Seoul Busters – K-Drama Episode 17 Recap & Review

seoul bustersThe Message From Beyond The Grave

Seoul Busters episode 17 starts with two male students walking home. One of them brings up how hard the recent exams were but the other says he guessed a few questions and managed to get everything right. The first student gets jealous and when his friend chases after a ball, he pushes him towards an oncoming truck and the boy gets hit.

Currently, we see Hyun-woo keeping tabs on Jun-ho, who is stalking a young woman. Hyun-woo gets a call and Jun-ho uses this opportunity to sneak away. Elsewhere, the team is having dinner on a rainy night at their favourite place.

Yu-bin gets a call and excuses himself to take it. Tan-sik notices a wallet on the floor and picks it up. He starts freaking out after seeing a photo of Yu-bin with his girlfriend. They start talking about Yu-bin and Min-seo mentions that she heard he nearly got married in America.

Our elite storyteller, Jong-ryeok, starts imagining why Yu-bin left his good career in America to move back to Korea. He argues that maybe Yu-bin fell in love with a female serial killer who broke his heart after refusing to change her ways. All this because Yu-bin once told him that even criminals fall in love!

Jung-hwan refuses to accept this version and gets into one of his own. According to him, he overheard that Yu-bin stole Hyun-woo’s girlfriend. He reasons that Yu-bin left the country out of shame for stealing his friend’s girl.

However, his theory makes no sense since Hyun-woo and Yu-bin are still friends. As for Tan-sik, he remembers that Yu-bin once mentioned he got hurt in the arm by a gun. He wonders if the mafia killed Yu-bin’s girlfriend on their wedding day as retaliation for his investigation into their gang.

He figures Yu-bin attacked the gang and got his revenge as if he were Vincenzo. He even kills Yu-bin in his theory and the others scold him. Why are they detectives? They could make a living as writers? As they theorise, Yu-bin returns and explains he got injured by a toy gun and disappoints them.

The following morning, the team is called to the Songnae mountain where a woman’s body is found. Unfortunately, there is no CCTV footage near the area and the killer took the victim’s belongings.

However, after more observation, Yu-bin says the victim was likely killed somewhere else and dumped in the forest mountain. He also thinks that the woman is an art major because of the paint on her sleeves and fingers. He also thinks the killer staged the body because he wanted it found. Min-seo agrees.

At the same time, Tan-sik informs them that the body was strategically placed between two borders, therefore making jurisdiction unclear. As always, Jung-hwan changes his mind to suck up to Yu-bin.

As the investigation continues, they identify the victim as Jung Hyun-joo. Yu-bin was right. She was an art student at a local university. Hyun-joo’s family is poor, but she lived in an expensive apartment in the city. Jong-ryeok and Tan-sik head to the university to interview Hyun-joo’s friends.

On the way, they eat some gimbap even though Tan-sik notes the spinach smells off. Jong -ryeok ends up getting a stomach ache while talking to the students and starts farting as his stomach rumbles loudly. He is forced to go a long distance to find the men’s toilet since they are at an all-girls university. On the way, he stumbles upon a pervert dressed in women’s clothes.

He decides to chase the man before helping himself. As for the interview, the girls describe Hyun-joo as friendly and easygoing. Meanwhile, Jung-hwan and Min-seo head to Hyun-joo’s house. They find Hyun-joo’s cat hiding in the closet and a card to a bar that Hyun-joo worked at. 

At the same time, Yu-bin visits the site again and tries to piece the puzzle together. He deduces that the culprit is a strong man about 20-35 years old. Strong, tall and most likely left-handed, but trained himself to be right-handed too.

He drops by Eun-kyung’s office and learns that Hyun-joo was suffocated after getting a ketaflurane, which is not readily available to the public. Based on the markings on Hyun-joo’s face, the culprit used their left hand to cover her face with a piece of cloth. The culprit’s left thumb caused the mark Eun-Kyung is certain the culprit is right-handed. 

In the meantime, Hyun-woo discusses the case with his students and mentions that the case has some similarities to a case he saw in America. The case reminds Yu-bin of what happened to his girlfriend.

They first met in Korea when she missed the last bus after attending a concert. He also missed the last bus after attending a seminar. Ja-ein asked him to share a taxi to Seoul, and he thought that was it. They later met one year later in America and fell in love over time. They both were so happy and moved in together.

The day she was killed, they were supposed to attend a concert together, but his seminar got moved up. He couldn’t make it but offered to meet her as soon as his work was done. He then got a call about her murder and rushed home to find Hyun-woo working on the case. They didn’t allow him inside, but from the doorway, he could see her lifeless body covered in a white sheet.

Another detective later gave him the necklace that Ja-ein was holding in her hand when she died. He had bought her that bracelet and she had teased him about the meaning of the symbol. After pouring into the case files, Yu-bin realised that the symbol meant friendship. Ja-ein was trying to tell him she was killed by a friend. At the time, everyone thought Han Jun-ho was the culprit and Yu-bin followed him back to Korea.


The Episode Review

We finally know what happened to Yu-bin, and it is nothing like the team imagined. They do have vivid imaginations, but the truth is much darker than we all expected. Jun-ho seems like the most likely suspect and the show has been building him up to be the dragon that Yu-bin must slay to find justice.

This seems like the ending the show is gearing up to, but who knows if we will get a twist? With three episodes to go, we will be saying goodbye to one of the best comedy shows of the year. Let’s jump into the next episode to unravel this final mystery.

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