Vigilante (2023) Episode 7

Vigilante Episode 7 Recap/Review: With Yoo Ji-tae’s Jo Heon in the hospital and Nam Joo-hyuk’s Kim Ji-yong having teamed up with Lee Joon-hyuk’s Cho Kang-ok, the Vigilante action picks up right from where it was left off in Episode 6. The seventh entry of the live-action adaptation of Kim Gyu-sam’s Naver webtoon released on November 29, 2023.

The South Korean action thriller series also stars Kim So-jin as Choi Mi-ryeo in the lead role along with the previously mentioned trio. The new Disney+ K-drama is centred around Joo-hyuk’s character switching roles and assuming the titular responsibility as a vigilante out to mete out justice at night, much like Batman fighting crime in Gotham or Daredevil in New York. The seventh episode has a runtime of 42 minutes.
In pivotal supporting roles, we find Lee Seung-woo as Min Seon-wook, Kwon Hae-hyo as the Police Academy Professor Lee Jun-yeop, Lee Hae-young as Eom Jae-hyub aka the Vole, Yoon Kyung-ho as Kim Sam-doo, Shin Jung-geun as Mr Bang, Jo Han-joon as Hwang Joon and Won Hyun-joon as Nam Yeon-gil or Captain Nam commanding the screen. The Disney+ original K-drama series (비질란테) has been directed by Choi Jeong-yeol, created by Moon Yoo-seok and written for screen by Lee Min-seop.

With Jo Heon in the hospital, Ji-yong plans to turn him into another Vigilante as Kang-ok questions his intentions behind the last stunt of him having saved the officer from Mr Bang and his lackey. News of an office fire in Gangnam set by the Vigilante soon catches up too, as Ji-yong resumes his strategy to get the better of Eom Jae-hyub and Kim Sam-doo. He drops the money retrieved from there at the small-scale Haneul orphanage to help out the only lady looking after the kids.

Kim Sam-doo turns up at the Vole’s door, and claims to have intel as to which political leader is backing him up. Despite his threats against the police chief, Sam-doo returns empty-handed with the former throwing him under the bus, just like Mr Bang also failed to support his cause. He decides to dump these two alliances and deal with the Vigilante scene on his own.

Meanwhile, Mr Bang plans his next attack on the woman running the Haneul orphanage, and sets up the whole scene as another one of Vigilante’s rampages. Media sources are also taken aback that one of the Vigilante imposters took their first step to attacking an innocent, something the real Vigilante was purely against.

Ji-yong’s friend Seon-wook finally starts keeping an eye on him and is receptive of his reactions to this heartbreaking news. Ji-yong catches on to the idea that the others will again attack Choi Mi-ryeo, and asks Kang-ok to stand guard. As expected, Kim Sam-doo’s men advance towards her. Mi-ryeo also catches these men on the CCTV before they cut off the connection and she plants her own spy cams before their arrival, and even starts a live broadcast capturing the attack on the V News headquarters.

Unfortunately, these men spot the cameras and destroy them, but not before the audience, Ji-yong and the new regional leader of the Vigilante case, Nam Yeon-gil, have been alerted through the broadcast. Kang-ok gets there in time to help Mi-ryeo, dressed up in the Vigilante attire.

Vigilante Episode 7 Recap - Kim So-jin
When Nam Yeon-gil finally makes his late arrival, Mi-ryeo had already been saved and she lies to him about how one of the viewers had come to her aid in the hour of need. On being interrogated by Yeon-gil, she affirms that the Vigilante doesn’t wield a weapon, and since the man rescuing her had been swinging a bat, he couldn’t have been the Vigilante. Yeon-gil also suspects her of having teamed up with the Vigilante to lure the thugs out there.

Vigilante Episode 7 Ending
He later drops by the academy and brings in Ji-yong to be questioned in front of the Professor. He asks about his whereabouts and his actions after he heard of the V News attack. Yeon-gil even briefly accuses him of having formed an alliance with Jo Heon, but Ji-yong holds his ground and refutes all these claims by asserting his innocence.

Vigilante Episode 7 Recap - Lee Joon-hyuk and Nam Joo-hyuk
On being asked by the Professor as to why he was backing up Ji-yong in a corner, he declares that a phone linked to the cryptocurrency case was unlocked at the academy’s premises, and on top of that, Ji-yong matching the same physical profile as that of the Vigilante and his association with Heon further added to the alleged suspicions against him.

It turns out that it was in fact Ji-yong who had turned on that phone to leave a trace of the QQ coin operation at the university, but not in his room, rather in the president aka Eom Jae-hyub’s cabin. As soon as the forensic report is delivered, Yeon-gil traces this phone in the president’s cabin, along with yet another evidence located by Ji-yong in the very same room – the burner phone used by Jae-hyub to talk to Kim Sam-doo.

Vigilante Episode 7 Recap - Kim So-jin and Won Hyun-joon
With all the evidence in the police’s hand, Ji-yong is proud of what he’s done to lead them there. However, once Jae-hyub arrives there, he does his best to tempt and sway Yeon-gil and make him yet another one of his pawns. When Yeon-gil doesn’t acquiesce, Jae-hyub reaches out to a mysterious contact to deal with him.

In the very next scene, though we never see who it was, it can be deduced that Jae-hyub had called up Mr Bang, as Yeon-gil gets into a major car accident and dies on the spot. Bang also abducts Choi Mi-ryeo, and when Heon and Ji-yong meet up after Captain Nam’s death, the latter confesses that it wasn’t his doing and that the officer was killed because he too was a good detective.

Vigilante Episode 7 Recap - Yoo Ji-tae and Won Hyun-joon
Ji-yong pushes Heon to prove that the system worked in their favour, or else he would kill all these antagonists on his own. Despite Heon showing his concern for Ji-yong, as he realises that these people wouldn’t bat their eyes a second time to pay heed to him, Ji-yong firmly stands by his words to do whatever it takes to bring justice.

Vigilante Episode 7 Review
The new episode maintains its pacing while adding on to the series. However, certain bits equally turn out to be frustrating in the end. Seon-wook’s character takes the lead in this failing enterprise unfortunately, as he continues to tail Ji-yong from a distance, but barely does anything to feed into the fulfilling development of his own person. As audience, you may have started noticing him being on Ji-yong’s tail as if he knows all about him being the Vigilante. At one point, you may have even wondered if he was the other Vigilante supporting Ji-yong’s cause. However, neither of these speculations flesh out satisfactorily.

Vigilante Episode 7 Recap - Kim So-jin as Choi mi-ryeo
With Jo Heon being in the hospital, not a lot of dialogue is exchanged between him and Ji-yong this time. This lack of communication makes for a shallow dynamic between the two. Despite them being so similar on top of the differences that drive them apart, their connection fails to come up as a worthy and moving interaction anymore. There’s so much the writers could’ve done to flesh out the back-and-forth energy between them. While initially, this ambiguous exchange between the two was introduced as an intriguing factor, at this point, it seems as if they only keep having the same conversation over and over in a loop, instead of something more being added to the mix.

Then, we have Lee Joon-hyuk’s Kang-ok. At least his character made the most of the opportunity to ask Ji-yong why he cared so deeply about saving Choi Mi-ryeo, but even with the crazed level of dynamic between him and Ji-yong, they too keep moving in circles. Kim So-jin’s acting adds a maniacal touch to her character, and it makes you wonder more about her character, but her backstory continues to remain a mystery and she almost seems untouchable considering how the story quickly moved on from her late senior’s death in the previous episodes, while she stays unfazed by it.

Vigilante Episode 7 Recap - Nam Joo-hyuk and Yoo Ji-tae
The fact that the series fails to take heed of these characters’ emotions despite having entrusted them with a dark premise like so, proves that the writers are only concerned with bringing the heart-thumping action alive on the screen, while the characters and their respective stories that led them to be who they are now remain a big fat mystery.