The Fiery Priest 2: Episode 9

by solstices

Our self-sacrificial priest learns to rely on the loyal ones who care for him, instead of shouldering everything alone as he is wont to do. With a couple of close shaves, a few lucky coincidences, and a new set of creative disguises, our squad is ready to get right back on track.

 
EPISODE 9

The bleeding Hae-il is rushed to the hospital, where the doctor accidentally lets slip his multiple sclerosis diagnosis. Moved by Hae-il’s tenacity in spite of his illness, Dean Lee asks why he’s so devoted to his cause. After swearing Dean Lee and Do-woo to secrecy, Sister Kim and Sung-kyu finally open up about Hae-il’s Bellator mission.

While unconscious, Hae-il finds himself met with a vision of the late Father Lee, who asks why Hae-il doesn’t know how to share his pain. “To those whom you share it with, it’s not pain, but trust,” Father Lee advises, encouraging Hae-il to take their hands. Deeply touched, Hae-il agrees to try, and he awakens surrounded by the concerned faces of those who care for him. That includes a post-tasing Kyung-seon, who rushed straight to the hospital after waking up amongst the recycling, LOL.

It’s not long before Hae-il gets another visitor, who turns out to be a very distraught Martha. Pleading with Hae-il to let her confess, Martha breaks out into an impromptu musical number, recounting the tale of how she was snubbed by her colleagues and threatened by Hong-shik’s thugs after she attempted to expose the drug ring. Hae-il reassures her by singing a verse back (both their voices are so good!), after which he shares his information on Hong-shik’s Saban cartel.

Soon, Hae-il is discharged — or perhaps it’s more accurate to say he discharges himself — and his first course of action is to contact Do-woo for assistance. Aw, he’s trying! Do-woo remarks that it’s unfamiliar hearing Hae-il ask for help, hee.

Emboldened by Hae-il’s support, Martha makes an announcement to the station with her head held high. The corrupt violent crimes team is being withdrawn from the drug investigation effective immediately, and a new narcotics team has been created to take over. Since they’ve been so enthusiastic about making her a puppet chief all this while, she’s brought in a literal puppet to lead the team. (Cue the ventriloquism, ha.) And who else should be joining it but Hae-il and Do-woo, as citizen watchdogs.

Onboard the ship, our bumbling squad barely manages to evade suspicion, but Boss Park places them under room arrest until Hong-shik decides how to deal with them. When Hong-shik returns, he callously murders the minion who bungled the attack on the seminary — which means he’s clearly not surviving to the glorious senior years Ja-young “predicted.” Oops.

It’s off with their scamming heads, until yet another minion pipes up. Surprisingly, he speaks in Dae-young’s defense: if he’s truly the serial killer, he ought to have two tiny scars on his back from a past brawl. Lo and behold, Dae-young does indeed have them, to everyone’s shock.

It turns out the scars are courtesy of Hae-il, who accidentally impaled Dae-young upon a prong while chasing him around a camping site. The minion must have made up a story after catching sight of Dae-young’s back, but why did he help them out?

The answer requires much suspension of disbelief, because it turns out the helpful minion is BING SANG-WOO (Oh Hee-joon), a narcotics police officer who got ditched by the force after four years of going undercover. With a long list of crimes to his name and not a single person left who knows of his true identity, Sang-woo has resigned himself to staying stuck on the ship.

Moved by their fellow detective’s plight, our Gu duo resolves to help him get reinstated. Before that, though, there’s a pressing crisis to solve: they heard screaming from behind a locked door, because Hong-shik has been torturing Seok-hee for information.

Elsewhere, the seeds of another scheme have been planted. Having chanced upon the squad’s investigation board, Dok-sung decides to take matters into his own hands. Contacting his Russian friend DMITRI to arrange a meeting with Boss Park, Dok-sung leaks the information about the bomb on the ship, which a panicked Boss Park immediately tattles to Du-heon about.

Du-heon doesn’t hesitate to contact Interpol, claiming he’ll soon have the location of the Lao fugitive (read: Hong-shik) on their wanted list. His betrayal doesn’t come as a surprise, given that his pride has been smarting at Hong-shik’s blasé dismissals and the new chief prosecutor’s disparaging humiliation. With an ego as lofty as Du-heon’s, it’s no wonder he’s looking to detonate his own arsenal first — the only question is what lengths he’ll go to, and how far he’ll defect.

Returning to the ship, it’s time to fool the fishy thugs again, which really isn’t a tall order. Shaman Ja-young pretends to perform a spirit medium ritual, claiming that the late Fire Eel’s spirit must be appeased. That gains our squad access to the ship’s restricted areas, where Dae-young covertly films footage for Hae-il while Ja-young distracts the terrified thugs with a “ghostly apparition” of Fire Eel.

Playing right into their whimpering fear, Ja-young declares that she needs the expertise of her mentor oppa and unni in order to resolve Fire Eel’s deep grudge. That gives her the perfect excuse to rope in assistant Kyung-seon — who’s the oppa, apparently, because out steps Hae-il in a dress. Ohmygod. He’s so pretty?!

With Episode 10 preempted in favor of news broadcasts concerning the recent political upheaval, our plot doesn’t progress very far this week — but that’s also because it spins its wheels in place upon its jokes. I am excited for shaman Hae-il, though, if only for how fabulous he looks in his fancy dress and rosy makeup!

 
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