Name: Trolley season 1 episode 12
Director: Kim Moon-kyo
Released: 2023-01-31T20:00:00

Trolley season 1 episode 12 sees Hye-Joo begin to dig deeper into her husband’s claims of the past and trace his activities, in light of some events that have attenuated her trust in him a bit.

Recap

Hye-Joo receives a call from her husband who drops a bombshell on her out of the left field, telling her that Ji-Hoon committed sexual assault, and Kim Soo-Bin was the victim. He also tells her that he’ll be holding a press conference regarding the same shortly.

Before Hye-Joo can collect herself and reach Joong-Do’s office in time, he’s already at the hall addressing the nation, revealing what his son allegedly did and apologizing for it. He also uses the occasion to bring Gwi-Soon on stage and reveal that his ‘Digital Sex Law’ bill would be known as Namgoong Sol’s law.

Before ending his speech, he drops a shocker for Mr. Kang, announcing that his investigations into the land acquisition matter will proceed and he’ll get to the bottom of it. Hye-Joo is upset and confronts him regarding his haste in making Ji-Hoon’s alleged actions public.

Joong-Do tells her that Soo-Bin met him earlier and told him about her sexual assault, also demanding 50 million as blackmail money. To own up to the misdeeds and get ahead of her, Joong-Do claims he went ahead with the conference hall speech.

Hye-Joo’s trust in her husband declines further as she confesses to him that she truly does regret marrying him as a politician. Meanwhile, Ki-Young sits beside Lee Yoo-Sin as she regains consciousness while Seung-Hee goes to eat something outside.

Thinking Ki-Young to be her dead son, she inadvertently exposes that she has been keeping Seung-ho’s crime a secret with her, before collecting herself and realizing she just blurted this out in front of a taken-aback Ki-Young. Meanwhile, Seung-Hee watches Joong-Do give the speech on television.

Yoon-Seo has a fight with her best friend when her brother’s actions are revealed to the public by her own father. Hye-Joo is summoned and so is the mother of Yoon-Seo’s best friend, who just so happens to be Soo-Bin’s biological mother as well.

Later, Hye-Joo ends up stumbling upon Soo-Bin by chance and instantly asks her if her allegations are true. Soo-Bin tells her that they aren’t, and also that she never blackmailed Joong-Do.

At home, Hye-Joo confronts her husband about this again, and he expresses utmost disappointment that she’d rather believe the words of Soo-Bin than his, especially when he’s always believed all her claims without question.

Ji-Hoon’s maternal grandfather pays a visit and lashes out at Joong-Do for ruining his son’s life and death. Joong-Do kneels down in front of him and others in the street and later as he cries in his bedroom, Hye-Joo consoles him and apologizes to him for her earlier remarks.

It’s later revealed that Soo-Bin met Joong-Do and told him the child wasn’t Ji-Hoon’s but her ex-boyfriend’s. However, Joong-Do concocted the plan to pin the sexual assault blame on Ji-Hoon and to shush Soo-Bin, he got Woo-Jae to set Soo-Bin up with a nice apartment.

It’s also revealed that Soo-Bin earlier told Hye-Joo that Joong-Do was the last person Ji-Hoon met before his death. Having her trust in her husband vanishing at an accelerated rate, Hye-Joo decides to trace back some of her husband’s previous claims and movements.

Meanwhile, Joong-Do laments the fact that he has to lie to his wife and do the undesirable for the greater good, as he prepares for an oncoming battle of politics, blame, and winning the public trust, before Trolley episode 12 rolls the credits.

Review

Trolley delivers one of its busiest episodes that’s rife with twists and revelations that muddle the story and character motivations more than focusing on the ethical dilemma at the center of the storyline.
That’s what makes up for one of the major pitfalls of the show, which is to dwell more on creating thrill and suspense regarding characters’ motivations and real identities than the titular ethical dilemma of the ‘Trolley’ problem and the internal struggle that the characters must endure when facing the said dilemma.
It’s good to see, though, that Hye-Joo has finally stepped up and set out to find some answers on her own. The only thing that remains is her response to the Yoo-Sin family that’s in the same vein as their viciousness has been.