Another Bombshell Reveal
Episode 2 of The Road: The Tragedy of One begins with Soo-Hyun arriving at the Special Investigations Headquarters. A number of different officers stand at attention, promising to catch the suspect. According to the police, they believe the suspect is Seok-Pil (Dong-Pil’s alias) but Soo-Hyun is not so sure. However, he’s still going to cooperate with Seok-Hun and hands over the dashcam footage from his car that night. Now, it seemed like Soo-Hyun was struck by someone on the stairs, given the way it was edited last episode. However, the truth is he actually tripped on a rope. Outside the interview room, Joon-Young’s parents show up. Seo-Young is not happy with the rank of the officer but soon changes her incredulousness to outright anger when she sees her deceased son. She blames Eun-Soo and Soo-Hyun, cursing them out. When she leaves, Soo-Hyun follows suit. However, he intentionally keeps the volatile situation with Chairman Seo a secret. He doesn’t mention Dong-Pil either and Seok-Hun can tell he’s lying. Soo-Hyun immediately heads over to Seo’s, who shows him where Yeon-Woo is being kept safe and sound in bed. Back home, with things somewhat calm after the turbulent evening, Soo-Hyun tries to draw up a list of people who could be the kidnapper and those who hold a grudge against him. However, there’s a problem. Yeon-Woo begins panicking and as a result of his ordeal loses his vision. The doctor reassures the family that it’s not permanent and a result of his stress. As they leave, news of Yeon-Woo’s death begins trending online. It turns out this was all part of Soo-Hyun’s plan, who agreed to this with Seo-Young in a twisted deal for the original copy. Seo-Young agrees too, but under the pretense that she’s the one who gets to make the interview content. With public attention heating up, Seok-Hun and the officers use the list of people who could hold grudges against Soo-Hyun to try and work out the suspect. Soo-Hyun meanwhile, shows up at the two different locations he vested the previous night, noticing a distinct lack of CCTV. Inside the abandoned building he fell down in, Soo-Hyun runs into Seok-Hun. He’s concerned about the timings and Soo-Hyun agrees. There’s something really fishy about the way the kidnapper changed their mind at the last second and chose a different location- and it seems to be linked to making him panic. With radio silence from Dong-Pil, Soo-Hyun drops the bombshell news to the investigator that Seok-Pil and Dong-Pil are the same person. Anyway, Seo-Young lives up to her side of the bargain and hands over incriminating details surrounding Hwang Tae Seob. Soo-Hyun hands the details over to his team at the broadcast station, admitting that Seo’s side have leaked this but intentionally not elaborating any further. However, Seo-Young and her husband Nam-Kyu are interviewed by thee police. In doing so, new revelations come to light. While Seo-Young claims she was at home by herself, Nam-Kyu was off at a hotel on a business trip. With no black box in his car, he promises to get receipts instead. Back over at So-Hyun’s house, trouble brews. Eun-Woo’s brother-in-law Jung-Wook shows up with his girlfriend Mi-Do. Things are tense and ever-so-slightly awkward. Given the bag she holds in her hand, it’s clear they want to be let in. While Eun-Woo holds it together in their presence, Soo-Hyun struggles to be so calm. He grabs the man by the scruff of the neck and questions why he’s there. It turns out they have history, with glimmers of a specific incident at the TV station bleeding through. Mercifully they get through the night without a massive argument but it’s clear this conflict is far from over. Seok-Hun uncovers Dong-Pil’s hideout and immediately heads in to investigate. As he does, Soo-Hyun later finds Don-Pil’s car outside. As he starts looking through it, he notices Jung-Wook talking too Mio-Do out in the woods. She’s the one calling the shots it seems, with a plan of her own. She regrets getting him involved and promises to kill him if she doesn’t make it into college. After an eventful first day, we skip forward to day 2 of this big search. Eun-Soo and Yeon-Woo shows up at Chairman Seo’s place. As they do, big news breaks. Seok-Hun has found Soo-Hyun’s car and Dong-Pil in the front seat. There’s no original copy though and worse, there’s a fabricated suicide note too. Now it becomes clear that whoever did this is trying to cover everything up. Soo-Hyun heads back on the news and corrects the current public opinion. He confirms that his son is alive, as Joon-Young’s funeral gets underway. Soo-Hyun knows what he’s doing, and is intentionally doing all this to try and bring the killer out into the open. As we finish on day 3, more revelations are brought to light. The disgruntled employee with the red envelope? Well, it turns out he’s snapped photos of Soo-Hyuk with another woman. And that woman? Seo-Young. It turns out Joon-Young is actually Soo-Hyun’s biological son. Oh my!
The Episode Review
What a big twist. So the man we thought was righteous and tithe victim turns out to be another key player in this whole investigation. Now it becomes clear that the killer/kidnapper has a pretty solid motive to go on and this gives the show a lot more depth than a simple “evil chairman” angle. I mean, it could still be Chairman Seo but there’s also a number of other people that fit the bill too. Would Seo-Young kill her own son? Or hire someone to do it? She’s definitely a possible suspect, given her nonchalance toward her son while he was alive, while Nam-Kyu now has a credible reason too. After all, if he found out his wife and son are not who they say they are, this could have sent him on a rampage. Chairman Seo is obvious but both Sung-Ja and Kyung-Sook are also incredibly suspect too. And that’s before mentioning Jung-Wook and whatever Mi-Do has concocted up. Either way, there are a lot of different suspects in this and unlike something like Mine, which focused almost exclusively on the class divides and meandered on for the first half of its run-time, The Road: The Tragedy of One wastes absolutely no time with its run-time and plunges us into this investigation in the best way possible. Either way, this one is just starting to get interesting.
