The Scarecrow: Episodes 3-6
by solstices
Building upon its strong start, Scarecrow continues to deliver spine-chilling suspense and gut-wrenching grief. Amidst the intricate unraveling of a case that has tormented the nation for decades, the fraught tension between two investigative partners who were once friends, and the unflinching social commentary that picks apart prejudice and protocol alike, this is one crime thriller not to be missed.
EPISODES 3-6
As the string of heinous murders thoroughly shocks the nation, the pursuit of the elusive killer also shakes up our central characters, forming a catalyst that brings numerous buried emotions to the fore. In such a small town, nearly everyone is connected, but that also comes with its own share of baggage.
Shi-young visits Tae-joo in detention, condescendingly offering an olive branch which unsurprisingly gets rejected. “There’s no such thing as ‘us’,” snarls Tae-joo. In response to Tae-joo’s scorn, Shi-young pressures the police chief. After all, the sniveling assault victim JEON KYUNG-HO (Kang Jung-woo) is claiming the doctor prescribed him 8 weeks’ recovery. Tae-joo can stay on the force, but he must be taken off all his cases.
Suspension doesn’t stop our detective from doing his own legwork, however. Tae-joo persuades a club employee to bug the room that Kyung-ho frequents, and the discovered bug ends up passing through the club owner’s hands to Shi-young… and then to Ji-won, who blasts Kyung-ho’s medical hypocrisy to a whole swarm of reporters. (Kyung-ho leaps up from his wheelchair in a pathetically futile attempt to smash the megaphone, ha.) It’s a hilarious scene, and it’s also our first hint that Shi-young may not be as immoral or unjust as he seems.
When a survivor’s testimony surfaces the likelihood of an additional victim, Tae-joo puts his job on the line to request a search. Regardless of the result, he’ll resign, so the higher-ups can either claim the credit or use him as a fall guy. That’s how Tae-joo and Shi-young end up grudgingly working together — Tae-joo to catch the culprit, and Shi-young to claim the credit. It turns out Tae-joo’s hunch was right, and the team finds the decomposed body of Choi In-sook abandoned in a field. Back at home, In-sook’s grieving mother welcomes her back… and then the shot of Mom fades into her own funeral portrait, right next to her precious daughter’s. *sobs*
At the bookstore, Tae-joo has a coincidental run-in with the high school student Min-ji, who gives him candies as a “bribe” and asks him to return to the force. It gives him pause, and when Min-ji turns up dead, horrifically violated with her own candies, Tae-joo can no longer leave the serial killer’s arrest to someone else.
Gathering his resolve, Tae-joo seeks Shi-young out — and uses the word “us” for the first time. “Shi-young-ah,” says Tae-joo. “Let’s catch the culprit together.”
Rewinding to our leads’ school days, it turns out the amiable Shi-young had approached the reticent Tae-joo first, hoping to become friends. Tae-joo had only relented after Shi-young offered to hire him as his personal tutor, and the boys soon grew into best buddies. But their class gap was all too apparent, especially once Tae-joo started secretly swiping snacks for his sister. Then Shi-young turned on Tae-joo the moment he found out his mother worked as a bar hostess. Ouch, the betrayal hurts worse knowing they were friends first.
Talking about betrayal, Tae-joo overhears a conversation between Shi-young and Kyung-ho. That’s how he finds out Shi-young masterminded the entire thing — from setting up the conflict between Kyung-ho and Soon-young, to having it blow up in Tae-joo’s face so that Shi-young could swoop in and play the hero. Ugh, so much for thinking Shi-young had a sliver of righteousness in him. “It’s all in the past,” croons Shi-young patronizingly.
Meanwhile, the whole Kyung-ho debacle has wreaked further havoc. Since Shi-young directed Kyung-ho to manipulate the media and turn Soon-young into a vengeful mistress, the town has turned on her. Not only Kyung-ho’s vindictive wife, but also Ki-beom’s mother, who pleads with Soon-young to let her son go. She’s terrified that Soon-young will turn out like her mother, who was widowed young and turned to other men in order to make ends meet. Eventually, the kind-hearted, selfless Soon-young breaks up with Ki-beom for his sake.
Alas, misfortune never comes alone. When he catches Kyung-ho stalking Soon-young, Ki-beom beats the guy to a pulp, but he goes a little too far. (Kyung-ho ends up actually needing 8 weeks of recovery, which is an amusing bit of karma.) Soon-young quickly hides Ki-beom in a storage room, fearing the authorities will get rid of him for his role in the student protests. But the allegations are worse. Several victims’ items have been linked to the bookstore — Min-ji’s forgotten art tube, and a survivor’s handbag that conveniently turned up in the lost-and-found box. Not to mention Soon-young’s embroidered handkerchief that the killer used to mask his face, too.
Then the nasty belligerent detective DO HYUNG-GU (Kim Eun-woo) finds Karl Marx’s books in Ki-beom’s collection, hastening his glee to arrest the “commie.” Upon learning of the murder charges against him, Ki-beom secretly resolves to run away alone so he won’t endanger Soon-young.
When Soon-young attempts to follow after Ki-beom, she ends up becoming the Scarecrow’s next target. Surprisingly, Shi-young risks it all to rescue Soon-young, sustaining a stab wound in the abdomen before the killer flees. That’s how Tae-joo finds them — thankfully, Soon-young merely fainted, but Shi-young is bleeding out fast, and Tae-joo rushes to his side in concern.
Clutching onto Tae-joo, Shi-young steels himself against the pain to speak, as if he’ll regret not telling Tae-joo while he still has the chance. “If only I hadn’t gone to give that to you, we would’ve been okay, right?” In a flashback, we see that Shi-young had followed Tae-joo home to give him a forgotten gift, only to come across his own father kissing Tae-joo’s mother. Oof. Back in the present, Shi-young shakily confesses that he’d thought Tae-joo was his father’s son. “I hated the thought of being brothers,” Shi-young ekes out in Tae-joo’s arms. “Being friends, though…”
While Shi-young’s surgery goes well, Tae-joo winds up learning how lonely Shi-young is. His half-brother, the legitimate golden child and police commissioner CHA JOON-YOUNG (Heo Jung-do), could barely bat an eye over his stabbing. Commissioner Cha never once treated Shi-young like a brother, only deigning to give him the time of day now so he can claim the credit and pave their father’s way to success. Then a flashback to Shi-young’s childhood reveals his father, ASSEMBLYMAN CHA (Yoo Seung-mok), brutally beating him for coming in second place. No wonder Shi-young feared losing his closest friend if they turned out to be half-brothers.
Tae-joo visits a recovering Shi-young in the hospital, where Shi-young finally apologizes for how he treated Tae-joo and how he made use of Soon-young. Tae-joo accepts the apology with a tentative smile, prompting Shi-young to follow suit with one of his own. Aw, I’m glad Shi-young apologized properly. It doesn’t excuse his ruthless exploitation or violent school bullying, but it does round him out as a character, providing insight into why he became the way he is. Lee Hee-joon plays Shi-young with a pathos that treads the line between smarmy competence and pathetic vulnerability, shaping him into a deeply compelling character that one can’t help but feel for despite detesting his ways.
To the police’s chagrin, another victim is found, and it’s a teenage girl murdered in her own home while her sleeping parents were unaware. Alas, it happened near Ki-beom’s escape route, and the cops who captured him are none other than the detestable Detective Do and his buddy. Instead of reporting the arrest, they lock Ki-beom in captivity, where they subject him to brutal beatings in an attempt to force a confession.
Ki-beom holds out, right up until Shi-young takes over the unlawful interrogation. Exerting psychological pressure, Shi-young insinuates that he’ll go after Ki-hwan instead since he’s the only other viable suspect — and Ki-beom folds. After all, if he’s doomed to go down for being a commie, he may as well take on the murder charges too and save his brother. Oh, Ki-beom…
With that, Ki-beom is officially taken into custody. But when Tae-joo finds discrepancies in Ki-beom’s written confession that don’t align with the survivors’ testimonies, he finds Ki-beom getting beaten up by the cops yet again. Then Tae-joo discovers Ki-beom’s old injuries and ultimately realizes Shi-young was behind it all.
Infuriated, Tae-joo calls Shi-young outside to land a solid punch on him. For two grown men, their fistfight looks more like a schoolyard tussle, LOL. After a while of Tae-joo roughing Shi-young up (and Shi-young kicking the air petulantly), the wind goes out of their sails. Declaring that he’ll free Ki-beom in his own way, Tae-joo walks off with a scoff and a sigh. “Do as you wish, bastard,” grumbles Shi-young, limping away in indignation. HAHAHA.
I like the drama’s decision to add a childish slant to our leads’ frenemy dynamic, because not only does it bring a dose of levity to the otherwise grim show, but it also humanizes our characters. Shi-young is calculative and callous, but he’s no mustache-twirling villain — his unethical deeds stem from his ambition, selfishness, and cowardice. We see the seeds of good in Shi-young, like how he didn’t hesitate to save Soon-young at his own expense. Yet Shi-young ultimately makes the conscious decision to walk down the path of ill-gotten glory, despite yearning for redemption with Tae-joo. And that’s what makes Shi-young such an interesting character, equally repugnant and riveting.
Through a flashback, we gain another piece of the Shi-young puzzle. Back on the fateful night that cracked their friendship apart, it turns out that the young Tae-joo bravely interrupted his mother’s makeout session to ask for a ride to the hospital for Soon-young’s sake. Assemblyman Cha found Tae-joo’s guts amusing, and Shi-young was stricken upon seeing his father smile — after all, he’d never once been on the receiving end of it. Oof, that adds so much depth to Shi-young’s misunderstanding, grudge, and inferiority complex.
At his wits’ end, Tae-joo ends up turning to a researcher’s unorthodox suggestion of irradiating hair samples, and the test results conclude that the culprit works near metals and sweats a lot. Piecing it together with Soon-young’s testimony about the culprit’s limp and Ji-won’s investigative work into the survivor’s handbag, Tae-joo zeroes in on Ki-beom’s friend IM SEOK-MAN (Baek Seung-hwan), who does metalworking in a garage. Except I’m doubting this hypothesis, because Seok-man’s limp looks severe enough to prevent him from running after the victims like the Scarecrow did.
Amongst the pool of potential suspects (which is basically just Ki-beom’s circle of friends), there’s also LEE JUNG-SOO, whom Tae-joo crosses off the list because he has a different blood type than the culprit… except in real life, that’s exactly how they overlooked the real killer. On the other hand, the wedding photo taken on the day of a murder should serve as an alibi for the groom, the same way it did for Ki-beom. But I can’t help but remember Ki-beom’s comment about how the groom was away dealing with an upset stomach for a while, which creates a pocket of time where he was unaccounted for. Another red herring, or is it time for Moon Kyung-cho to flex his acting chops?
(On a side note, as a musical theatre fan, I’m so delighted to spot a bunch of familiar actors in the cast — Jung Moon-sung is one, of course, but there’s also Kang Jung-woo, Moon Kyung-cho, journalist Kim Ji-hoon, and student protester Yoon Jae-ho (one of my faves!). I can’t wait for more surprise appearances, fingers crossed!)
I have such a soft spot for the bookstore brothers, from Ki-beom’s principled courage to Ki-hwan’s good-natured bumbling. And of course, it’s hilariously endearing how Ki-hwan smacks Tae-joo for suspecting him, only to then clutch his own hand in pain, hee. Then again, surely one doesn’t cast Jung Moon-sung in a role for nothing. I have a feeling Ki-hwan will soon play a larger role, and I hope it isn’t to grieve for his brother.
I wouldn’t be surprised — though I would be absolutely gutted — if Ki-beom ends up succumbing to his internal injuries down the line. The drama is clearly making a statement on police brutality, and we all know how often that leads to unjust deaths. Ki-beom has suffered in silence for too long, and I fear the medical intervention may come far too late. It would also link back to Tae-joo’s statements in the present timeline, about how the case led him to lose a dear friend. (Literally, or figuratively? Or both?)
Given that Shi-young has become an assemblyman in the present timeline (that receding hairline, lol), I can’t help but wonder if he climbed up the ranks by playing an integral role in the closing of the serial killer case. Perhaps that meant bending the rules to put a suspect (Seok-man, surely) behind bars, at the cost of the truth. Just how many innocent people’s lives will Shi-young destroy with his own hands? And why does Tae-joo hold himself responsible instead? I’m invested in this intricate tale through and through.
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