Undercover Miss Hong: Episodes 11-12
by quirkycase
Everyone is scheming this week to either save or destroy Hanmin while it’s at its most vulnerable. Our leading ladies take matters into their own hands and put everything on the line for their daring plan. We get some fun new alliances and complicated financial scams as a growing number of our characters are being forced to choose sides in the fight for the future of this corrupt and powerful conglomerate.
EPISODES 11-12
We left off with the success of Geum-bo and Bok-hee’s theft hinging on No-ra. Despite not knowing the details of the plan, No-ra comes through without question and resorts to throwing a little tantrum to keep Ju-ran occupied while Bok-hee pretends to be Ju-ran on the phone. Then, Bok-hee and Geum-bo cash the bank checks at a seedy establishment that asks no questions. Now they just have to keep anyone from finding the massive pile of money in their dorm.
Geum-bo trusts Jae-beom enough to loop him in on their less-than-legal plans. He’s aghast at the audacious scheme but, as always, still backs Geum-bo on her play. He shares some key intel on DK Ventures and their own schemes: they’ve been staging hostile mergers & acquisitions for years and have been quite successful in scooping up companies across Asia.
As expected, Jung-woo and DK have their sights set beyond Hanmin and are already prepping for their next targets. To that end, Jung-woo starts spreading rumors via Yeouido Pirates about which companies are going under, including Hanmin. His offhand comment that these companies only exist to line the owners’ pockets make it clear he doesn’t see a problem with screwing over corrupt organizations that don’t deserve their capital.
Deok-gyu, who feels himself getting pushed out of Chairman Kang’s good graces, tries to curry favor with Jung-woo by sharing the rumors circulated about Hanmin on Yeouido Pirates. To keep him busy and keep up appearances, Jung-woo tasks Deok-gyu with shutting Yeouido Pirates down entirely. That shutdown lasts all of two seconds before the site reemerges with a vengeance. Captain, the site’s admin, threatens to out Hanmin’s slush fund. Between the accurate hints about the funds and posted pages of internal documents, it’s obvious that Captain is a Hanmin insider. Once again, it’s a race to find the whistleblower.
Bok-hee comes through with the intel like the master information gatherer she is. Only five people had eyes on that posted internal document: her, Yong-gi, Jung-woo, Albert, and Jung-il. Geum-bo and Bok-hee decide to smoke the insider out by planting different budget intel for each of their top suspects, and it’s Albert’s intel that appears on Yeouido Pirates.
Geum-bo and Bok-hee take the hilariously unnecessary step of tying Albert up to make him talk. He quickly admits to being Captain once he’s confronted with the evidence and freely confesses that Yong-gi helped him make the site and is his second-in-command. These two men offer no resistance as they’re questioned. Unfortunately, they were bluffing about the slush fund and know nothing.
While they may not have intel on the slush fund, Albert and Yong-gi’s respective position and skills make them great potential allies, especially once Albert learns of Geum-bo’s true identity. How is her secret outed again? Hanmin’s henchman pops back up to tail Albert, hoping to discover his connection to Geum-bo. Albert again recklessly confronts him and is shocked to learn that his work crush is actually an FSS spy 10 years his senior.
To Geum-bo’s surprise, Albert is not only willing to keep her secret but offers an exchange: he’ll help her complete her mission if she helps him find the person who ordered Myung-hwi’s death. Geum-bo is happy to accept and makes Albert an official member of the team, despite Bok-hee’s protests. They also bring Yong-gi into the fold to help with their next, trickier target: the politicians’ slush funds that Deok-gyu manages. Geum-bo busts out her text on the history of major financial crimes in Korea – an FSS training document – for fraud inspiration.
After selecting their scheme, they start by having Jae-beom initiate rumors about a political funds’ laundering process that involves exchanging old banknotes for new ones (with the middleman getting a hefty commission). Once the rumor makes it back to Deok-gyu, Geum-bo calls as the mysterious “K” to request this service from Hanmin for a supposed client. Using the ledger, they name drop Hanmin’s political clients to earn his trust and get Jae-beom to make it sound like this practice is something the FSS is investigating (i.e., that it’s a legit laundering scheme).
Deok-gyu is ecstatic about making such quick, easy cash after the first exchange goes well. Now the real scam begins. On the next even bigger exchange, our scheming crew tricks him into handing over 10 billion won for boxes full of bricks covered by a few wads of cash.
The disappointing proof of his entire family’s greed makes Albert more determined to rectify his family’s wrongs. He may not have much ambition, but Geum-bo and Yong-gi help him see that he could make real changes and protect his people if he were to be the company heir. While he ruminates on that, Albert takes point on the next phase of their plan and convinces Deok-gyu to sell his company stocks to cover the loss from the scam. Then, the newly formed Yeouido Pirates investment firm (with Geum-bo as CEO) snaps them up. And just like that, they own almost 9% of Hanmin’s shares.
Meanwhile, Jung-woo is still trying to get Geum-bo out of danger and back to the FSS. He even suggests Jae-beom have Geum-bo catch the “K” scammer (ha!) to return to the FSS in glory. Jae-beom offers some gentle advice, which reveals more about his and Geum-bo’s connection as well as his sympathetic attitude toward Jung-woo.
He muses that people tend to get stuck viewing their loved ones as who they used to be without allowing for growth, like he once did with his little brother who died by suicide after the Hanmin scandal nine years ago. He understands Jung-woo shares similar regrets to his own from the past and cautions him against seeing Geum-bo as that same young woman from nine years ago.
In between bouts of scheming, our roommates continue to regularly check in on Mi-sook. When she finally wakes up, No-ra is by her side. We close out the week with the roommates having an emotional reunion, while Ju-ran gets some bad news. She had her henchman investigate the status of the slush funds, and she is not happy to hear that Geum-bo withdrew all the funds from her account right under her nose.
I’m pretty sure Ju-ran is the scariest of the bunch and the biggest threat to our crew. Now that she’s aware of the theft, they’re going to have to work fast and be extremely careful. Having both potential heirs on their side is a huge advantage, although No-ra hasn’t been brought into the fold entirely yet. While I can’t imagine No-ra causing a problem for them, she did put together this week that Geum-bo is the ex-girlfriend Jung-woo is still hung up on. I’m not sure if she’ll feel that Geum-bo has betrayed her or not, but I hope we don’t see any fault lines in our sisterhood over a man. No-ra has proven to be extremely loyal and forgiving, so I’m trusting in her good nature. And now that Mi-sook is back, they’ve got one more ally!
I love the growing crew Geum-bo has formed and how surprisingly effective these goofballs are. Geum-bo may be leading the charge, but she’d never be able to accomplish this alone. I think Jae-beom hit the nail on the head when he accused Jung-woo of seeing Geum-bo as the lone outcast she was when she was young. He doesn’t seem to even suspect she’s put together her own heist team of insiders who are also willing to fight injustice. Ironically, it seems like Jung-woo was the one disillusioned by the past, not Geum-bo who is still willing to put her faith in others, even if they could betray her.
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