How To Launder Money
Episode 2 of A Model Family begins with Dong-Ha shocked that his wife is phoning this shady man. A message follows, asking if the man is okay and that she can’t get hold of him. These messages stretch back for a long time and that’s where Dong-Ha sees the video of Eun-Joo with this man inside a hotel room, bringing to life his worst nightmare. With the police investigation underway, we get a taste of exactly what’s going on here. Now, the Sangseon Ring supplies drugs while the Yongsoo Ring distributes them. After the drugs are sold and the Yongsoo Ring takes a cut for labor, the money is then sent back to the Sangseon Ring. The police received a tip-off about a delivery van that was meant for the Sangseon group so they followed it. Unfortunately, they lost it on the road. The same stretch of road one would assume that the men inside were brutally murdered. The thing is, this was an illegal operation so it puts the police – and namely Joo-Hyun who’s fronting this – in a difficult position. This is something made all the worse when we learn that one of the men inside the delivery van was actually an undercover agent working with the police. Kang-Jun and Yong-Soo want results and learns that Kwang-Chul is out in the suburbs working up some leads. While he talks to his subordinates, the police happen to be watching from afar, snapping photos and wondering what Kwang-Chul intends to do next. Back at Dong-ha’s house, Eun-Joo gives a brutal assessment of her husband’s ambitions and their life together. Things are too tough for her so she’s cutting her losses. They’ve never been on holiday nor had any luxuries, with Dong-Ha clinging to the belief that everything will get better once he starts working as a professor. The reality is, Eun-Joo is not prepared to wait that long so she wants to leave. Off the back of this, Dong-Ha checks online how to launder money. Between this, he plays with Hyun-Woo, unaware that the investigation is moving into his own back garden – almost quite literally given Hwang-Chul is watching them from afar. When Hyun-Woo collapses, Hwang-Chul scrambles over to do CPR as Hyun-Woo is rushed to hospital. The thing is, Hyun-Woo’s heart is sensitive and this is why he’s never done sports or extraneous activities before – because something like this would happen. Eun-Joo is angry when she finds out, questioning Dong-Ha’s parenting. Desperate to pay for his son’s hospital fees and surgery, Dong-Ha receives a tip-off from that laundry man online and decides to head off and meet him with some of the money in a bag. He follows the address to a place called Computer Assembly, where he’s told to head up to the fourth floor. According to this shadowy guy, they intend to launder his money through cryptocurrency. They’ll take a 30% cut and through the crypto wallets (which makes sense given cryptocurrency itself is one big scam) they’ll be able to trace the money back. Dong-Ha gets cold feet and runs away, diving out the window and hurrying across the parking lot. Hwang-Chul believes Dong-Ha’s neighbour is the one responsible for taking the money. Given the man is well known for growing marijuana in his house, he believes the guys are cops, unaware that they’ve killed his dog. It doesn’t take long for the weed guy to begin losing each of his toes. When he tries fighting back, the men eventually kill him. As they look over his dead body, they realize he’s not actually the one who’s taken the money after all. However, this does give us a taste of just how ruthless these guys are.
The Episode Review
A Model Family is turning into quite the thriller. With Kwang-Chul and his cronies closing in on where the money actually is, Dong-Ha’s attempts to launder that money come up short when he realizes the laundryman is asking too many questions. It’s clear by this point that Dong-Ha is in over his head and the foolish decision to take those dead bodies and bury them in his own back garden is probably going to cause all sorts of problems in the future. Although the scenario is a tad contrived, especially some of Dong-Ha’s actions, it’s fair to say he’s a man possessed and desperate to do what he can for his family. He’s also established over this season that he’s not the brightest guy either. One could argue that this is enough to drive him to insanity, and coupled with the stress he’s under it could explain his erratic actions. Either way, this is turning into a really gripping thriller and if this keeps up, we could be looking at another solid Netflix K-drama.
