who are/were involved with Jeokmok, or even someone wanting to take revenge against the Jeokmok kids?

Hmmmmm, I still really dislike the 4th wall break, why not just make her the narrator. It kills a scene when she does it. As for her supposed psychopathy, it doesn't really exist as far as I can see. Everyone she has treated "badly" seems to have deserved it, except for My Young, but that is more of a trust thing. I still think the show is missing something, but as we get to know the characters better, it is getting better.

I find the show a bit blurry. There are some incidents that I caught on only through the weecaps. So, let's hope it gets better with time. Also, the flashbacks confuse me. They feel like snippets thrown out in an unorganized way.

Within the time of next 3 months, it will not be a surprise to me if Ro-woon's heart had become warm rather than a cold hearted person.

I don't love it and I don't hate it.
The back story was really needed to flesh it out and make us care about the characters.
I guess I expected it to be a bit more tongue-in-cheek style due to it being called Delightfully Deceitful.
I just...don't know, there's something missing. Hmmmmm.

Ro-woon's high pitch voice is annoyed me so much like she never got my sympathy for her voice only hah! But if it is their purpose congratulation!

Ro-Woon is really charming when she wants to be, the glimpses of vulnerability are intriguing, her incredible emotional callousness at times and the glimpses of past normalcy has quite a backstory behind it. The signs of things having gone very wrong in her life to lead her here where she's kind of scary but still ends up doing the right thing sometimes even with a singular goal in mind makes her an appealing character to me. I haven't seen Chun Woo-Hee in anything before but I guess I will be looking her up in other stuff after this, she's really great.

It's a little funny that this is a character arc usually done for charming scammer male leads with troubled/haunted pasts (and they still have lots of fans who allow them lots of leeway to make mistakes and then grow) and the empathy angle is usually reserved for the softer female lead, but it's also funny that they had to give the ml a (fake?) empathy disorder in order to allow him to be softer and empathetic. They could have just let him be softer naturally lol.

I quite enjoy the fourth wall breaks, I find the actress really magnetic so the break in the third person narrative works well for the specific purpose of the direct cons. Might not have worked for me with someone less charming or a different purpose.

Yo-Han is a really annoying character, though his crazy boundary crossing at least has a bit more justification if he's working his own angle too, rather than just an overbearing character with no other ties to the main story. I really hated him banging on Moo Young's door and barging in on him, characters who can't take no for an answer are one of my biggest peeves, so I hope he's either on the evil side or he's on the good side and is encroaching on their lives because his goal is to catch Ro Woon in a criminal act, at least that gives his annoyingness a purpose.

The only thing I missed while watching was Mu-young's family business being ruined by the bad guys. So thanks for that clarification.