Ji-Hoon’s death kicks off the story of K-drama Trolley, also putting into motion a giant web of conspiracies, secrets, and lies that all stand to tear the late character’s living family apart.
Episode 1 of Trolley kicks off the drama with some drastic developments. Nam Joong-Do, a sincere and honest Assemblyman, and his just as virtuous wife, Kim Hye-Joo’s son died under mysterious circumstances.
While the cause of his death seems to be straight and simple, the surrounding details like a possible drug dealing blot his legacy even more. However, that’s only the beginning of Ji-Hoon’s post-mortem shaming of the public.
The death
While returning home, Assemblyman Nam Joong-Do receives a call from his wife Kim Hye-Joo that their youngest of two children, Yoon-Seo, has gone missing.
While she eventually returns home after having gone out of anger, the couple receives graver news when they learn that their son Ji-Hoon has died due to drowning.
Joong-Do and Hye-Joo rush off to check up on the body and the earth below them collapses as they confirm the dead body to be their son.
The real storm begins after Ji-Hoon’s death, as its first wave comes when it’s found that the dead body also had drugs in their clothes.
The fallout
Joong-Do and Hye-Joo have to come to terms with it as they know that their son was a delinquent and had a drug and drinking problem too. His relationship with Hye-Joo, his stepmother, was strenuous as well, something that would continue to gnaw at her conscience late after her son’s death.
Another shocker comes when a young girl named Kim Soo-Bin drops by Hye-Joo’s door, claiming to be pregnant with Ji-Hoon’s child. Hye-Joo is bewildered and finds it dubious but eventually believes the young girl, since she’s going through a similar time in her life as Hye-Joo went through once in her past.
Hye-Joo asks Soo-Bin if the child is a result of a sexual assault, which the latter denies at first but later on in the series, Hye-Joo is aghast upon learning from her husband that he did, in fact, rape Soo-Bin.
All these allegations and revelations about her son aren’t all that alter the course of the story. The series ultimately reveals it all and the truth comes out finally, with dirty secrets and traumatic past resurfacing to hurt Hye-Joo and her loved ones even more.
The truth
Soo-Bin came to Ji-Hoon and shared that she was pregnant with her boyfriend Jung-Dae’s child and that she hasn’t revealed it to him yet, but wished to break up with him. To get her help, Ji-Hoon suggests that she doesn’t reveal her pregnancy to her boyfriend because then he might not let her break up.
Later, he takes her to his mother, who he believes will definitely help her. However, Hye-Joo is out that day, and in her absence, they end up overhearing Joong-Do having an argument with Yeo-Jin, the lady who lives in their house and is almost a family member.
They misinterpret the situation and think that the two are having a secret affair, something that Hye-Joo knows nothing about. Ji-Hoon gets furious and decides to confront his father about it.
He does end up confronting his father the same night Yoon-Seo goes missing, urging him to come clean in front of Hye-Joo, but Joong-Do denies his allegations, before asking him to stop bothering his mother more.
While Joong-Do goes away, Ji-Hoon takes the drugs for himself that he was tasked to deal with instead, by none other than Jung-Dae. However, Woo-Jae confronts him while dealing drugs and gives him an earful, before making him throw the drugs into the river.
As he goes back into his car, Woo-Jae turns back to see Ji-Hoon missing from the spot he was just standing on. While he drives away, the car camera records him going back into the river to retrieve the drugs while Woo-Jae’s back was turned against him, ultimately ending up drowning then and there to his death.
The correction
His death comes as a shock to Hye-Joo, which is only made more and more terrible as more information and revelations make their way to her. Gradually, however, she starts learning that various allegations levied against her son are untrue.
Soo-Bin’s pregnancy turns out to be not related to Ji-Hoon at all, but to her ex-boyfriend Jung-Dae. Moreover, she also had a miscarriage while living with Hye-Joo and her family.
Later, Joong-Do tells his wife that Soo-Bin blackmailed him, asking him for money or she goes public with the fact that their son raped her. However, when Hye-Joo confronts Soo-Bin about it, the latter denies ever blackmailing Joong-Do about her son raping her, something she denies ever having occurred.
She learns that Joong-Do lied to her about this in order to scapegoat dead Ji-Hoon and in the process, get ahead of any of his detractors and get his Digital Sex Law passed. Hye-Joo eventually musters up the courage and reveals to the media that her son’s rape allegations are untrue, along with another horrific secret about her husband.
Also Read: Hye-Joo’s past in Trolley explained
