Catch The Ghost: Episode 8 Recap

We dig deeper into Yoo-ryung's motivations behind her actions as the crime of this week hits a little too close to home for her. The status quo between our protagonists continues to remain unchanged, though it's more than clear that they wish for it to be the exact opposite. But the secrets between them form a strong wall that neither of them can break through...yet.
Note: There was an issue with my recap for the previous episode so it won't be going up anymore. I have decided to just post this one for this week.

EPISODE 8

Ma-ri tells Yoo-ryung that she didn't count her sister's case as a part of the Subway Serial Murders because she wanted to solve the case logically, instead of getting emotional. She maliciously guesses that Yoo-ryung is being fueled by guilt - an autistic person's guardian would never leave them alone and her sister must have been a huge burden for her. Yoo-ryung keeps her mouth shut and leaves before she can say anything else.

Woo-hyuk informs Yoo-ryung that the fabric she had given to him to analyze had a woman's DNA on it, though it doesn't match with any of the Subway Ghost's victims. They investigate the tunnel together after closing hours this time and even break through the gated path Yoo-ryung hadn't been able to cross before. They are blocked by a tightly locked door however and stop for the day, not realizing that the Subway Ghost's lair is on the other side.


At work, Ji-seok looks like he is floating in the seventh heaven, happy about his life having gone back to being calm and relaxing, filled with only petty criminals, after Yoo-ryung's leave. Chief Gong, on the other hand, looks like he's been put through the wringer one too many times however. We see that the two teams work on completely different schedules and never cross paths with each other. It doesn't seem to bother Ji-seok and Yoo-ryung at first but we see them throw longing glances at each other's empty seats in between work.

They happen to cross paths once but Ji-seok doesn't say much and leaves for his routine stakeout. He leaves his phone behind and Yoo-ryung runs to give it to him, realizing in the process that the voice mailbox system keeps sending him repeat notifications about her voicemail. This means that she needs to get into the mailbox and delete it. She follows him around, trying to find out his birthday, guessing that that would be his password for the mailbox but Ji-seok curtly tells her to leave him alone, steadfastly ignoring her.

Since Ji-seok and Yoo-ryung together are crime magnets, this serves as the segue for the crime of the day - a baker's autistic son goes missing. But more on that later.


Ji-seok and his team deduces that the costumes used by the Grasshoppers for their theft on the Subway Police's anniversary were probably stolen. They lock down on a kindergarten that reported just such a theft and get a visual on the Grasshoppers after going through the nearby CCTV. Yoo-ryung can only silently look at them restlessly, wanting to join in on their investigations but unable to.

Meanwhile, just to spite Ji-seok, the Grasshoppers pull a grand theft on everyone riding the subway at his station. News of this immediately starts spreading in the media, adding more fuel to the people's view of the police as incompetent. Chief Jeon uses this opportunity to urge the Commissioner to suspend Ji-seok. Ma-ri informs Ji-seok about it, telling him to pull his act together.

Ji-seok and his team interrogate the victims of the theft and see if any of them recognize the Grasshoppers from the CCTV pictures. One of the women has and tells them about it, having also overheard where they were going to meet next, just in a few hours. Turns out she is Madonna, the online friend and crush of Soo-ho who he was supposed to meet for the first time today. Soo-ho is unable to reveal who he is however once she starts swooning over the good looks of the Grasshoppers' leader. Poor baby melodramatically cries as the others, also emotional, vow to catch the punk for him.


Back to the serious crime of the day - Ji-seok and Yoo-ryung come across the baker searching for his son and it is soon revealed that it is actually a kidnapping for ransom. Ji-seok puts the Major Crimes team on it and leaves to catch the Grasshoppers. Yoo-ryung's protests against it, as usual, wanting to solve the case herself, but Ji-seok tells her that they don't need to fight about such stuff. She can do whatever she wants and he will do whatever he wants.

As for the baker, the amount demanded by the perpetrator in exchange for his son is everything that he had slaved his entire life away for. Emotionally and physically exhausted from the struggle of raising an autistic son, he tells the cops and Yoo-ryung that he doesn't want to find his son.


This case hits a little too close to home for Yoo-ryung and we see how she had separated from her sister back then. After a date-turned-disaster because of her having to always bring along her sister with her, and seeing all the people around her leading seemingly carefree lives, Yoo-ryung had gotten fed up of her life revolving around her sister. Feeling chained to a claustrophobic life of misery, she had fought with her sister on the train back home and had left her there, getting down at a nearby station all alone. And that is her last memory of her sister - her on the other side of the impenetrable glass doors of the subway, screaming at her to not leave her alone as tears streamed down her face. Yoo-ryung had regretted it immediately and had tried to look for her but it was of no use.

It's why Yoo-ryung refuses to let the case go, empathizing with the father and knowing that he will severely regret it soon. At the office, she overhears Madonna talking about having recorded a subway concert around the time the baker's son got kidnapped. Yoo-ryung deduces that the kidnapper would have been caught on the video but unfortunately, the phone that Madonna recorded it with was stolen by the Grasshoppers. And so she sets out to join Ji-seok on catching them.


At the Grasshoppers' meeting place, Ji-seok and Yoo-ryung zero in on the boss but he catches on and runs. They give chase and Ji-seok manages to catch him at one point but the boss is able to break free of his hold when Yoo-ryung jumps on them, more focused on getting his bag (since that would have Madonna's phone inside), making Ji-seok and herself fall instead. Despite all this, Ji-seok still gets happy at seeing her do her duty for once.

They chase him all the way to the outside. The boss dumps his bag in a nearby garbage truck and flees in a taxi himself. Yoo-ryung notices this and abandons Ji-seok to give chase to the truck. It results in Ji-seok losing the boss from right under his nose. This is when he gets a call from Soo-ho and realizes that all of Yoo-ryung's actions had actually been to solve the baker's case and his eyes light up with anger at the betrayal.


At the garbage dumping ground, Yoo-ryung frantically tries to look for the boss's bag but it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. She breaks down into heartbreaking tears of guilt at the end, asking her sister for forgiveness.

I was wrong. I lived only for you. I wanted to live my own life too. I'm so sorry. You lived only for me. It was just too hard for me back then. I'm sorry. I was wrong. Please.

Behind her is Ji-seok, having overheard everything.

COMMENTS

I do not like the way that the show is portraying anyone and everyone who disagrees with Yoo-ryung as "bad" while she is consistently portrayed as the only "good" one. At this point, it is starting to feel like Yoo-ryung has a hero complex. She isn't really solving crimes because she is passionate about her job, but only because she wants to rid herself of the guilt that she has carried with her ever since her sister's death. She doesn't consider something a crime that is worthy of her attention unless it involves someone dying. Victims are victims regardless of how severe the crime and we never know just how its effect might manifest itself in someone's life. So as people working in that field, they should not trivialize a case the way that Yoo-ryung has been with the Grasshopper case.

Even if we were to dismiss the direct victims of the Grasshopper case, the case still holds some real consequences for Ji-seok. He is literally struggling to hang on by a thread. He has a mother with dementia to take care of but hardly any money to do so. He has just had to sell his house for that and is now officially homeless. The only thing he has left is the pay he gets from his job, a pay that got drastically reduced because of Yoo-ryung, a pay that does not even come close to paying his mother's medical bills, forget feeding him. However, he is on the verge of losing even that, all because of Yoo-ryung. He is quite literally in hell right now. Just because he doesn't tell Yoo-ryung his sob story does not mean that she can refuse to listen to him, at the same time expecting him to listen to her without knowing the motivation behind her actions. That is hypocrisy.
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So just because Ji-seok's story does not involve someone's death, does not mean that his struggles and problems are any less important than that of Yoo-ryung. The reason why Yoo-ryung can be so reckless is because she has nobody else to take care of. Responsibility is a heavy burden, something that Ji-seok has to carry but she does not. So I am completely with Ji-seok whenever he decides to stick to protocol instead of immediately jumping into the fire like Yoo-ryung. It is not that he does not do his duty, it's just that there is structure and different teams in the police for a reason, and he follows that. You cannot just blindly disregard all those rules. He IS the Subway Police after all, something that Yoo-ryung doesn't seem to understand.


But that is what the show has done from the beginning. Every time we see Ji-seok take a decision that is different from Yoo-ryung, a decision that has logic and valid reasons behind it, the show throws us some highly emotional scenes of Yoo-ryung so as to justify her actions and make her look "right" again, while Ji-seok, Ma-ri and everyone else are turned into bad people. Every petty case she takes on turns into a violent crime and she is hailed as a savior by the victims, and she never has to face any repercussions. It is frustrating to watch the show constantly emphasize Yoo-ryung having this moral high ground over everyone else, especially when we are already on Episode 8. But she continues to be just as bull-headed and selfish as she had been back in Episode 1, unrepentantly dragging other people into dangerous situations without their permission.

I also did not like the way that Ma-ri is being pitted against Yoo-ryung and being shown as a bad person. Like in the rape case from the last episode, Ma-ri was shown as this cold-hearted person when dealing with victims while Yoo-ryung was an emotional I-will-stay-outside-the-whole-night-without-telling-you angel. The problem is, I understood Ma-ri but found Yoo-ryung's approach inefficient and unrealistic. The reason why Ma-ri is cold-hearted is because she has dealt with violent crimes for way longer than Yoo-ryung has. It desensitizes people. Ma-ri is just more equipped for dealing with criminals than victims who require more sensitivity. That does not make her a bad person, just a different kind of person. Meanwhile, Yoo-ryung's stunt was laughable because there are several crimes that happen in a day and cops are investigating several crimes a day as well. Imagine pulling such a stunt for each and every person. Yeah, no. Solving crimes like that will take decades more than it already does. Cops are human at the end of the day. They are not robots and neither do they have the superpower to replicate themselves (*cough* EXO *cough*).

Finally, regarding the romance, I need Ji-seok to grow some backbone and just completely ditch Yoo-ryung. I want the show to make her approach HIM and confess first, instead of Ji-seok always running after her and pining. Because I feel like that is the only way for Yoo-ryung to realize the consequences of her actions. And she had no problem investigating the tunnel with Woo-hyuk? WHY, WOMAN?! I hate unnecessary lies. Nobody is asking her to reciprocate Ji-seok's feelings, but if she wants to act like she is trying to be logical, then the most logical thing to do would be to get Ji-seok's help, instead of pushing him away again and again without any explanation and hurting him in the process.