Flower of Evil 악의 꽃 - Episode 5 (Recap)

kakashi: Shit hits the fan and blood begins to flow. Something tells me it's not the last time I'm going to say that before the end of this drama. 

JoAnne: We are in deep doo doo, it is true. But I am left feeling that this drama will now become Wifey helping Hubby reclaim his good teenage name and I am ALLLLLLLLLL about it.

Episode 5

Flashback! Yellow haired Hyun-Su guards Ji-won's store during a power outage after she admits she is afraid of burglars. It's a sweet, short sequence in which it starts to snow and he clearly shows he cares even if it's through actions, not words. Two years later, they're still no real couple. Underneath the blooming trees, she keeps pushing him, saying she knows that he loves her. She doesn't know him though, he says. And, clearly meant as a threat: Should he tell her what kind of person he is?

More of a dare than a threat, I'd say. He doesn't trust that anyone would care about him, so he pushes her away because he figures she's going anyway.  

Cut to Ji-won in the here and now, staring at her husband's watch, trying to process what it could mean that it was found in that warehouse. When she is asked whether to give it to forensics, she lies that the watch is hers. At the same time, the cab driver has arrived at the inn and stares up at Hyun-Su. No! Hyun-Su - TT__________TT - don't get in, the guy is clearly crazy.

I debated that maybe he killed his own wife, or that she ran away to get away from him.

Hyun-Su has no clue who that Jo Min-suk is whom Crazy Cabbie is obsessing about - but his good bro Moo-jin (awww, he's later defending Hyun-Su in front of a doctor, isn't this bromance cute?) calls to tell him that she was that last victim whose body was never found. And... click! Hyun-su understands in whose car he is currently sitting. When Cabbie shows him the photo he stole from the old woman earlier, Hyun-su takes it from him and rips it apart. He declares he had nothing to to with the killings and offers Cabbie compensation - but Cabbie pulls out a cloth and tries to chloroform him. 

I believe Hyun-Su. Do you? And no, it's not just because he has my Joon-Gi's face.

Only: Hyun-su doesn't go down that easily! He sticks his makeshift knife into Cabbie's thigh (yaaaay!), stumbles out of the car and staggers towards a fire in a barrel that is burning in the inn's garden. Ah! To burn the snippets of the photograph! That's clever. Cabbie is upon him though, Hyun-Su fights with all he has but alas... chloroform is stronger. Hyun-Su: out. 

I'm impressed though.

What a struggle... his phone falls out of his pocket, the Cabbie doesn't see it, but the woman from the inn sees the fight and calls the police. Soon after, Ji-won and her sidekick are headed towards the inn. Sidekick is awfully curious about the watch she said was hers that he has never seen before. Oh god, he won't stop asking questions about it until she basically explodes! 

I like the sidekick but come on man, shut up sometimes.  Do you know everything your coworker owns, Kakashi? Fook no! I do not. I don't even remember everything *I* own. And I learned the other day that I have no idea what picture hung in a particular spot in my mother's kitchen for the last 30 years. A picture that I sat near every time I visited her home for 30 years, which was often. Very often.

At the inn, they confirm that it's their prime murder suspect, Crazy Cabbie who dragged a passenger around. The woman has no more clues for them but then, a phone starts ringing... it's just lying there in the dirt. Ji-won runs to pick it up and sees... it's her husband's phone. For her it's clear: HE is the victim who was abducted!

I bet that was a real mind-bender for her! Can you imagine the initial feeling of disassociation you'd have to be somewhere nowhere near home doing something that has nothing to do with your family, and a phone rings, a phone that you see has a picture of your own daughter? Like, how? I thought she did an awesome job of showing what that felt like.  

For the entire episode, Moon Chae-won was AWESOME. 

The police in Seoul can trace and locate Crazy Cabbie's taxi - Ji-won gives chase! At one stage, Crazy Cabbie throws the tachometer (or whatever other electronic device it is through which they traced him) at Ji-won's police car, causing her to crash - and gets away. 

That guy's got skills! Think about it, driving hell bent for leather down a dark street at top speed and you throw some random thing backwards, without looking, and manage to hit your target in exactly the right spot. I'm impressed, again.

When Hyun-Su wakes up, he finds himself in that swimming pool we know from the very first scene, tightly bound on hands and feet - and when the camera zooms out we realize it's the killer's lair. 

I think I'd have chosen a lair with a better pool, myself. I'm alone, I'm hanging out, why not swim?

Hyun-Su provokes the crazy guy (is he really as fearless as he pretends to be?!) and gets knifed in the arm as a result. Well, he retaliates by biting parts of his kidnapper's ear off. All his brave talk about how it's useless to kill him doesn't help a thing though - taxi driver Park soon opens to floodgates. 

I say, if you're strong enough to fake being fearless then it counts as fearless.

There's this extended "there's something we need to tell you about Hyun-Su" from the town's doctor and a police officer who investigated the serial killer case back in the day, almost driving Moo-jin crazy (and me along with him). We finally find out that there was a witness (for that last victim!) named Jang Young Hee. She saw that Jo Min-suk was dragged into the serial killer's car. They even investigated Hyun-Su's dad, but he got acquitted - because of an alibi Hyun-Su provided for him. According to Hyun-Su, he was with his father all day long. And the witness was drunk - and changed her statement. 

I am no longer amazed that people will lie for an asshole. You know why.

Hmmmm, so there's the question of that gold-fish pendant that Jo Min-suk had. Why did it turn up in Hyun-Su's possession? And Hyun-Su remembers.... at his father's funeral, his sister gave it to him, telling him it will bring him luck. Damn, the sister after all?!

I absolutely do not believe that.

Hyun-Su cannot cope with this new insight, he's kind of freezing up. As he is beginning to drown, Park is begging him to reveal his wife's body's whereabouts. But how can Hyun-Su do it? "It wasn't me", he keeps repeating. 

See? He's a good boy.

Meanwhile, Ji-won is going insane with worry. Damn strong acting there, Moon Chae-won! Thanks to her Sunbae's intuition and experience, they find an important clue in Cabbie Park's apartment (the number of a security lock provider), which leads them to the Killer's lair. The detectives fight Park Kyung-Choon, who sticks a knife into Sunbae detective - but he manages to bash the killer's head on a bolt. Lots of blood. 

I was thinking he was dead, frankly.

Me too. That must be quite a horrid head wound. 

Ji-won jumps into the water to save her husband. Repeated underwater mouth-to-mouth does it: he opens his eyes. 

I was thinking about that. How does it work? If she pushes air into his lungs doesn't he still have to breathe? Wouldn't he be getting water in through his nose in that case? The urge to breathe is strong.  What would it be like to NOT need to breathe, but still have air coming in? Could you stop that impulse?

We're back to the beginning: "Should I tell you what kind of person I am?" That time under the blooming trees, Hyun-Su told Ji-won he never graduated high school. He was in a gang and spent his time fighting. And he liked beating up people. And... his eyes shift to the side, to the figure of his father. He sees things that aren't there. He isn't right in the head, he sees dead people. 

Well sign me up girls, he's PERFECT.

She tells him about meeting her grandma in a dream once, telling her to go and rest in peace. And she did. She only sees one problem with him: he doesn't see himself the way she sees him. She will be there for him. She will help help him. Everything will be alright. And she kisses him.

What kind of person is both a good cop AND drawn to horrendously damaged people? I'm going to confess something here: That other night when she stood in the living room at 3 am staring at him? She looked as cold and strange as he did. And it's not the only time, either. What if there's something wrong with her, too?

Hyun-Su tells his ghost-father to go now. The ghost looks really sad - turns around and leaves. Oh man... this woman means so much to Hyun-Su, doesn't she? And he seems to mean the world to her... After finally finding a way to cut him free, she cries over his motionless body, trying everything in her power to revive him. As he opens his eyes briefly before passing out like dead, he is thinking that he always thought he was so lucky to have met her. Now he's thinking she should never have met him. He is... sorry. 

I'm not crying!  I'm not!

Comments

My heart is going to break. God, this love... it's so pure and yet so sad. He is not who he says he is but he was truthful from the get go. And from the very beginning, he cares for this woman even if himself believes he cannot care like a normal being. 

He is so devoted to her. I can see why she doesn't question his love. Everything else in his life might be made up but what he feels for her and their child, that's real down to the bone.

It's like he needs her so much he cannot live without her. I fear for him. 

There are things I left out above, these recaps are actually quite hard to write, the scenes are cut in quick, changing sequence. One thing that important: when Hee-sung's parents are informed about their son's kidnapping they react strangely, setting off detective instincts. Man, the father is completely heartless - he tells his wife that if Hyun-Su gets killed, they'll just play dumb and pretend they didn't know a thing. It's almost like he wishes it to happen? 

Well, he's not his father for one thing, and for another, it seems like whatever ties them together is unwelcome on both sides, but they all have something to cover up and they're stuck together. I understood the 'father's' impulse to say that it could all be blamed on Hyun-Su except... could they really get away with saying he forced them to lie?

And what's with the sister hint?! Why did she have that goldfish from the missing woman? Why wasn't it Hyun-Su's father who drove his own car when the missing woman entered it? Or, alternatively - why did the witness commit perjury?

I almost said why but I think we find that out in episode 6 so I won't say.

I like that Moo-jin is now kind of on Hyun-Su's side - at least up to a certain point - telling that doctor off for repeating all that nonsense about Hyun-Su being like his father. We know Moo-jin isn't particularly nice (he tied young Hyun-Su to a tree and hurt him after all) and I'm sure he'll turn on Hyun-Su as soon as he can (meaning, when that tape is back in his possession.) In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the budding bromance. 

I think Moo-jin wasn't a nice kid, but that time has changed him and he's a decent guy now. I hope. My poor Hyun-su could use a friend!