It took a couple too many bloated episodes to get here, but the ending of Gangnam B-Side is… okay, I guess, very much like the rest of the show has been. I saw the signs and felt that sense of a show idling along and falling into patterns. Episodes 7 & 8 bring about a reasonably satisfying resolution with enough ambiguity to justify a Season 2 if that’s what people want, but it would surprise me greatly to learn that is the case.
What’s left, I think, is an ultimately disappointing crime series that felt too derivative of too many others and fell into a too-comfortable routine, probably in the hopes of obscuring the fact it wasn’t entirely sure who or what it wanted to be about. It’s a shame, as ever – nobody wants TV shows to be dull, least of all critics, contrary to popular belief – but by no means unexpected.
So That’s What Was In The Video
I must confess that I’d almost forgotten what was in Jaehee’s video, but it turns out to reveal how many powerful people – most notably Chief Prosecutor Tak and Choi – are involved in the production and launch of Neon, the drug that came into focus in the previous two episodes.
That’s… predictable, right? It’s a bit of a shame that the MacGuffin reveals what we already knew, but I suppose what was on the video has never been of much importance to the audience. It only mattered that people were willing to kill to cover it up. That remains perhaps more true than ever, with Choi determined to accelerate the timeline to account for Dongwoo and Gilho’s mad revenge mission.
This acceleration includes taking all the girls to what they think is a party but turns out to be a mass testing of the Neon antidote, to be sinisterly observed in real-time. In a truly cliché bit of business, the seriousness and callousness of all this is established when one of the forcibly drugged girls overdoses and dies. Yeseo is the only one present who seems to notice.
Tak’s Death, Gilho’s Revenge, and Dongwoo’s Justice
To cement his status as Big Bad, Choi rather unceremoniously shoots Tak dead when he rips up the contract he was presented with and tries to bargain for a 50/50 split. No such luck in that regard, but I liked this demise well enough. Sometimes it’s good for a middle-management villain to just get offed without any fanfare.
The same can’t be said of Choi, who gets whooped left and right by Dongwoo, multiple times. Despite him trying to use Yeseo as a hostage and drug her in front of her father to torment him, she’s able to skewer his hand with an ice pick, and double-agent Prosecutor Min is on hand to administer an antidote in the nick of time (and it works perfectly, naturally.) This leaves Dongwoo with all the opportunity he needs to beat the brakes off Choi.
I’m really not sure that I’m buying into the idea of deep moral compromise that Dongwoo might feel about shooting Choi dead – he more than deserves it. Gilho – fresh from taking K’s other eye, as it happens – takes the choice out of his hands anyway and puts Choi out of his misery, avenging Jaehee and fulfilling his quest, which is fair enough.
Gangnam B-Side Still | Image via Disney+
Gangnam B-Side Has A Happy Ending If Not An Entirely Complete One
Through all these testing circumstances, most of the characters arrive at earned and logical endpoints in their personal arcs. Dongwoo and Yeseo’s relationship is repaired; she knows how much her father loves her and how far he will go to protect her, and he knows he made a mistake by judging Jaehee and being overprotective, leading to Yeseo’s string of terrible decision-making.
The Neon scheme and all of its conspirators get publicly exposed. The drug won’t get out onto the street, which is just as well. Prosecutor Min’s efforts to play both sides will help the investigation but not her conscience; she was working for the greater good, but that meant letting a lot of awful stuff slide that she won’t soon forget.
As for Season 2 – it’s a maybe. If Gangnam B-Side had ended there, I’d probably have been more satisfied, but it couldn’t help slipping in a final scene of Dongwoo discovering that Neon has made it to Gangnam’s party scene after all. Luckily, Gilho is still on the scene working to eradicate the drug and save anyone who comes into contact with it. I like the idea that their little smile of acknowledgment to one another will suffice as a reassurance that the streets will be safe enough with the two of them on the case. We don’t need another season to prove that, do we?
