Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Hello and welcome back to the recaps for Crime Scene Returns, and we’ll be picking up where we left off on Episode 5, as we now get the conclusion of the case in Episode 6.
My head hurts a bit.
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In the previous recap, I did a breakdown of the information the viewers have about the victim and the suspects, so let’s stick with a similar format here.
Father Jang (Jang Jin)
We left off with him being interrogated over the death of his son, Son Jang, and he indeed admits to accidentally killing him. Surprisingly, the car accident wasn’t the cause, rather he did it in his office and then moved Son Jang’s body. The victim of this case was found drunk at the crime scene after Father Jang hit him, so he was a convenient scapegoat.
Fast forward to the trial, his secretary had informed him that the victim had found proof of innocence, which would obviously ruin everything. So at 9:25 AM, his secretary bumped into Guard Key to get him away from his post and buy time for Father Jang to interrogate the victim over what he had that could get him off. However, the secretary texted him again at 9:30 AM that Guard Key was coming back and to get out, so he claims he went to wait for the judge to ask for more time to figure out what the victim knew.
While he still had arguably the strongest motive, and given that he met with the victim and was arguably the last person to talk with him while he was alive, he’s definitely a suspect in terms of means. However, he’s also the only suspect without a potential murder weapon. He had syringes and fentanyl, which he says are his sons. It doesn’t matter what they’re for though, as none were used, found at the scene, or on his person.
Witness Park (Park Ji Yoon)
As far as the other prime suspect from the last episode, the investigation found a ledger proving that it was indeed her that embezzled the $18 million meant for the construction project, and she planned on pinning it on the victim. The money was blown as a part of her gambling addiction, though that doesn’t seem relevant.
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— Asian Junkie (@asianjunkiecom) March 23, 2024
The day before the trial, she met with the victim in the medical room, and a recording she made proved that she was told he wasn’t going to agree to being the sole CEO once he was found innocent. Thus, she wanted to kill him with insulin but claims once she got to the courthouse he was already dead.
The motive is easy since she literally says she was gonna kill him. However, the potential means were never clarified. She could lie about where she was during the potential murder times, but her insulin was hidden in the bushes and unused, and I’m almost positive it couldn’t induce death that quickly.
Reporter Ahn (IVE’s Yujin)
Alright, here’s a suspect whose story I figured would be expanded on, especially regarding her sister. And indeed it did have relevance since her sister had a rare disease and Reporter Ahn needed $300,000 for treatment immediately. Thus, she was going to inject him with her sister’s morphine and kill him in order to get sensational pictures that she could sell for a payday.
However, she claims that by the time she got to him, he was already dead. While she took pictures of him in that state, it didn’t look like a story she could profit enough from, so she posed him in the courtroom and hit him on the head to make it look personal (which removes that as a method to narrow the suspects).
Despite admitting she was gonna kill him, I found the motive rather flimsy because it’s still about money, and it even seems unlikely she could get that sum from her pictures. However, she certainly had the means to kill him because she was in there after Father Jang and didn’t encounter Guard Key, and her vial of morphine was used (she claimed it was because her sister used it). Thus, she could’ve killed him herself and then taken the photo of him dead, but it’s a lot to do in a window of nine minutes.
Lawyer Joo (Joo Hyun Young)
In last episode’s recap, I mentioned the seafood allergy and the suspicious pet fishes that seemed to come and go as clues. It seemed like a long shot at the time that she could’ve force fed those fish to him to induce a reaction in that short time, or that fish food alone was enough to trigger a similar response. However, two comments on the last post made me pay extra attention to if it came up in this episode, and sure enough:
Well … turns out those were not like goldfish or whatever I thought, but were poisonous pufferfish with deadly tetrodotoxin. Additionally, Detective Jang found a needle hidden within a fountain pen that had blood on it. She claims it was from killing her fish to get the toxin on the needle, and she too stated that she was going to kill the victim but he was already dead when she arrived at 9:50 AM.
The motive to kill him was basically saving the career she worked all her life for, which would mean a lot to a perfectionist, especially after she basically sold out on the Luxury Jang case to get that job. Furthermore, she had direct instructions to get it done from Fungmu Group. Mostly though, there’s no evidence she actually arrived on the scene at 9:50 AM, and the blood on the weapon is a bit of a smoking gun compared to the other hypothetical murder weapons that look unused (aside from Reporter Ahn’s). Hell, I’m not even sure if pufferfish would leave blood stains like that if you killed them for their poison, honestly.
Guard Key (SHINee’s Key)
I actually thought there would’ve been more to this backstory, but while the victim was the person who led him to be discharged from the military, there wasn’t much evidence linking him to the murder. Yes, he too wanted to kill the victim, and yes he knew the building enough to get to the painkiller and syringes from the medical room, but the timeline makes it close to impossible for him to actually do it without running into Reporter Ahn or Father Jang. After all, it’s proven that he was indeed drawn away from the room by Father Jang’s secretary.
Victim – Jeon Minkyo
It was puzzling that the cast were given a National Forensic Service autopsy that showed he was already dead when Reporter Ahn took her initial photograph in the defendant waiting room. I already had questions about her ability to fit the murder, posing, and all the photos into less than 10 minutes, but that confirmation helped to validate my skepticism.
At the end it was uncovered that the victim seemed to have an allergic reaction around his mouth, which looked like hives, and connects with his seafood allergy.
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Opinion
It seemed to me like the producers kinda handheld viewers through this case a bit in this episode. I get the decision since it was a complicated logistical case with multiple suspects literally admitting they had motiive, but they literally did a timetable walkthrough for everybody.
Additionally, the aforementioned NFS report seemed to come out of nowhere when they were having the final discussion among the cast. I was still going to vote for Lawyer Joo, but it would’ve been way closer to 50/50 for me between her and Reporter Ahn without it.
Nevertheless, the evidence seemed pretty overwhelming since Lawyer Joo’s murder weapon was the only one that looked like it was used. While it’s possible they could’ve missed a used syringe from Reporter Ahn or something, it’s difficult to just assume something like that. Moreover, the comments in the last recap primed me to pay extra attention to the fish-related stuff, and like with Dayworker Jang in the last case, the info that emerged in the last investigation time about the hives helped to lock my choice in. As far as the means goes, she could’ve just lied about arriving at 9:50 AM since she got the call that he was changing lawyers at 9:05 AM and there’s no evidence to support her alibi.
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Votes
- Lawyer Joo: 3 (Reporter Ahn, Father Jang, Witness Park)
- Reporter Ahn: 2 (Lawyer Joo, Guard Key)
- Father Jang: 1 (Detective Jang)
- Witness Park: 1 (Detective Jang)
- Guard Key: 0
And indeed, it was Lawyer Joo.
Impressive job by the cast on this complicated case, as they didn’t miss any clues. However, I personally did miss that it was Lawyer Joo who caused the commotion, which makes sense since the other suspects were unlikely to be able to do so and leaving it to some random troll seems like it would go against the nature of the show.
Yujin was certainly happy she got one, and Hyun Young resented Detective Jang for finding the murder weapon.
Father Jang went down as a politician until the end.
Oh, Key.
You know better!
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Other Stuff
- A perfect case for Jang Dong Min to be detective because it’s messy as hell and he can just crack jokes.
- Detective Jang was absolutely obsessed with fentanyl, though. Not sure how he thought Father Jang actually did it.
- If they do this show again, both Hyun Young and Yujin need to be a part of it.
- If you ever had doubts that I wasn’t skipping ahead on the show, my recaps for the first half of the cases are proof. Good lord, some of those predictions seem insane after the whole story is out. Granted, in my defense, it’s edited like that by the producers on purpose, but it’s sorta deranged that it counts as a vote for the detective at that point.
- Detective assistant Lee Jin Woo hasn’t been seen much this season, but Jang Dong Min did him a solid…
- …sorta.
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— Asian Junkie (@asianjunkiecom) March 23, 2024
- Boomer typing returns.
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These types of convoluted cases (more than normal, at least) where everybody tries to kill the victim in tiny and unlikely windows can be either challenging or tedious depending on your perspective. But personally I thought this was the weakest-conceived case of the new season so far, even as the cast continues to excel together and the entertainment value remains high.
If you’ve seen the other available episodes, don’t spoil it in the comments.
