Recap Korean Drama "Bad Prosecutor" Episode 9-10

At the heels of the altercation between Jung and Secretary Tae, both of them end up fainting, the latter after being choked to near-death and the former after being drugged with an unknown substance. Just before he faints, our bad prosecutor calls his trusty assistant Chul-gi to pick him up and arrest Secretary Tae.

While in a meeting with Do-hwan, Chairman Seo gets the news that his secretary has been arrested, but it doesn’t faze him much. Instead, he gives more attention to what Do-hwan is offering: the footage of his son being involved in the first murder. On the surface, Chairman Seo rejects it, but he does ask if Do-hwan is a good driver… an implication that he might just replace Secretary Tae’s position.

At the prosecution office, Jung interrogates Secretary Tae, but she only has a few words to say. And it’s just in time for her lawyer to arrive: Do-hwan. Unfortunately, he’s not really there to save her. Do-hwan is leaning more towards the business of keeping her locked up. She’s been discarded! On the orders of the almighty Chairman Seo, of course.

Moving on to other matters, Jung and his crew settle at the Civil Affairs Division office to see what the all-important MP3 player contains. A skeptical Joong-do claims that in movies, plugging in things like this usually ends in an explosion. But the rest of the crew knows that, too. In fact, they’re already hiding behind a wall while offering Joong-do up as a sacrifice, LOL.

Well, no explosions happen. But they aren’t really able to open one of the important-looking files due to the extreme security surrounding it. So instead, the crew turns to retracing the MP3 player’s history and refocus on investigation of the very first murder case that led them on this goose chase.

Elsewhere, Jae-kyung visits the resting place of an old friend, who coincidentally is also Jung’s father! “I have a headache because of your son,” he chuckles.

Looking into the social media profiles of the victim PARK YE-YOUNG, Ah-ra notices that she’s been seeing another man before Deputy Chief Lee. To find the identity of this mysterious ex-boyfriend, they track down their old friend, the hostess bar owner YOO JIN-CHEOL, who has been put to work at a salt pond.

After suffering so much at the salt ponds, Jin-cheol is ecstatic to see Jung and Chul-gi. But it’s too early to celebrate, because he ends up being buried in salt at the hands of his saviors, who are seeking information. Jin-cheol has learned his lesson, so he spills the beans fast. Though he doesn’t know much, he does give Jung a clue: Ye-young asked to be introduced as a hostess to Deputy Chief Lee, meaning she had the intention to approach him from the beginning, probably on the instructions of her ex-boyfriend.

Chairman Seo, being driven around by his shiny, new assistant Do-hwan, visits Tae-ho in the detention center. Tae-ho demands to be let out, even threatening him with all the information he knows. But Chairman Seo refuses, reminding him that what happened to Tae-ho’s friend (i.e. Jae-kyung) can also happen to his family.

Looking again into the first murder suspect of Ye-young, Jung and Ah-ra head to his home, an old basement unit, and find a hidden stash of money inside amounting to two million dollars. They figure that the suspect was paid to confess and serve the sentence.

After threatening to burn the money, Jung is able to pull the truth out of the suspect. Apparently, when he was simply there to deliver items, he witnessed the fight between the victim and a man and the subsequent murder. He was offered a hefty amount of money in exchange for confessing he was the murderer.

Jung visits Jae-kyung for a drink — and to surrender the MP3 player. He reveals that he does remember Jae-kyung as his father’s friend and as the person who inspired him to be a prosecutor. This makes Jae-kyung smile and prompts him to finally share the truth with Jung.

Apparently, Jae-kyung and Chairman Seo go way back, and not in a good way. They were on opposing sides of a case, where only Jae-kyung could recognize that Chairman Seo manipulated the case in such a way that a stand-in suspect went to jail while his client went scot-free. He started looking into Kangsan Law Firm, but Deputy Chief Lee put a stop to it and shoved him into the Civil Affairs Division.

Jae-kyung also received a call from a reporter, Jung’s father, who allegedly gathered hard evidence against Chairman Seo and put them in an MP3 player. After the accident that killed the reporter, Jae-kyung thought it was lost, but he got it from Deputy Chief Lee. He just doesn’t know how it ended up there but hints that Tae-ho might know.

In the middle of their conversation, someone rings the doorbell: it’s Chairman Seo! He implies that something might happen to Jung’s mother, so our bad prosecutor runs off to check on her. Jung finds his mother just in time to see a Truck of Doom nearly barrel into her (a situation very similar to his father’s “accident”), but Mom is able to move back just in time. Phew!

While his mother is safe for now, an angry Jung confronts Do-hwan to get the dashcam footage from the night of the murder that caught the real culprit. To Jung’s surprise, Do-hwan hands it over easily. “He crossed the line,” Do-hwan says, referring to Ji-han, who just finished hitting him and putting him down. This guy really changes sides quickly! At least, it seems he ended up on the good side in the end.

Reviewing the footage, Jung figures out that the real culprit of the murder is Ji-han, so they get right into investigating him. To confirm that he’s the man with the fidget spinner in the dashcam footage, Eun-ji and Joong-do follow him into a tennis court. There, upon Joong-do’s suggestion to “flirt,” Eun-ji is forced to pull out some aegyo faces to distract Ji-han. LOL, she’s so embarrassed! So she ends up punching the fire alarm for the ultimate distraction. That’s more like her, haha.

Jung and his crew also confirm Ji-han’s records at a hospital where he got his hand treated on the night of the murder. And after checking the CCTV footage in the hospital, Ah-ra issues a warrant of arrest.

While waiting for the results of the arrest, Jung listens to the music on the MP3 player at a park. The songs inside are apparently ones he and his father used to listen to when he was younger. Jae-kyung arrives, warning him off the fight against Chairman Seo. But Jung just says that Jae-kyung should either let him fight or leave everything to him. Stubborn Jung, as always.

Unfortunately, Chairman Seo is also quick to act, putting a stop to the arrest before anything happens. Jung goes to confront the judge, but instead he finds Chairman Seo there. The chairman’s confidence in his power and abilities is through the roof, even telling Jung: “I’m the one who makes the list [of powerful people in this country].”

It seems Jung and his crew are back to square one. But they’re surprised when Ah-ra gets a call that confirms the issue of an arrest warrant. OMG?! Apparently, in a rare moment of cooperation, Tae-ho and Jae-kyung are able to convince (read: blackmail) the judge into issuing the warrant. And it seems Tae-ho has more hard evidence against the chairman…

On the day of the arrest, just before Jung’s arrival, Chairman Seo tells Ji-han to simply go to prison, promising that no father will abandon their son. As Ji-han is taken away, Jung promises Chairman Seo that he’ll be arrested next.

Jung’s next step is to figure out the password of the file on the MP3 player. After calling his mom for some advice, he tries their birthdays — to no avail. But the password turns out to be related to his father’s motorcycle, lol.

Jung and Jae-kyung watch the footage inside the locked file. It’s a video of Chairman Seo trying to make an underhanded deal with two men. After failing to convince one of them, the chairman axes him to death. Oh god. Shocked, Jung’s father behind the camera moves and ends up making noise, attracting the attention of Chairman Seo and forcing him to run away. This is why Jung’s father got into an “accident” with a Truck of Doom, isn’t it?

After seeing the footage, Jae-kyung becomes all the more determined to get Jung off the case. Jae-kyung says he can’t bear to lose anyone anymore, including Jung. But our bad prosecutor has the same thoughts: he doesn’t want to lose anyone else, including Jae-kyung, so they should work together to protect each other. Awww. But this sounds ominous.

It seems that Jae-kyung has surrendered to Jung’s demands to work together, so Jung is able to leave for his mom’s birthday. He even gets to serenade his mother. (Yay, D.O. singing!)

Unfortunately, back at the office, Jae-kyung calls Chairman Seo, claiming he has the MP3 player he wants. So in the middle of the mini celebration, Jung gets some bad news: Jae-kyung is found dead in their office. Noooooo!

I know most of us were expecting Jae-kyung’s death, but it’s still heartbreaking to actually be proven right. Most especially after he and Jung just got their proper reunion, and you know, admitted they care for one another. Jung just got a father figure again! Why, Show, why? For Jung’s motivation, I suppose, but… Sigh.

Another thing that caught my attention is the subplot of the feud between Do-hwan and Ji-han, which seems a little late in the series, but I do hope it gets a firm closure next week. It’s funny seeing Do-hwan on the other side of the spectrum after being defeated so many times by Jung and simpering to so many bosses. When he’s not on the losing end, he’s pretty cocky, though confidence does look good on Ha Joon. It was also hinted at that Do-hwan has a rather unfortunate background, and it seems a waste to have not explored that, given how much more interesting that would’ve made him. But I guess it’s because he’s not the main character and there’s only so much they can cram into a 12-episode series.

It’s also interesting how Ah-ra, who used to lose her mind over Jung’s less-than-legal methods, isn’t even batting an eye after so much illegal procurement of evidence (e.g. the hospital data hack). I guess that’s what happens when one gets jaded after being betrayed by the person you look up to.

I’m glad we got a lot of questions answered this week. The previous episodes had a lot of loose ends that the show seemed to have forgotten over the weeks, but we actually came back to most of it this week. Who the culprit of the first murder is. Why the girl was murdered. What the connections between all the heroes and villains are. What evidence the MP3 player contains. There might still be a couple more loose ends in the case, but it seems most of them will be neatly tied up before the series ends. Please don’t disappoint on the final week, Show!