Murders 2,3, and 4!
Episode 2 of A Killer Paradox begins with a dog chasing Tang, who has the hammer in his bag. He wakes up and thinks it’s a dream. Tang goes to his parents’ house where his mother tells him to come to church. When he throws some trash away, he sees the dead man’s head in the bin.
Nan-gam goes to a flower shop but the shopkeeper seems more invested in her phone call. He then goes to a store and asks for a juice gift box, but he finds it has two bottles less and ends up throwing it away. This all seems to be for his father, who was a police officer but is currently unconscious in bed. His mother berates him for not getting flowers.
Tang’s mother comments that he’s lost weight and fusses about him missing classes but is interrupted by one of her friends. They all enter the church, where Tang’s mother tells him to go abroad if he wants, she and her father won’t be a burden to him. She gives him a lottery ticket as well.
At the police station, the cops have been getting heat for not arresting Bu-il before he died. The captain arrives and pulls Nan-gam aside, telling him to stop fixating on “that guy”. Apparently, Nan-gam has been chasing a perpetrator who used to be a cop.
Tang gets himself a new phone and then goes to the store. The woman part timer is there and complains about the main door’s welcome message. During his shift, the blind woman from earlier turns up. She demands that Tang pay her two million won. Turns out, she’s not completely blind and knows Tang killed a person and hints that she has the hammer.
At University, Gyeong-hwan and Mi-young discuss how Tang asked both of them for money. Tang has even tried selling his new phone and failed. He ends up asking the store’s owner if he can have an advance for the month. Having had a bad experience with someone before, the owner refuses. Still, Tang gets a text from his boss later showing that he’s paid him after all. It’s still not enough. Tang ends up taking his house savings account details from his parents and liquidating the whole thing.
Gyeong-hwan and Mi-young keep calling Tang but he doesn’t pick up. Tang is at the store and holding a sling bag with all the cash in it. The owner comes in and mentions seeing the blind woman. Tang rushes out and finds a cigarette box, the one she bought from him, with a time and address. At the police station, the captain tells Nan-gam off for trying to chase the man as vengeance for his father. Nan-gam claims he’s only doing his job.
At noon the next day, Tang makes his way to the woman’s house. She casually makes him coffee and chats with Tang, who stays quiet. He gets the cash out but is shocked to learn that she meant two million won a month. She brings out the hammer and says she wouldn’t risk becoming an accomplice just for that much.
Tang leaves the money, grabs the hammer and leaves. She then makes a comment revealing that she knows all about Tang’s family, which brings Tang back. She claims even without the hammer, the police can easily catch him.
Tang pictures himself running towards the woman like a dog, even wearing a leash. In reality, he leaps towards her with the hammer. Blood spatters. The woman is dead. Tang grabs his stuff and runs out, leaving a bloody print on her front door.
Sometime later, as milk packages pile up by the woman’s front door, the delivery man checks on her. The next thing we see, police tape is around the place and Nan-gam and Yong-jae are at the scene. Apparently, the body was very damaged as Rex seemed to have helped himself to his mistress’s body. The dog is still there, creating a ruckus in the garden. But this ruckus reveals a skull in the soil.
During the police debrief, we learn that two skeletons were found in her garden. At home, Tang sees Yeo-ok hovering around him and muses about how easy it was to kill people. Apparently, he’s been inside for four days and hasn’t eaten much. Missed calls pile up on his phone, but he just wonders why the police haven’t come to get him yet.
It turns out the dog licked everything that Tang touched in the house so the police don’t find his fingerprints or DNA. They then discuss the dog’s fate, wondering if he should be put down.
Meanwhile, a distraught Tang tried to kill himself but fails. Gyeong-hwan comes over and tricks Tang into opening the door. They argue and Tang calls him a dumbass, saying he was the one who stole Gyeong-hwan’s tablet. Gyeong-hwan turns around on Tang and says he always knew. After that incident, Tang began to behave nicely, making Gyeong-hwan confused about whether Tang was a good or a bad person.
At the police station, one of Nan-gam’s colleagues is confident that someone else was at Yeo-ok’s house on the day. But there’s no evidence. Later, the decision has been made for the dog to be put down and the colleague is told to take him to the pound.
On the way, the dog wants to go into the karaoke, where Tang is moping in one of the rooms. Since he hasn’t gone back to work either, his boss has made a police complaint against him.
The two young boys from the first episode show up again. They see the policeman walking with the dog and decide to mess with him. They run up to him and one of the boys stabs him with a broken bottle.
Tang comes out of karaoke and sees the news about Yeo-ok – she murdered her own parents! The two boys are still wondering the streets when they realise they lost their wallets. They see Tang walking and decide to mess with him this time. Tang gets goosebumps on the back of his neck, something that happened the last two times he committed a murder as well.
The next thing we see are two bodies lying in a dump. In the morning the detective is at the scene. Tang wakes up at home and is shocked to see that he’s covered in blood. A bloody brick sits next to his hammer now, along with a small note.
Tang remembers that somebody carried him home but he doesn’t know who. The note tells Tang to ask for help if he needs it with a link to a telegram named Only For Heroes.
The Episode Review
Episode 2 takes things up by several notches, Tang has now committed four murders! This series is moving at a quick pace but it works. The atmosphere is thrilling, the story has you at the edge of your seat and does not allow you to look away. The final scene ensures you click on the next episode.
It’s a testament to how good the writing is, featuring scripts that are crisp and maximise this crispness to emphasize the story’s allure. The dialogues are to-the-point, often including one-liner jokes or zingers that will make you laugh.
The show also maintains its distinct style with music that amps up tension but also adds a spot of absurdism during certain scenes — like peppy music being played during a murder. The cinematography and editing continues to add to the show’s charm as well. As for Tang, his transition from the first murder to the rest of them is executed really well.
The transformation is smooth and you can see how Yeo-ok pushed his buttons just far enough. As for the supernatural element, the following episodes will probably reveal more.
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