Stalker
Episode 8 of Inspector Koo begins with Yi-Kyung doing everything she can to ignore the pain of losing her aunt. With Jeong-Yeon dead, her one tether to sanity is gone. However, K refuses to believe it and imagines Jeong-Yeon is still with her, serving as a ghost. K never showed up to the funeral though, instead hearing Gun-Wook relay back what happened. K continues to see the shadow of her aunt though, which eventually leads to her killing someone else, this time a woman who starts to lash out against her child in a restaurant. This unfortunately serves as the catalyst for K going on a bit of a killing spree. When Gun-Wook finds out, he starts to panic. K is being reckless and even worse, it’s forcing Gun-Wook to look more and more suspicious, covering up her crimes and breaking his usual calm demeanor. Meanwhile, Je-Hui shows up to see Yong-Sook at Ko-Dam’s funeral. Yong-Sook is obviously just there to make appearances but reveals an important fact that unnerves Je-Hui – this woman will not tolerate anyone who doesn’t do what she says. Elsewhere, Kyung-Yi looks after Santa but continues to grow suspicious of everyone around her. Specifically that of Santa hiding his true age, name and contacts on his phone. When Kyung-Yi questions him about it, Santa uses his usual voice message and tells her to follow him. Inside his apartment, things don’t do much to quell her doubts. The puppet, yearbook and a number of other items point to Santa being guilty and his excuse about it forming a “map in his mind” doesn’t do much to help her. Gyeong-Su heads over to Kyung-Yi’s place and learns that she’s quit drinking. After kicking Santa out, Gyeong-Su gets straight to the point and admits that K’s accomplice had a tattoo on his arm. That, matched with a general location for the motorbike’s direction help to piece together the culprit. It also helps that Kyung-Yi has a little cartoon sketch of his face too. The political scheming continues to circulate though as popular candidate Hye-Ji is involved in a scandal. This is certainly Yoon-Sook’s doing, as Je-Hui ignores that and suggests they tighten up their policies, especially those around mandatory safety rules. Yong-Sook though throws a curveball in the form of enlisting Je-Hui as her new campaign advisor. K does eventually ring Kyung-Yi, challenging her over Jeong-Yeon’s death. Although they didn’t actually kill her, Kyung-Yi and the gang did intend to hold her hostage and that is enough for her to want revenge. When Santa shows up, K continues to antagonize, eventually giving her an address (Highlight Hotel) to attend at 7pm that night. Paranoid and realizing her home has been compromised, Kyung-Yi heads out for dinner but it’s no good. K has Kyung-Yi in her sights now and there’s no escaping that. Unfortunately, K also figures out that Gyeong-Su is lurking about nearby and stabs him with a fork; a warning blow for the battle to come. When K does eventually slip away, the team join up once more and discuss K’s attack and what it means for them. They realize that Yong-Sook is the ringleader and she’s the one responsible for killing Ko-Dam. Even though he’s a bad person, murder is still murder and that causes Je-Hui to question what’s going on. Interestingly though, Je-Hui has actually recorded a meeting between the political candidates, which she looks at that night. A knock at the door draws Je-Hui outside as a little boy stands alone. When Je-Hui opens the door, K pounces and holds her captive. However, K soon shows up at a hiking trail where Kyung-Yi begins questioning Yong-Sook’s motives. As the pair lock eyes, the episode comes to a close.
The Episode Review
Inspector Koo returns with another decent episode, one that sees K slip further into her insane ways while Kyung-Yi and the gang remain on red alert in the wake of this occurring. The back and forth rapport between K and Kyung-Yi is one of the strongest elements of this show and while it won’t be for everyone, this game of cat and mouse is actually pretty enthralling. It’s also an interesting cliffhanger to end things on too, with Yong-Sook presumably working with K or having struck some sort of deal with her. She certainly didn’t look too surprised to find the unhinged young woman show up, that’s fot sure. Santa is still a bit of an enigma and it’s hard to work out if he’s being truthful or whether he’s genuinely a crook working with K. We’ll have to wait and see on that front. For now, Inspector Koo continues to deliver the goods with another really good chapter.
