Taxi Driver – K-Drama Season 2 Episode 8 Recap & Review

Beating Cult With a Cult

Episode 8 of Taxi Driver Season 2 starts with Ju-man experiencing the ritual that Do-gi performs. The fake godman refuses to believe another scammer like himself and decides to move away from Ju-man as he calls a mechanic to help with his car.

Go-eun jokes that the man lacks faith and that Do-gi will have to try harder with him. Before the service, Ju-man is informed that one of his followers had collapsed and died during a prayer service. The man is pissed that there were witnesses to the incident.

He goes to the cops and tells them how the man was sick but did not want to go back home. Ju-man tells them that the man willingly chose to stay at the prayer centre instead of going back to his family. The deceased man’s family members are furious and want to kill Ju-man but the cops shield him.

The revenge crew is further pissed at Ju-man’s audacity to put the lives of so many people at stake for his shady business. They plan to intensify the threat and Sung-cheol dresses himself up to threaten Ju-man. On his drive back, Ju-man notices a sinister figure on the street. At the same time, his seat belt fastens itself and he is not able to drive properly.

After almost causing a road accident on the empty street, Ju-man calls the car repair shop to complain about the faulty seatbelt. Go-eun answers the call and claims that the repair shop was not to blame for the seat belt. However, this is the same seatbelt that Jin-eon and Kyung-goo had developed for the revenge taxi.

Ju-man somehow makes it back to the prayer centre but still sees the ghost – Sung-cheol haunting him. His right-hand woman takes him away and claims that he wasn’t well and should go see a doctor. The next morning, Ju-man is at a medical centre getting a consultation for his hallucinations.

Go-eun watches the consultation and wonders how Ju-man was okay with watching his followers die without any medical help while he was getting treatment for his own concerns. After the consultation, Ju-man goes to pay Do-gi a visit but Kyung-goo tells him that Do-gi was a busy man and the only appointment he had was from 2 years later.

Ju-man is shocked when he gets a taste of his own medicine when Do-gi threatens to call the cops if Ju-man did not leave his private property. At the same time, Go-eun saves Jin-hee from the loan sharks who were threatening her for the money Jin-seon borrowed from them. Go-eun asks Jin-hee to hang on and wait for her sister to come back soon.

Ju-man’s men kidnap Do-gi and bring him to his office at the prayer centre. Do-gi had anticipated this already and starts his elaborate scheme to scare Ju-man with Sung-cheol present to haunt him from the two-way mirror box. Together both Do-gi and Sung-cheol manage to scare Ju-man so much so that the fake godman starts believing in Do-gi’s power.

He begs for Do-gi to help save him. Do-gi concludes that the relics Ju-man had destroyed had brought death upon him and claims that they needed to perform a ritual to save the godman. He gives Ju-man a talisman and asks him to keep them close to himself.  

Ju-man starts placing the talisman around his office. He continues his services and holds another healing service where he would slap his followers. Seeing how Jin-seon was in a very bad state, Jin-eon volunteers to take the slaps before her. He manages to save the woman but is left with a sore cheek. Kyung-goo treats him to a meal for his suffering.

Meanwhile, Do-gi claims that it was time for them to pay a visit to Ju-man’s dead mother. At the Sunbaek prayer centre, Jin-eon manages to sabotage Ju-man’s service. The man has gotten very fearful and brings Do-gi to his cabin for another inspection. Do-gi claims that Ju-man was soon going to die and he should accept his fate.

The man is scared and asks Do-gi to help save his life instead. Do-gi pretends to be possessed by the spirit of Ju-man’s mother and uses Go-eun’s research skills to make Ju-man believe it. Ju-man’s mother, Do-gi announces the date of Ju-man’s death, which was to be in the next few days.

Ju-man asks Do-gi to save him and mentions that he would anything it takes to stay alive. Do-gi claims that they would need to perform an elaborate ritual to save the fake godman from death and put the ghost that was haunting him to rest. Do-gi makes Ju-man wear a necklace that has a camera in it.

He asks the man to bring him all the wealth he has and all the valuable jewellery he owned for the ritual. Do-gi also claims that Ju-man could not hold any service in the time leading to the ritual and states that the godman needed to stop taking offerings from his followers.

Ju-man takes a loan from the bank to fund Do-gi’s ritual but his girlfriend/right-hand woman is shocked when she sees this. The ritual starts and Do-gi performs an elaborate act, beating the man to a pulp in order to release the ghost that was haunting him. Ju-man’s right-hand woman sees this and can’t believe that the man was falling prey to a scam similar to the one he himself was responsible for.

Meanwhile, Jin-eon keeps a tab on Jin-seon, who is getting sicker by the minute. After the ritual, Ju-man is in the hospital so his girlfriend/right-hand starts taking over the prayer centre. She tells the devotees that the godman had asked her to take over the services. Ju-man learns about this and rushes to the prayer centre. Ju-man and the woman start fighting and Jin-eon uses this moment to expose the truth behind the scammer.

He shows video evidence of Ju-man at the hospital as well as his interaction with his girlfriend. The devotees are betrayed and start beating the fake godman up. Jin-seon finally realizes the truth and Jin-eon helps take her out of the centre and to her sister, Jin-hee.

Outside the centre, many other family members of the devotees are waiting to reunite with their family members. A flashback shows Do-gi saying that he wanted to give the devotees a choice to leave the Sunbaek Prayer Centre as they made the choice to enter it. Do-gi watches the two sisters, Jin-seon and Jin-hee take a walk by the beach after Jin-seon had restarted her treatment.

Ju-man, who is still a devotee of Do-gi, agrees to board a carriage truck upon Do-gi’s request. He drags his girlfriend along with him. Once they’re inside the carriage, Sung-cheol locks the two in and drops them into the ocean. Do-gi calls Ju-man and asks him to turn his ways and find a religion to save him. 

The episode comes to an end with the taxi driver team having a meal together. Do-gi is not with them but on the rooftop of his building. There, Ha-joon asks him something about getting revenge over a guy that has been beating his brothers up. Do-gi senses something off and tells the new employee that he could not help with something like this.

Ha-joon claims that he would rather be friends with the guy that is beating his brothers up in order to learn more about the man. Do-gi claims that given their history, it would not be wise to befriend such a person. Ha-joon seeks permission to use Do-gi’s house toilet and begins to look around the place.

Ha-joon finds the documents from the Vietnam case and wonders how Do-gi got his hands on the confidential documents. Do-gi arrives inside the apartment as the episode ends with the two men confronting each other.

The Episode Review

This episode was great but I really wish there was a much bigger punishment for Ju-man than how Do-gi and the rest exposed him. Things are getting intense on all fronts as the revenge crew is working on avenging their customers and dealing with Ha-joon at the same time.

I wonder what will come out of Do-gi and Ha-joon’s face-off. Do-gi always is 2 steps ahead of the villains and I hope to see a jaw-dropping plot twist from this interaction. I wish for Bok-ja to come back because her swooning over Do-gi is a representation of every fan girl watching Lee Je-hoon on screen.