A Bona Fide Killer: Episodes 2-4
by mistyisles
Being a working mother is no walk in the park — especially if your work involves hunting down and killing heinous criminals. And keeping that aspect of your life hidden from the people you love most. But our mother/vigilante heroine chose both of those things for a reason, and as long as she has any say in it, nothing is going to stop her from taking out the bad guys and taking care of her little girl.
EPISODES 2-4
To catch us up from the end of episode 1: the news about Kingfisher’s return breaks, and Tae-sung reacts… oddly. He can’t seem to tear himself away from investigation updates, but he also refuses to cover the Kingfisher story himself. Never mind that his boss is begging him to take the assignment. Or that, the last time Kingfisher was active, Tae-sung was all over the scoop. He definitely knows or suspects *something*, but he keeps that card very close to his chest. One would think, however, that if he does know Kingfisher is his beloved wife — and if he doesn’t want her to get caught — he wouldn’t even joke about the possibility of Kingfisher being newly back from parental leave. Especially not to the detective on Kingfisher’s tail.
The detective in question happens to be Tae-sung’s close friend, LEE DONG-JIN (Lee Sang-yi). The perfect picture of a righteous cop, Dong-jin is determined to catch Kingfisher, one way or another. The trouble is, every time he gets any sort of lead, it slips right through his fingers. Usually courtesy of Bo-na’s teammates.
And speaking of the team, now seems like a good time for formal introductions. Bong-pal, of course, is the leader and head strategist, though it’s vaguely hinted that there are also higher-ups handing down assignments and placing new hires. Young-do is the requisite genius hacker. GO YOUNG-GAP (Heo Jae-ho) and YANG YE-SOL (Kim Ga-hee) offer medical and administrative (read: forgery) support, respectively. The scruffy man in the filthy hidden room is weapons specialist BONG TAE-MIN (Kim Nam-hee). Finally, the team welcomes a new member named OH HYUN-NAM (Ha Yul-ri).
The team must have a lot of faith in their superiors’ vetting process, because they don’t even flinch when Hyun-nam introduces herself as a poison expert after she’s handed out coffees. But they do take note of her instant fixation on Bo-na. Young-do in particular spends most of the day conducting his own background check on Hyun-nam, but even he doesn’t uncover the truth until Hyun-nam has already set her plan in motion.
Remember the girl Bo-na saved from her abusive father fifteen years ago? That’s Hyun-nam. She’s all grown up now, and none too pleased with her savior’s choice to settle down and start a family. So she lures Tae-sung to a café, poisons him, and demands Bo-na come to her place for the antidote. Bo-na, figuring Hyun-nam wants something other than revenge, downs a bottle of poison herself, effectively stopping Hyun-nam in her tracks. She drops her bluff — Tae-sung (and Bo-na) drank a sleeping draft, not poison — and they talk it out.
Both are disappointed in the other’s life choices. But Hyun-nam ultimately accepts that, for Bo-na, committing to marriage and motherhood had everything to do with love and nothing to do with settling for less. Since no one was actually harmed (Tae-sung is confused when Bo-na wakes him up, but none the wiser), Hyun-nam is allowed to remain on the team. To say she’s delighted is an understatement — if Young-do’s crush on Bo-na is obvious, Hyun-nam’s is a giant neon sign that lights up every time Bo-na says literally anything.
With that out of the way, it’s time for some team bonding at the annual company-wide retreat. And by “company,” I mean the electronics company that the team pretends to work for. Because it’s a real company, and everyone else who works there simply thinks Sales Team 3 is full of underperformers. Sure, they could report any bogus sales metrics they want, but Bong-pal is adamant that no actual salespeople should be penalized for coming in last when his team is turning in fake numbers regardless. Which is very sweet of him, especially considering the amount of mockery their “colleagues” dump on them in the elevator.
So: the retreat. At first, it’s all fun and games — and Sales Team 3 fails at most of those, too. I’m still not sure if I think they’re tripping up on purpose, or if Young-do is just that bad at putting one foot in front of the other. Bo-na’s killer aim (with a dart, this time) does win them beef for dinner, though. And when the team’s most belligerent hater decides to talk smack about Kingfisher, Bo-na breaks her maternity leave from alcohol and drinks him under the table.
That, however, is when the fun and games are pushed aside in favor of the real reason our team decided to attend this year. Hikers have been going missing in the area, and they have reason to believe that a gang of organ harvesters are responsible. That gang is, in fact, operating out of this very property. While everyone else was enjoying themselves, Tae-min got footage of the operation room using a tiny fly-shaped drone. But they still have to wait for approval from the higher-ups before escalating the mission to deadly force, so they pretend to let the gangsters drug them along with everyone else. When the approval comes through, they fight back. It almost goes awry — Young-do gets captured, and most of the others are slowly overpowered — but it turns out that Bo-na is just as formidable when drunk as she is sober. Perhaps even more so, because drunk Bo-na doesn’t need a gun or backup to beat up bad guys; she just needs a couple bacon strips, some plates, and her own agility.
Now, the approval they got from the higher-ups wasn’t to kill the organ harvesters outright, but to turn them over to the police. As Bo-na explains to Hyun-nam, their goal as vigilantes isn’t to replace the law, but to step in when it fails. So, when possible, they first give the police a chance to mete out justice. And — in this case, at least — that’s what happens. The organ harvesters are all arrested, having readily confessed to everything under the watchful eyes of Tae-min’s drone; a full investigation is launched to root out the fringes of the operation; and reforms are introduced to prevent it from happening again.
Meanwhile, Dong-jin’s frustration grows. He can’t prove that someone handed him the organ harvesters on a silver platter, but that’s obviously what happened. Rather than spin his wheels, he changes tactics. If he’s always one step behind Kingfisher, maybe it’s time to try anticipating Kingfisher’s next move. It doesn’t take long for him to pick a likely target: infamous sex offender PYO GYU-CHEOL (Heo Hyung-gyu) is about to be released from prison after a 15-year term. Most, if not all, of his victims were children, and he displays no remorse. Plus, a whole string of past sex offenders died immediately upon re-entering society. All the deaths were “accidental” (e.g., not from a sniper), but it’s the best guess Dong-jin has. And he’s right: Sales Team 3 is indeed planning to take Gyu-cheol out.
Kingfisher, however, is not involved. It’s a special parent-child play day at Yul’s preschool, and Yul is so sulky that Bo-na can’t bring herself to leave her. She watches the time, doubtless keeping mental tabs on where everyone ought to be and when Gyu-cheol ought to be falling to his death off a cliff, but she focuses her energy on making Yul the happiest little girl in the world. And to be clear, she’s not leaving the team in the lurch. Kingfisher doesn’t handle “clients” like Gyu-cheol. Maybe she thinks they deserve worse than a painless bullet to the head, or maybe she has other reasons. Regardless, the team has always done their best to handle these sorts of killings without relying on her.
So, the day arrives, and it’s a whole event. The team is preparing to kidnap and kill him. He’s planning to escape his police escort and meet up with a contact to continue abusing and exploiting children. Dong-jin is hoping to catch Kingfisher by using Gyu-cheol as bait. And Tae-sung gets swept up in the sensation of it all when Gyu-cheol goes missing. (Much as I like Tae-sung, I appreciate that Dong-jin is professional enough to tell his reporter friend to get lost and not interfere with the active investigation.)
Tae-min removes Gyu-cheol’s ankle monitor, and Bong-pal offers him a ride to the port. Convincing as they are, Gyu-cheol only pretends to let down his guard. As soon as he gets the opportunity, he makes a break for it. In the process, he stabs Bong-pal in the shoulder and hijacks an innocent woman’s car — with her toddler still inside. Now it’s a race for our team to not only stop him from getting away, but also save the kid. Fortunately, Gyu-cheol is more interested in escaping than taking a hostage. So when he reaches the port, he ditches the kid to distract his pursuers. Then he hops onto a boat before they can stop him. But while he laughs and jeers in triumph, a bullet punches cleanly through his forehead. Kingfisher never misses.
Just like that, the bad guy is dead. The team feels a mixture of guilt and gratitude toward their ace. Dong-jin is more frustrated than ever. And Tae-sung… has a lot to think about. He’s also discovered the string of dead sex offenders, and is struck by how similar those “accidents” were to the car explosion he witnessed back in episode 1. As the episode draws to a close, he receives an ominous text message praising him for keeping his promises. Hmm, so is he feeding someone information, or keeping quiet? Meanwhile, Bo-na receives a package from Russia. It’s a doll, clearly meant as a gift for Yul, but when Bo-na cuts it open that night, she finds a recording device inside.
The plot thickens! I’ll admit I don’t always follow the characters’ logic (like what Hyun-nam thought was going to happen when she pretended to poison a legendary assassin’s husband), but the show as a whole is winsome enough that I don’t mind rolling with whatever it throws at me. Like Bo-na, learning to balance motherhood with her return to work, A Bona Fide Killer is juggling a lot of different plotlines, tones, and character motivations — some better than others, but all with gusto and a love for the game.
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