“BEYOND EVIL” EPISODE EIGHT RECAP
“I’ll only tell you where Yu Yeon is when you bring Mi Hye here.”
So far in Beyond Evil, we’ve established that inspector Lee Dong Shik (Shin Ha Kyun) is a family member of one of the victims who was captured by our serial killer. The murderer turned out to be Dong Shik’s long-time friend / brother figure, Kang Jin Mook (Lee Kyu Hoe). This information was a long time coming considering that for a huge part of the show, we didn’t know who it was despite the fact that so many people had been investigating and suspecting each other. Even the new addition to the police force in town, detective Han Joo Won (Yeo Jin Goo), had been overwhelmingly annoying with his suspicions of Shik even though the murder literally ruined his life. But because of Shik’s relentless efforts, the ending of episode seven of Beyond Evil, finally put Jin Mook into frame as the serial killer and the murderer of his daughter Kang Min Jung (Kang Min Ah) .
In episode eight of Beyond Evil, we hit an important turning point after Dong Shik and Joo Won witness Jin Mook in action and every moment after the reveal is dense with suspense. The episode begins with a crowd of angry people screaming as Jin Mook is stowed away in a cop car. While he’s being directed into the car, he still has the time to be cheeky with the people he deceived. “That hurts, Ji Hwa. Go a little easy on me,” he says with a smirk to a cofounded Oh Ji Hwa (Kim Shin Rok). (Gotta say, Lee Kyu Hoe is a fantastic actor.)
Anyway, Dong Shik is kneeling at the crime scene, shocked and saddened at the loss of someone so dear to him, but all that the other police officers are concerned about is how he might contaminate the crime scene. Now that Joo Won has had a chance to digest the circumstances of their case, he reflects back to the moment when Dong Shik got a call from Yoo Jae Yi (Choi Sung Eun) about the location of her mom’s body near Munju Stream, a piece of detail which Shik realized was a tool for distraction. So, Dong Shik called Park Jung Je (Choi Dae Hoon) and told him to meet Jae Yi at her mother’s burial site and then he convinced Joo Won to head towards Jin Mook’s house with him, by finally telling him all the details that he’d been withholding after he began breaking rules to incriminate Jin Mook.
Since Dong Shik blurred legal lines when investigating Jin Mook, neither him nor Joo Won are able to freely discuss how they were able to find out who the serial killer was or detail the terms of the case. So, when reporters are persistent about asking questions, Joo Won can only say no comment even when he’s on the spotlight. Still, the fact that he initially raised alarms about a possible serial killer and then managed to find the killer despite his dad, Han Ki Hwan’s (Choi Jin Ho), public admonishment, it helps to bring unwanted attention to Ki Hwan. So, Ki Hwan called on his family friend, turned aid, Kwon Hyuk (Park Ji Hoon) to somehow twist the story so that Joo Won would maintain his status, Dong Shik would be distanced from the case, and the details of the case with be made scarce since it ties back to his weak oversight on a fumbled investigation.
Just as Hyuk was about to go back to work he got details about the autopsy report for Min Jung. It turns out that she died of organ failure not suffocation as initially suspected, which means she was buried alive. When Dong Shik finds out, he’s distraught to learn that Min Jung was literally underneath his feet on the day he was searching for her.
Back at the police station, Jin Mook is in the interrogation room and apart from saying thank you for the food he was given, he refuses to talk about his murders. In fact, he almost chokes on food but is saved by another detective saying, “Gosh, I thought I was going to die,” but it prompts him to allow his daughter’s body to be returned, so that others can pay their respects to her.
Joo Won is at the mortuary to claim Lee Geum Hwa’s body (Cha Chung Hwa) when he finds out that a wake will be held for Min Jung. It’s such a sad scene because none of them knew that the killer was right beside them all these years. Then it’s announced that Jin Mook wants to talk to Dong Shik and Joo Won. When they are finally in the room, Dong Shik is causing a scene about their antiquated computer when Jin Mook says, “that noisy wench. She was too talkative.”
Then Beyond Evil flashes back to what set Jin Mook off. The flashback also details how he started killing and the circumstances of how he found his victims. He basically targeted women who looked down on him and then began to grow animosity towards women in general. But he insisted that everything was in his imagination. “I don’t know anything,” he said. He only got agitated when Joo Won began to wonder why he would kill his daughter, a person who he took care of for over 20 years. Then, Joo Won dropped the bombshell that Min Jung wasn’t his daughter. Dong Shik referenced rumors about Jin Mook’s sister and then his run-away ex-wife Yoon Mi Hye. Another flashback showed that Min Jung had her own suspicions and threatened to leave him since she felt unsafe in his presence. Following a bit of a scuffle where Dong Shik was attacked by an angry Jin Mook, Joo Won broke protocol to save Dong Shik. Afterwards, Joo Won requested a vacation.
Following all this, we’re transported to Busan, where Dong Shik and Joo Won have gone to trail Jin Mook’s history so that they can find out his motive and also, where he may have hidden the dead bodies. But since Joo Won is insistent on working alone, Dong Shik basically offers to confess to illegal policing activity if they work together to bring down Jin Mook together. The deal is that after Dong Shik finds his sister’s body, he will give himself up to Joo Won.
They discovered that Yoon Mi Hye switched her name and left to Busan to flee Jin Mook. Jin Mook had been tracking her for years until he learned that Yoon Mi Hye had been killed in a car accident. So, armed with this information they went back to interrogate Jin Mook and used forged documents to feign that Mi Hye was still alive so that they could draw out information from him. But Jin Mook insisted that he didn’t kill Yu Yeon and then in the same breath, said he will tell Dong Shik where he buried her. He also let it slip that he knew Dong Shik was the one who sent him the first text.
“I’ll only tell you where Yu Yeon is when you bring Mi Hye here,” he threatened. But the next clip of Beyond Evil is of an investigation site so it’s difficult to understand how Dong Shik handled the whole, lying about Mi Hye thing.
Jae Yi is able to see the remains of her dead mother but despite all the bodies they discovered, the cops are still unable to find Yu Yeon so Joo Won goes to Dong Shik’s house to reassure him that they will do whatever it takes to find his sister. Then the news comes that Kang Jin Mook killed himself.
On the wall of his cell, he wrote “Dong Shik, I didn’t kill Yu Yeon.” This means that someone close to Dong Shik killed her because if you remember, she went out because someone asked her to go out and that person could be Jeong Je. It would explain why he is so clingy with Dong Shik, maybe he feels guilty about killing his sister. Either way, the person who committed the crime needs to be in their 40s by now because 20 years have passed.
It’s actually quite crazy that so early on, Jin Mook is caught because it makes you wonder what else the show will have to offer in the next eight episodes. But maybe the pull will be Yu Yeon’s case or possibly another serial killer on the loose since they had the same patterns as Jin Mook. Who do you think it is?