Unmasked – K-drama Episode 5 Recap & Review

Episode 5

Episode 5 of Unmasked begins with Cha Seung-wook’s father finding the words “Cha Seung-wook lives” graffitied across the walls outside his house. We then cut back to Oh So-ryong and Han Do, who find themselves in the vicinity of a run-down building which falls over in the middle of its demolition. Moments before it keels over, we see a man from Chungdae Industries operating an excavator.

As chaos ensues, So-ryong and Han Do try to find each other. A bus gets trapped underneath the fallen building and So-ryong desperately tries to save the driver. The paramedics and firefighters soon arrive and So-ryong, who is injured with a broken rib, is taken away in an ambulance. She orders Han Do to stay and shoot footage of the scene.

However, other members of the press soon arrive and Han Do doesn’t deem it necessary to stay. He goes to the hospital where he gets a talking to from So-ryong. She berates him for not doing his job. Back at the office, Gi-ho gives the rest of the team the news. On the news, a reporter describes how this incident is similar to the Sun Plaza Mall collapse in 2004.

A flashback shows a female driver driving a school bus full of kids home. She looks worried about something and takes a sudden right turn at an intersection. Moments later, we hear the crash.

So-ryong is forced to stay overnight at the hospital to recover. Meanwhile, Han Do takes her car to the car wash and finds a list of casualties from the Sun Plaza Mall incident in her car. When he goes back to the hospital, he questions her about it but her responses are vague. He recalls how back then, only the bus driver (Yeom Mi-jin) survived but in this case, only the bus driver died and no students were harmed.

He decides to cover the building collapse story then and investigate the link between the two cases even though So-ryong tells him not to focus on the past. Around the same time, Han Do receives flowers at the hospital from none other than Cho Hae-won.

At the office, we learn that Gi-ho is dating one of the Trigger team members. Meanwhile, Na-hee asks Chief Park what he keeps looking for in the case files but he refuses to tell her.

In the morning, So-ryong is back on her feet. She meets with Detective Yu, who tells her that a company named GR was in charge of the collapsed building. Their contractor hired a subcontractor named Chungdae Industries — a small one-man operation run by No Chung-dae, the man driving the excavator.

The detective tells her that GR and its chairman, Heo Geum-ran, has been responsible for many such hasty demolitions which led to several accidents and even deaths.

Elsewhere, Chung-dae speaks with the site manager of the building who tells him GR is offering him money to keep quiet about the whole thing. This despite the fact that GR threatened them to finish the work by morning. Meanwhile, Heo Geum-ran hosts a press conference, apologising to the people. She even kneels in front of the late driver’s wife and cries.

When Han Do says he’s going to cover this case, Na-hee points out that viewers might not be interested in the death of one man. She’s trying to protect So-ryong really but So-ryong arrives and tells her to let Han Do pursue it. So-ryong then asks Han Do for the note Cho Hae-won gave her.

They even search through the trash for it. When So-ryong reveals she wants to compare the writing to the graffiti on Cha Seung-wook’s father’s house, Han Do says he took a picture of it. As they go towards a bathhouse to clean up, President Koo watches them from afar.  

Han Do returns to the office to find all the Sun Plaza files on his desk. He tries to find Yeom Mi-jin’s phone number but isn’t able to. Since GR officially refuses to talk to them, Han Do then dons his old delivery man suit and hangs around the GR building till he gets a delivery job. He then enters and tries to get to Geum-ran’s office but is naturally thrown out of the building.

So-ryong is with a handwriting analyst, who tells her that the graffiti does not match Hae-won’s handwriting. Although he does say it looks like a woman’s handwriting. She then gets a call regarding Han Do. We then cut to GR’s lawyers talking to Chief Park, So-ryong, and Han Do. They agree to keep Han Do’s doings quiet if Trigger stops investigating the building crash. Chief Park informs them that they aren’t going to make any backdoor deal.

Once they’re out, Han Do gets a proper talking to. Meanwhile, Heo Geum-ran meets with another woman who is a minister’s wife. Geum-ran’s driver puts bags of cash into the other woman’s car and after a few pleasantries, the women part ways.

Meanwhile in his house, No Chung-dae signs a confidentiality agreement with GR. He then hangs himself from the ceiling. Gi-ho and Han Do arrive there at the same time. They panic on seeing the rope but Chung-dae opens the door despite the attempt. Han Do convinces him that the Trigger team is on his side and that he ought to do the right thing and stand tall in front of his kids.

Gi-ho and Han Do argue when they get back to the office and Gi-ho admits he’s envious of Han Do. So-ryong takes Gi-ho aside and tells him that she chose Han Do over him because he’s a full-time employee and Gi-ho is a contractor. If she gets fired, Han Do can take over. Han Do overhears the whole thing and gets angry with So-ryong.

Gi-ho tries to calm things down and drags both of them to a pub for some drinks. After a few drinks, So-ryong asks why Han Do is looking for Yeom Mi-jin. He says he wants to know why she changed routes that day. That’s when So-ryong reveals that Yeom Mi-jin is none other than her own mother.

A flashback shows Mi-jin change the route because the pregnant school teacher on the bus went into labour and she was trying to get her to a hospital. Later, in the hospital, after So-ryong told Mi-jin that all the kids and the school teacher had passed away, Mi-jin committed suicide. She died before So-ryong could tell her that the teacher’s baby had survived.

Han Do then gets a call from Song-i who says a GR whistleblower wants to meet him. He goes to the location and finds Geum-ran’s driver there. He’s all beaten up and offers a flash drive with proof against Geum-ran. It has videos of the cash exchange as well as Geum-ran talking about the minister’s wife and the building collapse. Meanwhile, we learn that Song-i is the school teacher’s baby who survived all those years ago.

So-ryong agrees to help Han Do with this case. They wait for Geum-ran to make an appearance outside her office, armed with their cameras. When she does, So-ryong fights through her bodyguards to get to her. At the same time, Gi-ho brings the minister’s wife over to the location under the pretence of a lunch invitation from Geum-ran.

So-ryong plays an audio recording of Geum-ran insulting the minister’s wife where she also mentions the incident of the building. The minister’s wife is furious and agrees to tell her husband to investigate the case properly.

The Trigger episode airs and seeing it, Chung-dae calls the Trigger team, eager to provide his own testimony. A few seconds later, Chief Park storms up to Han Do and breaks the news — Geum-ran’s chauffeur had gotten beat up and fired because he took a bribe. He asks Han Do if he checked whether the footage was doctored or not and Han Do says he didn’t.

Then the late bus driver’s widow comes to the Trigger office and insults both, Han Do and So-ryong. She says she won’t be able to raise her kids now. It’s unclear why but we assume this has something to do with the financial settlement that GR might have offered her earlier. This scene is intercut with scenes of So-ryong telling her therapist that despite the harsh nature of her work, she has faith in herself and her team.

A mid-credit scene of Unmasked Episode 5 shows the person who wrote the Cha Seung-wook graffiti. It looks a lot like Baek Song-i.


The Episode Review

Episode 5 is another solid episode for Unmasked, albeit one that goes easier on the thrills. The GR case focuses on corporate greed and power and while there are casualties involved, it’s not quite as intense as the teenage serial killer case nor as affecting as the one regarding Lee Yu-mi’s long years of abuse. Still, it’s an intriguing and well-written case which is highlighted by its connection to So-ryong’s past.

The reveal of So-ryong’s mother is key here and so much of the episode hinges around it. The episode also uses a nice misdirection, using incomplete information to make us think that Yeom Mi-jin might have done this on purpose only to complete the scenario later on.

It’s a nice twist that plays on the emotions and, as always, Kim Hye-soo does a fabulous job as the passionate journalist with a tragic past. In fact, it’s that last scene where she tells her therapist she has faith, that really cinches it all together.

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  • Episode Rating
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3.5

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