Copycat Killer – Episode 5 Recap & Review

Episode 5

Episode 5 of Copycat Killer starts with the cops chasing after the man who was fleeing from the park. The man claims that he was paid by an anonymous person to be at there that evening. Kuo is left shocked when he learns that it wasn’t Yu-tong who had been murdered. The body left by Noh at the park was Yu-tong’s friend – Zih-cing.

Kuo is certain that leaving Yu-tong’s phone on site was a way for Noh to further mess with the cops and Yong. That evening, Jian-ho meets Jia-wun at his house. The reporter confronts the DJ and asks if Jia-wun was Noh, the serial killer. Jian-ho claims that when Noh called TNB News during the broadcast, his speech felt familiar and he wanted to make sure that his friend was not involved in the murders.

Jia-wun tells Jian-ho that he was not the killer and the reporter apologises for doubting his friend. Jia-wun wonders what Jian-ho would do if he really were Noh. The reporter says he would like to know the reason why Jia-wun committed all those crimes and would have his friend turn himself in. Jian-ho leaves to go home that night and recalls his conversation with his sister.

He had asked her if Noh was a deranged man or behaved like this due to childhood trauma. Yun-huei tells her brother that Kuo was looking into his records and the case of Li Hsiao-lin. Jian-ho claims that he did not murder the woman and that he was passed out at the time that Li Hsiao-lin died.

Yun-huei asks if Jian-ho remembered anything else from the night but the reporter is clearly trying to avoid talking about what happened that night. A flashback takes the episode to the night of the incident when Jian-ho was being bullied by some kids including Li Hsiao-lin. The memory shows Jian-ho passed out from being dunked in water while a young boy had almost killed Li Hsiao-lin.

Jian-ho decides to call a support helpline and shares his doubts about Jia-wun with them. Officer Yong is drunk and makes a scene at Kink, asking to search for his daughter. Meanwhile, Jian-ho tells the helpline how Jia-wun was always there for him when he was bullied. Jian-ho recalls how he had to stop Jia-wun from killing Hsiao-lin.

Back then, Jia-wun had shared something about being traumatised by his dead sister. Outside Kink, Kuo talks to Yong and the father breaks down because of how worried he is about Yu-tong. The next morning, Yan-jhen calls Kuo to thank him for encouraging her to work on the missing women’s special report. He is happy for her and the reporter compliments the Prosecutor for working so hard in trying to find the missing women.

Kuo thanks Yan-jhen for the encouragement and ends the call. Ya-cih compliments Yan-jhen for her special and the reporter finally finds some closure over her friend’s murder. Kuo wonders what Noh’s motive behind using TNB News as his mode of conversation with the media was. Wun-kai tells him that the marks on the victim’s faces were made from lipstick of the same brand – Echo.

Da-chao is sure that Jian-ho had something to do with this because he was at the news station every time Noh made a call. Kuo asks Da-chao to look for Hsiao-lin and the cop is shocked to learn that the woman had recently killed herself. Kuo and Da-chao inspect the care home that Hsiao-lin was placed in before her death. Da-chao claims that she had gotten traumatised after the attack and needed to be placed in a mental health facility.

The cop also mentions that Jian-ho was a regular visitor and paid Hsiao-lin monthly visits before her death. At the care facility, Kuo learns that Hsiao-lin had scribbled “Jia-wun” under her mattress – her high school classmate. Kuo pays Jia-wun’s family home a visit and interacts with his mother. Jia-wun’s mother, Chao Pei-fen, misgenders her son and claims that Jia-wun was his daughter.

The woman had also scribbled Jia-wun’s contact information. Kuo recognises a lipstick from the brand Echo on the coffee table and decides to inspect the house behind Pei-fen’s back. In one of the spare rooms, Kuo finds a lot of red gift boxes, similar to the ones Noh was using.

In another room, he finds a video running on the TV where Pei-fen was forcing Jia-wun to dress like a girl against his requests. Meanwhile, Jia-wun is losing his mind as he hallucinates that his mother was around.

The next day, Da-chao tells Kuo that Pei-fen was a widow who had two children. Her oldest born was a girl, also named Jia-wun. The cop tells Kuo that Pei-fen had developed a mental condition after losing her daughter and that Pei-fen’s son, Shen Jia-wun, was a DJ at Kink. Kuo asks Da-chao to bring Jian-ho in for questioning and asks the cops to search Pei-fen’s house as well as the nightclub – Kink.

The cops find a bunch of videotapes at Pei-fen’s house which are all home videos of Pei-fen forcefully dressing Jia-wun up as a girl. She also used the same branded lipstick on him all the time. Kuo interrogates Jian-ho about Hsiao-lin and what had happened to her. The prosecutors ask about Jia-wun which stumps Jian-ho. Jian-ho denies his connection with Jia-wun and lies that he did not know his classmate well.

Kuo tells Jian-ho that the red lipstick marks on the victims’ faces, including Hsiu-lin, were all identical linking him to the case. Jian-ho continues to defend his friend and does not say a word. Kuo brings Jia-wun in for questioning and asks him to identify the women involved in the serial murder case.

The DJ is fairly nonchalant about the interaction and claims that he does not remember any of the women, including Zih-cing whose hair was found in his personal car. Kuo asks him about his interest in violent erotica that was found in his mother’s house as well as the gift boxes found there. Jia-wun manages to counter-argue everything but is stumped when he sees a dress his mother used to dress him in as a child.

He is shocked as Kuo tries to use Jia-wun’s backstory and tries to rile him up. Jia-wun breaks down when Kuo calls him a substitute for his sister but his lawyer arrives just in time to save him. Yan-jhen meets Kuo and offers to look into Jia-wun but the prosecutor gets a call from Officer Yong. The call is cryptic and insinuates that the police officer was going to kill Jia-wun.

Yong has purchased a gun and promises Kuo to make Jia-wun pay for what he has done. After Jia-wun leaves the club that night, Yong follows him while Yan-jhen and Kuo go to Kink looking for Jia-wun. Yong follows Jia-wun into an abandoned building and the two fight.

Yong threatens to kill Jia-wun but stops when he mentions the officer would never be able to see Yu-tong if Jia-wun dies. Jia-wun manages to push the police officer off the building.

The Episode Review

The plot twist that Zih-cing was actually the victim in the park and not Yu-tong makes it seem that Jia-wun was doing all this just to play around with the cops. Jia-wun’s backstory does not make me sympathise with him because he really was not seeking any help to overcome his childhood trauma but was taking it off on helpless women.

Kuo is able to catch on to a lot of things so I wonder what took him so long to get to Jia-wun. The pace of these first few episodes seems very slow and since, we the viewers already know who the serial killer Noh is, this makes the show predictable and takes away the mystery from this thriller.