Revenge Is A Dish Best Served On Fire
Episode 4 of Vincenzo begins right on the back of that shocking cliffhanger last episode, with the white truck of doom ploughing into both Mr Hong and Vincenzo. Cha-Young shows up and sees her Father on the floor. Dropping the umbrella to the ground, she’s in shock as Vincenzo and Hong are rushed to the hospital. Yu-Chan is pronounced dead while Vincenzo is still alive. Unfortunately Babel and the others in charge spin this to their liking, claiming that Hong was committing perjury. Despite being a voice for the weak, this death has shown his true colours. Cha-Young hears all this play out and struggles to control her grief. So too however, do the residents in Geumga Plaza as they pay tribute with letters and flowers. Unfortunately with both Vincenzo and Yu-Chan out of the picture, Babel’s new drug is approved. The Press call it the “perfect painkiller” as the law firm shake hands with the Chairman; shots of Hong’s office with flowers outside cut into this. It’s a pretty slick montage in truth and one that shows that Hong really was the last line of defence. Cha-Young continues to weep for her Father but in the midst of this a scene of a body washing up on the shore cuts in. It’s a pretty jarring moment and the scene quickly cuts back to the office again. Well, it turns out this man is the researcher from the last episode, confirming his death. Cha-Young begins packing up her Father’s things, including a photo of her and Yu-Chan together. It’s been 9 days since the accident and there seems to be no sign of Vincenzo awakening. This causes issues for the residents who all contemplate what they’ll do now. As they begin questioning him, An steps up and tells them about the good things Vincenzo has been doing for the community. At the hospital, Vincenzo wakes up and seems absolutely fine. He remembers everything and nonchalantly walks out of hospital, seemingly discharging himself and paying his respects to Yu-Chan at his grave. Cha-Young happens to be there too and she promises to look into the driver and the accident, believing there’s something going on. Vincenzo rocks up at Geumga Plaza again and tells them all he needs to rest. This only causes more issues for them as they begin doubting his motivations. Vincenzo loses his temper though and tells them to stop second guessing him. Eventually he suggests they go off and find another lawyer if they’re not happy. When Cha-Young finds out about the dead researcher, she heads into the law firm and hands in her letter of resignation. With both the researcher and her own father dead, she takes the noble option and walks away. Myung-Hee encourages her to do just this and promises she could snap her neck if she wanted. Meanwhile, an enraged Vincenzo heads back to the restaurant and revisits the horrific event that took the life of Yu-Chan. He does his best to walk through what happened, piecing together fragments of what occurred as he somehow remembers the face of the truck driver responsible. Not long after, Chairman Jang receives a pretty nasty surprise in his bed, in the form of a pillow full of needles. While the law firm deliberates over who could have sent it, Cha-Young returns to the law firm and announces loudly and proudly that Law Firm Jipuragi is coming back to life. In fact, she’s going to pick up where her Father left off and work on their best interests. The others are not so sure this is going to work but she claims to be born again. Well, that is until she’s called into the police station to justify where she was the night of the pillow incident. Well, Cha-Young has an alibi as a neighbour claims to have seen her so it definitely wasn’t her. However, Joon-Woo suddenly shows up and exerts his authority. Just as things look set to kick off, Vincenzo waltzes inside with CCTV footage to prove where she was and with time stamps too. This is enough to allow Cha-Young to go free from the station. Joon-Woo also meets Vincenzo, pronouncing his name correctly and claiming that he did a background check on him in the past. While Cha-Young gets rid of her old assistant, Vincenzo and Cha-Young head out together. While drinking, Vincenzo encourages her to shut down the law firm and hits her with some home truths, including how there’s no way she’ll be able to win against Babel. Cha-Young tries to win him over, showing Vincenao all the different cases she’s been involved in against big businesses. She wants to help him, teaming up to take down those responsible no matter what. Eventually he agrees, but on the condition that she not cause a hindrance for him. She hastily accepts the terms. Vincenzo and Cha-Young head in to visit an inmate who was responsible for driving the truck at the time. Vincenzo asks for who hired him, which brings up the name Mr Pyo. He also hands over his number too, which gives them enough to work on for now. Cha-Young is enraged, unable to do anything to stop Mr Lee. Well, Vincenzo knows exactly what to do and loudly proclaims that he’s been helping them and he thanks the man profusely for what he’s done. He promises to use his testimony to re-investigate the case before leaving. This, of course, causes massive issues for Mr Lee who’s stopped by the inmates who all beat him down to the ground. After stabbing him in the neck, he’s left for dead while the prison guards look the other way. Word of this reaches Vincenzo and Cha-Young, as the latter asks the Italian not to do anything that will get people killed from now on. As they talk, confirmation comes in that the full name of the man who hired him is Pyo Hyeok-Pil. One thing leads to another and Vincenzo manages to tie up and interrogate Mr Pyo and his senior in an abandoned building. Vincenzo eventually kills them both (or so it seems, more on that in a second), dropping off the bloody clothes at the launderette where Myung-Hee happens to be. Vincenzo phones and scares the lawyer, hiring the truck of doom which suddenly stops right in front of shop. He warns her that more is to come but she needs to come clean about her role in all this. When the truck does eventually speed off, Myung-Hee promises to get her own back and find out who’s responsible for this. At the Babel Pharmaceutical Warehouse, men and women in hazmat suits arrive and take over. They begin fumigating the entire place, dousing it in gasoline. This, as it turns out, is all Vincenzo as he shows up with his trademark lighter and lights the match when they’re done. Much like in episode 1, Vincenzo drops the lighter and watches as fire spreads throughout the building, consuming the interior hungrily as it leads through to the RDU-90 stock. As Vincenzo and the others speed away from the warehouse, the authorities are called to try in vain to put out the fire. And now we cut back in time and understand how they were able to do this. It turns out Vincenzo didn’t actually kill Pyo, in fact he staged the entire incident using Nam Joo-Sung’s abilities in special effects. All the residents inside Geumga Plaza were the ones responsible for fumigating the place, getting their own back on Babel. It’s a lovely touch, one that gives them a purpose and shows them fighting back. They even went so far as to mess up the sprinkler system too. With Chairman Jang on the ground, watching this take place, the real boss steps forward. It’s none other than Jang Joon-Woo! His demeanor is completely different and he watches as the building burns to the ground. As it does, Vincenzo says in Italian, “I will win.”
The Episode Review
E stato fantastico! Finally Vincenzo gets the balance right, with a much more consistent blend of comedy and drama. The death of Mr Hong is just the catalyst this series needed to shift from awkward slapstick comedy with dark drama to a much more driven and smooth transition between the two states. Now the humour is much more consistent and actually makes sense in the context of the characters and their roles. Vincenzo suddenly awakening and acting like everything is fine, for example, suits his character a lot more than a banged knee. Cha-Young’s cute moments are a lot more consistent with her now she’s decided to leave Babel, while the over-the-top mannerisms from Joon-Woo make much more sense. And what about Joon-Woo too? Perhaps a little obvious given the posters for the show but that was a lovely little reveal at the end. Choi Myung-Hee called it last episode that there was someone else pulling the strings and now it becomes clear exactly who. This sets the battle lines up nicely between Babel and Geumga Plaza. In fact, having the Geumga Plaza residents as the ones responsible for fumigating the Babel warehouse is a nice sense of irony. It’s one that shows that these residents are not going to take this lying down. Sometimes it can take a show a while to settle into a consistent rhythm or step it up a gear and thankfully Vincenzo has been much, much better here. If this is a sign of things to come, it proves to be very promising for the coming episodes. Roll on next week!
