Flex X Cop – K-drama Episode 4 Recap & Review

Mysteries Unfold Following the Death of a Famous Painter, Noh Young-Jae

Episode 4 of Flex X Cop starts at the gallery with I-soo preserving Young-jae’s murder scene before calling Gang-hyun. She is still asleep since it is her off day but arrives at the gallery soon, followed by Jun-young, Kyung-jin and the forensics team.

Upon investigating the crime scene, Gang-hyun quickly deduces that Young-jae has been dead for more than ten hours and directs Kyung-jin to take the audience’s contacts and let them go. I-soo wonders how Gang-hyun was able to know for how long the victim has been dead, which gives Jun-young a chance to make fun of I-soo. 

Later, Gang-hyun questions Young-jae’s assistant, Kwon Do-jun, and the gallery director, Joo Hwa-young. Both have a different opinion of Young-jae, with his assistant saying he was kind and friendly while the director says he had a bad temper. The director also tells them about someone barging into Young-jae’s studio and spilling red paint all over his paintings, but Young-jae lets the person go.

When asked if she knew the person, the director said she was on a business trip. In addition, the detectives have no access to the CCTV cameras in the gallery since the director informs them that the tapes were changed the day before. 

Gang-hyun and I-soo think they are doing the most challenging thing on their way to inform Young-jae’s family about his death, but they are shocked when the wife shows neither surprise nor sorrow. She calls him a jerk and says he deserves to die. Her alibi is that she was out with her boyfriend all night. 

Afterwards, I-soo asks to go home since he has some things to do, and then we see his assistant and movers moving into the house opposite Gang-hyun’s family home. I-soo moved into his childhood home after his stepmother kicked him out of his current home, and he received a warm welcome from Gang-hyun’s mother.

Seung-jun learns about I-soo moving out and confronts his mother, who starts crying, talking about how much she suffered because of I-soo’s mother. Elsewhere, I-soo’s father texts a mysterious person telling them about I-soo moving back to his old house, and the person tells him not to let I-soo stay in that house as it might help him regain his memory.

The following morning, I-soo finds out that Gang-hyun is his neighbour, and they carpool to work when her car does not start. They visit Young-jae’s gallery to talk to his assistant again and ask about the case of the woman who spilt red paint on the painting. Fortunately, the assistant has a record of the confrontation, and the woman talks about the painting revealing something that should not be revealed and calls Young-jae a murderer. 

The woman is Gyeong-sun, and she blames Young-jae for her daughter’s death. Young-jae was her daughter’s advisor, and he started plagiarising her work and putting it in exhibitions as his own.

The mother and daughter did everything they could, including reporting Young-jae to the school the news and even suing him, but no one believed her daughter. When they refused Young-jae’s offer to pay them by sending her daughter abroad to study, Young-jae counter-sued, saying Gyeong-sun’s daughter plagiarised his work, which led to her daughter’s death. 

The detectives have three potential suspects, including the underappreciated assistant, Do-jun, the wife who had no feelings for her husband, Hwa-young, and the mother bitter about her daughter’s death, Gyeong-sun.

After investigating the wife’s boyfriend, Bae Jin-kyu, the detectives find out that he has been convicted of fraud, was spending so much money, and was talking about starting a business since he had investors. In addition, Young-jae had taken life insurance, which would be easy money for the wife since all his other real estate investments were not easy to dispose of. 

The detectives call in the wife and the boyfriend for questioning. The wife says that she did not kill her husband for the two billion death insurance since she is not planning on giving him two billion for his business, but she plans on breaking up with him. She tells Gang-hyun that she needs to look into the assistant since he has a motive because he has been slaving away at Young-jae’s side, hoping to get a debut through his help, but he did nothing to help him out.

Apparently, Do-jun was secretly planning to travel abroad for studies under the sponsorship of the Artist’s Foundation. Jun-young thinks the wife might be buying time to escape, but Gang-hyun believes they should look into it.

 A fluke that happens because a rat enters I-soo’s new house reveals that the painting he bought has another painting underneath it, and the signature is similar to Do-jun’s.

Meanwhile, Gang-hyun questioned a staff member from the Artist Foundation who revealed that Do-jun was selected for a scholarship to study abroad, but his academic adviser called and accused him of plagiarism, so his scholarship was cancelled.

Consequently, Kyung-jin finds out that Do-jun bought a scarf similar to the one the daughter bought the grieving mother for her birthday. At the end of the episode, Do-jun knocks out I-soo after realising he knows his painting is underneath Young-jae’s.

The Episode Review

The episode introduces a potential clue that the death of I-soo’s mother might not have been an accident. The father panics when he learns that I-soo has returned to his childhood home, and another person shares his concern that I-soo might remember some things he should not.

Who is the woman I-soo’s father was talking to on the phone? Is his mother’s death related to the painting of the dead woman underwater that he sees in his sleep or when he gets a panic attack?

In the case of this episode, Young-jae seems to have destroyed the lives of many people around him, seeing that everyone is happy he is dead. Is Do-jun the killer? He has a strong motive since he has been working as Young-jae’s assistant for years, and he sabotaged his chance to further his studies abroad.