Fifties Professionals: Episodes 5-6
by lovepark
As life on the island becomes more destitute, anyone paying attention will notice that something nefarious is happening behind the scenes. However, our trio are not the only ones in town aware of the scourge plaguing them since a group of ordinary citizens have taken a stand, too. As they all fight for the same goal, our protagonists set aside their differences to work together and take down their true enemy.
EPISODES 5-6
Everyone is after Prosecutor Kang, especially our Heaven Capital loan sharks. After following her to the cafe where she planned to meet Bum-ryong, In-gu leads the attack and gets promptly bested by our detective-turned-prosecutor. Though she manages to escape, she cannot shake off her tails, and ends up in an accidental car crash, disappearing over a cliff and plummeting into the river. By the time Ho-myung and Bum-ryong realize that they share the same objective, their help arrives too late as gangsters and corrupt cops litter the crime scene with Prosecutor Kang nowhere in sight.
Meanwhile, Jae-soon and Nam-il trail after Manager Lee down an abandoned part of town. Besides the occasional elderly resident haunting doorways and windows, the place is eerily quiet until they arrive at a dance studio teeming with life. Manager Lee is part of the “dance club” which used to be a legitimate group, but once Heaven Capital started to steal their neighbors’ homes, the members turned the building into a temporary shelter for the displaced.
This is where we meet the other half of the cast — the seemingly random side characters we’ve seen here and there are actually part of an underground resistance, meaning our trio are not the only ones fighting against Kyung-wook and his men. At the top is our convenience store regular Park Choon-shik (the curmudgeonly old man with a particular taste in cigarettes) and by his side are our leading ladies: Oh-ran, Officer Park, and Manager Lee. Last but certainly not least, Jae-soon joins as their newest member, which is more akin to a glorified servant, but hey, at least it gives them food in their bellies and a roof over their heads.
While Jae-soon is thankful for any job opportunity, Nam-il is less inclined to accept such a shady offer. He refuses to work for pennies and storms out of the shelter. Though Jae-soon tries to bring his nephew back, Nam-il tells his fake-uncle to stop meddling in his affairs. At first his words sound harsh, but we learn that Nam-il actually sees Jae-soon as his family and is only lashing out because of guilt. In fact, the one who saved Jae-soon and adopted him as one of their own was Nam-il, which explains why our amnesiac spy feels so indebted to the prickly young man.
After their fight, Jae-soon takes a stroll along the beach where he was first discovered and finds a body washed ashore. It is Prosecutor Kang, and despite coming in and out of consciousness, she manages to warn Jae-soon to avoid the police. With nowhere else to go, he brings her to the shelter where the others figure out her identity from the badge in her jacket, and respecting her wishes to stay under the radar, they let her stay for the night with Jae-soon in charge of nursing her back to health.
With Prosecutor Kang out of harm’s way, we turn our attention back to Ho-myung and his web of lies. Oh-ran wants an explanation for why he abandoned his family today and keeps leaving work as of late. Given what is happening around the island, his actions look extra suspicious — any sane person would assume an affair or gambling — and Oh-ran is too astute to fall for his flimsy story about a hurt friend from the military. She then gives him an ultimatum: tell the truth or leave.
As Ho-myung makes his way to his trailer, we see what his decision was, and I can’t help but wonder if his “secret” mission is really that important. No one knows his identity besides Sung-won, and technically speaking, Ho-myung no longer works for the NIS. I believe our agent has good intentions, but separating himself from his family to take down an evil politician and his lackeys seems neither viable long-term nor conducive to maintaining a healthy relationship. It’s clear that Ho-myung wants to protect his family, but a glimpse into their past suggests that Oh-ran isn’t some fragile flower that needs to be shielded from everything.
When Ho-myung first arrived on the island, he thought the mission would be over quickly. However, days turned into weeks, and with no way to gather intel, he decided to become a delivery driver as a cover. Thanks to Oh-ran falling in love with him at first sight, he got the job, but that also meant he was quickly promoted to hall duties rather than deliveries. Then, in the blink of an eye, our agent found himself at the receiving end of Oh-ran’s kiss, and the rest is history.
While Ho-myung never once regretted his marriage, he reveals to Sung-won that having a family has made him afraid of the future. It feels like time is moving by too fast, but Sung-won calls his worries natural. Everyone gets old which is why they need to rely on others, and in their case, that means recruiting a new member. Unfortunately, the only one up for the job is Bum-ryong, and Ho-myung is aghast at the mere suggestion of teaming up with a brutish gangster.
Despite his protests, Ho-myung ends up at the convenience store and offers Bum-ryong a chance to work for him. He gives him until midnight to decide, and Gong-bok begs his boss to at least entertain the idea. They basically have a dramatic lover’s spat as Gong-bok runs out of the store with arms flailing, and Bum-ryong recalls the night he accepted the young man as his apprentice and yields. However, Bum-ryong will only work with Ho-myung as an equal, and you know things are bad when Gong-bok — the fool who went to stab In-gu on his home turf in the middle of the day — turns out to be the voice of reason in the group.
With their temporary alliance secured, Ho-myung gives everyone their parts to play, but Bum-ryong is too distracted by his love life to be of any help. After he skipped their date without a word of explanation, Officer Park came back to the convenience store only to be rudely turned away by Gong-bok. Really stepping into his role as Bum-ryong’s “lover” (or is he more like the tropey mother-in-law?), he told Officer Park to go away and stop being a hindrance to his boss’s big plans. Thanks to his lackey’s meddling, Bum-ryong becomes even more hung up on his crush, but Ho-myung reminds the lovesick gangster that their mission comes first. He even left his house because of this, and that gives Bum-ryong enough of a jolt to concentrate on In-gu, instead.
At the same time, Prosecutor Kang has woken up and joined the dance club as part of an unofficial sting operation. Scouring through the documents they collected from the victims, she discovers a pattern of land theft concentrated around a particular neighborhood, but her train of thought gets interrupted by Jae-soon who takes his nursing duties a little too seriously. As someone who also fell into the ocean and nearly died, he takes extra precautions concerning her health, and the music amplifies the romantic overtures of his actions… except neither party seems that interested in the other. Heh.
In the middle of all these moving pieces, Oh-ran gets caught in the crosshairs when she drops by Candidate Kim’s house to pick up donations for the shelter. She nearly gets captured by Kang-shik who is trying to find some dirt on the mayoral candidate, but luckily, Gong-bok was also spying on the gangster and intervened. When Oh-ran tells the dance club about what happened, Prosecutor Kang decides that they need to take the initiative and confront Officer Park’s corrupt superior.
As if being a rat for gangsters was not bad enough, the cop also harasses store owners for protection money which is where our group finds him. Without his seniority to protect him, Officer Park easily apprehends him, but during their tussle, he shoots his taser gun at Prosecutor Kang. Thankfully, Jae-soon’s spy-instincts kick in as he takes the shot instead, but his heroic moment lasts for only a second since they leave him unceremoniously on the floor to recover.
While the ladies interrogate the rat, he receives a call from Kang-shik, revealing the upcoming drug deal. Using her connections from her time in the force, Prosecutor Kang arranges for a bust, not knowing that Ho-myung and Bum-ryong are planning the same thing. Their operation, though, requires a bit more brawn than brain as we end the episode with our agent and gangster challenging an entire smuggling ring by themselves.
What a pleasant surprise to see not one but four capable women working together to fight against the bad guys. While there are some downsides to having such a large cast, I am glad the show is utilizing its side characters and connecting the dots. It gives the people of Yeongseon Island some agency, and rather than sit around and wait for an outside force to miraculously save them, they are actively pushing back against the casino and the gang as well. In some ways, the real heroes aren’t the figures cloaked in shadows and fighting where no one sees them but the everyday people who stand up for their neighbors. It also nicely mirrors our trio’s journey from the top of their careers to their current humble identities because a chef, a factory worker, and a convenience store owner can be just as brave and cool as an agent, a spy, and a gangster.
Though I am enjoying the show and seeing all the characters slowly come together, I do think the pace feels unnecessarily languid rather than tightly-woven. Part of the problem is that the audience knows more about the situation than the characters, and as a result, our protagonists are playing catch-up for the majority of their scenes. Despite reaching the halfway mark, the show is still in its setup stage, but hopefully next week, the groups will collide and start propelling the plot forward. Also, we still haven’t had a decent interaction between Ho-myung and Jae-soon which is a shame because Shin Ha-kyun and Oh Jung-se can carry a scene together like no other. I trust that the creators didn’t cast these heavyweights only to squander their potential, so I can only hope that it happens sooner than later.
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