Recap Korean Drama "Trolley (2022)" Episode 11

Episode 11 of Trolley begins with Hye-joo leaving the house and swarmed by reporters revealed to be a nightmare. She’s not really surrounded by press but she does carry that fear with her. It’s big news at Joong-do’s office, as a couple of his staff – Min-seok and Ja-young – see her in the street and head out for coffee together. They reveal that Joong-do has already told them about the suicide in Hye-joo’s past… which Joong-do did without even asking for consent from his wife.

This little white lie catches Hye-joo off-guard as Joong-do openly admits this to her and tries to explain why he did it. The way he nonchalantly shrugs it off as no big deal riles Hye-joo up further as she points out how bad this would be had she decided to say no. Joong-do though was convinced she’d agree so he went ahead all the same.

After Joong-do’s big revelation, Assemblyman Kang Soon-hong has one of his own, as he reveals to Lee Yoo-shin (Seung-hee’s mother) about Hye-joo and how she was Jae-eun in the past.

Before this blows up, Ki-young meets with Hye-joo again at her book restoration shop. He apologizes for being so emotional the last time they met and admits he decided to help Joong-do originally for her sake. He wants to try and get Seung-hee to see the true face of her mother. “I want Seung-hee to break free from her mother’s grip and find happiness.” He eventually says.

Hye-joo sees him out after their meeting but unbeknownst to the pair, Yoo-shin happens to be driving and finds them together talking in the street. She immediately bemoans Ki-young for betraying him and then proceeds to slap Hye-joo in the face. She’s enraged and convinced that the pair are scheming, and promises to get her revenge.

A rattled Ki-young drives off, as Hye-joo is left with a stinging cheek and terror-stricken shock. She heads back inside and locks the door, while Yoo-shin searches through her phone while driving. However, she manages to ring Seung-hee and tells her to get a divorce… before crashing her car. And that kids, is why we don’t text and drive.

Meanwhile, Soo-bin meets with her shady contact, the guy claiming to be Ji-hoon’s friend, to get her phone back. She sends over the 1 million won and even gets the bag that Hye-joo left for her too, surprisingly. After breaking up with him (he’s surprisingly casual about the whole affair), Soo-bin heads round the corner and opens the bag, noticing all the stuff she’s been left. As for our shady man inside the bar, he rings someone called Ye-eun and tells them to do him a favour.

Hye-joo though is too preoccupied to give it much thought and rings Joong-do, updating him on what’s happened and admitting that she’s scared. Joong-do offers some words of encouragement and even apologizes for what occurred earlier at the coffee house.

That afternoon, at the National Assembly, Congressman Kang oversteps his mark and calls Woo Jin-seok a dog. It’s a shocking remark and one that sends the whole place into a stunned silence. After the meeting, Kang has his guys look into Joong-do’s new bill.

Ki-young sits with Yoo-shin while she happens to be in a rough way with a neck brace and dried blood over her. She’s also unconscious. Seung-hee shows up and she’s shocked, claiming that her mum is the only family she has left. If her mum was to pass away, she admits she doesn’t know what she’d do with herself.

Ki-young rings Joong-do and admits he’s having second thoughts about handing over evidence. Seeing how Seung-hee has reacted, and knowing she’s hanging on like a thread, everything looks set to capitulate before them. Naturally, Woo-jae uses his contacts to figure out exactly where Yoo-shin is being kept, with plans to try and rectify this before everything blows up.

Joong-do decides to go for their Hail Mary play, which includes going on TV and making a public statement. Once again he’s already made his mind up about this but as he and Hye-joo end up fighting about this back home, Yoon-seo gets involved and overhears them. As a result, she tells her daughter everything and she also takes Joong-do’s side, believing her mum should go on TV and tell everyone what really happened.

Woo-jae takes a much more drastic bit of action, blackmailing Ki-young and suggesting that he tell Seung-hee everything unless he play ball. At the same time, Soo-bin takes a drastic approach to her life, deciding to delete all her pictures and take control of her life, looking at places to stay and getting her own job. When a despicable man attempts to touch her, it awakens something inside Soo-bin and she shrugs him off, telling him that she’ll kill him if he touches her again.

Despite Hye-joo not giving her consent for the story being made public, Joong-do heads to a radio interview and as comments come in, accusing him of being a hyopcrite, he just about manages to bite his tongue and keep quiet about the past, at least for now. However, big news comes in that Ji-hoon is not an innocent party here. It turns out Soo-bin has actually given a statement that she was sexually assaulted, and it’s about to be made public.

The Episode Review

After a week’s hiatus, Trolley returns and wastes absolutely no time getting right to the heart of the drama. That whole reporter incident being a nightmare is a bit of an annoying cop-out but it’s also clever foreshadowing for the rest of the series, which will almost certainly see everything escalate now.

I’m still not convinced over Soo-bin’s story. There’s something shady about this girl and between the cryptic chatter in the bar and the fact she’s been complicit in blackmailing and extorting Congressmen, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s playing the long-game here with Joong-do.

Then again Nam Joong-do isn’t exactly the shining beacon of excellence either, is he? We’ve seen across this season just how ruthless he is and the fact he’s undermined his wife on more than one occasion, pretending to be a unit but actually operating wholly selfishly, is indicative of where his true moral compass lies.