Taxi Driver – K-Drama Season 2 Episode 9 Recap & Review

The Surgery Malpractice

Episode 9 of Taxi Driver Season 2 starts with a flashback where Sung-cheol is having a meal with Jo Jin-woo from the Prosecutor’s Office who was there to deliver a package for Sung-cheol which was addressed to someone named Detective Jang. He wonders why Sung-cheol was getting an international delivery from Cotaya and hopes he is staying safe.

Sung-cheol takes the package to Do-gi and hands the evidence from the case in Cotaya. It is also the same package that Do-gi has kept open in his apartment which Ha-joon notices at the end of the last episode. After Jin-woo hands the package to Sung-cheol, he meets with Ha-joon.

Before seeing Do-gi, Ha-joon meets with the chief of police, Mr Hyun-jo to ask about a confidential delivery that was made to the prosecutor’s office from Cotaya. Ha-joon confronts Hyun-jo about the documents leaving Cotaya without his knowledge. He warns the cop about double-crossing him but the police officer warns Ha-joon to be careful.

After dropping the man at the Seoul Police Station, Hyun-jo leaves to get into his office where Ha-joon follows him. He threatens to kill the police officer and warns him about messing with him. Ha-joon tells the cop that he must let any intel about his businesses reach him first.

Meanwhile, Do-gi drops off a passenger at the local hospital where he spots a man, Han Jae-duk, who had set up camp outside the hospital. He is revolting against the hospital’s director – Dr Ahn Young-sook. He is protesting outside the office and blames the doctor for what happened to his daughter.

Do-gi is shocked to see how Jae-duk reacts to seeing Dr Ahn and she is forced to go inside the hospital after being insulted by him outside the hospital. Dr Ahn’s staff threaten Jae-duk and Do-gi to leave to go back to the Taxi stand. Meanwhile, at Rainbow Taxi, Ha-joon gets a call from Hyun-jo where the police chief tells Ha-joon that the documents were delivered to someone named Detective Jang.

Hyun-jo also tells Ha-joon that there was no one named Detective Jang at the Prosecutor’s office. Ha-joon assumes that the parcel had something to do with Sung-cheol and the rest of the revenge crew. Later that night, Jae-duk suddenly finds the revenge helpline and gives Sung-cheol a call for a ride.

During the ride, Jae-duk tells Do-gi the story of his daughter’s being stuck in a coma. A year ago, So-ryeon, Jae-duk’s daughter was in for a minor 3-hour surgery that was performed by Dr Ahn. Jae-duk notices the nurses take in more blood supply to the surgery room.

However, once the surgery is over, Dr Ahn brings out an unconscious So-ryeon stating that the operation was successful. Kyung-goo is sure that So-ryeon never woke up and claims that Jae-duk’s frustration with the hospital was justified. Jae-duk’s flashback shows how he had sued Dr Ahn for performing the surgery under the influence of alcohol.

The court had ruled in Dr Ahn’s favour as there was no evidence against the doctor. The group decides that going to the scene of the crime – the hospital would be the first step in cracking the case. Do-gi starts tailing Dr Ahn who is going around the city doing volunteer work.

After getting an urgent call, Dr Ahn stops Do-gi’s cab to give him a ride to the hospital. She is on a call with a radio jockey during the ride and gives an interview about her volunteer work. However, when Do-gi tries to pry some information about Jae-duk out from Dr Ahn, she refuses to chat with the taxi driver.

At the end of their ride, Do-gi notices how Dr Ahn’s hands shivered. When he scans her card for the payment, Go-eun is able to hack into her personal information. She learns that the doctor had a drinking problem and engaged in drinking frequently. Do-gi enters the hospital and finds that the staff revered Dr Ahn.

The crew wonders if this was an accidental death or one done on purpose and concludes that they would not take Jae-duk’s case up. However, Do-gi is still not sure and runs into a customer from one of the taxis. The customer is a lawyer and gives Do-gi some advice about the case leaving the taxi driver thinking about Jae-duk’s story.

He decides to pay the hospital another visit and finds Jae-duk sitting by So-ryeon’s bed. Go-eun arrives at the hospital too and tries to get into the hospital’s CCTV system. Jin-eon and Kyung-goo are there too, as Go-eun works through the hospital CCTV data to figure out what went wrong during So-ryeon’s surgery.

Go-eun is stumped when she learns that there was no information about the operation. Do-gi calls to check if Go-eun had any intel and informs her that he is going to soon come to the hospital too. Sung-cheol is shocked but not surprised to see that everyone from the team had taken up the case without letting him know.

Do-gi has made his way inside the archives of the hospital in order to find some information about So-ryeon’s case and knows that 10 years’ worth of medical records needed to be preserved by hospitals by the law. He notices that a bunch of documents were being destroyed by the hospital after they were strategically placed under a leaking pipe.

Do-gi finds So-ryeon’s documents there and sees that the files were already highly damaged. He goes up to the main hospital and claims that going inside the operation room was their only way to see what Dr Ahn was up to. Do-gi disguises himself as one of the doctors from the hospital and assists the nurses in taking a patient into the operating room.

He manages to sneak inside the surgery room but an alarm sets off as soon as he turns on the camera in his glasses. Go-eun tells him that the room could be sensitive to radio detectors which would avoid any filming or camera work in the operation room. With no way to leave, Do-gi hides out in the operating room as Dr Ahn asks her men to check what was going on.

She tries to confront her juniors about bringing a camera into the surgery room but Go-eun manages to turn the alarm off. Dr Ahn asks her assistant to look into the matter and goes back to the operating room. When she is about to find Do-gi, Go-eun sets the alarm off another time to distract her.

Dr Ahn’s assistant tells her that the sensor to the operation room alarm might be broken and she asks him to look into it. Dr Ahn goes back in to check the closet that Do-gi was hiding in but it is empty. Jae-duk thinks that the detector could have been set up because of him.

Go-eun explains that a device like that is very expensive, believing Dr Ahn could have been hiding something big. The group tries to read So-ryeon’s medical documents while Sung-cheol states that Jae-duk had paid a hefty sum of $55,000 for the surgery alone.

Sung-cheol explains that instead of taking benefits from medical insurance, Jae-duk chose to take a loan to fight the hospital for their misconduct with So-ryeon’s operation. Do-gi decides to go back into the hospital surgery room, this time as a patient to observe what Dr Ahn was up to.

After causing a fake accident, Sung-cheol takes Do-gi to the hospital due to a concussion. As per Do-gi’s instruction, Go-eun waits for three minutes before turning the camera on his glasses so as to avoid setting off the alarm. Before the three minutes are up, Do-gi is given anaesthesia that causes him to pass out.

Dr Ahn takes Do-gi’s glasses out and places them away before starting the surgery. Go-eun gets restless and turns on the camera causing the alarm to set off. She sees that Dr Ahn had waited for her subordinate to enter the operation theatre before leaving. Dr Ahn was letting Dr Gong perform the surgery in her stead.

The Episode Review

This case too is inspired by a sad but real-life incident that took place in South Korea where a senior doctor would charge huge sums for consultations and leave her interns and juniors to do the surgery. Since consultations are where doctors make the most, the real-life case showed how a young man lost his life due to a money-hungry doctor’s greed.

So is the case for Dr Ahn, and I cannot wait but see how the team tackle this incident. Since the episode starts with Ha-joon and Do-gi’s confrontation, I am sure it will be pushed back to the end of the next episode. I cannot wait to see if So-ryeon makes it out alive after this and how Do-gi and the rest teach the greedy Dr Ahn a lesson.