The Fiery Priest 2: Episodes 7-8

by solstices

With the true identity of our nefarious businessman revealed at last, it’s a battle of wits between the one scheming an usurpation and the ones determined to thwart those wicked plans. Equipped with wacky disguises, corny jokes, and even a cool new ride, our squad will do whatever it takes to sniff out all of the devil’s best kept secrets.

 
EPISODES 7-8

As it turns out, there’s more to Hae-il’s deal with Dean Lee than he initially let on. Talking big, Hae-il promises to fill every seat for mass and triple the number of seminary applicants next year, so long as Dean Lee withdraws Do-woo’s punishment and turns a blind eye to all of Hae-il’s suspicious activities.

That last clause is the important part, because it means Hae-il is now free to investigate as he pleases. Reaching out to his NIS sunbae JUNG SEOK-HEE (Shin Eun-jung), who now lives a quiet life as a bookstore owner, Hae-il asks for help identifying the lizard tattoo. Seok-hee delivers: they’re the infamous Laos drug cartel “Ssaban,” and the tattooed men are the Geckos who are adept at everything from physical combat to digital hacking. The cartel head died last year, and his right-hand man — whose grainy photograph looks suspiciously like a certain businessman — has since disappeared.

Thanks to Hae-il’s special paper with a tracking chip embedded inside, Kyung-seon tails Du-heon to his hideout. Behind a locked door that Kyung-seon can’t hear through, Du-heon records himself giving a briefing about his latest “honey jar” case: he can use the druggie PARK JOON-HYUK as leverage to curry favor with his father, the vice minister PARK KI-TAE. The fall guy will be Joon-hyuk’s celebrity friend OH JIN-YOUNG, even though his drug test results came back clean.

Nevertheless, Kyung-seon relays the info she’s surmised to Hae-il: the recent raid of the ship factory was led by the currently-missing Busan chief prosecutor, who had been digging into both Du-heon and the cartel. Needless to say, he’s been murdered by Hong-shik’s thugs, much to Du-heon’s smug relief.

After doing a background check on Hae-il and finding out he was once a NIS agent deployed in Syria, Du-heon calls Hae-il to meet on the beach — where Hae-il joins our childish prosecutor for a silly sand flag game, LOL. Advising Hae-il to keep his nose out of others’ business, Du-heon warns that everyone Hae-il cares about will die, leaving him to grieve alone. But our priest isn’t cowed by his threats.

Meanwhile, Dae-young, Ja-young, Yo-han, and Ssongsak strut around in their criminal disguises, claiming to be out for Hae-il’s blood. With a timely photo of Hae-il dining out with “Detective Gu” (who is in fact Dae-young’s lookalike uncle), the fishy thugs bite the bait, believing the man in front of them is the wanted murderer they can use to eliminate the pesky priest.

Our squad scores lodgings in the factory ship, covertly contacting Hae-il through a micro-sized phone that they have to press with a toothpick. Shaman Ja-young’s fake fortune-telling frightens an underling into giving up a photo of the cartel boss, and their eyes widen in shocked recognition: it’s the annoying rich businessman!

Just as Hong-shik’s fancy fundraising event commences at the church, the ship squad calls to inform Hae-il of the drug lord’s identity. After ushering all the attendees into the church on the pretext of an incoming rainshower, Hae-il and Hong-shik duke it out under the sudden downpour. They’re evenly matched, until Hae-il’s tinnitus strikes again, allowing Hong-shik to gain the upper hand.

Just then, Kyung-seon — who heard the news from Sung-kyu — interrupts with a phone call to divert Hong-shik’s attention by finally accepting his date offer. LOL. Before Hong-shik can wind up again to kick Hae-il while he’s down, a police van full of armed SWAT officers pulls up. The mousy lady who’s been surreptitiously observing around the church is actually CHIEF GO MARTHA (Heo Soon-mi) of the Uma police station. She manages to protect Hae-il by taking Hong-shik into custody, but of course the emergency arrest doesn’t last long.

Thanks to his sunbae’s intel, Hae-il has found out Hong-shik’s modus operandi — whenever he’s incriminated for his drug dealing, he simply blows up his ship and moves elsewhere. Worse yet, he massacres everyone in the neighborhood via toxic gas. That means there’s a bomb planted somewhere in the current factory, and that one of the city’s gas tanks has been tampered with.

Our heroes may have made lots of headway this week, but alas, our villains are catching up fast. Kyung-seon attempts to raid Du-heon’s hideout, but she gets tased by Du-heon’s personal assistant KIM MA-RI (Hwang Jung-min). The squad in the ship searches for the bomb, but they’re interrupted by Boss Park: “What are you looking for, Detective Gu?” Guess the jig is up. Elsewhere, Hong-shik pays a visit to Seok-hee’s bookstore — his Lao underling found out about her information retrieval — and knocks her out before she can pull her gun on him.

As for our fiery priest, Hae-il hops on a sleek motorcycle to tail a Gecko thug, but he’s interrupted by a panicked call from Do-woo. Hong-shik’s thugs have barged into the seminary and begun beating the young priests up, all because Du-heon got annoyed by their anti-drug campaigns. Hae-il rushes back to protect his proteges, but he receives a nasty whack to the head that has him fainting while the thugs make their escape.

Nooooo, Hae-il! He’s notoriously awful at taking care of his own health when his mind is set on seeking justice, and I can only hope this hasn’t inflicted any lasting damage. I’m glad to see him reaching out and relying on others rather than attempting to tackle everything himself, but he needs to learn that this should extend to his welfare as well, beyond just his mission.

Then there’s Kyung-seon’s apartment ghost, who’s latched onto Hae-il ever since he visited her for an exorcism attempt. They’ve been building up this plot point for two weeks, so surely there’ll be a big payoff, right? (Is Hong-shik going to get saddled with the ghost next, seeing as she likes handsome men?)

Talking about Kyung-seon, how hilarious was her observatory date! From her cheesy constellation puns, to Hong-shik’s gaudy star T-shirt, I genuinely couldn’t hold back my laughter. Plus that million-dollar necklace gift, which Hong-shik offered while blushing like a boy with his first crush! (Kyung-seon: “Is a mass murderer acting all bashful right now?” LOL.)

Their date was good for one thing, though — while fishing for information over dinner, Kyung-seon managed to get Hong-shik to open up about his name. Turns out he and his brothers were named after characters from the TV drama Moon of Seoul, which also happens to be the name engraved on his ship. Hm, I wonder how that’ll become relevant again later…

In any case, loverboy Hong-shik is a hoot to watch, so hopefully we get more hilariously awkward dates before the big showdown. Surely he won’t give up on his terrible flirting attempts just because Kyung-seon rejected his necklace, right?

 
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