#e14

Han Ki Hwan: Because of that, I married you even though you were living with another guy.

I think I’m meant to assume from this exchange that she was literally married off to Han Ki Hwan both as a way to clean up the family’s reputation and to deal with an “unruly” daughter her parents were fed up with, which sounds miles away from Joo Won’s understanding of “falling for Han Ki Hwan’s show” except that yeah, that makes perfectly sense as his way to interpret it. His mother was already living with another guy she presumably loved who was willing to take care of her. Why marry Han Ki Hwan if not because she made a choice and he looked like a more attractive prospective than the other guy?

I also love the gender implications the show makes here, because “unruly” sons might also be married off to become someone else' s problems, but historically that has affected mostly women. “Unruly” sons like Jeong Je or Joo Won still can be institutionalised against their will or be pressured into marriages, but it’s a different kind of hell.  

I also wrote down in my notes "QUEER READING?!" and I think I was trying to refer here to the institution of marriage (and of the family), which is another system the series briefly touches on and criticizes. Han Ki Hwan did have a choice and also fuck him, but marriage and a son should have not been considered mandatory steps to become Police Commissioner in the eyes of society. Divorce shouldn't have been considered something so shameful that when it came down to it, a dead wife was better for the optics than a divorced one - and a dead woman shouldn't be better optics than one who attempted suicide.

Han Joo Won: Are you worrying about me, Lieutenant Lee Dong Sik? Lee Dong Sik: Am I crazy?

Look at Han Joo Won's little smile that he finally managed to get one over Dong Sik - and he got one over whether Dong Sik cares about him! Because he does by now! And Dong Sik gets immediately flustered.

Also not gonna lie, “Local guy known for caring so much immediately feels attacked if anyone points out that he cares so much” gets me every time. 

Han Joo Won: I don’t think I need to return to where I came from.

Joo Won’s wording here as he also continues the conversation about trust - and in front of Dong Sik’s very obvious care : Dong Sik can trust Joo Won to do the right thing. What does that mean in different contexts, however, it’s not a given. 

And this particular phrase - he’s grown as a person, he’s making his own choices, he is taking Dong Sik’s side. He’s not here for the same thing he was before and that’s why “I don’t think I need to return to where I came from”.

???: Lee Dong Sik, you really are an idiot, huh?

He’s been back to Seoul for less than a month <3

Do we think all of his ex-colleagues immediately hit him up again. How long before everyone was like “Sorry the lunatic of the RIU is doing what now?”.

Han Ki Hwan: Even if you were to be reborn a hundred times, he would be one step ahead of  you, always.

The way Kwon Hyeok still asks Han Ki Hwan to trust him - and it’s a nice way to put together the two sides of Hyeok we have seen so far: just because relationships are transactionals it doesn’t mean they don’t mean they have value. Yes, here he is putting it into very utilitaristic terms - Hyeok is smart, he’s loyal, he is willing, so why isn’t Han Ki Hwan trusting him? And that’s because he can’t work his way out of not having been born Han Ki Hwan’s son - but also because as Joo Won reminds me five minutes later, trust is an emotional matter and Han Ki Hwan doesn’t trust anyone but himself because no one is as good as him. 

The triangulation of Han Ki Hwan, Kwon Hyeok and Han Joo Won here is always such a crucial moment of the characterisation because Beyond Evil really wants you to know that there is nothing anyone could have done to get a different outcome. Han Ki Hwan is beyond redemption. It’s not a case of having had enough help, met the right people, being given a chance - he just was always going to end up like this. He’s been given a fuckton of chances. Just give up.

Han Ki Hwan: Haven’t I told  you constantly? Please live quietly. Get out of my sight.

Ah, the wording here. For almost* everyone else in the show, asking to live quietly, to stay put, means asking someone to stay safe, to stay out of trouble because I love you. For Han Ki Hwan is just, be put away like the prop you are.

…and at the same time, that request to “stay safe and out of it” is insulting to the people you love, the series reminded us, because you are denying them their own agency.

*I have not forgotten Do Hae Won here, I’m just still thinking, there many interesting parallels between her and Han Ki Hwan especially since they are both parents.

Lee Chang Jin: That’s right. Is there anyone else more curious about that night that you? Lee Dong Sik: Come on. Do you think I’m only curious about that day?

Look, Han Ki Hwan is the perfect villain for Beyond Evil but do you know what he is not? He’s not fun. Thank you, Lee Chang Jin, for stepping up, and giving us some fun villain confrontations, some cool phone showdown, some cheerful-flirty-attitude-because-I-am-totally-gonna-get-you-and-also-I-hate-your-guts.

Lee Chang Jin: Good deeds, bad deeds. Who decides that? Does the law judge that?

Ha! 

This is such a classic trope and it works perfectly here- they are after all people who have a similar approach to the law, for the same reasons even, they just reached two entirely different conclusions. And I like that the series focuses on their shared powerlessness - always through a grounded, realistic and critical way, not as the usual cool “underdog” angle other medias tend to favour.

We find out only in the casefiles that Chang Jin and Dong Sik have actually waaaay more in common than they’d think, down to their family histories, so I’d hesitate to consider all of that as being Canon in the series too, but the series does establish that Chang Jin’s turned to crime not only to improve his situation but to acquire any control or power or respect in a world that constantly looked down on him simply because of where he came from.

And the show also does establish Chang Jin as surprisingly neutral - he’s perfectly capable of distinguishing good and evil, he has loved ones as well as enemies, he doesn’t take pleasure in any of the violence he inflicts, he simply “doesn’t let his morals get in the way of his practicals" (hello yes, The Terror again <3) - but again, to a point, because they wouldn’t be able to use Ji Hwa as a triumph card if he was that simple of a guy. 

And I love this exchange in this specific scene because it’s the series insisting on its nuanced approach and criticism of the system it portrays - Dong Sik has been promoted now, and they are all cops (plus one butcher) working together to conduct a lawful arrest, but none of that should ever be read as condoning either the police or the system or even the laws themselves. It's not that kind of cop show. All the show was heavily criticising in the first part of the series it’s still valid here - even the cops skirting around the law to resolve the case in the first place: the system doesn’t work to the point that this has to happen just to even remotely hope to uphold justice. 

Just because all of this is happening to the bad guys now, it doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

By the way, I do really like that Dong Sik acknowledges that Chang Jin is smart. I don’t know if it was meant like that, but it’s one of the crux of Chang Jin’s character, who is looked down by both Han Ki Hwan and Do Hae Won for his origins and only used as a tool, and a tool doesn’t have to think. But that’s not how Dong Sik sees people and that’s not how he sees Chang Jin, so: yeah, not only he’s smart, but that’s what their plan hinges on.

Lee Dong Sik: Today, Oh Ji Hwa will be the judge.

He’s smart and has human connections that he cares about! 

Aside from the very obvious emotional angle, I like what it says to both of them in this context, that everything will be put in Ji Hwa’s hands. When it comes down to it she might also be more willing to bend the law than she should be, but she has something that they don’t, which is conviction. Ji Hwa has worked for eleven years believing in the law and thinking that the system could be better than it is, so she’s ultimately more qualified than either of them.

Do Hae Won: There’s no such thing as a secret, son.

There really fucking isn’t. 

Han Joo Won: You carry the burden just because you hear about it? Why is that?

This scene makes so much sense for Joo Won as a character whose best relationships so far all come from like, very life changing moments and not the banality of seeing people every day, It’s crucial for anything that will happen after the case - to come back to Manyang, he has to know that this is how people care and show care, you know? He has to realise that his feelings for everyone involved don’t come just from some nebulous concept of justice but because he cares for them as people. 

Im Seo Yon: Mr. Kang Do Soo. Right now, I’m not your wife; I’m a police officer. And I want to show our baby Hope, the work I do.

Do Soo and Seo Yon, as a married couple with a baby on the way in a crime drama, usually tend to do what married couples with a baby on the way in crime dramas usually tend to do, but it is still so cute. 

Han Joo Won: Don’t you regret it? [...] Lee Dong Sik: Don’t you think the world regret is a bit too extravagant? [...] Don’t you want to ask if I would do it all again if I went back to that time? [...] Han Joo Won: Lieutenant Lee, do you know how a wolf corners a rabbit?

This is such a good conversation, A++ for it coming after Chang Jin’s comment on whether the law matters (and Dong Sik muttering about “illegality”) and Jae Yi’s explaining why people care for each other. Strictly speaking it’s not a conversation they needed to have to resolve the case, Joo Won and Dong Sik already had most of it planned and arranged before it, so in a way it’s purely personal, it’s about openly telling Dong Sik now that he is not alone as he was back there and it’s something that Joo Won just. Wants him to know.

I also like the use of “extravagant” here from Dong Sik’s side - it’s a luxury he couldn’t and still can’t afford. 

Kang Do Soo: Sorry. I can’t type faster than 200 characters per minute yet.

Copying as a way to show the way people influence each other is so <3

Kwak Oh Sub : Watch carefully. I will use the instincts Hyung Sang Bae passed on to me.

This little bit is straight up lifted from Memory of Murder. Truly the most influential crime movie of all time if you like crime K-dramas and movies (I should probably watch it again before starting Mouse and especially Signal).

Kang Do Soo: Tell us all the dirty things that they made you do.

I have no idea if this dialogue is as suggestive in Korean as it is in the English subtitles, but if it is, again they are choosing to highlight his powerlessness as soon as they zero in on Chang Jin’s character, the series is careful to highlight his powerlessness. Team Evil is evil but it’s also made of people and we shall not be allowed to forget it.

Lee Chang Jin: I said that to look good in front of you.

“I wanted you to think of me as your little meow meow :(”

Han Joo Won: Yes, but I’ll definitely contact you. I promise.

That shot is beautiful everytime I look at it (THE LIGHTRAYS?) and of course this is the way the “I promise” theme comes back under a new, personal lens. Also I love that they it's stripped of any pretense - he’s not promising he’ll come back with evidence, or that he will make Han Ki Hwan confess or anything like that. He’s promising that he’s one of the people Dong Sik cares for who will come back to him.

Han Ki Hwan: Get out. Lee Chang Jin: Answer me.

This conversation in the car really is the equivalent of the Lee Dong Sik & Han Joo Won basement conversations - from Chang Jin trying to rile up Ki Hwan, who does slip and admit more of what he wanted to, even admit personal beliefs and feelings I doubt he’s bothered telling anyone else, to their open and honest conversation of what is exactly happening there. 

And yet, it means nothing, because this is not a conversation between people who give a toss about each other: it’s a relationship where you take what you take and give what you give. 

Han Joo Won: No. Say it.