The Auditors: Episodes 7-8

by lovepark

A schism erupts in the auditing department as one of our young members clashes with his team leader over a bullying scandal. However, things are not as they appear for both our heroes and the case they are investigating. As our auditors learn more about the people involved in this latest incident, they discover a more serious crime that may cost their company billions of won if they don’t stop it in time.

 
EPISODES 7-8

The bullying case from last week turns into a bigger headache for our auditors as Han-soo finds traces of a data leak. Our young hero gets into an argument with Cha-il when the latter asks for evidence to support his claim, and Han-soo storms out of the office to handle the situation himself. His brilliant idea to catch the suspect is to hack into his company computer, which, unsurprisingly, backfires.

By the time all the relevant parties arrive, the link proving that someone in the technology development department tried to sell J-BIMS has disappeared. Cha-il apologizes to Section Chief Lee Ji-hoon for his subordinate’s mistake and then reprimands Han-soo in private for getting caught. Apparently, after their earlier fight, Cha-il told Han-soo that he agreed with his assessment but believed the real culprit was the section chief. He allowed Han-soo to investigate on his own under the condition that he do so discreetly, but we all know how that went.

Cha-il tasks Han-soo with keeping tabs on Ji-hoon, so he follows him after work to a clandestine meeting where he witnesses him exchange something with another man. Han-soo’s poor tailing skills get him caught, though, and as the other man starts to hit him, Cha-il swoops in to save the day. Once they apprehend the man, they realize he is a passport forger, and while this does make Ji-hoon more suspicious, it does not prove that he is stealing J-BIMS. Time for a change of plans!

Chief Park of the technology development department clocks out of work past three in the morning due to the extra duties Ji-hoon hoisted on him for the upcoming demonstration, and his rotten day gets worse when he stumbles upon the auditing team in the elevators. Cha-il escorts him to their office for questioning, and Chief Park has no other option than to comply since the case isn’t just about bullying Yoon-woo anymore.

While Han-soo was preoccupied with his hacking plan, Cha-il went around investigating Ji-hoon’s past and learned that he had a history of workplace bullying. He believes Chief Park is the latest victim, but they aren’t here in a poorly lit office to talk about that. On cue, Seo-jin presents her findings — Han-soo is not the only auditor working with the team leader — and shows the chief the list of security protocols he broke. This trail of “evidence” suggests that the chief is trying to leak J-BIMS, which, in fact, is part of Ji-hoon’s scheme to pin his crimes on him.

Realizing the truth, the chief finally confesses to helping Ji-hoon try to transfer Yoon-woo, but he swears that he did not know about the data leak. With the chief now on their side, Cha-il instructs him to report back any suspicious behaviors by Ji-hoon during the demonstration since they think the hand-off will occur during the event. It’s a risky move by the auditing team since President Se-woong already ordered them to postpone their investigation until after the big day, but clearly, Cha-il does not care about company hierarchies and politicking.

On the day of the event, Ji-hoon makes some strange requests before the presentation such as uploading the program to a cloud server with a flimsy password and timing the slides to a particular minute. These all serve as codes for the broker in the audience to access J-BIMS, and right when Ji-hoon’s starts getting into the details of the program, the lights turn on. Cha-il interrupts the section chief to ask a question and turns his attention to a man with a press badge who hasn’t typed a single sentence.

Se-woong jumps from his seat to confront Cha-il and warns him that he better have an explanation for all of this. Without even addressing the president, our auditor begins his rundown of the situation and lays out all of Ji-hoon’s plans to sell J-BIMS. He even figured out that the section chief switched methods right before the event and the cloud password was a cover-up. Instead, the real copy of J-BIMS he intended to sell is hidden inside his tumbler, and Cha-il reveals the secret chip, proving his theory correct.

Cornered, Ji-hoon grabs the tumbler from Cha-il and dashes out of the hall. He runs into the server room where he destroys everything and then heads to his office to delete the rest of the program. Now the only existing copy of J-BIMS is the chip he holds, and Ji-hoon taunts Se-woong to buy out the broker if he wants his precious program back. Though Se-woong offers Ji-hoon a plea bargain in exchange for J-BIMS, the section chief laughs and tosses the tumbler out of the window. He jeers at Se-woong to call him since the last remaining version of J-BIMS resides in his head, and the police drag away the maniacal man.

With the case solved, Chief Park apologizes to his team for inadvertently helping Ji-hoon with his schemes and apologizes to Yoon-woo for bullying him. While it may take some time, the technology development department is willing to put in the effort to rebuild their broken trust as well as their program. This news, however, does little to placate Se-woong’s soured mood since the board is questioning his capabilities to lead the company, and to complicate matters, his older brother is improving by the day.

As if an industrial spy wasn’t enough of a hassle for JU Construction, an anonymous post accusing the company of unethical hiring practices circulates online and catches media attention. Our auditors barely get a day to catch their breath before a mountain of paperwork drowns them again, and like with so many other incidents in this company, one investigation leads to another.

Since the youngest members are part of the suspects list, Cha-il excludes them from the case which means the rest of the team picks up their slack. As they scour through the data to look for possible discrepancies, they notice Han-soo’s test results are missing, and according to the third-party administrators, Han-soo never logged in that day either. While Cha-il neither trusts nor distrusts Han-soo’s assertion that he did, in fact, take the test, the rest of the team believes him and eventually find his test results misplaced in the archives.

Though Han-soo’s problem is solved, this whole mishap exposes an oversight during the transfer process between the previous and current leaders within the hiring department, so Cha-il expands their investigation to include the last four years. This worries one of the employees in the hiring department who seems to be hiding something, but before the show gets a chance to delve into that, a different bombshell hits the auditing team: someone posted pictures online of Seo-jin and Dae-woong together.

As soon as the show mentioned unfair hiring practices, it was obvious that Seo-jin’s connection to Dae-woong would be uncovered. On one hand, I’m happy that the show will spend more time on their characters since these two are my favorites, but on the other, I’m not looking forward to the possible direction the show might take concerning their relationship. I really hope they don’t suggest something nasty happening between an uncle and niece — especially if they turn out to be unrelated — but given the tone of the post and the ensuing comments, it seems the show is already going down that rabbit hole. The online comments are accusing Seo-jin of sleeping her way to her position which is all kinds of gross, but hopefully, Dae-woong will nip these baseless rumors right away.

The data leak case this week definitely leaned towards theatrical and ended up with a cartoonishly evil villain. Even Cha-il was needlessly showy during the big reveal, and if I didn’t know any better, I might assume he was actively trying to take down Se-woong by catching the section chief in the most conspicuous manner to give the board a reason to dismiss the president. However, I know the show isn’t that clever, and everything was done for the drama. Why confiscate the tumbler during the presentation while Ji-hoon is on stage when Cha-il can snatch it in front of everyone to see? While I still think Se-woong might not be a “good” person (I don’t necessarily think he’s outright evil either), I don’t blame him for being mad at Cha-il for pulling this stunt.

While I’ve complained about Han-soo multiple times already, the writing continues to do his character a disservice. At this point, he’s mainly used to stir the pot because why did he sneak into the office and hack into a computer when Cha-il told him that morning to investigate secretly? Also, Han-soo was so angry and self-righteous in the beginning of the episode but returned to his regular self the moment the show revealed that the two of them were working together all along. It feels like the creators don’t care about giving Han-soo a chance to grow and would rather use him to move along the plot even if it’s to the detriment of the character.

In comparison, I think the show has done a much better job with Seo-jin even though she gets less screen time than her male counterpart. She also gets mentored by Cha-il, and we see how she improves as an auditor while under his guidance. She learns how to interview people without drawing attention, gather information without alerting suspects, and interrogate alongside Cha-il to get a confession. However, what makes her stand out is that Seo-jin is allowed to form her own opinions about people that aren’t straightforward, and unlike Han-soo who tends to box people into black-and-white categories, she understands that humans and their motivations are complex. The show can obviously make interesting characters as we see with Seo-jin; I just wish it could extend some of that character growth to the others as well.

 
RELATED POSTS

• Premiere Watch: The Auditors
• The Auditors mean business in new teaser
• News bites: June 23, 2024
• News bites: June 20, 2024
• News bites: June 18, 2024
• Hunting rats with The Auditors’ head cat Shin Ha-kyun
• News bites: May 30, 2024
• Shin Ha-kyun leads The Auditors in rooting out corruption
• News bites: May 18, 2024
• Shin Ha-kyun leads The Audit team in tvN’s new office series