Air Dates: March 28th to May 30, 2015 on OCN at 11:00 pm on Saturday nights
Director: Lee Seung-Young Writer: Lee Yoo-Jin Length of this episode: 64 minutes
Rating: 1.55%.... OCN is a cable channel which is why the ratings will be a bit low
Main Cast: Top three are the members of the Special Missing Persons Unit
Kim Kang-Woo as Gil Soo-Hyun.... genius detective who worked for the FBI until recently
Park Hee-Soon as Oh Dae-Young.... older detective with twenty years of experience
Jo Bo-Ah as Jin Seo-Joon.... computer whiz for the small three person team
Kim Kyu-Chul as Park Jung-Do.... director of the small unit
Park So-Hyun as Kang Joo-Young.... expert coroner who gets all of the SMPU's cases
Guest Stars:
Kang Ha-Neul as Lee Jung-Soo.... prisoner who killed his family and is controlling the 'game'
Go Bo-Kyul as Kang Soon-Young.... had been missing for 15 years, the case revolves around her
Episode title: "A Puzzle from Prison"
Recapping this series will be my biggest challenge to date, may take a while but really want to do a post for every episode and it's a good thing there's only ten of them. That's because these episodes are just so long, this first show ran for over 64 minutes and it may be the shortest as most are well over seventy minutes long. That's why it'll take a while to finish the recaps but at least this show has got off to a solid start, can be a bit confusing as there's just so much which happens in this show but will try to get to every major detail. These are two part episodes and hope that'll make it easier to follow. Do have plenty of screenshots at the bottom, set a record as I took 98(!) of them and future shows there may be even more. But viewing them should make it easier to follow the storyline(s) so let's get to the first show, haven't even started the recap yet and it's already a long post.
The main character in this show is Gil Soo-Hyun who is among the smartest men in the world. He grew up in Korea but at the age of ten he left to attend Harvard(!) and at age fifteen he began working for NASA, impressive background for Soo-Hyun. But at the age of twenty he switched careers and began working for the FBI, he quickly became one of their top agents and his American name was James Gil. Not sure what his current age is as it hasn't been mentioned yet but will guess around 35. It's February 2015 and a few months before Soo-Hyun had left the FBI as there was an incident where he used his gun excessively.
That happened in America, shortly after Soo-Hyun was transferred to their Korean branch but for some unknown as it hasn't been revealed yet he resigned after his move. For now Soo-Hyun is just laying low but someone high up had heard about the spare time that Soo-Hyun presently has. That man is Park Jung-Do who is a director for the Seoul PB, another thing that wasn't mentioned but for now think he's the director of the Missing Persons Unit.
Park's unit was sent a letter from a murderer who is presently in prison, he murdered his family but to date his sister hadn't been found and is she still alive? The prisoner's name was Lee Jeong-Soo and in the letter he requested that he be able to speak with Soo-Hyun as he has some valuable info on other murders, it's only him who Jeong-Soo will speak to. Just viewed the second episode after writing this beginning up, was lost at some things viewing this episode which increased after watching the next show.
Jeong-Soo had confessed to Soo-Hyun that he's committed other murders though none of them are known yet but if he does some checking Soo-Hyun will find that the people have been reported missing. Jeong-Soo proposed they play a 'game', he'll give Soo-Hyun some clues and if he can find the victim in a certain time frame then Jeong-Soo will give him more clues for the next victim. There was one victim who was alive though and that person is in the top screenshot, the show opened with that scene and the police found the man alive though he died heading to a hospital.
It comes into play later but a question I had after this scene which Soo-Hyun should have asked too was how did Jeong-Soo commit the murders if he was locked up in prison? How long he had been there was another detail that wasn't mentioned or least don't think it was. For now Jeong-Soo wouldn't reveal to Soo-Hyun the purpose for playing this 'game' but the reasons do come out later. With some tricky clues about who the next victim is and where their location is Soo-Hyun began the hunt but he does request some help which was granted by the director Park
With a role almost as big is Oh Dae-Young, he's a man in his forties who has been a detective for twenty years and so far like his character the best. Though he's been a detective for so long
Dae-Young is still gung ho about his job and readily agreed to help out Soo-Hyun with the case. There's a third person who is also on the small team and that's Jin Seo-Joon, she's played by Bo-Ah which was the main reason for viewing this drama.
So far her role hasn't been too big but think she'll soon become a major asset to the unit. Seo-Joon is a whiz with computers and she does most of her work on one as she doesn't go out in the field with her two partners. Back to the case and after the trio sat around discussing the clues they've come up with an middle aged man who was at a hotel which was at Kangpyeong port and also the person may work for a tire company or the location is near one.
Am back though you don't know that I took a break, will need many recapping this series and hope my train of thought isn't lost taking them. With those clues the pair of Soo-Hyun and Dae-Young head for the Kangpyeong port, they're looking for the person in the above screenshot who is Shin. The team, mainly Seo-Joon, had deduced that the word 'tires' was an important clue and it was as the man was the CEO of a tire company At the pier the pair found a motel, could the man be holed up there as he's on the lam as Shin's run up a huge debt.
At the motel Soo-Hyun and Dae-Young didn't find Shin but had discovered he had rented out a room there. The duo then went to talk with his wife who is being thrown out of their home due to her husband's massive debt, it appears he was embezzling money which made his company go bankrupt. The wife finally confessed that Shin was supposed to board a ship at the port on December 20th and contact her, he didn't which means something happened to him and will he be another victim of Jeong-Soo's?
Soo-Hyun went back to prison to visit Jeong-Soo and to let him know how their hunt turned out. He wouldn't give any more info on Shin who remained missing though he will be eventually discovered though he did discover Shin's possible whereabouts for a partial victory. Jeong-Soo gave Soo-Hyun some clues for the next victim, where this game was going was a bit puzzling except for the fact that Jeong-Soo said he knew where his sister's dead(?) body was hidden. The clues that are given are quite abstract and difficult, only a genius like Soo-Hyun can solve them which is why Jeong-Soo wanted him hunting for the bodies.
For the "Ghost Detective" drama which had a lot going on managed to have five 'segments' for the recaps. This is the fourth so probably won't be able to keep it that short as I don't want to leave any key details out. Won't go into all of the clues that Jeong-Soo gave as we'd be here forever but the small team once again figured out where the location of the next victim should be and they did it fairly quickly. Perhaps too quick as when Soo-Hyun and Dae-Young arrived at a dilapidated building there was a person there. When they entered a room Soo-Hyun stumbled over a trap wire which sent a guillotine crashing down and severing the head of the victim.
Actually it was no victim as it was just the figure of a body filled with straw which sent Soo-Hyun into a rage as he had been tricked by Jeong-Soo who knew he would head to that building. Bottom screenshot above shows Soo-Hyun finally figuring out what the clue really meant which was the address of a nearby building. Our two heroes head there along with the coroner Joo-Young who has somewhat of an important role in this series. At the second location the team found what they were looking for which was the dead body of a victim. According to Joo-Young they were just a tad too late as the man hadn't been dead for long.
What that told us viewers along with Soo-Hyun was that Jeong-Soo had an accomplice working for him though he remained mum on that observation. The second victim's name was Min, along with Shin the pair will be connected as this story goes on. Soo-Hyun was in another rage when he returned to the prison to confront Jeong-Soo. It's easy to see why he's getting so frustrated as there's one and possibly two murder victims and there was nothing Soo-Hyun could have done to stop them. But it's time to hunt for third victim and the time limit for this person is 24 hours. Just one clue was given this time that was '24608741' which was the toughest one to date.
Don't know anything about Korean ID's and such but the team had surmised that the digits or at least some of them have to do with the person's registry number. Seo-Joon can seemingly find any bit of info in a matter of seconds which is what she did though at first not the name of the missing and presumed murdered person. The location as you can see above is South Choongchung Province and Dae-Young began heading there as it's not too far from Seoul.
On his way there a name was discovered by Seo-Joon who may be the person they're on the hunt for. Kang Soon-Yeong is a woman from that province who had been missing for close to fifteen years and to Seo-Joon she seemed like the most logical person. Dae-Young arrived at her hometown and while he didn't find out her whereabouts he did find out much info about Kang who becomes the most important person in this first story.
According to the town people Kang was one beautiful girl but was a person who liked to fool around a lot, wasn't entirely her fault as she had some problems with her mind. Kang was born in 1974 and had gone missing sometime in early 2000 though the exact date wasn't known yet which is from a future clue. Kang also had a baby boy and the town's people had no clue who the father was, when she went missing also the location of her son was unknown and this puzzle from Jeong-Soo was by far the hardest one of them all.
This case is becoming more complicated by the second. In that middle screenshot above the coroner Joo-Young had pulled that piece of paper out of the second victim who was Min. Could the slip of paper be another clue from Jeong-Soo and if so will future victims also have them in their body? Not sure if I'm jumping ahead but that '20000220' written on the paper refers to February 20, 2000 which is the exact date of Kang's disappearance.
While Dae-Young couldn't find out any info on the present whereabouts of Kang he did dig up some key info and the most important one was a photo that was hanging in the window of a shop. In the picture was Kang along with four teenage boys, Dae-Young discovered the names of two of them who were.... Min, who was the second victim and Shin, the missing CEO who may have been the first victim. Actually Shin was no longer missing as his dead body had been found while the team was off doing their searches, once again the coroner found a piece of paper in a dead body and that was another clue that confused them for a while.
But from the photo that Dae-Young had got the trio were able to figure out a name of one of the teenage boys which was Joo. Soo-Hyun took up the pursuit of this man and found out he was a priest at a local rectory. One of Joo's friends at the place told Soo-Hyun he had been missing for a few days which was not uncommon as he had a secluded cabin in the woods where he would go for long stretches to meditate. It was definitely a very secluded location as Soo-Hyun had to walk in a forest for a while before finding it but with what was inside he may not have wanted to find the cabin.
Inside was the dead body of Joo who had hung himself or at least it appeared that way, according to the coroner Joo-Young in all probability it was a suicide. Soo-Hyun is usually a fairly calm guy which may go along with him being so smart but he also has some violent tantrums. He had one at the cabin as he's getting so frustrated with finding dead bodies and is getting tired of the game that Jeong-Soo was leading them on. According to the coroner Joo had been dead for a while, so long that it seemed to her he was the first of the three victims. Though the team has been solving the 'puzzles' they're nowhere near finding out what the true intention of this sick game is. With that final discovery of another victim this episode finally came to it's end, there are so many loose ends but this was only the first part of this mystery.
As you can see above the clues found in the victim's bodies match up with an event in real life but why? Thanks if you read the entire recap and there's absolutely no chance of making them shorter as the episodes are longer than most dramas plus just so much happens in this show. Which is a good thing though as it does keep you glued to your chair but at times there's so many events going on it can and has been a bit confusing.
This first recap wasn't as bad as I expected as it wasn't too much longer than the ones for usual Korean dramas. This was the first part of the story with the next post having it's thrilling conclusion. Plenty of screenshots here to help you follow the story a bit better and it would definitely help if you looked through them.
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