Participant 2 – Grasp of Swindlers: Episodes 5-6

by mistyisles

As we strategy the midway level, the connections between our workforce, their tentative allies, and everybody’s enemies emerge one after the other. However the nearer our grasp swindlers get to the reality, the deeper into hazard they enterprise. Will they arrive out on high as soon as once more, or are they about to get in approach over their heads?

 
EPISODES 5-6

As we’ve been led to suspect, the entire instances our workforce has tackled to this point hyperlink again to 1 man: JEFFREY JUNG (Kim Kyung-nam), a.okay.a. Ah-ryung’s killer. And, it could appear, he’s additionally the rationale the president needs Ha-ri’s help. See, they’ve a typical enemy (that will be Jeffrey, and I suppose highly effective evildoers generally) who’s/are too highly effective to be taken down via authorized means, so the president’s fingers are tied — except another person does the less-than-legal work for him. All he asks in return (for now, a minimum of) is assurance that Ha-ri will see the job via to the bitter finish, it doesn’t matter what.

However there’s one other fascinating angle at work right here, as a result of the president is an outdated household pal and surrogate father determine to Soo-min. As such, she trusts him explicitly. However there’s one thing ominous about the best way he surveils Ha-ri, and one thing much more ominous in regards to the potential hyperlink between his election and the homicide of Soo-min’s reporter boyfriend.

Additional hypothesis should wait, although, as a result of it’s time to sort out Director Baek and her artwork gallery. For this scheme, Ha-ri poses as an up-and-coming artist, and the workforce establishes his credibility through influencer advertising and driving up public sale bids for an inexpensive vase he pretends to have sculpted. Then, as soon as he’s piqued Director Baek’s curiosity, he will get her to just accept a literal malicious program into her secret storage room. And I do imply literal — it’s a horse statue commissioned from an area artist, and Jae-yi hides inside so she will swipe the opposite work from the storage room after Director Baek has left.

Very like our workforce’s earlier cons, the plot includes having somebody “betray” their plans to Director Baek so she’ll suppose she’s received proper earlier than the tables flip in opposition to her. Ha-ri didn’t rely on her vacuum-sealing the storage room, although, and almost has to name the entire thing off as Jae-yi begins dropping air. However Byung-min will get the vacuum reversed simply in time, and the remainder of the operation proceeds easily.

Director Baek calls Prosecutor Kwak to arrest the “fraudulent sculptor,” solely to appreciate her helpful work have been changed with proof of her bribery, which he’s all too completely happy to gather. And no, none of her candy speaking will sway this prosecutor from the straight and slender. It’s time for Director Baek — and the chaebols she helped — to face some precise penalties.

That every one wraps up in Episode 5, after which Episode 6 opens with an alarming flash-forward whereby Ha-ri, bloodied and held at gunpoint by a dozen or so masked assailants, grimly declares to a digicam that if a steep ransom isn’t paid, “we’ll all die.” How did he get into this predicament? It began when the workforce took on their subsequent case…

The title of this specific sport is actual property fraud, and it has resulted in a rising variety of suicides. Solely by cautious investigation does our workforce uncover that every sufferer is tied to a mysterious MR. MYUNG (nicely howdy Lee Soo-hyuk!). Our workforce doesn’t realize it but, however Mr. Myung doesn’t simply drive his victims to suicide — he has them murdered and solely makes it look like suicide. (He additionally carries out one homicide personally, simply to see what it looks like.)

Prosecutor Kwak additionally cottons onto the Mr. Myung connection, and virtually earlier than he realizes what’s occurring, he will get roped into Ha-ri’s large scheme to flush Mr. Myung out of hiding. As regular, Ha-ri introduces himself to one in every of Mr. Myung’s brokers as a fellow fraudster and levels an elaborate pretend con to show himself, solely to get “bought out” and “arrested” by Prosecutor Kwak (for additional credibility as a scammer).

After all, Prosecutor Kwak isn’t very eager to launch the workforce as soon as he’s bought them in handcuffs, however he doesn’t have sufficient proof to cost them with something — and in addition to, Ha-ri could be very persuasive, and Prosecutor Kwak does so wish to put Mr. Myung behind bars. However does he need it sufficient to “escape of the mould,” as Ha-ri places it? Solely time will inform.

Mr. Myung isn’t so simply fooled, nonetheless. He sees proper via the scheme from his vantage level within the shadows, and decides Ha-ri is the worthy opponent he’s been ready for. So he arranges one other assembly between his agent and Ha-ri. Even with their restricted perspective of the scenario, everybody can sense that hazard is afoot, to the purpose Prosecutor Kwak tries to have them abort the mission. However Byung-min nervously assures Prosecutor Kwak that Ha-ri has it dealt with as all the time (I believe he’s making an attempt to guarantee himself, too), and the assembly proceeds.

It does have all of the hallmarks of their regular techniques — Jae-yi stands by on her motorbike, Jin-woong fights off the minions who had been about to descend on Ha-ri from behind, and Soo-min surprises Mr. Myung by exhibiting up on the workplace nobody is meant to know is his. However between the final anxious environment and that flash-forward in the beginning of the episode, I’m inclined to suppose Ha-ri could be the one strolling right into a entice this time.

After all, understanding Ha-ri, the ransom video might nicely be the entice, and he could possibly be in full management even with all these weapons skilled at his head. However I virtually hope it isn’t. Not as a result of I need him to get damage (I feel I’ve made it pretty clear by now how a lot I am keen on the man!), however as a result of the sample of “Oh no, the workforce has been outsmarted for as soon as… simply kidding, this was all a part of the plan!” is beginning to really feel only a tad repetitive at this level.

Don’t get me unsuitable, I’m nonetheless having an absolute blast, and I’d be mendacity if I mentioned I didn’t fall for a number of of the fakeouts — most of them, even. However I additionally suppose it’s about time to interrupt that sample and provides our swindlers a problem that received’t be fairly really easy for them to wiggle out of. That approach it’ll be much more satisfying once they do wiggle free — and it would even function a pleasant bonding expertise now that Prosecutor Kwak has sort-of unofficially joined the workforce.

 
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