The Game: Towards Zero Episodes 23 & 24 Recap and Review

https://youtu.be/TlT1xnHVfak

Game Over?

Just when The Game: Towards Zero looked like it was turning a corner, we return to more incredulous plot developments and an hour chock full of inept police officers doing stupid things. All the while allowing our antagonist to run rings around the force and continue his murderous reign with little rhyme or reason.

We begin with a dream sequence of Tae-Pyeong knowing he’s dying as Teacher Baek arrives. As we soon see, he survived the bomb blast with some bad chest wounds and as he’s brought into hospital, Joon-Young breathes a sigh of relief as the doctors get a pulse. He’s still in a bad way though and is taken into the ward where he remains asleep and recovering from his ordeal.

Meanwhile, Chief Nam and the others recover the car from the water at the blast site but Do-Kyung is nowhere to be found. It turns out he survived too, with nothing but a small burn on the side of his face. He takes a woman called Ms. Na hostage in her house and listens as the news spin a story about him being a murderer on TV. Although he tries to drum up sympathy from his hostage, she’s having none of it.

Following a visit to the hospital to try and wake Tae-Pyeong up, Joon-Young and Nam arrive at Ms Na’s house but they fail to find anything beyond the glass being shattered. As the police scramble to look for clues, we pan out we see that Do-Kyung himself is watching in his car nearby. The officers scramble to find him, realizing Ms Na may be in danger as they sift through security footage instead. Do-Kyung decides to head back home but unties his hostage and feeds her, telling the woman he has no intention of killing her.

Meanwhile, Joon-Hee meets with Chief Nam after a meeting with the reporters and lets him know he’s going to interview the victims from 20 years ago.  Pil-Doo’s Mother returns after an extended period of time in China, intent on finding her son. Joon-Young pleads with her for help and as she agrees, our police detective takes to the news and calls out Do-Kyung himself, imploring that he show up at the funeral.

At the graveyard, a man arrives in a black car under strict instructions from Do-Kyung to drive there. In the trunk however is Ms Na’s dead body. As Joon-Young sees this, Do-Kyung phones through, telling her she made a big mistake messing with his Mother. Hinting that he’s going to kill Tae-Pyeong, Do-Kyung arrives at the hospital with murderous intent while Joon-Young races over to try and save him.

When she arrives however, she finds Tae-Pyeong alive and walking around. She hurries up to him and throws her arms around his neck, apologizing. After phoning Do-Kyung’s Mother and telling her what’s happened, she hangs up and comes face to face with her son, who tells her it’s all her fault and promises to do something drastic.

Since waking up, it turns out Tae-Pyeong can’t actually see anyone’s deaths and following the bomb blast, he’s called into the station for questioning where the episode ends.

The Game: Towards Zero continues to baffle and mystify from week to week. How did Tae-Pyeong and Do-Kyung survive that car bombing with little more than a scratch? How did Joon-Young get Tae-Pyeong to safety while failing to find Do-Kyung? And just what is Do-Kyung’s end-game here? Unless I’ve missed something, Do-Kyung doesn’t seem to be doing anything beyond trying to change his death date, with little reason surrounding what he’s doing.

Unfortunately The Game: Towards Zero is not a great thriller and may go down as one of the bigger disappointments this year. It’s certainly a shame given the promise this started out with but unfortunately this is one game that’s riddled with too many problems and this may prove to be its undoing when the season draws to a close.