When The Chips Go Down
Kyung-Yi and K share a conversation about the janitor’s death. Kyung-Yi realizes that they are similar, as white smoke paves way for us snapping back to the moment out in the hallway at the hospital.
Kyung-Yi is having a difficult time dealing with the death of her husband. K, an eccentric and flamboyant acquaintance of hers, brings up the subject of her husband’s afterlife and tells her that he is in a better place now. Kyung-Yi becomes upset by this and starts to hallucinate, seeing her husband next to her in a car. K films the whole thing without Kyung-Yi’s knowledge. ..
Je-Hui interrupts Yong-Sook to say that she has something important to tell her. Je-Hui tells Yong-Sook that she has been working on a project with Kyung-Yi and that they have decided to merge their departments. Je-Hui tells Yong-Sook that this will help the team move up in the organization and that it is a good idea because the team is currently ranked at the bottom. Yong-Sook is happy to hear this and thanks Je-Hui for her input.
Kyung-Yi is there with them of course, and they all take a break for some whiskey to help her stay awake. Je-Hui and Gyeong-Su have a hilarious over-the-top sequence where they are determined to catch the serial murderer. With no suspects, the group are forced to start from the beginning. Gyeong-Su though has an idea that the killer may well be a professional contract killer. ..
K, a female detective, is investigating the death of a man who was leaked videos of his girlfriend. Knowing that the man, Park, is a criminal and a danger to society, K has an incentive to make him pay for his crimes. ..
K hacks into Park’s phone and sees everything she can. She turns her nose up at his audacity, so K sets to work concocting her plan for revenge. Now, part of that comes from poisoning chips, first testing it on a rat and secondly on the delivery man who arrives with a parcel (containing a book about medusa) for K at her place. Now, this package links back to that earlier quote about seeing evil.
In the live-streaming of the plan, we see K’s subordinates working diligently to stake out the Inseo University campus. They are using all of their skills and training to take out Park Gyu-Il. This is a very important mission, and they are doing everything they can to complete it successfully.
Gyu-Il, who had been drinking heavily at the party, tries to leave but is confronted by his terrified partner. She demands he delete the videos of the attack, but he doesn’t respond. She then stabs him six times and realizes what she’s done only after the fact. Now, this video is broadcast over to NT Life Insurance company headquarters, played on a massive screen across from their main offices. When Kyung-Yi notices, she immediately suspects K of being behind all of this. ..
Kyung-Yi heads to the medical examiner’s office to find out that Park’s body was completely clean. She deduces that he must have been drugged (the toxicology hasn’t been completed yet) and then stabbed six times, all of which were cleanly done. This backs up Kyung-Yi’s theory that he was drugged and then killed. ..
Kyung-Yi is clever enough to realize that Je-Hui is working on a way to track down the source of the poison, but Santa and the others are covering their tracks. ..
Kyung-Yi follows up on the water balloon gig, finding the man responsible and tailing him as he heads to the station and sells his camera to a shady woman. This sees her and Santa split up, with Santa watching the guy as he heads back to his apartment. As for Kyung-Yi, she hangs unusually close to the camera buyer, who manages to easily lose her by skipping off the train at the last second. Now, she happens to be on the phone to K, who receives photos of Kyung-Yi and Santa.
Kyung-yi, a lawyer for Park’s girlfriend, asks the young woman if anyone approached to help kill him. Now, it turns out she didn’t actually kill Park, given he was already dead at the time of the stabbing. It’s a clever red herring; most detectives would have overlooked it completely. However, given the stab wounds never pierced any of the major organs and it would require a lot of force to actually do that – especially from a petite woman like her – Kyung-yi tells her to focus on making the most of her current situation.
As the episode ends, we cut to the CCTV footage of K walking toward Santa, wearing a mask and ready to strike.
The Episode Review,
Koo is a fresh and exciting addition to the crime drama genre, and with its unique Korean feel, it’s sure to be a hit with viewers.
The comedy is still a little hit or miss at times but the more flamboyant displays, like Gyeong-Su putting on a show to try and deduce key moments of the story, feel parodic in the best possible way, taking cues from numerous old-school crime dramas that would use this trick a lot – especially in the 70’s and 80’s. ..
The ending of the story leaves readers with a lot of questions about Santa’s fate. Will he survive the night? We’ll definitely find out tomorrow.
