Asian Addicts Anonymous

I am a sucker for crime, mystery, and thriller dramas if done right. I am not sure why I decided to watch this show…maybe because I saw it starred one of my favorite actors Ryu Deok Hwan. He was just so amazing in God’s Quiz. Granted I felt the later seasons fell flat, but his acting was always on point. Which reminds me that I still haven’t watched the final season that came out.

I will say this that this drama is going to be crazy complicated. We have our major plot in the form of the Stigmata Killer which also leads into another plot revolving around a mysterious religious organization and foundation and another revolving around a troubled youth who has a close relationship with our female lead and attends a school run by the foundation…everything’s connected. No lie.

Complicated is okay…as long as they don’t completely make the plot so messy so that the viewer has no idea what is going on. Unlike Shut Up Flower Boy Band, I was actually expecting the death of a character because I actually watched the trailers and knew the character would die. But…that doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking. I really feel that character stole the show a bit in the first two episodes. I am really looking forward to seeing more of Ahn Ji Ho in the future. At 16, he’s already showcasing some major acting chops…at least I love him. He’s like a little adorable brother you want to care for. Oh…and the child actor, Kim Joon Eui, who played like the 6-8 year-old version of Go Eun Ho…so adorable and pretty good, too.

I do like that we have a badass female lead…she is also an extremely broken person, but she can still hold her own and kick butt when it comes to taking on bad guys. And this is so not going to be in order…and it will be probably sans pictures, too. Sorry.

20 years ago South Korea is rocked with a serial killer who murders women after inflicting the wounds of Jesus on them. This means they have wounds in their hands and sides. Thus, of course, the killer is given the name Stigmata Killer. This person killed people all over the country, not just limited to major cities.

We have two high school girls in the woods. One is enamored with white plants they find. Her friend Cha Young Jin [Kim Sae Ron] explains it is only white because it doesn’t have enough chlorophyll and lives off decaying animals, etc. The girl with shorter hair wants to know the name. It turns out the plant has Soo Jung in the name which is the same as this girl’s. Soo Jung [Kim Shi Eun] also worries that the plants are feeding off a corpse…that may not be an animals.

We then cut to a scene at night where Soo Jung is being dragged through the woods. She becomes the Stigmata Killer’s 8th victim. Cha Young Jin was the last person she tried calling. Young Jin explains she did not answer her friend’s phone calls because she was too lazy to take the phone outside where the reception was better. This leads to her feeling very guilty about not picking up the phone. She then wonders if the killer took her friend’s phone since it was nowhere to be found. The detective in charge, Hwang In Bum [Moon Sung Geun], says he believes the killer already go rid of the phone.

As Young Jin is leaving the station she gets a call from Soo Jung’s phone. The killer, who sounds like a young man, tells Young Jin that she is right…Soo Jung wouldn’t have died if she had only answered her phone. He then explains that he had really wanted to kill Young Jin, but she failed to meet his criteria in the end. Young Jin sobs into the phone that she will find him and kill him. The killer says that he doubts she will be able to do so because Soo Jung’s death will be his last kill.

When Detective Hwang sees the upset Young Jin in the hall she explains that the killer called and that he said more people will die. We later come to learn she lies at this point as she was trying to draw the killer out to make a move against her so that she could get revenge for her best friend’s death. Obviously…that didn’t happen.

So 20 years later, Cha Young Jin [Kim Seo Hyung] is one of the fastest-promoted female detectives in the regional office. Many young cops inspire to be like her. The only reason she is able to move swiftly through the ranks is her tenacity to solve crimes and catch criminals in hopes of finding “him.” Detective Hwang has moved to the youth side of things and he worries constantly about Young Jin who has never let go of the case from that year. In fact, her team is investigating it still. With modern advances to forensics, they are going over evidence once more in hoping of unearthing new clues. Even Soo Jung’s mother [Seo Yi Sook], who also lashed out at Young Jin when Soo Jung first died, is worrying for her. She wants Young Jin to put the past behind her and live, not just be obsessed with work and catching this killer.

Of course, in order to stay on this case, Young Jin never tells a soul that Choi Soo Jung is her best friend after she becomes a cop. Although, Detective Hwang does encourage her to let her coworkers know as then they may finally understand her obsession with this case. I remember when we first meet Eun Ho [Ahn Ji Ho], we see Young Jin actually break out of her ice cold face with a genuine smile. You can see how much she loves him. At first I was confused thinking that Eun Ho may have been her kid, but he is actually the boy who lives one floor below.

When Young Jin first moves into her place, Eun Ho is just a little boy [Kim Joon Eui] sitting on the stairs. He is staying out of his apartment since his mom has a boyfriend over and doesn’t want him around. Jang Young Nam isn’t a bad actress, but she usually plays characters I hate. She is just not the best mother to Eun Ho, but I guess in this case, this allows Young Jin to form an attachment to someone and act as a surrogate mother at times. Eun Ho is adorable. He buys her groceries, cooks for her, waters her plants, and even picks up her uniform from the cleaners.

Anywho, back to the past. Young Jin hears yelling and fighting and goes down to Eun Ho’s apartment where So Yun’s boyfriend is getting violent. Eun Ho opens the door and Young Jin steps in. The man yells at Eun Ho who hides behind Young Jin, but also tells her to run. Young Jin coolly tells him he is breaking the law and she is arresting him. She then has him on the floor on his stomach being handcuffed in no time. She becomes Eun Ho’s hero. In fact, she has pictures Eun Ho drew of her framed in her apartment. She is also the one to give him her code and task him with the job of keeping her plants alive. He worries as a child that he will kill the plants and she tells him it is okay if he does as he is still a child so things are still forgivable.

At school, while you don’t see heavily prevalent in-you-face bullying, you can tell Eun Ho is being bullied by other students. From them abandoning him to do the classroom cleaning himself to them taking away the book he borrowed from Young Jin and even hitting him with it. We also see one of his classmates, Yoon Chan Young as Ju Dong Myung, coming to him late at night and getting money from Eun Ho. He also goes after Eun Ho’s bullies a bit telling them to lay off Eun Ho because Eun Ho is “his.”

Speaking of school, this is where we meet Ryu Deok Hwan. He is one of the teachers there. He takes a more hands off approach when dealing with his students. We later learn that something bad happened at his previous school and he was even hospitalized. His sister (sister-in-law) also worries his students could get him into trouble again. I do like the scene where he tells his family they need to have more kids. His niece is very adorable, lol. He is actually the son of the former chairman to the school where he works. And speaking of how things are all interconnected and complicated, his brother-in-law or whomever, really doesn’t seem keen on letting Sun Woo inherit his position.

Lee Sun Woo, even if he tries to hold himself back from getting involved, does seem to care about this students. I would love to learn what really happened to him and how he ended up getting hurt at his previous school. When a student calls to confess she witnessed Eun Ho being bullied, he does step in a bit. Of course Eun Ho lies that nothing is going on. Sun Woo asks if he can trust Eun Ho and the boy says yes before leaving. Of course…Sun Woo doesn’t look all that convinced.

And if we talk about the happenings at school, a former friend of Eun Ho cheated on an exam. He tried to share the answers with Eun Ho and insted of accepting them, Eun Ho wants his friend to turn himself in. Of course the friend doesn’t want to and his friend’s driver…seems a bit too involved in the young man’s life. There is also something hinted at between this friend and Baek Sang Ho, the leader of the church behind the school. This Sang Ho is quite the character, very over the top flamboyant. It seems like he really loves to aggravate the head of the school, Yoon Hee Sub [Jo Han Chul] who is also Lee Sun Woo’s brother-in-law, I guess.

Can you see how crazy things are already? How everything is mysteriously connected?

Ok, so back to Young Jin. She partners with Lee Jae Hong [Min Jin Woong] to investigate the Stigmata Killer as her team doesn’t want full manpower behind this. You can tell they don’t really believe they can catch the guy and even doubt he is still alive since no new murders have ever taken place. Jae Hong and she meet the younger sister of one of the victims. She has returned from the US to hand over her sister’s belongings. The statute of limitations for the first seven victims have long since passed, but Soo Jung’s death fell into a new law where there is no statute of limitations, so they can at least get the killer for her murder.

Young Jin and Jae Hong discover a new lead. The young woman recalls how a man gave her an angel doll (it is an angel represented in stigmata paintings) and how her older sister was upset and tried to keep the young child away from the man. This leads them to New Life Church where they learn the man who handed out the dolls was Seo Sang Won [Kang Shin Il]. She also recalls the man said that her sister was sick in spirit and asked the little girl if she wanted his help to save her sister. Of course being a young child, she said yes.

They get Seo Sang Won’s location from a church executive played by Jo Sun Mook who doesn’t want to be all that helpful and only gives them information when they twist his arm. While Jae Hong delivers items to the NFS for testing, Young Jin goes by herself to find Sang Won. When she gets to his place, she finds a woman tied to a chair, murdered, with the stigmata done to her as well. Young Jin is clearly distraught. She also gets a video texted from Sang Won’s phone of him holding a card with her information. The woman in the chair was still alive at that time.

She follows a trail of blood to the rooftop. There Seo Sang Won stands with the same wounds as his victim. He tells her that this is what she has always wanted…him to kill again. She then demands to know why he took Soo Jung’s life instead of hers. Sang Won replies that Soo Jung was in a darker place. Young Jin calls this BS has Soo Jung was one of the happiest people she knew. He counters with how no one really knows the darkness going on in other people’s lives. He then tells Young Jin that she is to bear witness to his death and to the resurrection of those he killed. While they were horrified and in pain, they always were happy at the moment of their deaths (psycho). He also tells her that Soo Jung will not be among the resurrected as she didn’t meet all the criteria.

Young Jin picks up the awl and asks him to do the same thing to her. He disagrees as she is to be his witness. He then jumps and Young Jin lunges to the edge of the roof. She manages to catch his hands. She is at risk of falling herself. Sang Won tells her to let go as she will die in vain with him and she will find no resurrection herself since she does not have the necessary markings for rebirth. Eventually, Young Jin loses her grip and he falls to his death right in front of Jae Hong.

Young Jin rushes down and tries to revive him, but it is too late. She then handcuffs Sang Won’s corpse and calls in the death saying she has caught the Stigmata killer. You can see there is some doubt on Jae Hong’s face. He really wonders what happened there and you can tell he really does like Young Jin to the point that he is trying to figure out how to protect her. The rest of Young Jin’s team also wonders about her and what happened on the rooftop…why didn’t she wait for Jae Hong to show up?

While all of this chaos is going on, Eun Ho is also suffering. After school one day, he runs into Jang Gi Ho [Kwon Hae Hyo] who collapses on the street in front of him. Eun Ho called 119 [their equivalent of 911] and does CPR. Gi Ho thanks Eun Ho and says the young man will be blessed. He doesn’t have anything to give him at the moment except a book from New Life Church. He tells Eun Ho to keep it safe. We then later see Eun Ho at home when his mom comes in drunk with her boyfriend and starts yelling at how Eun Ho looks down on her. After So Yun settles down, before her boyfriend leaves he asks Eun Ho if he is keeping it safe. Eun Ho goes to his room and finds a box of shoes. Inside these new sneakers is a huge wad of cash.

Eun Ho seems very rattled and runs upstairs to Young Jin’s apartment where he hides the shoebox on her balcony. Young Jin unexpectedly arrives home. She has confessed to Detective Hwang that she lied to him 20 years ago in hopes of drawing the killer out. Hwang told her to go home and rest and change out of her bloody trench coat. You can see Eun Ho wants to talk to her, but he also worries over her. This boy never catches a break. Young Jin looks at the room where she keeps all info about the case and says it is open again. Earlier, Eun Ho, when he finally peeped into the room which was always kept lock, told Young Jin that he hopes she never finds out if something bad happens to him. He doesn’t want her to suffer like she has been suffering for all of these years because of Soo Jung. Young Jin tells him that they are so close, how could she not know if something bad happens?

On the way home from school with some groceries, Eun Ho has his backpack stolen from him by a man on a motorcycle. This sends him running home where he sees that someone has been searching his room as things are 100% how he left them. He then rushes up to Young Jin’s apartment. There his shoebox with money is still safe. He goes to the station to meet Young Jin. He wants to tell her about whatever is exactly going on, but she gets a call from forensics with good and bad news. The good news is  that Sang Won’s DNA matched DNA found at the crime scene of 3 victims. The bad news is that his DNA did not match that found at Soo Jung’s crime scene.

This turn of events does not shock Young Jin. She had that kind of figured out. So even though Sang Won is dead, they know there is a second person that helped commit these crimes. Unfortunately, this means Young Jin ignores Eun Ho who in turn doesn’t tell her what is going on. She tells him they need to meet up for a good meal. Eun Ho leaves the station and angrily says that she doesn’t know anything at all. He then goes back to her place to take the money. Oh, and it is actually Eun Ho coming to the station at this time that keeps Young Jin from confessing to Jae Hong at long last that Soo Jung was her friend.

We end the show seeing Eun Ho leaning over a railing with bruises on his face. We then see him falling on to a car below. Is it murder or suicide? We don’t know yet. And…his death is what I definitely didn’t want to happen.

Jo Sun Mook’s New Life Church character keeps info from Young Jin and is horrified to learn that Sang Won murdered someone…and that someone was part of the New Life Foundation, Im Hee Jung [Baek Hyun Joo] who apparently was at odds with Yoon Hee Sub. Jo is trying to win brownie points for keeping info from the police which could hurt Hee Sub. Yoon responds with there was no reason for Jo to do such a thing. Both men are horrified to find out that Sang Won didn’t just murder Hee Jung, but is also the infamous Stigmata Killer. These men don’t seem to want the dirty laundry of the New Life Church being brought to light, so there is obviously something not right with the church, foundation, and school.

What all these things mean, time will tell. Previews show Young Jin meeting Sun Woo and the two join together to discover what exactly happened to Eun Ho. Young Jin doesn’t believe her boy would commit suicide or do anything bad and Sun Woo also thinks there’s more to this story than meets the eye.

What do you think really happened? I am curious to know who Soo Jung’s real killer is. He seemed to really like Young Jin. I wonder if we have met him yet or not. I like Kim Seo Hyung’s acting. Apparently she has played smaller roles in some dramas I have partially watched, but I have never seen her in a leading role. I think she is an awesome actress and she is doing a good job so far with Young Jin’s character. Young Jin is a strong woman, but also very fragile.