Because Lee Tae-Hwan is insanely young to play a pro investigator, I wasn’t taking him seriously as second lead. In the first episodes, his character Kang-Soo mainly follows Dong-Chi around. And since he’s 19 (yes, born in 1995!) and Choi Jin-Hyuk is 29, it made sense to think of him as a sidekick rather than a complete character.
Until this week, particularly episode 5, which is a great 60 minutes for Lee Tae-Hwan fans: Kang-Soo investigating, flirting, fighting and, since this is a Korean show, crying. The episode starts with him as the calm guy uninvolved with the office drama—and ends with him up to his neck in K-drama angst. Now he’s a real character!
Things we’ve learned about Kang-Soo: he still gets sick seeing dead bodies at crime scenes, he was high level at Tae Kwon Do, he’s so laid-back he was glad to quit competing, and he ended up in law enforcement because he was following Dong-Chi. And he turns to Jung Chang-Gi for comfort as if the man’s his father, though everyone has said that’s not true.
Things we’ve learned about Lee Tae-Hwan: he’s not just a pretty face. He does a great job with the different emotions in this episode. (It helps the writers gave his part a lot to do here. When will they give Baek Jin-Hee an equal chance at showing her range?) Before I knew it, I had a couple dozen screen-caps. He’s still ridiculously young, but I have to give him credit for playing his part well. I will try to suspend disbelief and pretend he’s old enough for his job.
I officially recognize you, Lee Tae-Hwan, as a worthy second lead to stand next to Choi Jin-Hyuk.
And here, for the people who believed in him from the beginning, my apology: bonus screen-caps of this really, really, really ridiculously good-looking (and very young) man as he traverses the hazards of episode 5.
Starting a normal day at work with an eye on his crush…
Flirting with Yeol-Moo. No one would blame her if she went for it.
Baek Jin-Hee looks even smaller next to him, though. He’s got almost an inch on Choi Jin-Hyuk.
On the job looking for drugs at Incheon Port.
Fighting for truth and justice, with unpredictable results.
In the ambulance.
He tells Chang-Gi he killed a man. I hope he’ll feel less guilty when he learns Panda was poisoned.
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