In episode 5 of Cafe Minamdang, Nam Han-jun and Han Jae-hui look into a new murder victim that has arisen while Nam Han-jun gets a special visitor at his cafe.
Recap
After Nam Han-jun and Han, Jae-hui finds the body in the sewers, the police come in for further analysis. Han-jun tells Su-cheol that the person who dumped the body must be around there somewhere.
Then he checks the dashcam footage of a nearby vehicle and finds that a suspicious-looking van has been moving around in the area. Jae-hui catches him in the act and makes him hand over the dash cam footage.
Su-cheol notices a strange man lurking around the scene and he begins to follow him with Han-jun joining him later. Hye-jun finds out that the van is a rental vehicle procured with a fake identity while the police learn that the number used to rent it is in the area.
As Han-jun and Su-cheol are following the man, they eventually find out that it is Choi Yeong-seop, the man involved in Han-jun’s framing 3 years ago. Jae-hui and Du-jin also head out looking for Yeong-seop.
Han-jun wants to follow him and find out who his accomplice is but as soon as Jae-hui sees Yeong-seop, she begins a chase on foot. Yeong-sop runs away and is finally struck down by the van driven by his partner.
Han-jun gets Yeong-sop’s phone before he’s taken away to the hospital for treatment as he’s still breathing. At the hospital, Jae-hui and Han-jun get into another altercation over each other’s methods.
Hye-jun tells Han-jun that she found the location of the van and has sent Na-dan to check it out because their mother is coming to Cafe Minamdang and he needs to be there.
Han-jun’s mother is a devout Christian and when her friends tell her that a shaman operates out of Minamdang, Han-jun lies and tells her that Su-cheol is the shaman. Su-cheol has to pretend to be the shaman for one session and Han-jun’s mother says that he’ll be cured with prayer.
Na-dan gets some trash from the abandoned van and Han-jun finds an address in it possibly belongs to Choi Yeong-seop. Prosecutor Do-won finds out the same address and informs Jae-hui about it.
Han-jun and Su-cheol get there first and Han-jun finds the information he needed to help him unlock Yeong-seop’s phone. He then goes to back to the hospital to question Yeong-seop who is now conscious.
Han-jun and Su-cheol distract the cops at Yeong-seop’s door and Han-jun gets his opportunity to question him. Yeong-seop tells Han-jun that he promised to pay a price to someone else if that person killed his daughter’s rapist.
Ever since then he’s following the man’s orders even though he’s never seen his face or remembers his voice clearly. Before he can give any more information, Jae-hui drags Han-jun out of there, but Su-cheol manages to leave a camera in the room before exiting.
Jae-hui once again reprimands Han-jun for interfering with her investigation but he insists that Yeong-seop has been working with someone and isn’t the main culprit. He then reveals that he has seen the killer with his own eyes.
Review
- This episode of Cafe Minamdang continues the trend of some in the series where the story vaguely ambles ahead with a couple of key details sprinkled in between for better effect.
- The scene where Su-cheol pretends to be the shaman in front of Han-jun’s mother is a funny sequence that should garner some laughs.
- Nam Han-jun using his excellent profiler skills is always a joy to watch and it wasn’t as prevalent in this episode. They should be more consistent with that portrayal.
- The dots are being connected gradually but there is a fear that things will be dragged out because of the fact that they’ve got 13 more episodes to go.
Rating: 3/5