Flex x Cop: Episodes 5-6

by DaebakGrits

In what are my favorite episodes yet, we see our chaebol learn what it means to be a team player, and as our drama settles into its murder-of-the-week formula, our detectives work together to solve not one — but two — murders.

 
EPISODES 5-6

Last week, after foolishly meeting one on one with Sweaty Assistant, the prime suspect in Team One’s latest investigation, Yi-soo was hit on the head, and his prone body fell to the floor. Thankfully, Yi-soo is as hard-headed (literally!) as he is wealthy, and the blunt force trauma didn’t knock him unconscious. Instead, he bounds to his feet, uses this confrontation as another opportunity to brag about his professional MMA skills, and deftly deflects Sweaty Assistant’s pathetic punches. Sweaty Assistant quickly realizes that he’s no match for Yi-soo without the element of surprise, and with the fight gone out of him, he spins his tale of woe and tries to justify his violent actions.

Yi-soo, however, has very little sympathy for Sweaty Assistant because, unlike Angry Mother’s daughter, Sweaty Assistant wasn’t an innocent victim. He was the one who plagiarized his peer’s paintings that sold under the art professor’s name, and he did it hoping to one day gain his own fame and notoriety by riding on Art Professor’s coattails. Sweaty Assistant only took issue with the arrangement when Art Professor failed to hold up his end of the bargain and blocked Sweaty Assistant’s path from studying abroad. Although Yi-soo’s frank assessment of the situation is accurate, he lacks tact and the social awareness to realize that this is neither the time nor place to be dishing out harsh truths. Yi-soo’s words push the mentally unwell Sweaty Assistant over a metaphorical ledge, and he stabs himself in the stomach.

Kang-hyun arrives to find Yi-soo applying pressure to Sweaty Assistant’s stab wound. It’s clear she’s displeased with Yi-soo, but she forgoes the ass-chewing until after the paramedics have carted Sweaty Assistant to the hospital. Unfortunately, Yi-soo is either too dense to understand why Kang-hyun is so upset, or he ignorantly assumes that her latest scolding stems from her pre-established prejudices.

Either way, Yi-soo wants to understand the situation better, so he treats Kyung-jin to an expensive dinner, hoping the rookie will give him insights into where he went wrong and why Kang-hyun hates him so much. Kyung-jin explains that Yi-soo acted recklessly when he failed to tell Kang-hyun he had a lead in the case and was meeting with a suspect alone. Yi-soo is — technically, even though he isn’t treated as such — part of a team, and Yi-soo’s failure to follow procedure caused someone to get injured.

As for the giant chip on Kang-hyun’s shoulder, well, Kyung-jin says that’s for her to explain — or it would be if Yi-soo didn’t loosen Kyung-jin’s lips with some expensive wine. Long story short: her father was (falsely) convicted of accepting bribes, and even though Kang-hyun has proved herself an extremely competent detective, there are many who look down on her and distrust her because of her father’s history.

Now that Yi-soo understands where he went wrong, and why Kang-hyun is hell-bent on following the rules to appease her superiors despite her impressive arrest record, Yi-soo starts playing by the book. So when additional sleuthing reveals that Sweaty Assistant was not the one who delivered the final, deadly stab wound that killed Art Professor, Yi-soo follows the proper procedures. He alerts Kang-hyun when he learns that Art Professor usually kept the key to his safety deposit box on his person at all times. And since it was missing at the scene of the crime, the real murderer is likely his widow, who also sent Sweaty Assistant on an errand to buy the scarf that initially made him the prime suspect.

One quick undercover sting operation later, Yi-soo has solved yet another murder, but the case isn’t truly closed until the wrongs made against Angry Mother’s daughter are righted. Yi-soo personally arranges for the art gallery to host a posthumous exhibit of her paintings, and Angry Mother tearfully thanks him for his kind act. It’s the first time someone calls Yi-soo “detective,” and he likes the sound of it.

Yi-soo’s time as a detective may have started as a farce, but he’s enjoying — and finding personal fulfillment in — his new career. And, more importantly for our plot, his sincerity has won over Kang-hyun. She’s not at the point where she’s welcoming him with a warm smile or anything, but their morning carpool to work has become a routine. She even cleaned the inside of her SUV for him, which is definite progress.

The camaraderie carries over to Team One’s next case, and Kang-hyun seems to gradually loosen her grip on Yi-soo’s leash to see how he handles the small responsibility of canvassing the neighborhood and interviewing the dead man’s neighbors. It’s grunt work, but she lets him do it unsupervised, which demonstrates her growing trust in him. Meanwhile, she and Jun-young enter the dead man’s house to determine if his death was a homicide.

Initially, all signs point to an accidental death. The man was old and seemingly choked on a rice cake, but then the man’s granddaughter comes forward and tells Yi-soo that he not only hated rice cakes, but his (supposedly authentic) Joseon national seal is missing. Kang-hyun and the rest of Team One are initially dismissive of the granddaughter’s claim — especially since Yi-soo believes it — but Kang-hyun decides to trust Yi-soo for once and asks Ji-won if she noticed anything suspicious in the autopsy report. Kang-hyun’s phone call jogs Ji-won’s memory, and she remembers that there were two other recent deaths by rice cakes in the same neighborhood. Wuh-oh! We’ve got a serial killer on our hands!

Unfortunately, the other two murders were ruled accidental deaths by Team Two, who refuses to hand over their case files to Team One because a reinvestigation would reflect poorly on them. Well, Team One doesn’t need their crappy files anyway, and after reviewing the CCTV footage near all three victims’ houses, our detectives are able to spot a commonality: two men disguised as funeral portrait photographers visited each of the victims before their deaths. So now Team One has two suspects, but the problem lies in identifying and arresting them.

Of course this means it’s time for another sting operation bankrolled by Yi-soo, who supplies Team One with the cash they need to buy the national seal once it appears on the black market. Yi-soo and Kang-hyun, disguised as his arm candy, infiltrate a fancy nightclub and exchange two duffle bags full of money (and a tracking device) for the seal. There’s just one unforeseen problem with this plan. When the murder duo shows up to collect their cash from the black market broker, they had the forethought to unpack it from the duffles before exiting the club. Murder Duo found the tracker, planted it on another truck, and then sent Team One on a wild goose chase.

Yi-soo is undaunted, though, and his extensive LARPing experience allows him to quickly concoct yet another scheme to draw out the murderers. Yi-soo sends out a message on the dark web that he’s in the market for a rare item owned by an elderly acquaintance, and the murderers take the bait. There’s just one problem: Team One is short one elderly man. (Enter stage left: Hyung-joon.)

Turns out, though, the hardest part of Yi-soo’s plan is convincing Kang-hyun’s father to participate in their undercover operation. After the scandal that cost him his career, Hyung-joon no longer identifies as a cop — despite Kang-hyun’s insistence to the contrary — and claims he’s not cut out for detective work anymore. All that changes, though, when Yi-soo comes barging into Kang-hyun’s house and excitedly announces that the murder duo is on their way and they need an old man ASAP. He and Kang-hyung have an exaggerated — and poorly acted — discussion about how their plan is going to fail without a decoy old man, and the eavesdropping Hyung-joon finally agrees to be Murder Duo’s next potential victim.

Once Kang-hyun’s mother, GO MI-SOOK (Yoon Yoo-sun), has been safely tricked into taking an all expenses paid vacation, Team One turns Yi-soo’s house into their basecamp, where they they take shifts monitoring the surveillance equipment they installed in Kang-hyun’s home. Although their stakeout isn’t a long one, their confined time together is enough to create a notable shift in their dynamic. They’re more in sync with one another, and what used to be outright hostility between Jun-young and Yi-soo now feels more like banter than outright hostility. Dawww, Yi-soo is becoming a part of the team — but not to the point where they trust him with a gun (lol).

When Murder Duo shows up on Hyung-joon’s doorstep, our experienced detectives arm themselves with pistols and go rushing to Hyung-joon’s aid. Yi-soo, trusted only with a pair of handcuffs, takes up the rear with instructions to stay out of trouble. The fact that he didn’t go in gun-blazing with his teammates turns out to be for the best, because Murder Duo overpowered Hyung-joon and took him hostage, forcing the detectives to drop their weapons. Yi-soo has the element of surprise on his side, and when he comes busting through the back door, the rest of the detectives spring into action and arrest the serial murderers.

Yet another case comes to a close, but Kang-hyun chooses to let Team Two take most of the credit in order to soothe egos and have them owe her a favor. Although they let Team Two take all the glory, Team One still has their celebratory dinner at their favorite restaurant, and this time Yi-soo is invited. Even though he was already out with his druggie friend and a famous actress, he ditched them to go meet up with the rest of Team One. He may have been the “plus one” according to Jun-young, but there’s no denying that this quartet is finding their rhythm. And with another murder case on the horizon, I’m eager to see how they work together as the trust and camaraderie continues to build.

Beyond the team-building, there was also the first glimmer of romance between Yi-soo and Kang-hyun this week. Nothing extremely obvious — like what you’d see in a rom-com — but Yi-soo was totally jealous when Kang-hyun casually revealed that she was aware of Jun-young’s morning shower routine because they’re “friends.” Of course, Yi-soo has nothing to worry about, because things between Jun-young and Ji-won are still deliciously flirty. Ji-won gets under Jun-young’s skin with her innuendos, and it’s so adorable how he freezes up because he doesn’t know how to respond. Can you imagine how much Yi-soo would tease Jun-young if he saw this side of him?

Yi-soo and Kang-hyun also had (what I would consider) their first serious conversation when Kang-hyun revealed her reason for being so focused on her career. She hasn’t found anything that beats the thrill of arresting a bad guy. Her words resonated with Yi-soo, who knows a lot about thrill-seeking, and this conversation caused a shift in not only how he sees her, but in how he views police work, which he’s growing to enjoy. More importantly, while it does tap into his thrill-seeking side, he’s finding the teamwork fulfilling. And inadvertently, his police work and noblesse oblige is doing wonderful things for his father’s political career.

Speaking of Chairman Jin, there is something really fishy about Yi-soo’s mom’s death. Although we were led to believe she was hit by a Truck of Doom — like many K-drama mothers before her — something went down in Yi-soo’s childhood home that has both Chairman Jin and Seung-joo making unexpected visits to his new home to encourage him to move elsewhere. Add that to the fact that Hyung-joon met Yi-soo when he was a kid because he responded to whatever deadly events happened in the house, and we’ve definitely got a chaebol with amnesia on our hands. So the question is, are Chairman Jin and Seung-joo protecting Yi-soo from traumatic memories, or are they covering up the fact that Chairman Jin has some skeletons in his closet?

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