Recap Korean Drama "The Player" Episode 2

A group of thugs drag our con artist team out of their van and a full-scale brawl ensues. Ha-ri and mountainous fighter Jin-woong are able to handle the thugs until another van runs down Jin-woong and sends him flying.

Finally overtaken by the sheer number of gangsters, the boys try their best to convince the thugs to let them go, but to no avail. Just then, driver Ah-ryung swoops in and distracts the gangsters long enough to let the boys climb into their van and escape.

Now back to safety, Ha-ri checks the website where Ji Seong-gu uploaded the video of himself assaulting the now-comatose waitress, but finds the site was shut down almost immediately after the team’s unauthorized access was detected.

With no way to access the video again, Ha-ri realizes the only way to get the evidence is to go after the parties they already know are involved.

They track down Seong-gu’s accomplice Mike, who Seong-gu ordered to dispose of the waitress to stop her from talking. Mike tries to fight his way out, but Jin-woong takes him down with one swing.

Meanwhile, Ah-ryung and hacker Byung-min break into the office where Seong-gu’s assault took place thanks to Ah-ryung’s lock-picking skills.

Ha-ri, in the meantime, tries to pry information from Mike, who is now duct-taped to the road at the scene where he ran over the waitress. Under the threat of being run over by a car himself, Mike cracks and offers to give Ha-ri all the information he wants.

Flashback to two years ago, where Mike details the entire operation of the illegal website to Seong-gu, explaining how the site allows him to make a ton of extra cash on the side. Seong-gu likes the idea so much that he decides to start producing his own content for the site.

Seong-gu explains that he can get away with anything in Korea, mainly because of the influence of his father, Chairman Ji. Seong-gu even admits to murdering a girl previously, but Chairman Ji used his position to completely sweep it under the rug.

Back in the present, Seong-gu parties with some young women, and brags about a new foundation for musicians he is launching soon, to finally start giving back to society.

Elsewhere, Ah-ryung and Byung-min are stumped by the lack of clues left at the scene of the assault. But when Byung-min mindlessly shoves a random set of books he manages to uncover a hidden vault behind the bookcase.

Before they can make their way back to the team office, Jin-woong checks Mike’s cell phone and sees that the waitress is now awake. Not only that, but another accomplice is on the way to snuff the waitress out for good, so the team race to the hospital to save her.

The would-be assassin barges in to the hospital room, only to find it empty. Below, Byung-min and Ah-ryung, who arrived just ahead of the assassin, load the waitress into their van and escape.

Seong-gu, at the same time, puts up with some playful teasing from one of the women he was flirting with earlier, clearly annoyed with her. When he gets a call from the assassin and learns that the waitress escaped, the look in his eyes goes from annoyance to pure anger, as he shoots daggers at the woman who teased him.

The team bring the waitress to a different hospital, where Doctor JO YEON-HEE greets them. Doctor Jo and Ha-ri seem to be previously acquainted with one another.

Back at the nightclub, a crowd is gathered around a bathroom door, gaping in at Seong-gu inside, face covered in blood, and with the playful woman from earlier now sprawled on the floor below him, beaten to a pulp.

Seong-gu calmly rinses up as everyone looks on in shock. He orders Chairman Ji’s lackey to clean up the mess for him and keep the news of what he did from spreading.

 

Meanwhile, Doctor Jo tends to the waitress’ wounds, and with Jin-woong alone with her, she asks how the team all know Ha-ri. When Jin-woong answers that they’re friends, Doctor Jo muses that she wonders if Ha-ri ever had any friends.

She leaves Jin-woong with a warning: don’t trust Ha-ri too much. “If money is involved, you never know when he’ll betray you,” she explains. When pressed for what she means, she adds, “Don’t you know? Everything he says is a lie.”

Afterward, the team begin to consider their approach to finding the evidence, and when a news report announces that Seong-gu’s upcoming foundation launch is the groundwork for him to take over Chairman Ji’s position, it only strengthens their resolve to catch him.

 

The team decides their best course of action is to infiltrate the police station, and as the corrupt detective heads out to check on his car after someone scratched it, Ah-ryung smoothly picks his wallet out of his pocket..

At the same time, Jin-woong delivers noodles to the remaining officers inside, all to distract them long enough to slip a USB into the corrupt detective’s computer.

Outside, it turns out that Ha-ri is responsible for scratching the detective’s car, and he is using the distraction to keep the detective out of the building just long enough to get what they need.

Ha-ri meets Ah-ryung inside, and she uses the keycard from the detective’s wallet to gain entry to the evidence room. Ah-ryung quickly finds the waitress’ phone in the storage and they make their retreat.

Just in time, it turns out, as the detective heads back inside and soon realizes that something is wrong. The cops glimpse Ha-ri and Ah-ryung escaping and send the entire squad after them in pursuit.

Inside the team’s getaway van, Byung-min hectically tries to get access to the waitress’ phone while they flee.

The head thug chases them to a nearby rooftop, and after an extended fistfight, Ha-ri gains the edge and Byung-min finishes copying the phone, so they head back out to rendezvous with the rest of the team.

The boys scurry right past Jin-woong as he finishes taking out the last of the lesser thugs, and he stays behind to take on the head thug while the boys make a run for it.

Ha-ri decides to split up from Byung-min, and takes the copy of the phone with him when he leaves. Jin-woong, meanwhile, unsurprisingly overpowers the head thug and makes his way back to the getaway car where only Ha-ri is missing.

As the team decide to head out without Ha-ri, a squad of police cars capture them and bring them to an abandoned building where the thugs bind them together

Corrupt detective calls Chairman Ji’s lackey to boast about catching the team, but the lackey says to just leave them be for now. Standing on the balcony next to Chairman Ji is Ha-ri, who it seems sold out the team to side with Chairman Ji.

 

Chairman Ji listens to the phone recording of Seong-gu’s assault, and Ha-ri threatens to send it to the prosecutors if Chairman Ji doesn’t pay up. When Chairman Ji threatens to harm Ha-ri’s friends, Ha-ri coldly replies, “Who has friends in a time like this? Money is my friend.”

Chairman Ji buys Ha-ri’s story, and it doesn’t take long for Ha-ri to get a large bag of cash in exchange for the copy of the phone. He promises to destroy the other copy as well and heads out with a grin.

In the prosecutor’s office, Prosecutor Jang seems stumped at how to proceed with his case, but then he gets a call from the waitress who tells him about Seong-gu’s assault, and he leaves to interview her.

Back in the abandoned building, our captive team members squabble over Ha-ri’s betrayal, until Ah-ryung gets sick of the argument and fashions a makeshift contraption to cut off her bindings and free them. Much to the boys’ amazement.

Jin-woong leads them through a group of thugs, easily dispatching them one-by-one in the narrow hallway.

Back at the hospital, the corrupt detective and his men arrive looking for the waitress. They shuffle past a protesting Doctor Jo and find the room, but can’t seem to open the door.

They try to ram the door down but as soon as they do the door flies open and they tumble through right into the feet of Prosecutor Jang, who was intentionally blocking the door.

The detectives are shocked to find Prosecutor Jang already waiting for them with the victim, and when they try to bolt out of the room a group of prosecutors block their path so Prosecutor Jang can get a witness statement from the waitress with the police present.

In the abandoned building, Ha-ri finally returns to see Jin-woong taking out the last of the henchmen, and seeing how mad Jin-woong is about the betrayal, Ha-ri tries to hide as the group passes by him.

When Ha-ri peeks up again though, a fuming Jin-woong is staring him right in the face. Busted. Ha-ri tries to play it cool but Jin-woong jokingly bearhugs him and acts like he’s going to toss Ha-ri off the building.

 

Meanwhile, Prosecutor Jang finishes his interview with the waitress, and as he is set to leave the waitress hands him a USB with an emblem of Lady Justice on it, which matches a USB that Prosecutor Jang received when he originally arrested Chairman Cheon.

Elsewhere, Seong-gu’s foundation is set to be announced at a press conference, and with Ha-ri back, the team prepares to spoil the announcement.

They get to work right away, with Ah-ryung swiping a keycard off a staff member thanks to Ha-ri’s distraction, which they use to get into the restricted area of the conference hall. Inside, Ha-ri once again creates a distraction so Ah-ryung can tamper with the microphone and computer running the presentation.

Byung-min hacks into the computer remotely and sets up their alternate presentation just as Seong-gu and Chairman Ji arrive on site. Even though his own job is finished, Ha-ri sticks around a bit to flirt with the presenter before Ah-ryung finally bumps him away to watch the proceedings from a distance.

Chairman Ji greets several prominent politicians who are on hand to support him, and they all take their seats as the presentation begins.

All seems to be going to their plan for a short while, but when Byung-min initiates his alternate presentation and replaces the PR video with information detailing Chairman Ji and Seong-gu’s illicit dealings, the mood in the room quickly turns.

Seong-gu and Chairman Ji gape in shock as Jin-woong, in the control room, plays another recording of Seong-gu’s assault of the waitress for the entire room to hear it.

Furious, Chairman Ji storms out of the hall, ignoring Seong-gu’s pleas to believe that he didn’t do anything to the waitress and leaving his son to fend for himself.

As Chairman Ji attempts to leave, Prosecutor Jang and company arrive with warrants for both Chairman Ji and his lackey, and the prosecutors take them both away for questioning.

In the parking garage, Seong-gu tries to make his own escape, but Ah-ryung blocks his path and refuses to move.

 

At the same time, Ha-ri walks right up to Seong-gu’s door and pulls him out of the car by his hair. Ha-ri taunts Seong-gu into taking a swing at him, which Ha-ri easily blocks. Ha-ri forces Seong-gu to his knees and then knocks him out with one swift punch.

Finished with Seong-gu, Ha-ri strolls back over to the rest of the team and they resolve to go rob Chairman Ji now. As they’re leaving, though, an unseen person watches from their own car, and covertly tails the group.

Seong-gu finally starts to pick himself up off the garage floor, only for Prosecutor Jang to turn up in front of him with a warrant for Seong-gu’s arrest. Prosecutor Jang parrots back the line Seong-gu said to him in the courtroom earlier, “Isn’t it great to take care of things with the law?”

Dumbfounded, Seong-gu can only laugh at his predicament, and Prosecutor Jang joins in with a hearty laugh of his own for finally besting Seong-gu.

Our swindler team head to a secluded church, and find a secret passage under the floor which leads to Chairman Ji’s hidden vault.

They find little trouble getting through the vault’s locks, and swing it open to see a mountain of cash inside. But before they can start packing it up for themselves, they are ambushed from behind by a group of men who throw bags over their heads.