Birds Of A Feather Flock Together
Following their win last episode, episode 9 of Vincenzo begins with Cha-Young and Vincenzo contemplating when the boss of Babel will show himself to them. Little do they know, his sights are very much on them now. With the pair still in the dark, they decide to call this secretive boss Babo for the time being. Well, Babo (Joon-Woo) is intending to keep his sparring partners around, gleefully commenting how this is a good opportunity to hone his abilities. The fight between the two is well and truly on. That evening, while the residents all go on the hunt for the gold, Vincenzo tries to sleep. He thinks over his Mother’s lung cancer diagnosis, realizing that the date for this coincides with several months before he was dropped off at the children’s home. Surely this more than a coincidence. However, he’s interrupted by the pigeon outside on his window sill cooing. Vincenzo pleads with the bird to stop, even calling it Inzaghi from now on too. After speaking his piece, Vincenzo tentatively shuts the door. Joon-Woo receives a call from Gil who demands 30 million dollars and the promise that Joon-Woo won’t send anyone to kill him. To make matters worse, Babel are finding it hard to convince anyone to invest in them on the back of Cha-Young’s impassioned speech. Joon-Woo decides to set up a meeting for Namdongbu later that evening, with Mr Hwang and Mr Seo in attendance. Joon-Woo has the whole thing recorded of course, and listens from afar. He scoffs at their insolence and decides to get retribution. To teach them a lesson, masked men blindside their car on the road later that evening. With baseball bats in hand, they smash up the windows and grab the businessmen, dragging them away. More masked men arrive at Vincenzo’s apartment in Geumga Plaza. However, Cheol-Wook and Yeon-Jin happen to be there waiting. They fight off the two men, manhandling them both before being sprayed with mace. As they scream in agony, the two thugs scarper. Meanwhile, Cha-Young visits Ms Oh. in hospital just as the doctors show to check on her. They’re not the only ones though, as Vincenzo appears and berates the doctors for not checking the food properly. He demands they continue medicating Ms Oh too, despite her pleas not to. On the back of his help, Ms Oh thanks Vincenzo and embraces him outside, clearly unaware of their family ties. It’s a pretty sweet moment but one that’s overshadowed by the fact a masked man is watching them in the car nearby. Well, this manifests itself in the worst possible way when Cha-Young returns home. Muddy footprints on the floor lead to a man holding a hammer ready to take her out. Only, just before he strikes her, Vincenzo shows and turns the tide of battle. The masked men hurry away as Cha-Young pleads with Vincenzo not to follow and to stay with him. Vincenzo isn’t exactly comforting, spouting out facts about the difference between killing and maiming victims. He encourages her not to stay home and to ring someone else. Well, there’s only one person she wants to stay with, and that’s Vincenzo. He’s not best pleased with the idea though. Eventually, he drops her off at the hotel and even opens the door for her (which she mistakes for him leaning over and kissing him. Woops!) Meanwhile, our puppet chairman sits in front of Mr Hwang and Mr Seo. Apparently he’s been told to rough them up and scare the duo into submission. When this fails, Joon-Woo eventually shows up himself and strikes Mr Seo in the face with a hockey stick. With blood spattered across the room, Hwang pleads for his life. Han-Seo is just as terrified in truth, but he plays up the role well, telling Hwang he shouldn’t have underestimated him. Meanwhile, Vincenzo heads back to Geumga Plaza and sees that Cheol-Wook and Yeon-Jin are still suffering the effects of the mace. They give him some ramyun as a thank you (well I say give, they practically slap him in the face with it.) Afterwards, Vincenzo heads into the bedroom and sees feathers everywhere. It’s Inzaghi, and this time the bird has brought friends too. Vincenzo is not happy and even worse, Cha-Young shows up and tells him she’s going to stay with him that night. Thanks to the birds, they both stay in the living room together. Vincenzo is haunted by bad dreams, namely those involving him killing back in Italy. Eventually Cha-Young wakes up and the two prepare to get back to work. That emanates in the form of Mr Seo’s death, which spreads all over the news. Joon-Woo rings Cha-Young but learns that she stayed at Vincenzo’s that night. As they head outside together, Mr An appears from beneath his car. He hands over his number and offers Vincenzo assistance in the future. Well, with President Han-Seo in their sights, Cha-Young and Vincenzo work together to try and work out who’s connected to him and who’s pulling the strings. This is only half of Vincenzo’s concerns. He also wants the monks to relocate from their temple but they refuse to do so. With Monk Chaeshin’s hospitality, he presents some sweet potatoes for Vincenzo who turns his head away and refuses to be fed. Eventually all the residents join together (minus Vincenzo) and come clean about wanting to find the gold. After bickering, they all decide to team up together and find it. Speaking of finding, Vincenzo and Cha-Young speak to Mr Jung about Gil’s demands and understanding what he wants. Thanks to the specific language used – and paying particular attention to the plurals – Vincenzo realizes that Gil knows who Babo is. Well, Babel make their move. Thanks to an investment from Dongil and Taesan banks, they greenlight RDU-90 being produced again and even triple the import of raw materials to boost production. With the bad guys rallying together, Vincenzo decides to go with his Plan A, which involves heading down to Gil’s safehouse and talking to him. Unfortunately when they get there, they find the guards and Gil murdered. Even worse, these deaths extend to the family members too, who are unable to deal with the grief of what’s transpired. Vincenzo arrives on the scene, wide-eyed and shocked. Cha-Young is there with him. With the family dead, Vincenzo and Cha-Young try to work out what to do next.
The Episode Review
While the comedy/crime antics in Vincenzo don’t always mesh well together, when they do this show fires on all cylinders. What’s particularly intriguing about Vincenzo though is just how divided the lines are and how many memorable characters are on both sides of the conflict. Yes, we’ve still got the evil Chairman but this time there’s a much more vibrant, almost Joker-esque feel to this man and Joon-Woo’s unpredictable and dangerous persona makes him a force to be reckoned with. His English is fantastic too and it’s clear TaecYeon is having a lot of fun in this role. Meanwhile, his band of misfits behind him, including Myung-Hee and his puppet chairman brother, offers up a pretty eclectic group of characters. On the other side of the conflict we’ve got Vincenzo and his group of Geumga Plaza residents. Their search for the gold seems to hint that we’ll get a redemption arc for our Italian, which leads nicely into the final shocking reveal at the end of this episode. To balance out some of the darker elements is the humour which, admittedly, has actually won me over now. Early on it felt very jarring but now that Vincenzo has settled down and isn’t quite so intense with its scenes, this tends to work much more harmoniously alongside the law drama. Quite what will happen next remains to be seen but the halfway point of this K-drama sets up a very promising second half to come. If you’ve made it this far, you’ll undoubtedly be seeing this one through to the end.
