Flying Close To The Sun
Flower Of Evil returns for another decent episode, one that sees Hee-Sung flying close to the sun and in danger of spilling his dark secret to Ji-Won. With another stand-alone case for our Detective to solve, the episode interweaves that with more revealing history for Hee-Sung’s past. E Episode 2 starts to deepen the characters and settle into a consistent rhythm that’ll almost certainly carry this through some deliciously twisted episodes to come. A brief flash to the past sees Hee-Sung practicing his smiling in the mirror and meeting Ji-Won for the first time. It’s a simple scene but one that shows just how long this deception has been going on for. From here, we then cut back in time as Ji-Won finds fragments of a broken tea cup in the workshop and questions her husband about it. Hee-Sung is definitely flying close to the sun though and she almost catches him out for the lies. “I thought you were a loser at school?” She quizzes, as he mentions his encounter was with a friend from school. Eventually though she shrugs this off and leaves things none the wiser to what’s happening. The nest day, police are called to the scene of another crime. This one sees a bloodied woman lying face down on the floor with her thumbnail missing. As Ho-Joon comments, this seems eerily similar to the Yeonju City serial murder case they had years ago. All the victims in that case had their thumbnails missing too. As they talk, Ji-Won contemplates whether there’s a copycat to that murder prowling around all these years later. Before that though, Ji-Won heads to the coroner’s where she hears the autopsy report for this victim. It’s a grisly affair too, including a broken ankle and multiple stab wounds. It’s here we also learns that Do Min-Seok was the name of the original killer all those years ago. As the plot thickens, it turns out the woman donated 370,000 dollars before she died, She was old and owned the building. Her only family comes from her son. Ji-Won continues to dive deep into the case but something doesn’t add up. If it really was a copycat killer, they’d know to use the dog leash just like in the past. Instead, this seems like pretty sloppy work. The multiple stab wounds also back up the theory that this seems to be the work of an amateur. Meanwhile, back at the warehouse Hee-Sung heads downstairs and takes the gag off Moo-Jin. “Why are you doing this?” He asks, as we cut back in time and see exactly what’s led him down this dark path. It turns out Moo-Jin used to bully him in school and tied the boy to a tree. With stones in hand, they threw countless rocks at Hee-Sung’s face. However, Hee-Sung doesn’t want to kill the man. Intead, he takes Moo-Jin’s phone and asks for the passcode. There, he makes Moo-Jin phone work and tell them he’ll be there the following day. As he hangs up, Moo-Jin learns the truth about Hee-Sung being Detective Cha’s husband. He openly admits to murder and eventually re-gags the man and leaves him there. Hee-Sung is called away to school with Ji-Won where they learn Eun-Ha has been hit in the nose after taking a toy from another child. While Ji-Won holds firm, Hee-Sung makes her apologise. Ji-Won is not happy though but Hee-Sung keeps up his facade and hides behind the fact it’s his first time being a Father. It seems to work too and she begrudgingly forgives him. On the back of this, Eun-Ha and Hee-Sung head out for lunch together where the little girl’s Farther admits that the doll has “gone missing”. Of course, that’s not 100% true as Hee-Sung was the one who took the doll and hid it. Back at the station, the officers come to blows over who the real killer actually is. As they check the will, a thumbprint in lipstick may just be a clue they need. Given how hard lipstick is to remove from the thumb, whoever it was that killed her cut the thumbprint off to try and hide it. This turns their gaze toward the social worker Park Seo-Young. Ji-Won heads off to see her but she refuses to give a fingerprint for analysis. Jae-Sub uses cryptic sentences from Seo-Young to find evidence stashed on the roof. It’s enough to incriminate her and Ji-Won eventually arrests the woman. As she does, we cut back in time and see this grisly murder play out. Not long after, she slaps the handcuffs on Park and she’s taken away. Hee-Sung returns to the basement and confronts a very thirsty Moo-Jin over entries in his diary regarding Nam Soon-Kil. It turns out he was meeting this man as he had a tip-off about Hyun-Soo in the past. As we soon learn, Hyun Soo is also Min-Seok’s son. This explains why he’s been obscuring and hiding his real name. After learning more about those closing in on his past, Hee-Sung collects Ji-Won from work and they head home together. Some time later, with rain hammering to the ground, a cloaked figure holding a rope arrives at a Chinese diner where Soon-Kil happens to be. Whoever he’s on the phone to is left a voicemail confirming that Hyun-Sae (Hee-Sung) is there. After stabbing the man in the chest, Hee-Sung heads into the back and wedges the bloodied knife into the wall. Eventually Hee-Sung returns home where Ji-Won sees him enter wearing that large black coat, which is where the episode ends.
The Episode Review
With the plot thickening, there’s some interesting character dynamics at play here. Seeing Eun-Ha’s innocence slowly chip away thanks to Hee-Sung’s parenting is something that may prove to be his undoing going forward. On top of that, Hee-Sung’s past ties to Min-Seok finally allow us to understand why he’s hiding under a false identity. Of course, that’s only one side of the story and seeing him relentlessly bullied as a teen may explain what drove him to snap and go on this murderous run. Ji-Won’s cases at work are intriguing though and this dual-snapshot of storylines help to mirror the double-life Hee-Sung is playing. There’s some nice work done to distinguish the more straight forward crime drama from the thriller elements and this is great to see. The future certainly looks intriguing though and the series leaves things wide open for next week’s double bill of episodes!
