Summary
In its fourth episode, Inspector Koo continues to age like wine, getting better as the story progresses.
This recap of Inspector Koo season 1, episode 4 contains spoilers.
Inspector Koo is like wine. It gets better as the story progresses.
Yi-Kyung disguises herself as a cleaning service and uses her aunt’s ID card to enter NT Insurances building. At the same time, Santa and Kyung-Soo are on their way back. Yi-Kyung goes to the basement to sneak into their team’s office where she finds their plan and cases to find her. She installed a device to monitor their plan and activities. On their way back, Santa suddenly feels the urge to go back to their office where Yi-Kyung is putting something on their lamp. Who would have thought, our mysterious yet charming Santa comes back to water their Team’s plant. Yi-Kyung hides inside of the garbage bin that Santa pushes out from the office. Before taking care of the garbage, he gets distracted by the car’s alarm. Yi-Kyung walk past him. He bows down thinking that she is the usual cleaner but then, he realizes that she does not smell like trash at all. He chases after Yi-Kyung all night long. I know, some of you are probably going crazy for him to scream or at least yell since it might save his time by making people notice her. After going through all the trouble, from getting his shirt stained by a coffee to stepping over a pop, he loses her in the end but observes closely.
Inspector Koo season 1, episode 4 recap
Meanwhile, at the office, the rest of the team is trying to solve the doll video that “K” puts on the web. Kyung-Soo makes a conspiracy that the real culprit is neither any of the dolls that are shown on the screen, but it is the ones filming all the dolls, the ones that are holding the camera with the name of “Didi”. Kyung-Yi finds the animation holds similar messages that the murderer is trying to convey. This makes sense. In the previous episode, we witness how Yi-Kyung is holding a camera to monitor her victim and also what’s happening around her allies. Kyung-Yi also comes with another theory that the culprit probably spends her childhood with the animation because the animation is not that famous. Je-Hui states that the suspect is probably in their twenties now because the game is not produced recently.
Not long after that, Santa comes back totally wrecked and smelly. I still find it amusing how Santa communicates without saying a single word, only motions, but the team understand him well. He reports that someone broke into their office and he is certain that it’s K. Kyung-Yi and Santa check on the footage of the CCTV but it is not strong enough to support his argument. Until the team scolds him. Santa notices there’s something installed at their lamp. It’s a device that allows Yi-Kyung to hear everything. Santa carefully takes it out from the lamp while the other tries to play along with the dialogue to avoid suspicion. Santa dumps the device into the water. Things get more exciting as our quirky team is trying to track down K. They stay at one of the restaurants where Santa innocently enjoys the food and feed all the team to convince them that the food is not poisoned. While Kyung-Soo and Jee-Hui are on high alert, Kyung-Yi reminds them that K does not kill innocent people who don’t deserve to die.
Let’s go back to the office for a moment. Yi-Kyung’s aunt, Jung-Yoon starts to find her niece’s behavior suspicious after finding out that she uses her office ID card to sneak into her office building. About time, Yi-Kyung calls her aunt. Jung-Yoon holds back her question towards her while starting to feel anxious. At the rehearsal, Kyung-Yi is watching Yi-Kyung and notices that she hurt her right leg. The same ones that got hurt while escaping herself from Santa. Kyung-Yi straightforwardly asks Yi-Kyung all the lingering questions. She later answers everything by rehearsing her verse in the theater. We all know Yi-Kyung is smart enough to dodge all her questions and act like her right leg is okay. Yi-Kyung also distracts her focus by using Kyung-Yi’s weakness: bringing up her late husband, Mr. Jang. Yi-Kyung suddenly pulls Kyung-Yi to watch the sunset together. There’s a sudden shift of emotion and ambiance as they witness sunset together. Kyung-Yi leaves first and that’s when Yi-Kyung gives in to her injured leg. “I need to do something about that woman,” says Yi-Kyung.
On the other side, Kyung-Soo and Santa are visiting a doll maker to investigate K’s identity doll. If we look closely the doll’s eyes are similar to Didi, the main villain from the animation. The expert claims that the doll is handmade. Back to the office, Kyung-Soo tries to present their theory after gathering a few from the dollhouse. Other than Santa, nobody listens to him. Not long after, Jee-Hui is seen in a hurry. He later asked about Kyung-Yi’s whereabouts. Well, she’s contemplating life until a little girl approaches her to borrow a phone to call her sister. Kyung-Yi, being on trust issues. After K knows about the whole team’s plan and all, Kyung-Yi tries to tighten the security between them. Jee-Hui is running here and there and appears late on their team’s meeting where she demands to take her phone. Not long after, Jee-Hui’s phone rings. Kyung-Yi insists to know who is the person calling her. It turns out to be Jee-Hui’s father due to her daughter, Na Na, suffering from a high fever.
Jee-Hui feels betrayed due to the lack of issues within the team and starts to bring up the past when Mr. Jang died due to Kyung-Yi’s suspicion. We travel back to 10 years ago when Kyung-Yi suspected a person and asks Mr. Jang to do the work. Later, he dies. Kyung-Yi counters her back and pushes the narrative further and asks her about Na Na’s father. Suspecting that she is having an affair with her late husband. Feeling betrayed, Jee-Hui walks out from the room. But we’re not done yet. Another shocking reveal is Keon Wook is the son of K’s victim, the school’s janitor. So it seems like “K” is building her connection by targetting the victim of her victim. She helps the victim first then she demands a return. That’s why all of her allies are receiving the “It’s your turn to help,” messages. A psycho like Yi-Kyung does not need fame nor money, all she needs is her mission to be executed well.
After the big fight with the woman of the team, Kyung-Soo brings all the drinks to Jee-hee because he doesn’t know what she likes. He asks why she admires Kyung-Yi a lot and starts to nag her to not let Kyung-Yi walk over her. Another continuation of what happened 10 years ago happens. Something must have happened between Jee-Hee and Mr. Jang, or at least, there’s a secret we’re yet to witness. Later, Jee-Hui comes to the hospital for her daughter where she is bewildered upon seeing Chief Yoon. After sending her off, suddenly numerous mysterious hospital patients are being transferred due to the dead air conditioner.
Meanwhile, Santa waits for Kyung-Yi who is finishing all the plans to catch K at the office. I do hope that Santa isn’t going to be a hidden villain due to his mysterious and unpredictable character. After getting pushed by Chief Yoon, Je-Hui calls Kyung-Yi that she is down for the mission to help Ms. Yoon. Kyung-Yi confidently says that she got everything planned out. Well, we all know Yi-Kyung is not someone you should underestimate. Moreover, she learns everything from her in the first place.
On the day of the mission, the team gathers with the plan to catch K through Ms. Yoon. They put hidden voice recorder devices on Ms. Yoon and secretly tail her. At the train, an old lady lead Ms. Yoon to get off and head to the place K instructed her. The place happens to be an amusement park. Everything is going well, but in Inspector Koo’s universe, what goes well is an alert. Mr. Yoon suddenly takes off the voice recorder device and tries to separate herself while holding a bottle full of water. While everyone is freaking over the bottle, Santa is having the worst time of his life. He secretly follows the old lady that guides Ms. Yoon to ride on a Ferris Wheel… But the thing is.. he is afraid of height. His body is trembling like crazy. The worst part is, the Ferris Wheel well is suddenly stopped working due to having urgent maintenance. I’m expecting that this is one of Yi-Kyung’s ways to find his weakness to use it against him in the future.
Let’s go back to Kyung-Yi. Ms. Yoon is pouring the bottle into the small pond where all the children are playing they are dumped. Kyung-Yi quickly asked the children to get out of the pond. After all the hassle, Ms. Yoon is drinking the bottle instead. It turns out, nothing happens. From behind, her daughter is calling her name. She shows Kyung-Yi the messages she receives from “K”, “No one is going to die today,”
Kyung-Yi realizes that she is being tricked all along. Yi-Kyung only uses Ms. Yoon as bait to catch Kyung-Yi instead. On the other side, Kyung-Soo and Je-Hui are being kidnapped after they pass out due to inhaling massive helium on the car. After regaining their consciousness, they find themselves locked up in the middle of a large container that is sinking in the middle of the lake. They only got two hours before the tide rises. Kyung-Yi desperately tries to find their location. “She knows how to hurt me,” says Kyung-Yi.
The ending
As usual, Yi-Kyung is watching all the fun from afar. Suddenly a strange crazy-bird guy intervenes her and hands her a pink invitation to attend the bird lover gathering. For the first time, we’re witnessing Yi-Kyung is fooled. Not long after that, two police officers come and ask her to come to the police station for a further investigation due to the drug. But what a surprise, it turns out Keon Wook is the man behind the crazy bird guy. He intentionally traps Yi-Kyung and puts her in jail to intervene with her mission. Meanwhile, Je-Hui and Kyung-Soo are desperately trying to survive due to the rising tides. Je-Hui notices that they’re not floating in the sea, but a lake instead after realizing that there isn’t any fish going around because Na Na loves to fish. Unfortunately, her phone dies before she gets a chance to clarify everything to Kyung-Yi. What will happen to Kyung-Soo and Je-Hui? Will Kyung-Yi find a way to catch K without hurting anyone?
You can stream Inspector Koo season 1, episode 4 exclusively on Netflix.
