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KBS2 Drama "MAD DOG" Yoo Ji-Tae, Woo Do-Hwan & Ryu Hwa-Young. *Thanks for watching, Mad Dogs!!^^*


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  • Mad Dog: Episode 3 (RECAPS)MadDog03-00944-copy.jpg

 

The Mad Dog team is caught up in a mystery that’s bigger than they ever imagined, and they have no idea where their investigation will ultimately lead them. When it comes to insurance settlements, Kang-woo is prejudiced against the beneficiaries, but some policies may be designed to resolve cases and end further investigation. Min-joon wants Kang-woo to dig deeper, but what exactly does he want him to discover?

 

 

EPISODE 3: “1 vs 4â€

 

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The entire Mad Dog team reacts with shock when Kim Min-joon reveals that he’s the younger brother of Kim Beom-joon, the pilot who crashed Flight 801. Min-joon lists the times that he and Kang-woo almost crossed paths, which included a trip to Germany to meet his foster parents. Kang-woo didn’t know that the Gebauers had abandoned Min-joon years earlier and didn’t even save a photo of him.

Kang-woo grabs Min-joon by the neck and shoves him against a pillar just as video clips of the Mad Dog team appear on Noo-ri’s monitors, proof of their illegal activities. When Kang-woo scoffs, clips of Soon-jung’s nurse friend, Detective Jo and the retired professor, fill the screens.

 

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With Kang-woo’s hand still grasped around his neck, Min-joon asks, “Should we all fall into a bottomless pit?†Kang-woo tightens his grip and then suddenly releases Min-joon, who compliments his decision to spare the jobs and reputations of Nurse Oh, Detective Jo, and Professor Byeon.

Min-joon confesses that he wants Mad Dog to bring him what he wants. Kang-woo wonders why Min-joon thinks that they’ll cooperate with him just as he gets a call from Manager Park asking, “Kang-woo, are you insane? Why would you send me a cake?â€

Ha-ri is about to run out when Min-joon clarifies that he sent three cakes: one to Manger Park at Taeyang Insurance, one to the police station, and one to the hospital’s offices.

 

 

=== Read more: http://www.dramabeans.com/2017/10/mad-dog-episode-3/

 

 

 

COMMENTS

Just what in the world did orphans become involved with that they are disappearing one by one? Are Beom-joon, Kang Eun-joo and Ms. Lee the only ones who will be victimized, or are there others? Mad Dog just took a sharp turn as it revealed that there is more to this story than the mystery of Flight 801. Mad Dog reminds me of one of those jigsaw puzzles with thousands of tiny, interlocking pieces that all work together to create the entire picture. I think that’s what we have here, and why seemingly insignificant details may end up being very important down the road. The trick will be to sort out the red herrings from the facts that are key to solving the larger mystery.

 

Kang-woo nailed the mood at this point in the story when he complained that he can’t see anything clearly. Who exactly are the bad guys that are behind such a sophisticated and well hidden scheme? The soft-spoken and kind Chairman Cha wields more power that one would expect for the CEO of an insurance company, as Hyun-gi has already figured out. Hyun-gi himself is pretty suspicious as he lies that his father may awaken from his coma and make Hong-joo uncomfortable with his unwanted attention.

 

There’s also the main suspect in the death of Kang Eun-joo’s husband, a scientist who probably used that parabolic structure in the building that borders the parking lot to ignite the lighter and kill his friend.

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Not only did we learn that there is a bigger mystery at play, we got some backstory on Soon-jung, which was significant for many reasons. It’s hard to imagine that an ex-convict as tough as Soon-jung can be victimized in an insurance scam, but love will do that to you. Oh Mi-ja entrapped Soon-jung just so she could frame him for her crimes if she was ever caught, and it worked, but mostly because he was willing to sacrifice himself for the woman that he loved. It was so sad to see Soon-jung realize that he was used. But just when he was at his lowest, his life was turned around by an insurance investigator who dug deeper and discovered the truth, an insurance investigator who recognized that Soon-jung was a very good person underneath his tough exterior. Soon-jung’s life was never the same after that, and it explains why he’s so devoted to Kang-woo and is willing to do anything for him.

Kang-woo’s assessment of Soon-jung is the very same conclusion that Kang Eun-joo came to regarding Min-joon and Kang-woo: that they’re good people. But something in Kang-woo died when he lost his family, and he doesn’t respond when others reach out to him, which is the reason that he can’t see things clearly. Instead of recognizing that the young widow is desperate and alone, Kang-woo dismissed her as a scammer because of that insurance policy. He looks at Min-joon the same way—because he was awarded so much money, Min-joon can’t be a victim. No, in Kang-woo’s mind, the only victims are the passengers who died on Flight 801 and their families. But Soon-jung is the voice who reminds Kang-woo that you can’t trust appearances (he just needs to remember that when he sees Min-joon). Oh Mi-ja wasn’t who she seemed to be either, and Lee Soo-oh’s case may not be as simple as Kang-woo thinks. That truth is becoming painfully obvious now that Kang Eun-joo’s past links her with Min-joon’s brother and the late Taeyang Insurance planner who is connected to so many troubling cases.

 

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  • Mad Dog: Episode 4 (RECAPS)MadDog04-00853.jpg

 

We’re getting to the bottom of the mysterious car fire case by doing what the Mad Dog team does best: an elaborate caper. However, they’ll need Min-joon’s help to pull off this job regardless of his trustworthiness if they want to know for sure whether it was really suicide, or if something more menacing is afoot.

 

 

EPISODE 4 RECAP

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At the orphanage, suave conman Min-joon finds the photo of his brother standing alongside Mad Dog’s new client Kang Eun-joo and former Taeyang broker Ms. Lee, the woman responsible for Min-joon’s brother’s insurance policy and the policies of murderer Go Jin-chul’s earlier victims.

Not long afterward, Mad Dog leader Kang-woo arrives and spots the same photo. His eyes flare as he recognizes Ms. Lee.

 

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He inquires about the photo with an orphanage worker, who says that Min-joon also asked about the picture earlier, and that the woman Min-joon asked about hasn’t been back since it was taken two years ago.

Kang-woo asks if Min-joon was looking for Kang Eun-joo, but the orphanage worker says he was looking for Ms. Lee instead, and Kang-woo wonders why Min-joon is trying to find a dead person.

 

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Back in his lair, Min-joon remembers his last encounter with his brother, and we see Ms. Lee meeting with the brother right before Min-joon arrives. Min-joon handed over his watch and coldly walked away, refusing to acknowledge his relation to his own brother.

When he stops reminiscing, Min-joon reveals a hidden panel with a timeline detailing the pasts of the three members of the orphanage photo and starts to draw connections between them. Kang-woo heads back home, but as he enters, he hears a hallucination of his wife and son calling for him, temporarily distracting him.

He digs out a box of files on his investigation into the plane crash and notices that the date the copilot received his insurance policy was the same day as the photo from the orphanage. He brings this info back to the Mad Dog office, and they notice that Kang Eun-joo’s husband, Lee Soo-oh, also got insurance from Ms. Lee that day.

 

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Meanwhile, Min-joon looks after Kang Eun-joo in the hospital, and urges her to wake up so that they can help each other as promised. Nurse Oh suddenly inquires about Min-joon’s relation to the patient, and kicks him out when she catches him lying that the patient is his sister.

But as he leaves, he asks how Nurse Oh knew that the patient had no brother, and guesses that Mad Dog’s aspiring nurse, Sung-joon, must have told her. Min-joon hints that he knows all about her connection to Sung-joon, and saunters out of the room pleased with himself.

 

=== Read more: http://www.dramabeans.com/2017/10/mad-dog-episode-4/

 

 

 

COMMENTS

The enigma that is Min-joon fascinates me more than anything else in this show. All we really know is that Min-joon is a smooth-talking trickster, but that surface-level analysis is about as far as our understanding of his character runs at the moment. There’s no real sense of why he created his conniving persona to begin with, nor why he specifically needs to involve Mad Dog to accomplish his goals, whatever they may be.

He clearly suspects something is fishy about the plane crash, but we don’t have a great idea of what exactly that could be, or even how deep it might go. There are hints, certainly, that Chairman Cha and Hyun-gi are somehow involved in something dubious, but the “what†(as Min-joon would want us to look for) is currently unclear.

 

I wonder if Min-joon really needs to force Kang-woo to jump through hoops to figure out what Min-joon is after. If, after all, Min-joon believes there’s a larger conspiracy at play in the crash of Flight 801, does he really think Kang-woo needs an extra push to motivate him into investigating more deeply?

Kang-woo strikes me as someone who, if he had even the slightest inclination there was foul play involved, would be ruthlessly digging as much as he could to get to the bottom of it. So why does Min-joon bother with all the evasive riddles when simply opening up about his suspicions would not only lead to his desired result, but would also probably ease a lot of the tension the Mad Dog team feel toward him?

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Because, as we saw today, when Min-joon is actively working together with everyone else, they absolutely kill it. Their infiltration of the pharmaceutical company was practically flawless, and even when trouble did arise, Min-joon’s quick thinking ensured their success. Imagine how cohesive they could be if they actually trusted Min-joon!

I think, though, that they’re gradually warming up to him. I’m not exactly sure if Kang-woo is actually starting to trust him, or if he’s just pretending so he can see how Min-joon responds (and I wouldn’t put it past this show to do that), but I’m taking his willingness to let Min-joon improvise during their operation and later invite him to join the team for dinner as a positive step.

But it does all come down to trust in the end, and Min-joon is a hard man to trust. Even when he shows vulnerability, like he did when he talked about sleeping on the floor in a variety of less-than-desirable locations, he can just as easily turn around and claim that he was making it all up for sympathy. Was he actually revealing something about his past? I don’t know! And that’s precisely the problem he created for himself by constructing this persona. It’s impossible to trust his words because everyone knows he’ll lie about anything and everything.

However, there are more pressing questions now that we know Ms. Lee didn’t actually commit suicide, and I suspect Kang-woo will put aside his goal of figuring out Min-joon while he dives back into Ms. Lee’s transgressions. We never really saw Kang-woo obsess over the Flight 801 investigation, though Hong-joo certainly implies that he let it consume him, so now that a seemingly major player suddenly resurfaces, it’ll be interesting to see how far he’ll go to uncover the truth. I suspect, though, that whatever he finds is only going to be the tip of the iceberg, and there’s something much darker lurking beneath the surface.

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Edited by FranCella
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  • love changed the title to KBS2 Drama "MAD DOG" Yoo Ji-Tae, Woo Do-Hwan & Ryu Hwa-Young. *Thanks for watching, Mad Dogs!!^^*

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