Vigilante (2023) Episode 5

Although Ji-yong and Kang-ok had decided to meet each other, seeing the former with Jo Heon, Kang-ok gets spooked. They both suspect each other of having joined hands with Heon. Ji-yong puts off their meeting again and asks him to clone Heon’s phone, just like he did with his mobile, and only then he would get in contact with Kang-ok.

Ms Choi and Moon Dae-seok follow up on the intel left behind by Actor Yoon Jae-hak that corroborates their case against Sewool’s scandals and illegal activities. They arrive at a factory that is filled with computers and other technical equipment that can easily work as proof against the company’s name. While Mi-ryeo gets most of it on camera, the two reporters are ambushed and a hooded man attacks them. Dae-seok puts himself in danger’s harm and is murdered.

Vigilante Episode 5 - Kim Ji-yong
Mi-ryeo finds a way out and decides to report her findings to the police. When they come back around to collect Dae-seok’s body, everything had already been cleared out, with no traces of this being Sewool’s base, and Dae-seok’s body also missing. Ms Choi eventually uses the REP025h’s platform to get the message across about how Kim Sam-doo was possibly linked to the illegal cryptocurrency exchange through QQ coin, amounting 800 billion won.

This exclusive report also seeks to draw connections between Sewool and the Police Chief, Eom Jae-hyub, known as the Vole, especially since Sam-doo was supposedly acquitted of his charges. With such a high profile case linking its roots to the police, of course higher-ups end up putting pressure on REP025h to bury these leads, but Choi Mir-yeo won’t hear the end of it.

In the distance, a body is burned , and the same person from before and his team intend to kill another one – presumably Choi Mi-ryeo, but Jo Heon arrives at the right place at the right time to her rescue. He came forward to advise Choi that she shouldn’t offer more prey to the Vigilante. But she questions his intentions – as to why he would want to shut down a show that can clearly assist his case in tailing the Vigilante.

Later, Heon confronts the person sent to attack Choi, and asks him to list down all the people he’s been in contact with for the last 6 months. Three important names come up – a “Mr Bang” – a man whose help has often been enlisted by Kim Sam-doo, Seodol – Mr Bang’s right-hand, and “the Squeezer” (since he squeezes people to death) – a man on Kim Sam-doo’s side.

Heon arrives at the most-visited place by this lackey in recent times. It’s the same warehouse with pigs where the former employees working under Kim Sam-doo were murdered. Heon beats Sam-doo’s people up like pulp till the police arrives to clean up the mess, and they find heaps of human remains being fed to the pigs and other dead bodies.

Heon frames this place as the Vigilante’s workplace to push for his own agendas, and later some reporters label this factory as the Vigilante’s “murder factory”, which kicks off an investigation against all the Vigilante suspects. Media questions the police during a press conference, as to why the Vigilante would need to hide bodies. In response to that, they stay mum for the time being. Choi Mi-ryeo catches on to Heon’s scent all over the cook-up.

Kim Sam-doo, on the other hand, questions why their factory was being associated with the Vigilante. As Jo Heon’s actions get to Ji-yong, he follows another criminal lead at a supposed bookstore that was one of Kim Sam-doo men’s hideout. The man – Choi Jun-sik – was a drug peddler and also had priors for rape. Ji-yong also gathers consequential intel on Sam-doo’s work structure, or so it’s presumed, through a ledger locked in his safe. Meanwhile, Choi Mi-reyo and her boss are pushed by the higher-ups to hand in their resignation due to Heon’s act of framing the Vigilante as a sick man through the murder factory story.

Ji-yong makes Jun-sik’s murder scene out to be a replica of his first case, as the crime scene also reads out a similar message in blood, “Heaven’s Net . Forgive me”. And Miryeo’s doubts are confirmed as she marks this as the real Vigilante and that he’s trying to prove that the police have fabricated it all to push him in a corner. It’s like a clear announcement that the “real Vigilant is here”. Both she and Kang-ok proudly applaud the Vigilante for coming forward to clear his name like that.

Vigilante Episode 5 Ending
Right after fleeing the scene, Ji-yong is tailed by Jo Heon, while he’s still in his Vigilante attire, and both end up in a cat-and-mouse chase. Once the latter catches up to the former, he grants him one last chance to drop this operation, and is even willing to lead him after that. As Ji-yong steps out into the light, he puts forth his speculative thoughts about him. He believes that Jo Heon is dealing with such kind of cases unofficially and off the books on someone’s orders, possibly the Vole.

Vigilante Episode 5 - Kim So-jin
While Heon continues to sway Ji-yong, the latter raises questions worth asking – had Heon ever been in the shoes of the weak? Did he know what it was like to be bullied and abused? Ji-yong asserts his views on how the law continues to treat criminals generously, while the victims are neglected and never protected by the so-called “sacred law”. Heon hears him intently, but then he puts across his reading of the Vigilante’s character, that such people who believe that they can never be wrong end up becoming monsters eventually, and then he asks him if what he did pained him or if he enjoyed it all.

The confrontation gets physical soon enough as expected, and Heon declares Ji-yong a traitor – for all his acts of treason that challenged the existing orders and laws of the system, and that he too was challenging the system with violence. Just as he’s choking Ji-yong, Heon starts laughing manically, and Kang-ok appears in the distance, wearing a similar Vigilante get-up.
Despite the great casting choices, the show, now, in its penultimate week of broadcast, doesn’t seem to be raising the stakes any higher. Even with Heon and Ji-yong finally clashing heads, the whole thing comes up as a seen-before and familiar confrontation. All characters seem to be running in circles, and for me personally, the head-on opposition of Yoo Ji-tae and Nam Joo-hyuk’s characters doesn’t feel gritty enough. The series has once again ended mirroring a song we’ve all heard before.

Previously, Disney+ released another cop drama, Shadow Detective, starring Lee Sung-min, and that series still had a unique essence and presence it could call its own. Vigilante, on the other hand, though enjoyable, has barely brought up anything out-of-the-box for us to see. Yes, Nam Joo-hyuk’s presence is worthy enough, but the episodes have really got me wondering if the show would’ve had any original attractive selling points if it were not for Joo-hyuk.

Vigilante Episode 5 - Lee Joon-hyuk
In a day and age, where such content surrounding numerous vigilante characters already exists, especially with the abundance of names like the Green Arrow, Batman, Daredevil, and even characters like John Wick, outside of the DC-Marvel binary, whose representation pushed the envelope of this category of content, Joo-hyuk’s show may be a source of entertainment, but if you’re a well-seated avid consumer of such titles already, this may not be the catch it’s been made out to be. Am I going to stop watching the series? No. Do i wish the series had a new spark to it? Definitely, yes.