This drama has steadily gotten better with each week, and there's nothing more pleasing than seeing how well Joo Won and Dong Shik work in tandem but more so how they use their love/hate relationship to throw everybody else around off-balance.
The best part is every time I think Joo Won doesn't have the capacity to get as dark, dangerous, or even as mysterious as Dong Shik is, he proves me wrong. And as much as they clash as much as they are similar in so many ways in what they both care for most as police officers if not in their personal lives. Having a flashback on Joo Won's life as a child, I can now see why he comes off as cold; who wouldn't with the kind of parents he's had, a bully for a father and an alcoholic for a mother. It's sad to think of it but so true that some of the most poisonous people come disguised as family and friends.
Notwithstanding that it's been quite evident from the very beginning that Chief Han, Councilwoman Do, and Lee Chang Jin's involvement in the evilness that has engulfed Manyang for the past 20 years, I'm still flabbergasted by why it all transpired but more so how. That both the Chief and the Councilwoman had Lee Chang-Jin cover up someone's precious child's murder like she was trash to save their own skins is utterly despicable. , But what was worse, Lee Chang-Jin using both situations as an opportunity to further his ambitions. They are all beyond evil.
I loved how everything transpired from the moment they announced Joo Won's father's appointment to his, and Lee Chang Jin's meeting on the very area where Dong Shik's sister's life was so cruelly snubbed from her and for Joo Won to find out that his father was indeed involved in everything from Kang Jin Mook to Nam Sang Bae, and worst of all Yu Yeon. The one murder he could never imagine would come back to his father. His pained reaction to what he was hearing was enough to break anyone's heart to a million pieces. I felt for him.
I must admit I so appreciated Joo Won this episode much more than I have throughout this drama for giving his father a chance to come clean and, not only that but the promise of a listening ear or was that his heart that was talking; blood is thicker than water after all. But the irony of it all is that in his demand for perfection, Chief Han forgot how imperfect a father and a man he'd become. As they say, perfection itself is imperfection.
It's so true that you thought you knew someone you don't know at all inside every person. It's funny how both Lee Chang-Jin and Chief Han thought if they cut Dong Shik off, they were in the clear not recognizing or maybe carelessly underestimating the power of who and what Joo Won had become. I cannot believe this show ends in a week, but at the same time, I cannot wait to see how the final two hours unfold for Dong Shik, Joo Won, and the town of Manyang. Watch Episode 14 here.