Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Korean drama "Signal": episode five recap and screenshots


 Air dates: January 22 to March 12, 2016 on tvN  Average rating: 8.8%

Main Cast:

Lee Je-Hoon as Park Hae-Young
Kim Hye-Soo as Cha Soo-Hyun
Cho Jin-Woong as Lee Jae-Han
Jung Hae-Kyun as Ahn Chi-Soo
Kim Won-Hae as Kim Gye-Chul
Jang-Hyun-Sung as Kim Bum-Joo
Lee Yoo-Joon as Jung Hun-Gi
Jung Han-Bi as Oh Yoon-Seo

 Bit of a slower episode but this show doesn't need to be intense all the time to be a good watch, only about 1/3 of the way through it but it does have a slight chance of topping "W" for best series of 2015. Few new ones I'm interested in that have just started up but want to finish this first before I start on another drama. Also have found out by trial and error that when I start watching multiple shows then that's when I tend not to finish them so don't want to keep repeating that mistake. Think when the series is finished will compile all of these Hye-Soo pics as she does look superb outside of this drama plus may check out another one or two she's appeared in.



 The previous episode the newly created Cold Cases Unit solved a 26 year old serial killing which meant there was no ongoing case coming into this show. Figured there would be one to start this episode off but that wasn't the case as the next case didn't happen until the 55 minute mark which was about ten minutes before the show ended.
 We did learn a bit more about the background of some characters, especially Lee who in this episode was living in the year 1995. First case he was in the year 2000 where he helped solve a kidnapping/murder from that year, second case took place in 1989 where Lee also helped solve the case. That year was also when the current Cold Cases leader Cha started on the force, think her and Lee ended up having a relationship but so far no details have come out about it.
 In the year 2015 Park is very interested in what ever happened to Lee, in February of 2001 he was discharged from the force. With no current cases Park is starting to snoop around for info on why he was discharged and whether Lee is still alive. None of us have any clue whether Lee is still alive, Park thinks he may be deceased but has no leads to follow up on.




 That's Park's theory on what happened to Lee as he may have been killed but still there's no evidence. In the first show we saw him on the rooftop of a building where he found the suspect in the kidnapping case. However the suspect was not the real criminal, that was also the time when Lee and Park first communicated via walkie talkie. After that first transmission Lee appeared to be hit over the head, what happened to him after that is a mystery to us and Park.
 Park's snooping around has made his superiors a bit edgy, two were on the force at the time and seem to have a hand in the disappearance of Lee. The pair are the superintendent Kim plus Park's immediate supervisor Ahn. Ahn does most of the dirty work for the superintendent and has covered up almost all of the clues and evidence about Lee disappearing back in 2000. Park got into Ahn's face for the real reason for Lee's discharge, he was told it was because Lee had disappeared in August of 2000 and no one on the force had any idea where he was.
 That was also the time when Lee was hit over the head on the rooftop, if he was killed who could have done it- the real kidnapper or someone on the force? Park also found a bit of info that Lee was being framed for bribery around the time of his disappearance and to Park's dismay he's found evidence that the police force had set up the false bribery charge. But there the case went cold for him as too much of the evidence had been destroyed or altered, he's also drawn the suspicion of many on the force for looking into the disappearance of Lee.




 In the year 2015 it had only been a few weeks since Park last spoke with Lee but in Lee's world six years have passed and it's 1995. Lee is on a burglary case as some mastermind has broken into four homes, cracked their safes and left zero evidence. Park told him the case was still unsolved in 2015 but gave him a few tips that may help him and his team solve the case. Lee took his advice but used it for evil instead of arresting the right culprit.
 There was a man Lee had arrested in 1991 for burglary, he was now out of prison in 1995 and Lee had gotten to know the man Oh a bit better. Lee had watched over his daughter while he was in prison and while Oh shouldn't have been a suspect in the case he ended up being one for the wrong reason. That was because Lee was looking to forward his career and planted some bogus fingerprints at the last crime scene, they were Oh's who was arrested for the four break ins.
 Both Oh and his teenage daughter knew Lee had planted the evidence but their cries fell upon deaf ears. Lee arrested Oh and was bringing him to the station while Oh's daughter Eun-Ji was going home by bus. On the way to the station as the bus was traveling over the Hanyoung bridge it suddenly collapsed, sending the bus into a river killing Eun-Ji and most of the other passengers. That killing should have never taken place except for Lee's evilness in arresting Oh for the crimes, Lee had seemed like a devoted officer up until then but now we and Park wonder about that.




 When Park heard about the arrest he was furious as he knew there was no way Oh had committed the burglaries. Lee realized the huge error he made but it was too late to do anything about it, Oh was off to prison and his daughter was dead. Twenty years later that case would come back to haunt the force as Oh has just been released from prison and was now a hunted man.
 Hunted as three days after his release he broke into the home of a wealthy family and kidnapped their thirty three old daughter. Oh had never made a mistake in the past with his crimes but he did this time as he made sure to leave fingerprints and have his face captured by cameras. Park feels there's something wrong with the case, sure Oh was the kidnapper but he's wondering why did he set himself to be known so easily?
 Park's hunches may seem correct but he doesn't always say things properly to others. He said his thoughts to the entire force when he should have either have kept his mouth shut or expressed them differently. He made his supervisor Ahn so furious Ahn ended up punching him, he also took Park off the case. Going to end the recap here but more did happen and I'll explain why I stopped here.




 Wrote 95% of this up before I started on the sixth episode, currently have watched 2/3 of that show. The episode up until then has the cases between 1995 and 2015 intertwined so think it'd make much more sense to explain a bit of this episode in the next recap as so much happens. Also we learn a bit more of what happened back in 1995, some of the things that I've wrote about weren't true but those facts weren't revealed until the next show.
 So far the sixth episode has been the best to date, so much has happened and still have over twenty minutes more to watch. Won't give away any spoilers but we're going to find out if Lee can change events in 1995 that may save a life in 2015. That process will start but it may not get wrapped up until the seventh episode. If you read the next recap you'll understand why I stopped this one a bit short, let's hope the last third is as thrilling as the first two.

















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