Flower of Evil 악의 꽃 - Episode 2 (Recap)
kakashi: Hm, I might be wrong about everything I said at the end of episode 2. Our Male Lead might well be a psychopathic serial killer for all we know. And yet, the drama manages to make me pity the young him. How mean everybody was...
JoAnne: I'm with you. Well, he's certainly the son of one at least and the whole thing about his emotions? Could have knocked me over with a FEATHER.
Episode 2
Flashback memory/dream to 2006 - our lovers meet for the first time. He is new in town. Awww, they're cute and shy but curious. He says: "It seems like a nice place to start over". Well, if that isn't a sentence to set off alarms... but Ji-Won married the guy. And he seems a great catch, he can cook!!!
I actually like the blonde.
Something is definitely wrong with him though - we see him practicing his smile in front of the mirror, taking his instructions from an online course. Yikes, creepy. Does he have social-emotional agnosia? Or maybe a form of autism? Now that we know, we see how he struggles to appear natural around his wife.
That came out of NOWHERE, huh? Later he says it doesn't matter what someone does, he can't feel compassion. I assume it's true for all emotions but...I have a really hard time understanding how you can't feel ANYthing.
I want Lee Joon-gi in my kitchen, cooking this soup and giving me a taste of it.
When I was watching this I was thinking why is it that all Korean cooks doing their home cooking look like they're 5-star chefs making haute cuisine?
After some cuteness with their daughter (who wants her daddy to blow-dry her hair because he's better at it), Hee-Sung realizes his wife has gone down to his workshop to clean up for him, making him rush after her in alarm. She notices a shard from his broken tea set (it broke the day before when he fought Kim Moo-Jin) and she is curious whom he had tea with - apparently, he only serves people he likes to spend time with tea. The others get a cold beverage. He says it was a friend from middle-school and manages to steer her out. All the while, Moo-Jin struggles against his gag and bonds beneath their feet.
I thought that swimming in the water and thinking about what might be swimming underneath me was the creepiest thought about what's below me but I guess not. Oh! We have had big thresher shark sitings here locally, by the way.
Later, when Ji-won is called to her next homicide case, he visits his (terrified) prisoner and we get another flashback (18 years ago) to a time Moo-Jin had Hee-sung tied to a tree, where he verbally and physically harassed him. We also get confirmation that Hee-sung is indeed the son of Do Min-Suk, the one who is said to have committed those serial killings. Young Moo-Jin is a little afraid of young Hyun-Su/Hee-sung and Hyun-Su plays along with his image of being as psychopathic as his father. Apparently, there are rumors that he even helped his father.
See? I'm betting you anything he didn't do anything. It's just that thing they do in stories where the kid gets pegged with whatever failings the parents have.
Back then, Hyun-Su swore to get revenge and now is his chance... he scares Moo-Jin with a hammer, repeating some of Moo-Jin's cruel words from back then. In the end, he doesn't hurt him at all though, but he confirms that he is "just like his dad". Feelings? He has none whatsoever. In the end of their interaction, Moo-Jin understands that Hyun-Su is Hee-Sung now, married to detective Ji-won.
I still say my wolf is not a murderer.
He claims to have killed the man he is accused to have murdered. We get another flashback, where a bloodied Hyun-Su stands in front
of the dead body he's accused to have murdered, the murder weapon in his
hands. The woman Moo-Jin keeps thinking about (Do Hae-Su - another relation?) is next to him, telling him this isn't right, hand over the murder weapon, he cannot do this. Smiling creepily, young Hee-Sung says he's feeling quite alright.
You know that IF he did this, he was protecting that girl, right?
When they go low, we go high.
Of course, the little girl is crushed and doesn't understand at all - while Ji-won scolds her husband massively for not siding with his daughter. Once again, we get a visual cue that Hee-Sung finds it challenging to read people's emotions, but he does the right thing, calms Ji-won down and promises to always ask her first before doing anything.
I don't think he was wrong, really. There are things we do to keep society moving along smoothly and just because some stuck up bitch isn't willing to make her selfish brat of a piglet play nice doesn't mean WE can't demonstrate the correct behavior. Then we go home and get hugs and kisses and ice cream and sleep securely in the knowledge that we're better than those ignorant inbred nouveau riche wannabe upper class shitbags.
He takes his daughter to have her favorite sweet (egg tart) - and reveals a few very interesting tidbits. He tells his kiddo that he made sure she has a good reputation - whereas the other girl who hit her has a bad one now. Which means no one will doubt Eun-ha in the future when something bad happens. Besides, the other girl lost her doll, he claims. Yeah... "lost". He took it and threw it away. Awwww, the way he smiles at his kid... that's not fake, is it? Or is it?!
See, we think alike, Hee Sung and I. And he loves that child. HE DOES. Holy shit is this another drama where I fall in love with a murderer?
Once more, the details of the homicide case aren't important (an
old woman is murdered, her son is the prime suspect, but it wasn't him,
it was a psychopath social worker - is her behavior and Hee-sung's the same?). What is important is the MO of the
killing, which reminds everyone of the Yeonju seria.l killer case.
Missing thumb nails, a string around the neck and a broken ankle were
the signatures of that killer (as Kim Moo-Jin wrote in his online
article). However, when looking at police reports from back then, it
becomes apparent that whoever copied the killer didn't know the details -
it wasn't just a string, it was a particular brand of dog leash and the
ankles weren't broken, the tendons were cut.
So tiresome. Readers, if you're going to copy cat a serial killer, take the time to do it correctly. Invest in the correct tools. Do your homework. If there is ever at time for you to be at the top of your game, it's when you're ending someone else's.
Back home, Hee-sung realizes that Kim Moo-jin has agreed to meet with this guy from the restaurant (Nam Soon-kil). He goes to the meeting place and calls the guy with Moo-jin's phone, pretending to be him, and that he cannot make the meeting. Oh, interesting... so this restaurant guy used to be a room mate of Hee-sung's. He calls him super weird, apparently he once asked where in a movie to laugh or cry. But not only that, Nam Soon-kil also wounded Hee-sung with a knife in the forest in an attempt to take money from him.
See? They're all AGAINST him! It's so UNFAIR.
The biggest surprise, however, is Nam Soon-kil's claim that Hyun-su is
threatening him. For a month, he has been getting phone calls at 4am.
Though the caller never identified himself, Soon-kill is convinced it's
Hyun-su. Hee-sung tells Nam Soon-kil that Hyun-su has died - he should
forget about him and move on. After this, he goes to see his mother (hm, she's emotionally messed-up) and gets some sleeping pills from her.
I really, really, realllllly want to know what that connection is. Please don't take a whole show to reveal it.
That night, someone cloaked in a dark raincoat with a large hood gets himself a dog leash from a specific brand - yes, the same brand the serial killer used back in the day. The cloaked person then pays a visit to Nam Soon-kil in his restaurant... he is leaving a message on Kim Moo-jin's voicemail when he becomes aware of the intruder. He shouts that it's Do Hyun-Su who has come for revenge. He manages to poke scissors into his assailants shoulder before he falls to the floor, clutching his gut. Was he knifed? We don't see clearly.
Well, this would be a very bad time for one of those Korean 'need to poop' jokes. So I guess let's hope he was stabbed?
The hooded and cloaked figure makes its way through a warehouse of sorts into a lair full of newspaper clippings. S/he pins a print out of Kim Moo-jin's article to the wall with his/her knife. All the articles are about Do Min-suk.
That is a very big room, as lairs go.
At home, Cha Ji-won wakes up in an empty bed. It's 3.30am, her husband isn't around. However, when she goes out to the kitchen to look for him, he comes in through the front door. In a dark rain cloak with a large hood. He is carrying a plastic bag. And he is not smiling. Not at all.
In fairness, neither is she. And he looks DAMN fine.
Comments
Weeeeeeell. Nicely done, drama. We are now at a point where we have to ask ourselves whether he is indeed like his father (or that social worker) as everybody said - a cold, murdering psychopath, who even assisted in the killings as a boy. Someone who killed that guy from the restaurant, for revenge or something else. Of course, we cannot know. But we can guess.
Should we run a poll on Twitter? We could do it every week and keep a running tally of who's in the lead for killer.
This episode took considerable care to show us a mistreated boy, one bullied for his father's actions. It didn't sound or look to me like he really killed that man back when he was young, more like he did something to protect that woman with the same surname. Who is she? We have no clue still to why he changed his identity like he did and why he has fake parents who play along with him like their own lives depended on him.
We all know that living as the son of a serial killer is pretty much worse than being the actual serial killer, so I have no questions about why he'd change his identity.
We do know that Hee-sung isn't quite like other people when it comes to emotions, but that alone doesn't make him a murderer or a psychopath. He has learned how to function though it takes him an effort - practicing in front of the mirror, having difficulties reading emotional situations. However, with his daughter, I don't see a lot of pretense. I think he genuinely loves her, even if he probably thinks himself incapable of such an emotion.
He does. I agree. And yes. At the end of only episode 2, I would fight someone to the death for threatening him. Sigh. I clearly have a type. Also, and slightly off topic: my GOD does this feel good! Kakashi and JoAnne, back again! Yes!