"Taxi Driver" Korean drama season two: Episode thirteen recap

 

Air Dates: 17th until April 15, 2023. Friday and Saturday nights at 9:00 pm on SBS/ViuTV

Director: Lee Dan    Screenwriter: Oh Sang-Ho.... This episode's rating: 16.1%

This series ran for 1070 minutes or close to 67 minutes an episode.

Main Cast: The five heroes from Jang's 'Revenge Squad' are also in this second season. The only major character who didn't return was the prosecutor Kang Ha-Na so don't know if Jang's crew will be feeling any pressure from the authorities. She was mentioned in the opening minutes and also her superior won't be in this series. The top five names below are the 'Revenge Squad', think at least one more major character will be added in plus will be doing a lot of editing in the first half of the series. The bottom characters will be the guest stars for the story, for the first case will leave them there for two recaps. If you didn't read the posts or view the first season highly recommend that you do as it's my top drama from the last three years. Here are the links to the final two episodes of season one if you want to get a feel for the series:

Episode fifteen .... Episode sixteen

**** Towards the end of the sixth episode there was a conspiracy storyline added in involving the new driver On. He's not what he appears to be and On's aim is to bring down Jang's team and the story is getting more intense as we go along.

 Lee Je-Hoon as Kim Do-Gi.... Everyone on Jang's team is important but Do-Gi is the most essential part of the team. He used to be a member of the Special Forces of the Korean military and is truly one unbeatable fighter. Shortly after Do-Gi was discharged from the military his mother was murdered by a serial killer and that was a key story in the first season. After that killing is when Do-Gi was recruited by Jang to be a part of his 'revenge squad', after being together for over three years the team was disbanded at the end of season one. But Do-Gi kept in touch with his mentor and after two years rejoined fighting evil with Jang, soon the other three completed the team.

 Kim Eui-Sung as Jang Sing-Chul.... Leader of the 'revenge squad' and for well over a year it was a solo project. Jang also owns the Rainbow Taxi company which is a semi cover for his team, he also runs a victim's organization called Blue Bird. At the end of the first season Jang felt his squad had done all they could do so disbanded the team, think he was also worried for their safety. However Jang did secretly keep in touch with Do-Gi and in the first episode the pair did work on two revenge cases. The second case was so intense the rest of the old 'revenge squad' found out some details about it and Jang eventually brought them back into the fold. Jang below was telling the police after the squad's disbandment that he did everything by himself but the charges were soon dropped.

Pyo Ye-Jin as Ahn Go-Eun.... Her sister had been framed by a sex con artist and because of that had committed suicide. That was over five years ago and after hearing Eun-Go's story Jang recruited her to be a member of his squad. Go-Eun is the techno whiz of the team and there's seemingly nothing computer related she can't do. After Jang broke the team up Go-Eun took the civil service exam, when the series began she was working for the police in their Information Management division though soon returned to Jang's squad in the second episode.

 Jang Hyuk-Jin as Choi Kyung-Goo.... Was the head mechanic at Rainbow Taxi and really knew how to 'soup up' Do-Gi's vehicle. When the 'revenge squad' was disbanded Choi went back to being a researcher testing out new automobiles but he really missed working with his mates. At the end of the second show he, Park and Go-Eun all quit their new jobs to return to Jang's 'revenge squad'.

 

Bae Yoo-Ram as Park Jin-Eon.... In real life him and the above man are a comedy team who also appear in many dramas together. Below is Park on the left, Choi is on the right. Park comes off as being a bit goofy but what an intelligent man he is! What he did after the team broke up was to work for Korea's version of NASA designing spaceships but was about to be transferred to Russia(?) for five years.

Shin Jae-Ha as On Ha-Jun/Kim Don-Woo.... New driver for Rainbow Taxi who we first met in the third episode. There are two names for him as On is the alias he's using while working as a driver. In episode six it was confirmed that On is some sort of agent and is targeting Jang's squad.... but why?! That we discovered in the seventh episode as On is a director of the underground Geumsa organization and Jang's team have thwarted his criminal activities. In the eleventh episode On did quit as a driver for he thought his task at bring down Do-Gi was complete, did that come back to haunt him!

 Park Jong-Hwan as Park Hyeon-Jo.... Don't know much about him yet but think he will be a major character and also a thorn in the side of Jang! Park works for the Northeast Seoul PD and is also an executive at the Geumsa Organization which appears to be a shady outfit. Finally saw him in episode seven and is working with On. Added in a second pic of Park below as it was revealed in episode twelve he's the main owner of the Black Sun nightclub which is a very shady place. Not a huge role for Park but it's turning into an important one. Crime does pay for at the end of episode 13 it was announced Park would become the Seoul police chief!

 ****Guest stars for the sixth story which is the only one that will last for four episodes. 

Baek Soo-Jang as Kim Yung-Min.... Once a respected reporter for Hanbaek Daily but was fired for taking bribes. These days Kim is mainly a tabloid reporter and is trying to write a story about the Black Sun club which is very shady and secret. Below is Kim who was so irate at Do-Gi from saving him from a beating by the Black Sun guards! Added in a second screenshot form episode twelve, Kim at the time was explaining to Do-Gi about the suicide/murder of his detective friend Choi and became the sixth 'revenge case' requestor for this season. 

Jang In-Sub as Choi Seong-Yun.... We won't be seeing much of him in this story but he is a very key character. About a year before Choi had been investigating the criminal activities at the Black Sun club and had gotten most of his info from the above reporter Kim. The pair were friendly and Choi got too close to the truth as he was killed though it was labeled as a suicide. Kim knew that wasn't the truth and is trying to find out who Choi's murderers were.

Kim Chae-Eun as Windy.... Agent/hostess at the ritzy Black Sun nightclub, an attractive woman but wouldn't trust her with your worst enemy!

Yoo Ji-Yeon as Yang Mi-Kyung.... Is known as Madam Yang and is the CEO for the Black Sun club. What a cruel woman she is and seems to know the ex-driver On very well.

Jeon Jun-Ho as Jang.... Head of security at the Black Sun nightclub. Tough man but the agent/hostess Windy has him sewn around her finger.

Go Geon-Han as Victor.... Popular singing Idol though he is close to thirty in age and is a VIP member of the Black Sun club. He's also an ally of the corrupt superintendent Park and sets him up with some very young females. 

Moon Jae-Won as Yoo Moon-Hyeon.... Black Sun's other main manager and like everyone else who works there is such a cruel person but did take a liking towards Do-Gi.

Below are the two detectives who actually are undercover men for Black Sun and protect the club. They may have also had a hand in the death of their detective mate Choi. The screenshots below them are of the Black Sun nightclub.

 

Previous recaps.... Not every post needs to be read but don't have time to discuss a lot of what has taken place many shows before. So could help to skim through some older recaps, especially the previous recap to see where we stand. The stories last for two episodes though the sixth story ran from the eleventh to fourteenth episode. 

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three .... Episode four

Episode five .... Episode six .... Episode seven .... Episode eight

Episode nine .... Episode ten .... Episode eleven .... Episode twelve

 An odd scene near the end of this episode where Do-Gi drank some drugged whiskey and though it doesn't show it was almost run over by multiple cars. He was saved by Go-Eun and this video is subbed in English.

  
 

 

 Will be adding in one more new character for the next recap, the final one of this four episode story. You may not realize it but am zipping through this series much faster than I do for most dramas. In the last week have viewed five episodes which isn't a huge total but when you add in that this is also the fifth recap written up the time factor is a bit high. After the pair of posts for today there's just two more episodes to go but for all fans there will be a third season in 2024 though no start date has been announced. Undecided what will be up next, am thinking the Japanese drama "Gifted" which is just an eight episode series and I need an easier one to recap. But would prefer doing posts for the "Black Familia" drama that began a few weeks back but to date have heard no news if it'll be subbed. Think next for a Korean drama will be "Zombie Detective" which aired three years ago but kept saying I would get around to viewing it and think that time is rapidly approaching.

 No cliffhanger to end the twelfth episode and what a story this one is which lasted for four episodes. Do mention Jang's name often but never talk about him that much, he is the owner of Rainbow Taxi and also the leader of the 'revenge squad' and they need a catchy name. That's Jang in the above three screenshots and they're from two short scenes in this show. Jang is still trying to dig up info about the very mysterious ex-driver On and did he have anything to do with Do-Gi almost getting killed when his taxi exploded at the end of the tenth episode? Of course we viewers know On ordered the hit on Do-Gi and Jang had checked the GPS locations of where On drove his taxi. One odd place was in the second screenshot and Jang wasn't allowed to enter the facility which happens to be On's mansion and the HQ for his Geumsa organizations activities. In that bottom screenshot Jang had been looking into On's past as he had told Jang he had grown up in an orphanage but a lot of records had been destroyed over the last twenty years and Jang hasn't made much headway in his investigation.... yet! Now on to the regular recap and once again so much took place and have more screenshots than usual.

 As mentioned no cliffhanger as usual to end an episode but at the conclusion of the last show Jang's team has decided to take the revenge case of Kim. You can read much more about him in the last recap, very briefly he was a respected reporter for a daily newspaper until ten months ago. Kim had given a trusted detective named Choi a lot of info about the very shady and upscale Black Sun nightclub which led to Choi's murder though it was ruled a suicide. Kim began to investigate the death and soon found himself framed for things he never did which ended his journalism career. Since then he's been trying to discover what really took place with Choi and all leads keep going back to the Black Sun club. Choi had worked at the Jeongsam police station and was one of the few honest detectives there. In the third screenshot above you will see three other officers who had worked at the station and all are corrupt! On the left is Jang who is now head of security at the Black Sun club. The other two men are Jang and Jo, both still are officers at the precinct but are actually working for Black Sun and anything  illegal that happens there gets squashed by these two slimebags. We've seen that twice already, once when Do-Gi was arrested by these creeps but was sprung out by the reporter Kim, the other was when they arrested an innocent woman who had been secretly drugged.

 So the Black Sun club is the biggest part of solving the mystery of Choi's murder but it goes much deeper than that as we'll soon discover. The main mission for Do-Gi and his comrades is to infiltrate the club which is easier said than done as their security there is so tight. But Do-Gi has gotten a job as a guard at Black Sun and it was thanks to him that the drugged woman mentioned hadn't been sexually abused. What Do-Gi had been assigned to do was drive that drugged woman to a hotel, in the back of the vehicle were two men escorting her. The unnamed woman would have been brought to the room of the Idol singer Victor who would have sexually abused her. Much more about in him the previous two recaps and you'll be hearing more about Victor a bit further down. But trailing Do-Gi's car was the reporter Kim and because of that the woman never made it to the hotel though things didn't work out quite well for her. The following night at the Black Sun club the security manager Jang was furious with the two men that hadn't delivered the woman to Victor and gave them a bit of a beating, not Do-Gi for the head manager Yoo does like him. As mentioned Do-Gi's main aim is to find evidence of any illegal activities but hadn't much success as even guards don't have access to the management offices. But in the bottom screenshots above Do-Gi had trailed Jang to an underground office, when Jang left Do-Gi was able to slip in. At the office were Black Sun computers and for the first time Do-Gi was able to download a ton of info to a USB drive for the tech whiz Go-Eun, that's her in the second to last screenshot above.

 The computer hadn't been hooked up to the main Black Sun database and the only thing on the USB dive were some shot MP4 videos. At first the 'revenge squad' were disappointed with their discovery but that evidence soon became extremely important. The videos showed drugged woman leaving the Black Sun club and what was the purpose of he videos? It was soon surmised that the club taped these woman leaving the club under their own power and no Black Sun employee had anything to do with the women showing up at the hotel which was called Grand L. So these creeps were covering their own tracks and there were also videos of these women entering the hotel where they would be abused. The guards were hiding while the videos were made so all of them just showed a woman walking alone. What kind of drug could to that and that will be found out in the next episode. After I wrote the above segment up took a break and viewed the final part of this story. So things are becoming a bit more clearer on what takes place at the seedy yet upscale Black Sun nightclub. Selling drugs is a huge activity there but to date Do-Gi hasn't seen any deals done. Now the 'revenge squad' know that the club is drugging woman and sending them to a hotel to be violated, there's a few other illegal happenings going on.

 That Idol singer Victor is one of the more elite VIP members at Black Sun and his presence brings in a lot of business. To say he was irate that his 'delivery' wasn't made the previous night would be an understatement, he wants another 'Doll' that night. These drugged up women brought to him and other VIP guests are called Dolls and probably because they can't move! Victor wants his old 'buddy' Do-Gi to make the delivery and the main person running this cruel scheme is the agent/hostess Windy. Being new Do-Gi wasn't allowed to take a Doll to a room, he was joined by two other guards. Victor had picked out a young woman from the club's dance floor and Windy had slipped that drug GHB into her drink, more about the drug in the next recap. This woman could barely stand up and Do-Gi did witness how the club taped those videos of a woman leaving, also when the woman entered the Grand L Hotel. The guards brought this woman to Victor's room and she was powerless to do anything, Victor wasn't in the room at the time but soon showed up. The guards had left but Do-Gi complained of stomach pains and said he had to duck into a bathroom. Instead he zoomed up to Victor's room, when this creep answered the door Do-Gi gave him the most violent kick you have ever seen and Victor was out for the count! Arriving soon were the two mechanics Choi and Park who put Victor in a laundry bin and hauled him away. Also arriving was Go-Eun who took the helpless woman away and made sure she would be in safe hands. So for the second time Do-Gi has saved a woman from being abused but there's so much more to do about Black Sun's other activities.

 It's nice to see Do-Gi mete out a harsh punishment but it hasn't happened as often as it did in season one. Later that evening Victor arose in an auto graveyard where he had been tied up. Behind the controls of a crane was Do-Gi who dropped a car just feet from Victor's head! Do-Gi never kills these creeps though some have deserved it, Do-Gi gave Victor a harsh mini speech about the cruelty he had been doing towards woman while this lowlife pleaded for his life. Do-Gi did spare him and we learned what the final outcome was for Victor in the next recap. There are so many illegal happenings going on at Black Sun, so many it'd be hard to bring them down in one fell swoop. So little by little Jang's 'revenge squad' is doing minor things to make the leaders of Black Sun feel ultra uncomfortable. Such as what took place with Do-Gi saving this two drugged women and that's actually not minor as the club makes a huge amount of money from that sick form of prostitution. Go-Eun did go through all of the videos on that USB drive Do-Gi had obtained, there's thousands of women in these videos so this operation has been going on for a while. The only video with a man in it featured the murdered detective Choi and it's because of his death Jang's team took this revenge case. The video had shown Choi leaving the Black Sun club and he too had been drugged, these videos are just in case the police ever investigate but they never do as the local precinct is under the control of the Black Sun club!

 Above in the middle two screenshots is the ex-Rainbow Taxi driver On, he's also an important director for the Geumsa criminal organization. He was talking with Madam Yang from the Black Sun club, she's a high ranking exec there. What the two were discussing was a drug deal and though we haven't seen anything yet the biggest business at the Black Sun is dealing drugs. On above says a hundred kilograms will be in the next deal which shocked Madam Yang, she was even more taken back when On changed his mind and upped the amount to two hundred kilograms that will be delivered to her. The screenshot below that is from a phone conversation On was having with his Geumsa group mate Park, both have to work closely together though they despise each other. Park is such a corrupt superintendent for the Seoul police and he had a pleasant bit of news for On. Which is that Park could be next in line to become the new Seoul police commissioner and that's going to make their strong criminal organization even more powerful! The screenshots are at the end of the post but the bottom two above are from a scene where Jang's team threw another monkey wrench into the activities at the Black Sun club. The 'revenge squad' leader Jang had ordered over a hundred VIP passes that night at the club and brought over a hundred senior citizens from a dancing club with him! Those passes are expensive to say the least and Jang probably felt his team will be reimbursed once they bring Black Sun down. With so many senior citizens at the club the regular young crowd was so put off they streamed out and business that night came to a halt as the managers decided to close up, another minor victory for Jang's team.

 Final segment and there were only about twelve minutes to go in the episode but just so much took place. As you can see in the above two screenshots the 'revenge squad' is still so upset at what the Black Sun club has been doing to innocent young woman, especially fuming was Go-Eun. But after those two incidents where the Do-Gi saved the day seems that cruel operation has been put on ice until the security is improved. Was talking about that major drug deal that On had been setting up for Madam Yang and this will continue on into the next episode. Two hundred kilograms of the drug GHB are scheduled to arrive from overseas, On will take care of storing it and then delivering to Madam Yang. However at first it seemed the deal was a huge bust, that's in the third to fifth screenshots above. The Korean police had gotten wind of the shipment and made a major drug bust and naturally Madam Yang was furious to the Nth degree! On wasn't and though it wasn't mentioned at the time I had an inkling on what took place. The bust was arranged by the corrupt police superintendent Park who is in the middle screenshot. To stop such a huge shipment of drugs entering Korea made him even more of a hero and that just may cement Park's chance to become the next commissioner of the Seoul police. But more importantly also thought that the drugs wouldn't be kept by the police and Park would make sure they were delivered to On. Having viewed the next episode that is what took place and actually the scheme is much more detailed than that. 

 Do-Gi has been taking a huge gamble at exposing himself after his fake death, sooner or later you'd think someone would recognize him. Hasn't happened yet but Do-Gi was recognized but by something he did after being hired as a guard at Black Sun. The main manager at the club is Yoo who had taken a liking towards Do-Gi and was the one who hired him as a guard. That's Yoo in the bottom screenshot above and the first one below, he had been showing Do-Gi a video that was taped outside of the Black Sun club. It was of Do-Gi talking with the reporter Kim who is public enemy #1 at the club for trying to find a connection between them and the death of the detective Choi. Yoo had ordered Do-Gi to drink a few glasses of his special whiskey, special because it contained that drug GHB!!!! Soon Do-Gi was in the same comatose state as those drugged girls and was hauled away by Yoo's goons. Luckily outside the club was Go-Eun and the two mechanics who tailed the car Do-Gi was thrown into. That car stopped at a very busy intersection and Do-Gi was shoved out of the door into the street. When a person makes a comment to someone under the influence of GBH they will often follow the order, in this case Do-Gi was told to walk into the middle of the busy intersection.... to his death! However there were some saviors for Do-Gi as Go-Eun rushed to the scene and dragged Do-Gi out of the way, the mechanics even drove their van into a truck to prevent it from hitting the pair. The following day Do-Gi arose at the hospital and had no recollection of what had taken place and was still so groggy from the drug. That scene ended this episode and it will begin the next show, the first seven below screenshots are more of what took place in those final minutes. After this post is the recap for the next episode which finishes off this four part story.