Taxi Driver – K-Drama Season 2 Episode 1 Recap & Review

The Missing Son

Season 2 of Taxi Driver opens with news reports stating that the hosts of the chatroom that were spreading illegally filmed pornographic videos of women online are going to be taken out of prison for trial. Inside the prison, we see Do-gi being taken outside along with the three men.

One of the trio tells the other two how they had appointed a lawyer who was going to help them walk freely in no time. Together with the trio, Do-gi is being transported to the court when he hears about the revenue from the subscribers of the chatroom being left in a subway.

The code to the locker is on a sticky note with one of the three men. Just then, the cops drive over a landmine that causes the vehicle to be attacked along with its drivers. Do-gi steps out first and is seen returning in his iconic taxi.

He saves the trio and asks them to take a seat, promising to help them flee. The men willingly sit in the cab where Do-gi claims that he was a subscriber to their ever-growing chatroom and offers them something to drink. The drink is obviously spiked and the taxi leads them to an abandoned room.

The men wake up to watch a live news report about themselves where the reports claim that the three men are being hunted down by the SWAT team who had arrested them in response to a tip about them dealing illegal weapons. The reporter states that this, on top of their chatroom scandal, will keep the three men behind bars indefinitely.

From the rooftop of the opposite building, the Rainbow Taxi gang watch the men being arrested, thankful for making some money out of the mission at least. Sung-cheol thanks the prosecutor on the case for his help in having Do-gi imprisoned as well as getting him out of there.

A flashback takes the episode back to the night when the first season ended. After Do-gi’s revenge, the crew decided to part ways and do their own thing. While both Kyung-goo and Jin-eon state they will be going back to their old jobs, Go-eun states she would become a cop while Do-gi mentions he will travel.

The team parts ways peacefully but soon after that, the secret basement of Rainbow Taxi is raided. Sung-cheol takes all of the blame for the secret organisation upon himself but surprisingly walked out free after the allegation was dismissed. Do-gi is back to work with Rainbow Taxi the man dearly misses the rest of the crew.

Meanwhile, Kyung-goo and Jin-eon still miss the secret agency even at their present jobs. Go-eun cannot help but keep herself from thinking about the people she cannot help as a cop. When her superior asks her to steer clear of a missing person’s case, Go-eun recalls being a part of Rainbow Taxi.

Sung-cheol is back at spreading the word about the agency. The man who had been looking for his missing son catch is about to end his life when he finds Rainbow Taxi’s contact number. Sung-cheol gets a call from him and pages Do-gi to pick him up. The man narrates how he was a single man raising his son.

Despite being in debt, the man was willing to send away his son for two years after the young guy was selected as an exchange student in Vietnam. The man sends his son – Dong-jae off happily but 10 months after, when there is no contact from Dong-jae for 15 days straight, the man gets worried.

He learns that his debt had been paid off by Dong-jae. The young boy’s friends claim that Dong-jae had been abroad for a job and not to study. The man is pissed off when he learns about his son’s sacrifice and flies to Vietnam to find him. There he learns that the company mentioned in Dong-jae’s contract documents was a sham.

The man files a complaint about his son being missing but the cops assume that Dong-jae had fled because he was of age. The cops tell him that Dong-jae had called the Vietnam embassy and asked them to tell his father to stop contacting him. The man has now made it his life’s mission to find Dong-jae.

He finds an employment letter from Dong-jae asking him to back off from looking for him as he had made a life for himself abroad. The cops tell him that the number that Dong-jae called from was a place famous for its casinos and add that he had turned into a gambler.

Sung-cheol and Do-gi analyse the letter and the younger of the two finds a cryptic morse code message indented at the bottom of the letter. Do-gi states that Dong-jae had served as an operations leader for his mandatory enlistment. A flashback shows Dong-jae being beaten up by a few men who make him write a letter to his dad.

Do-gi decodes the SOS message from Dong-jae while the man presses the blue button to start the mission to save his son. With only two out of its five members working the job, Rainbow Taxi seems to be facing some technical glitches. Do-gi learns that the office in Vietnam is actually an under-construction building in South Korea.

The two would really love Go-eun’s skills now but they make do with what they have at the moment. Go-eun is also trying to help Dong-jae’s father and pays a visit to his restaurant only to find it closed. Do-gi finds that the company had changed to a new name now and applies for the same overseas job as Dong-jae.

With just him and Sung-cheol, it seems that the mission will be a lot more difficult than they anticipated. Sung-cheol chickens out and wants them to think about a better plan of action for this mission but Do-gi takes the flight regardless.

The next day, Kyung-goo and Jin-eon arrive at Rainbow Taxi to meet Sung-cheol but are surprised when it is closed. They wait in Sung-cheol’s cabin only to find Dong-jae’s missing poster. They quickly put two and two together and rush to the secret basement only for Sung-cheol to kick them out. Back in Vietnam, Do-gi is received by a driver from the company who drives him to a remote location.

Sung-cheol tries his best to screen the number plates for the vehicles as Do-gi sends him images from the camera of his spectacles. Kyung-goo and Jin-eon meet Go-eun to tell her about Sung-cheol being suspicious but she gets called in for work. The two men decide that they’ll handle it on their own.

Go-eun uses the police database to check Dong-jae’s status of nationality which tells her he is still legally overseas.

Back in Vietnam, Do-gi is tied upside down to a hook and beaten up alongside two other men who applied for the position. The leader of the group tells them that their job would be to make online games as computer engineers.

With these games, the men plan on extorting money from young players. The man sends Do-gi and the other two recruits to study how these games are made and Do-gi finds many other young boys.

An epilogue shows that Madam Lim had been tailing Do-gi (aka Mr Wang) adamant about making him pay for ruining her life.

The Episode Review

Watching Taxi Driver is always a thrill ride. The show has it all, drama, suspense, thrill, comedy and most importantly, revenge. I think that the cold open to the show was very interesting and I wish there was a more detailed episode about the pornography scandal because it really hits home with the Nth Room Documentary dropping only last year.

I think it was fun to see the secret agency struggle without Go-eun, Kyung-goo and Jin-eon but I want to know what brought Do-gi back to the organisation. I have a feeling that everyone will help Do-gi in their own way to bring this mission to fruition.

The epilogue was hilarious, to say the least, and only Madam Lim will be naive enough to think about taking Do-gi down for seducing her and ruining her life.