Player 2 – Master of Swindlers: Episodes 1-2

by mistyisles

Player 2 – Master of Swindlers hits the ground running, briefly filling in the gaps since the first season left off and whisking us off on another adventure. It’s full of daring cons, cheeky banter, betrayal, and a hint of revenge to come, and if these first two episodes are any indication, it’s sure to be a wild ride.

 
EPISODES 1-2

The original Players somehow flew completely under my radar, but luckily Player 2 kicks off with a crash course on our team of swindlers who only steal from the corrupt and powerful. The quartet comprises leader and mastermind KANG HA-RI (Song Seung-heon), talented hacker IM BYUNG-MIN (Lee Shi-un), strongman DO JIN-WOONG (Tae Won-seok), and daredevil driver CHA AH-RYUNG (Krystal). Judging from this Season 1 recap, they’re really good at getting themselves into trouble — but even better at getting out of that trouble in the nick of time.

We rejoin the team mid-heist in 2021. They bicker over their earpieces as they race the clock and fight their way past security guards, but they pull it off in the end and speed away in their getaway car, only to be T-boned by a Truck of Doom. But it’s not meant to kill them — instead, they’re taken captive by a man who appears to be an old enemy. His minion gives Ha-ri a gun and a classically cruel ultimatum: kill one of your friends, or you all die. When Ha-ri turns the (unloaded, it turns out) gun on himself, their captor steps forward to finish the job. He shoots at Byung-min, but Ah-ryung jumps in front of the bullet, sacrificing herself.

Some time later, Ah-ryung’s younger sister, CHA JAE-YI (Jang Gyuri), approaches the team at their hideout. She wants to join in Ah-ryung’s place, and she’s not taking no for an answer. When Ha-ri refuses, Jae-yi calls the cops and hijacks the team’s car, forcing them to accept her as their new driver if they want to evade arrest. Jae-yi is every bit the speed demon her sister was, and with her behind the wheel, they resume their swindling escapades.

That brings us to 2024, with the team enjoying a luxury stay in Thailand. While Ha-ri soaks up the sun, a mysterious woman discretely drops him an invitation to meet at a nearby bar. Her name is JUNG SOO-MIN (Oh Yeon-seo), and she and Ha-ri waste no time engaging in flirty banter (they repeatedly insist they aren’t each other’s type, and I don’t buy it for a minute!). The two take their bantering and suggestive non-answers all the way to Ha-ri’s bedroom, but when his friends interrupt, Soo-min slips away, leaving behind another invitation — this one to a VVIP party.

The man of the hour is one KANG DO-YOUNG (Tae In-ho), an infamous crypto scammer with friends in enough high places to avoid facing consequences for ruining thousands of lives. He’s also the reason Soo-min reached out to Ha-ri: she wants the team to give Do-young a taste of his own medicine. But first, Ha-ri ends up saving Do-young from an attempted assassination at the party.

Or at least, that’s how it looks to Do-young. Really, Ha-ri’s intent is to save the gunman — whose wife took her own life after losing everything to Do-young’s scam — from getting himself killed in a reckless attempt at revenge. With the team’s help, the gunman escapes capture (technically, they kidnap him, but only so they can try to talk some sense into him once the adrenaline has worn off). Then they launch Operation Scam the Crypto Scammer.

Ha-ri and Byung-min pose as fellow up-and-coming scammers looking to learn from Do-young’s success. They submit a fake NFT for Do-young’s approval, offering 50% of the profits if he’ll agree to partner with them on the venture. But Do-young already knows it’s a scam… because Soo-min sold them out. (Wait, what?) Mirroring the night Ah-ryung died, Do-young orders Soo-min to further prove herself by killing Ha-ri and Byung-min. Though she looks conflicted, she pulls the trigger, and Ha-ri goes down.

But it’s all part of the plan. Soo-min’s “betrayal” was just a distraction for the real con: the fake NFT that enables Byung-min to clean out Do-young’s entire e-wallet and repay his victims. Ha-ri is unharmed, of course (though Soo-min’s bullet came awfully close for comfort). Do-young, however, is not so lucky, and pays with his life for failing to live up to his mysterious boss’s expectations.

The con complete, Soo-min offers Ha-ri a deal: the team works for her for one year, and not only do they get to keep the spoils of their cons, but she’ll also erase all remnants of their criminal records. Permanently. Ha-ri agrees, so Soo-min furnishes a new, luxurious hideout and lays out their first mission: obtain evidence that an entertainment company is operating a drug racket out of a local nightclub and forcing its young female trainees to act as escorts.

The chief target here is director LEE JIN-SOO (Choi Seung-yoon), and he walks right into the team’s trap. All it takes is a few sultry pouts from Soo-min, and he hands over the drugs himself. But he turns violent when she drops the act, and though she holds her own against him well enough, he soon pulls a knife on her and Ha-ri and Jae-yi have to rush to the rescue. Back at their hideout, they threaten Jin-soo into implicating the entertainment company’s CEO. Then they deliver all the evidence they’ve collected — along with Jin-soo himself, tied up in the trunk of a car — to a prosecutor.

The prosecutor in question — PROSECUTOR KWAK DO-SOO (Ha Do-kwon) — crows that Christmas has come early and eagerly accepts the gift. But that doesn’t stop him from questioning the source, because he doesn’t believe in gray areas. A criminal is a criminal, even if their criminal behavior helps bring other criminals to justice. With a little digging, he deduces that this can only be the work of none other than the infamous (though allegedly deceased) conman Kang Ha-ri.

As luck would have it, Ha-ri and Prosecutor Kwak decide to pay a visit to the same man: PROSECUTOR JANG IN-GYU (Kim Won-hae), who worked with Ha-ri and the team throughout the original series. The two meet at the elevator as Ha-ri is on his way out, and despite Ha-ri’s best efforts to flee, Prosecutor Kwak corners him at last.

I may not have quite the same level of emotional investment in these characters as I would if I’d watched Season 1 first, but these two episodes still did a great job of pulling me right into the action. Ha-ri especially has completely charmed me, and I already really like his chemistry with Soo-min. So much, in fact, that I fell for the betrayal fakeout and was momentarily disappointed by the thought that they wouldn’t be working together anymore.

I will say it felt like the action zipped along so fast that the emotional beats (especially the tragic loss of a team member) didn’t have much time to linger. But I also get the sense that that’s how this team prefers to operate — running at breakneck speed so they don’t have to stop and think about the pain too much. Plus, they keep their cards very close to their chests, so the small moments of vulnerability (like Ha-ri’s conversation with Prosecutor Jang) feel that much more impactful even if they’re fleeting. Overall, though, I greatly enjoyed these first two episodes, and I’m looking forward to what our swindling team has in store. I may be a bit late to the party, but I’m 100% along for the ride!

 
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