"Taxi Driver" Korean drama season two: Episode fifteen 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: 15.7%

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

 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. There's even more bio info for him and the others on the 'revenge squad' in the recaps for season one.

 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! On is not his real name and actually that has remained unknown. When he was about ten in age On was sent to live at The Bishop's orphanage, he ended up accidentally killing a boy and took his name. 

 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! Not for long as the 'revenge squad' was able to nail Park for stealing drugs, that made him a liability to the Geumsa group and On ended up strangling him to death. 

 ****Guest stars for the seventh and final story, the top character is carried over from episode fourteen.

Park Ho-San as Park Min-Jeon aka The Bishop.... Will just refer to him as The Bishop as that was the name used 100% of the time. The Bishop is the leader of the criminal Geumsa organization that has On and the police superintendent Park as the two main directors. This man is a true bishop and as you can see below does lead services for his followers. The Bishop has just returned to Korea after a long pilgrimage, not to look for anything religious but to find some new buyers for his lucrative drug dealing trade! At the beginning of the fifteenth episode The Bishop was the seventh and final revenge requestor for this season. However it was all a ruse and Jang's team fell for the trick as they had no clue who The Bishop was.... yet!

Kim Chang-Hwan as Lee Si-Wan.... Though the above was the actual revenge requestor Jang's team ended up working on Lee's case. He had been working at the Shinwoo Bank and had been noticing an increase in recent suspect foreign transactions and many had to deal with Guemsa. Lee reported his findings to the authorities and soon after had been framed for an attempted murder! Lee was sent to prison awaiting trial so that meant he couldn't testify about his suspect findings. The Bishop of all people hired Jang's team to help out Lee but that was just a trick to get the 'revenge squad' to reveal themselves. That's Lee below, he did look like a normal office worker but had been roughed up in prison.... actually for a while there had been a bounty on his head! Below that is another picture of Lee, when The Bishop asked Jang's team for help he claimed to be Lee's father.... and they fell for the trick!

Yoon Sang-Ho as Bae Ki-Seok.... Warden at the Jangsa Prison where Lee and then Do-Gi were prisoners. Not a huge role but somewhat important as Bae works for the Geumsa organization and does seem to know On well. The number 5283 below happens to be Do-Gi's number, he uses that all the time as it's also the license plate number of his taxi.

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

Episode thirteen .... Episode fourteen

 Video from this episode which is subbed in English. Do-Gi looks battered and is in prison, he was having a fierce conversation with On and will talk about it in this recap.

 

 

 

 Here we are with the final two recaps, won't be viewing the final episode until this post is finished. Did some final editing to the above characters and added in two guest stars. Not patting myself on the back but that above section for this and other dramas does end up looking mighty impressive. Sure you won't find anything more detailed out there and it truly does help checking that section out for info as I need to do that on occasion too. This was another intense episode and had much more violence which was mainly because so much of the action took place in a prison. So once again this may be a long recap and it's hard to make these shorter as so much takes place. This intro section is often for personal thoughts and such but need to begin off with a paragraph talking about the above three screenshots. Will refer to some older incidents and info but don't have time to discuss them fully so if you haven't been reading these recaps may help to skim though the more recent ones. The first four minutes of this scene were of a flashback that took place about twenty years ago. It continued on showing an incident of when On was about twenty in age, would peg his current age in this show to be the 27-30 range. Those above screenshots are from the flashback and will begin off with it.

At about eight about years old On had been sent to live at the Welfare Home for Brothers and Sisters which was an orphanage run by a much younger The Bishop. For some odd reason On did not have a name and how could that be possible? He was bullied by the other kids at the orphanage, one boy really picked on On endlessly. So badly one day he pushed this boy so hard into a rock statue the boy ended up dying! This bully's name had been On Ha-Jun and after the bully died The Bishop gave On his name. On hadn't been upset at all about killing the boy and that impressed The Bishop mightily, so much he took On to be a protege' and taught him the criminal ways of the world!!!! That middle screenshot above was when On had murdered his first person, because of that he received from The Bishop the very prestigious Geumsa ring. They're a very elite and unknown criminal organization, wearing a ring means you're a powerful director. We did find out later on the orphanage was not what it should have been and most of the children had been ruthlessly killed! Those murders would be squashed by the then police sergeant Park who later became a Geumsa director though was killed by On at the end of the fourteenth episode. Below Do-Gi is talking about the ring and noticing one on a finger of a high ranking Geumsa thug helped his team solve the previous Black Sun case.... whew, only a four minute scene but so much info was packed into it.

 There's two stories involved in this final season two case and will combine them. At the very end of episode fourteen to our shock entering Do-Gi's Deluxe Taxi was The Bishop though at the time Do-Gi nor anyone on his revenge team knew who he was. After the first flashback scene we returned to Do-Gi's taxi and The Bishop told him the whole story of why he wants to enlist the help of Jang's 'revenge squad'. **** This hiring of the team was mainly a ruse by The Bishop to get Jang's team to expose themselves. But most of what The Bishop said was the truth so the five member team didn't have any reason to think something shady was going on. This info is true which is that The Bishop told Do-Gi that a man named Lee had discovered many shady foreign transactions going on at the Shinwoo Bank where Lee worked. Most of those transactions had been from Geumsa and also others from Black Sun criminals who had escaped. So many in those two criminal groups were trying to raise as much cash as possible before they had to go on the lam and Lee could easily tell something very fishy was going on. He reported it to the authorities and was supposed to testify in court next week against these people.

 However one night in the parking garage below the bank Lee had been set up by the man in the third screenshot above. This thug claimed Lee had stabbed him with a knife, the thug actually cut himself up and was bleeding badly. So Lee was dragged away and sent to prison awaiting trial for attempted murder! That was all arranged by The Bishop and On, with Lee in prison he couldn't testify against the shady financial dealings Geumsa and its members were doing. Most of that above story did happen and it was easily checked out by the tech whiz Go-Eun in the bottom screenshot above. One thing she didn't check was the background of The Bishop for he claimed to be Lee's father and wanted Jang's team to avenge his son's bogus murder charges! Back at the HQ of Jang's 'revenge squad' Do-Gi related the whole story to his mates and all agreed quickly to help out Lee but doing so may be their downfall! There's two very important things for this operation, the first is to make sure Lee is protected in prison, the second is to somehow make sure he testifies at the upcoming trial against the evil Geumsa group. The best and possibly only way to make sure those are successful are by entering the Jangsa Prison, soon Do-Gi was an inmate there. Not only him but the two mechanics Choi and Park also joined their mate and they were useful. Go-Eun was able to hack into the prison's computer system and took care of all of the details in record time. Perhaps she did all that too easily as I'm thinking that the Geumsa group gave Go-Eun easy access to their system as that's the move they wanted Jang's team to make.

 Prison obviously is no Summer Camp as the two mechanics learned as they were roughed up a bit by their cellmates. You never have to worry about Do-Gi as an army of fifty wouldn't be enough against him and that we'll see near the end! Do-Gi had given his cellmates a taste of his fighting skills but     Do-Gi felt correctly he needs to have the respect of everyone at the prison or at least have them very frightened of him. So beginning with that day's lunch at the prison's cafeteria Do-Gi began to act like an out of control psycho and really pummeled quite a few men twice as large as he was. That psycho act worked to a T as all of the inmates were soon cowering in fear of Do-Gi. Above you will see Do-Gi handing a prisoner a piece of paper, that man had been selling items illegally smuggled in and Do-Gi told this man to get his request or else! That item Do-Gi wanted was given to the smuggler by Go-Eun which is right above, it was a bottle of Pepper spray. That bottle Do-Gi gave to Lee to use against others in case Do-Gi wasn't there to defend him. Do-Gi had heard there was a huge bounty on Lee's head so began to get a bit closer to this man who was wrongfully accused of attempted murder. With Do-Gi around Lee the other inmates stayed away and even by the end of this episode Lee never knew Do-Gi was in prison to protect him.

 In the second to last screenshot above Do-Gi was talking with Go-Eun via a transmitter that was hidden in his glasses, Do-Gi often wears them on assignment. He was telling her how things had been going so smoothly and that did make him very suspicious, no doubt because many prisoners were under the control of the Geumsa group. There was much more to that conversation though we viewers didn't know that until the very end of the show and it may have been the key scene to the episode. Mentioned before that it appeared the Geumsa group made it easy for Go-Eun to hack into their database and she's always so aware of things so can't believe she didn't realize what was going on. Now that things with Lee were settled down it was time to spring him and make sure he testifies at the trial about illegal trading that had been going on. Go-Eun arranged in the prison database for Lee to be discharged for a day, she also set it up for Do-Gi, Choi and Park to be on the same bus and all four would be soon be heading back to Seoul. All except for Do-Gi as just before the prison bus left the Jangsa warden Bae came on the bus and told his guards to bring Do-Gi back to his cell. The mechanics erupted in a fury but Do-Gi said to settle down and make sure Lee remained safe, Do-Gi can handle himself and thought he could be out in no time. Which didn't quite happen by the end of the episode and what Do-Gi noticed leaving the bus was very crucial, the warden Bae was wearing a Geumsa group ring!!!!

 Back to his cell went Do-Gi and he could notice how much the tension in the prison had risen in the hour he was outside with his mates. Do-Gi was the focus of that tension and every inmate had Do-Gi as their target as there was now a.... million dollar bounty for his head!!!! But there's more than that for Do-Gi to worry about as later on that night arriving at his cell was none other than.... his bitter nemesis On! Did say that the prison warden was a member of the Geumsa group and from the warden's office On had been watching everything that had taken place since Do-Gi arrived at Jangsa Prison. On didn't interfere with anything Do-Gi did and though an enemy On does respect him so much. On also didn't try stop any of the 'revenge squad's' plans until the bus carrying Lee and the two mechanics left the prison. On smirkingly said that Lee would never make it to court as his henchmen had intercepted the bus so Lee, Choi and Park are now his prisoners. To top it off On said his thugs had nabbed Go-Eun from the van outside of the prison, she too was his captive and how does Do-Gi feel with his closest friends being very close to death?!!!! Naturally Do-Gi was beside himself with anger and of course vowed to bring down On but it's tough to do so when you're locked up, the video of that scene is near the top and is subbed in English. 

 Not as much violence in this season but to me Do-Gi seems like a much better fighter and he's going to need to be! On returned to the warden's office to watch the proceedings as there's a wall of monitors set up to view what takes place at the Jangsa Prison. On also had access to the doors and alarms there, he can open any door when he wants to and did that to Do-Gi's cell. Also to many others and what took place is in the bottom screenshots above. Wave after wave of inmates came after Do-Gi and he must have taken down over fifty of them, of course all wanted to get that million bounty for killing Do-Gi! Though he may not appear so Do-Gi is just human, soon there were too many inmates to count pummeling Do-Gi, he put up a good fight but in the end was defeated. So we don't know what happened after that but the outcome, which is near the end of the show, was quite gratifying. A person who hasn't been discussed too much if at all this recap is the leader of the 'revenge squad' who is of course Jang. He did have 3-4 important scenes and thought it'd be better to group them all together, they're the top screenshots below. We learned that in the previous episode the soon to be Seoul police commissioner Park had called Jang while the raid against him and the Black Sun club was taking place. Park was beyond corrupt and pleaded for Jang to help him out, if so Park would give him much info about the illegal activities Geumsa and Black Sun had been doing. Jang never did help Park out who did give Jang the number of an archive file at the Seoul prosecutor's office, in the file is more than enough info to bring everyone down.

Final segment and so many things can happen in such a short amount of time in this drama. Jang is well known at the prosecutor's office and was able to enter the archives room, why wasn't it locked? He did find the file Park had talked about and the corrupt police commissioner was right as there was a huge amount of damaging info about the Geumsa group. Also in the file was the address of their HQ so Jang soon headed there, I'm wondering was this all a setup by Park and his leader The Bishop? The Guemsa HQ was on the same grounds as the orphanage The Bishop had run, think it's now closed. Jang had no problem entering and that too was a trap as soon enough he was subdued by a guard, then brought to a massive dining room where The Bishop was having dinner. The pair are enemies but were respectful towards each other though Jang sure knows how to get under the skin of someone. He had read the file Park had composed and found out some very inhumane activities had happened at the orphanage. Such as these children were actually kidnapped from their parents and couldn't quite understand why it had happened. The Bishop tried to train these children from a young age to become criminal masters and hopefully one day would be joining his Geumsa organization.

 Which rarely happened as The Bishop just wanted the best of the best such as On. When it was realized the children would not be suitable for his criminal group The Bishop had them slaughtered, am wondering if he truly is a bishop. The conversation did go on for a bit longer but had no conclusion, is Jang a prisoner(?) and if so the conclusion of this scene will be in the final episode. Last scene and after that hundred to one melee Do-Gi was involved in he woke up in the Jangsa Prison warden's office. Do-Gi was so badly beaten yet still had to be tied up, also in the room was his arch rival On. Who couldn't stop gloating that he finally topped Do-Gi, in the warden's office are cameras that were set up all around the prison so On had such a fun time watching Do-Gi get beaten! The first eight screenshots below are from the final few minutes and they should be checked out. You can see in the top screenshot there is a camera that was focusing on Do-Gi's teammates Go-Eun, Choi and Park, on the ground was Lee. On had said his team had captured the bus bringing Lee to testify as court and had also taken Go-Eun as a hostage from the van parked outside the prison.

 But guess who had the last laugh? Of course Do-Gi did for what On was viewing was a loop of the four hostages and they had all escaped! Before Jang had gone to The Bishop's HQ he had stopped to talk with Go-Eun and Jang knew his team was had been set up badly by On and his goons. So the plan was to be captured by On's henchmen to throw off any suspicions, Choi had a bottle of Pepper spray and was able to subdue the captors on the prison rooftop. Then Go-Eun set the camera to repeat what it had filmed over and over, of course On was clueless about any of that. Soon the quartet left the rooftop and Lee was able to make it to court on time to testify against the Geumsa group, two high ranking officials have already been arrested! The warden Bae had rushed in with the info and had changed the channel to the news. Bae had called several of his group who are preparing to flee, does On want to join them? That's unknown for now but of course by this time On's fury was at the Nth degree. In the final few seconds he grabbed a pistol and pointed it right at the head of Do-Gi, the eighth screenshot down, and will he pull the trigger? Maybe but even so we know that Do-Gi has to live and what an intense final twenty minutes this episode was, perhaps the best ending to date. That finally wraps up this recap and it's on to view the final episode which is the next post.