Blackmail
Following the cliffhanger last week, Good Casting returns for another episode that sees very little of Mi-Soon while progressing the main narrative after Chan-Mi’s kidnapping. With Michael closing in on our trio and a much darker crime thriller starting to filter in, Good Casting loses some of that initial charm with its comedy to pave way for more tension. Episode 9 of Good Casting begins with the car infront of Ye-Eul throwing a phone out with a call from her daughter. At the same time Chan-Mi is bundled into the back of the NIS agent’s car but she awakens and starts choking the driver out, eventually crashing and knocking him out so she can escape. Ye-Eul rushes to her daughter’s side where she sits outside a cafe. However, in exchange for her daughter’s safety she’s forced to disclose what her team mates are doing. Unfortunately the culprit is Mr Ok and he’s even infiltrated Ye-Eul’s house too, spying through the camera and stopping her from messaging Team Leader Bong about what happened. A disgruntled Chief Tak makes his move and phones Director Gye-Cheol demanding half the money he has stashed away. However, things take an even wilder turn when Cheol-Woong winds up dead thanks to a mysterious assassin sneaking in and dispatching him in the middle of the night. Chan-Mi and the others arrive back at the NIS and begin sifting through the CCTV to find the culprit. For now, the only thing they have to work with is the White Collar outfit. They then quickly track the registration too which leads back to a man named Gwang-Hyeok. As they head out to investigate further, Chief Seo arrives and relieves Dong of duty. He also holds a meeting with the intent of breaking the team up and tells them Chief Tak killed Cheol-Woong and they have the evidence on his yacht to prove it. Chan-Mi returns to the NIS and confronts Chief Seo about what he’s been up to. However, Chan-Mi is called out over her previous relations with CEO Yoon and reveals to the team that he’s the same man she dated in college. Chan-Mi heads back to work and receives an email advising her to leave her post and abandon the mission before midnight. That evening though, Chan-Mi receives a call from Chief Tak suggesting they team up. He admits to being at the hospital that evening but he didn’t kill Cheol-Woong – someone else got there first and he has the video evidence to prove it. He also confirms Michael killed him but for him to cooperate with her, she needs to bring him the ledger. Meanwhile, So-Ri speaks to Chief SEO about his promotion and tells him to do better going forward. As it happens, Chief Seo may not be the ringleader of this operation after all. Woo-Seok meanwhile learns about Director Myeong’s office only being controlled by 2 people and after some digging, learns that it seems to be opened by a remote control. After reconvening as a team and feeding back what they’ve all learned, Chan-Mi confirms she’s going to steal the ledger for Chief Tak. Only, when the van departs Ye-Eul is forced to phone her blackmailer and admit what Chan-Mi is planning to do, which is where the episode ends. With a much darker episode this time around, much of the comedy is reduced to small snippets of the last 15 minutes. Given the show began as a quirky comedic Charlie’s Angels, it’s a bit of a shame the show has taken such a drastic turn and I don’t think it benefits this one. While I understand the main narrative and blackmailing is there to inject tension, tonally it undermines the early feel of the show. Regardless of that though, there’s lots to like with this one and the characters do have some good dialogue to work with. Mi-Soon’s limited screen time is a bit of a shame but hopefully this will change going forward too. For now though, Good Casting leaves the door wide open for the future episodes. Published: 26 May 2020 at 11:48 am on TheReviewGeek.com
