Suspicions
We begin episode 10 of Beyond Evil in December 2020. We’re in Busan as Joo-Won visits Kwon Hyeok. He tells Joo-Won he won’t be able to win against Dong-Sik, especially given how smart he is, and offers to take over for him. Joo-Won however, rejects this and instead decides he’ll just have to be reborn. Heading down to the docks, he notices Jae-Yi cutting fish. However, Chief Nam arrives trying to find her. Jae-Yi sees him approach and quickly leaves. Joo-Won sees the Chief from afar and immediately looks suspicious. When he heads back to his hotel room, Joo-Won receives a message confirming they have footage of Chief Nam. This happens to be the moments from the night Jin-Mook died. Meanwhile, the police officers arrive at Dong-Sik’s basement and begin taking photos and examining the crime scene. Dong-Sik however, is back at the police station talking to Chief Nam. With tears in his eyes, he talks about how the hope of finding his daughter alive has completely vanished. It’s a harrowing and heart-wrenching conversation, one that sees Dong-Sik eventually push back Nam’s sympathetic hand. He looks at his boss and asks Nam about Jin-Mook’s suicide. Specifically, he asks outright whether he’s the one responsible. He claims he’s not, as Dong-Sik leaves. Back at the Butcher’s, Jae-Yi starts making food for everyone as footage from the offices comes in, courtesy of Ji-Hwa. It’s still not clear who planted the evidence (for them anyway, we know it’s Joo-Won) but it also means this officer is trying to attract attention and cause a scene. As Dong-Sik watches the CCTV footage of the station, he notices Joo-Won watching the camera and smiling – instantly realizing what this means. Dong-Sik shows up at Joo-Won’s place and asks him about the fishing line. However, Joo-Won turns it around and reminds him of his earlier statement – “Manyang people stick together.” Well, Joo-Won brings up the various different people who could be responsible, including Jae-Yi and the Chief. Dong-Sik’s home and family ties with all the officers seem to have blinded him – at least according to Joo-Won anyway. Meanwhile, Jung-Je finds himself struggling. As he stands in the bathroom, he sees visions of Yu-Yeon, demanding she stick around. However, she does turn and walk away, allowing Jung-Je to breathe a sigh of relief. His Mother shows up at the station and notices her son has numerous pictures of a doe – he’s still sketching. On the back of this, she approaches Chang-Jin Lee and goes for dinner, asking him about medication and intending to try and help Jung-Je. Dong-Sik heads off and visits Jae-Yi, asking what she saw that night at the station. She hesitates, struggling with the truth. She doubts whether it’s really Nam, as Dong-Sik learns what she does. With Nam released from custody, he tries ringing him but the Chief hangs up. Both Dong-Sik and Joo-Won follow Chief Nam. The latter has a location tracker on his phone but unfortunately loses signal when Nam gets in a taxi. Eventually he does find it though when the tracker reappears at Munju Police Station. Dong-Sik meanwhile, rings his number but he doesn’t pick up. This search obviously brings Joo-Won before Ki-Hwan, who sits in the car with Joo-Won and begs him to stop investigating. Given it’s a closed case, he tells Joo-Won to stop prying so much into this. Well, that’s not suspicious! Meanwhile, Dong-Sik receives some damning news from forensics. It turns out Yu-Yeon’s neck wasn’t actually broken so she wasn’t strangled. In fact, the bone breaks and fractures seem to hint toward being run over multiple times. When Dong-Sik finds out – and checks the bones himself – he’s distraught. Unfortunately this also coincides with what Jin-Mook mentioned regarding him not killing Yu-Yeon. Could we have a second killer on our hands? And is it Chief Nam? Well, as we cut to Chief Nam he’s blindsided at a scrapyard (why was he even there?) and attacked by an unknown culprit. This seems to be our killer, as Joo-Won charges off and chases the SUV holding Chief Nam. He rings Dong-Sik and lets him know too, as he drives down. While he speeds off, Dong-Sik tells him to be careful – and even calls Joo-Won his partner. Unfortunately when they get there, they’re too late; Chief Nam is dead.
The Episode Review
Beyond Evil delivers another excellent episode, one with some beautiful parallels again to the earlier incidents of this season. Joo-Won taunting Dong-Sik on camera is exactly the same as what Dong-Sik did earlier on when he taunted Joo-Won on the dashcam footage with Geum-Hwa. However, neither of these men are particularly black and white in terms of good and bad, with both showing shades of grey in their characters. This really dos make for a fascinating examination of different personas. In fact, what’s particularly eye-opening here is the level of acting. I’ve been a fan of Jin-Goo since his excellent double-portrayal in Crowned Clown but here he’s fantastic. Matching him blow for blow- and at times overshadowing him too – is Shin Ha-Kyun. His performance as Dong-Sik is nothing short of masterful and if this man doesn’t win a Baeksang Award next year I’ll be shocked. This drama has easily been one of 2021’s best and alongside last episode’s juxtapositions, this episode blows the investigation wide open with lots of questions and a possible second killer on our hands.
