Premiere Watch: The Scarecrow
by stroopwafel
Time slot: Monday & Tuesday
Broadcaster: ENA
Genre: Crime, human, mystery, period, thriller
Episode count: 12
Global streamer: Viki
Reasons to watch: Park Hae-soo is back in dramaland for another dark story in ENA’s The Scarecrow. He’s joined by Lee Hee-joon and Kwak Sun-young and our trio will be chasing down a serial killer who has terrorized a rural corner of Korea for decades.
The drama takes us through 30 years of investigations and murders with Park and Lee taking center stage as pivotal members of the team investigating the serial murder case at the heart of the story. The story starts in the 1980s with Park playing a detective, and Lee an ambitious prosecutor who is determined to close the case. His focus is more on finagling any “success” into a political stepping stone rather than making sure he’s caught the right person.
That clearly that has repercussions in the future, as the men reunite in 2019, still focused on the same case. Our detective and prosecutor enter into an uneasy detente to finally catch the killer and put an end to the killings that have terrorized their hometown. Along the way, Kwak Sun-young follows the case as a tenacious journalist who is determined to bring light to the investigation.
I will watch literally anything with Park Hae-soo, but beyond the excellent cast, The Scarecrow is posed to be a gritty and tense addition to the K-drama crime canon. The drama looks like it will offer a solid, emotionally-grounded crime story. (Though I hope it has a less tragic ending than the real-life case it echoes, the Hwaseong Murders).
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