Dongjae the Good or the Bastard: Episodes 5-6

by solstices

What initially seemed to be two separate cases turn out to be even more deeply intertwined than they appear, with new evidence surfacing and yet another murder on the roster. And as the one to connect the dots, our overlooked prosecutor may finally be welcoming his big break.

 
EPISODES 5-6

Picking up where we left off last week, we learn that an urgent bathroom trip had Chan-hyuk forgetting about his bag of Purple pills. Gyeo-re swiped the bag upon discovering it in the bathroom stall, sneaking away with Yuri amidst Chan-hyuk’s panicked ruckus. That gets drug trafficking added to Gyeo-re’s charges, inciting Wan-sung’s fury.

Suspecting that Chan-hyuk might be Yuri’s murderer, Dong-jae requests a warrant. But Byung-gun protests, because he just got intel that a major drug deal is taking place that night. With his sights set on a promotion to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, Byung-gun wants to seize the opportunity to catch the drug cartel red-handed. Eventually, Chief Jeon decides to have them investigate both cases concurrently. (Cue the pair racing each other to solve the case like a pair of school children, ha.)

At the transaction site, the police and prosecutors’ ambush turns out successful for the most part. The two gangs are rounded up and the Purple pills confiscated, but cartel boss Geum-ho manages to escape despite getting shot in the abdomen.

On top of that, Chan-hyuk is conspicuously absent. Having slipped away from the detective on his tail, Chan-hyuk’s wound up in Wan-sung’s clutches instead. Wan-sung can’t have him blabbing about Gyeo-re’s involvement in the drug deals, after all. Fearing for his life, Chan-hyuk offers to pin it all on Yuri, then sweetens the deal with Geum-ho’s location.

With that, Jung-ki and a team of goons snatch Geum-ho off the road, only for Geum-ho to breathe his last in the car. He’s tossed back out unceremoniously, while Wan-sung traps Chan-hyuk under the jaws of a crane excavator for daring to bargain with him.

Meanwhile, Detective Kim calls Dong-jae to a residential district with a new case. A man has died by gunshot — Wan-sung’s hunting shotgun lies by his feet — with Purple in his mouth. They’ve found the illicit lab where the Purple pills are manufactured. The victim is KANG SOO-MIN (Park Seung-wan), a.k.a. the mysterious Purple supplier, and Dong-jae realizes the lab operator and the drug manufacturer are separate people. The former may be dead, but the latter is still at large. If Dong-jae cracks this case, he’ll be the one on the road to the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office.

Alas, a thorough dusting of the crime scene — which Dong-jae does himself due to a manpower shortage, ha — turns up no fingerprints. Not a single strand of hair, either. (Dong-jae: “Is he bald?”) Then a forensics officer mentions that the perpetrator might not have any fingerprints due to prolonged exposure to the drug chemicals, alongside deteriorated lungs. It’s a lightbulb moment for Dong-jae — the bowling alley owner had been hacking his lungs out when they met.

Unfortunately for Dong-jae, the bowling alley is registered under a false identity, and he can’t exactly request a warrant for severe coughing. Having hit a dead end, Dong-jae switches tack, approaching Wan-sung to resell the land back to him now that Gyeo-re has been cleared of murder charges. They stamp the contracts on the spot, and the transfer is complete. (Dong-jae: “Please let the redevelopment be canceled.” LOL.)

That’s one headache (seemingly) resolved, and then Dong-jae finally manages to enter the bowling alley thanks to a part-timer. A forensics test turns up traces of ecstasy, and by a stroke of luck, the part-timer happens to have taken a selfie with the bowling alley owner in the background. Ecstatic at his discovery, Dong-jae sprints outside, ready for the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office.

It’s hilariously in-character for our weasel to be zeroing in on self-benefit amidst a case, and I love how this ties in with his initial predicament. While Dong-jae is genuinely competent, he’s also very much focused on himself above all else. It makes the contrast between his investigative prowess and his vain egotism even more amusing, because one moment he’s showcasing his brilliant mind and the next he’s undercutting his own coolness.

Combine that with a haughty pettiness and an instinct for justice, and you get an exasperating yet endearing hero who’s downright fun to root for. The drama does such a good job of highlighting it too, with its enthusiastic use of sound cues and spot-on comedic timing. It strikes an apt balance between the character-driven comedy and the plot-driven intensity, making it a riveting watch all around.

My heart aches for Gyeo-re, because it’s painfully clear all the adults in his life have failed him in one way or another. Wan-sung is too self-absorbed to notice Gyeo-re’s pain, and then you have Jung-ki who blabbed to Wan-sung right after Gyeo-re confided in him. They’re all looking out for their own necks and no one else’s. Dong-jae is right — Gyeo-re didn’t meet the wrong friend, he met the wrong father.

Worse yet, Wan-sung even holds a press conference to accuse the police of a coercive investigation, insinuating Yuri led his innocent son astray and the police covered it up since she’s a detective’s daughter. Then he forces Gyeo-re — hair freshly dyed back to black like a good student — to face the cameras and recite the lies his lawyer team fed him. It’s horrible all around, especially since Wan-sung doesn’t realize he’s digging Gyeo-re into an even deeper hole. I really do hope someone extends a hand to Gyeo-re soon, before he spirals too far.

 
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