“Inspector Koo” (구경이)

 

By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
December 12, 2021

Koo Kyung-Yi (played Lee Young-Ae)
Song Yi-Kyung (played by Kim Hye-Jun)
↑Note: Korean names denote the surname followed by the given name.

“Inspector Koo” is a former police officer, whose life went on a downward spiral after the death of her schoolteacher husband. Distraught and unable to move on with her life, she becomes a recluse in her pigsty apartment. She eats and drinks as she games online with players half her age. And if she bathes, it’s not frequent enough.

The series starts off strong, with a whip-smart teenage serial killer manipulating her victims, teachers and the police. She is as much a sociopath as a psychopath, which is explained away with a vague backstory about the childhood trauma she suffered from after witnessing what happened to her parents. (The viewers aren’t sure what occurred — just that they are no longer alive.) But where the K-drama starts to wane is about mid-way through the series, when I grew tired of the repetitive antics between the inspector (played by the delightful Lee Young-Ae) and the now grown serial killer, Yi-Kyung, who goes by the name K.

There is an interesting subplot that I was fully vested in. It involved K’s righthand man, Geon-Wook (Lee Hong-Nae, the most evil demon in “The Uncanny Counter“), who works as a security guard. When he begins a relationship with a male colleague, his life seems like it could change for the better. Their romance isn’t sensationalized. If anything, theirs is the purest relationship within the series.

Airdates: Twelve episodes (about 70 minutes each) aired from October 30 to December 12, 2021 on JTBC.

Spoiler Alert: One of the secrets throughout the series revolves around Kyung-Yi’s favorite gaming partner, Santa (Baek Sung-Chul) — who she hires as her driver and assistant. Though he presents himself as being unable to talk, we hear him speak just fine at times when he’s alone. He and K went to the same high school. When a classmate drowned, rumors spread that she was with Kyung-Yi’s husband at the time. In reality, Santa was in a secret relationship with the girl. Unable to deal with the rumors, her husband died by suicide. Kyung-Yi didn’t fully believe her husband when he said the rumors circulating had no truth to them. When he died, she questioned whether her lack of support drove him to it.

© 2021 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved