Vincenzo – K-Drama Episode 6 Recap & Review

Not The Bees!

Episode 6 of Vincenzo begins with the court session beginning in a room that’s leaking water from the walls and ceiling. It seems like the toilers are flooding but it’s too late to move rooms.

Feet squelching and tensions high, Cha-Young struggles to hold it together as the Babel Chemicals case looks set to commence. As a show of defiance, the Geumga Plaza residents all decide not to stand up to the judge… and immediately change their minds when they see him walk through the door. He steps up to his seat…and immediately slips over and lands flat on his back.

Myung-Hee starts us of with her opening statement which goes unchallenged as Cha-Young struggles to speak. She admits to suffering from a panic disorder and eventually passes out on the floor. All of this is their plan; removing the dealer from the table. It seems to work too until the judge admits that they need to continue the case no matter what. And just like that, Cha-Young stands back up like nothing’s wrong and continues.

Next up is a blackout, courtesy of Vincenzo’s handiwork. Again, this doesn’t work and in the blacked out courtroom they decide to use laptops. As they do, chaos breaks out as the residents release a couple of hornets into the air in order to postpone the court trial.

While everyone scrambles out, Cha-Young, Vincenzo and the Babel lawyers are the only ones remaining. The judge is stung while Lee Cheol-Wook too also feels the pain from the stinger. The Judge’s face is a puffy mess too and he struggles to speak. Eventually he decides to postpone the case by a week.

Court is adjourned and Myung-Hee can hardly contain her rage. She sinks back in her seat while Cha-Young and Vincenzo walk away with their heads held high, victorious in their play to postpone the case. Myung-Hee has the audacity to call Cha-Young low but she calls out her hypocrisy, especially when she mentions the bribed judge.

Vincenzo heads to the prison in place of Mr Hong. It turns out he was a public defender for a woman named Gyeong-Ja. He sits with her as she thanks him for visiting. Only, it turns out this is just a courtesy call as he’s no longer going to represent her. Instead, he encourages her to try and rely on family or friends to help. Just before he leaves, she bows slightly and bids him farewell, with Vincenzo admitting that he’s leaving the country.

It’s clear this meeting has taken its toll though, as he stands on a bridge after and smokes. This prison visit is a tough one, especially given it brings back memories of the past regarding his own Mum. Struggling with his own anger issues, Vincenzo helps Monk Jeokha carry a rather large cross he’s donating. After, they sit together where Jeokha encourages him to fight back in order to free his anger.

Meanwhile, An is called back into the office with Director Tae but he can’t stop crying. Chopping onions is obviously the reason but the Director believes he’s wallowing in self pity. Anyway, he asks An to head back to the office as soon as possible. Once there, Tae talks to him about the consigliere and specifically how he’s disobeyed orders by investigating him. It turns out he’s been called in because Law Firm Wusang and Babel Group have both requested a background check on Vincenzo.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, it turns out the plant Myung-Hee dropped off last episode has a listening device installed within. However, when they turn it on they hear a strange sound coming from it. It turns out Vincenzo and Cha-Young knew all about this, especially given Vincenzo’s experience with wire-tapping.

As they discuss the case, Vincenzo admits that he wants to wrap this up as soon as possible and leave. Cha-Young however has something to say – she asks him out for some drinks that evening. While they do, Vincenzo admits the truth about the gold hidden underneath the temple. Cha-Young quips back and believes he’s joking.

Back home, Vincenzo receives some equipment to measure electrical currents. However, he accidentally electrocutes himself and bows in pain. Outside the door though, An spies him on his knees and believes he’s repenting for his sin.

That evening, the Geumga Plaza residents join together and celebrate their day in court. Chef Toto is annoyed he couldn’t attend, given he was cooking for some popular influencers, but soon finds himself confronted by a much more sinister face outside. Apparently this is Gilbert and he’s a homeless man. Toto is not so quick to trust him but the other men and women invite him in nonetheless. He tells them they’re all extremely lucky. The ominous glance he gives to the camera seems to hint that this is someone in disguise but that’s just a guess at this point.

Well, Joon-Woo receives the reports from An, written up with sincerity including all of Vincenzo’s big accomplishments. While the Babel lawyers try to make sense of this, everyone prepares for the second trial. Cha-Young warns them all that they need to be vigilant as Babel are relentless.

Babel group hold their meeting, with Han-Seo nervous in the wake of Joon-Woo’s presentation. Myung-Hee senses this too and begins to look at them all suspiciously. As he mentions the two sons, Joon-Woo eventually lets loose the secret that Joon-Woo is the real chairman and owner of Babel Group. It’s flamboyant, its ridiculous but it’s also one that finally gets the secret out in the open. He has some pretty scathing words for Myung-Hee too, prompting her to spark into life and concocting a brand new plan.

That plan comes from Babel group playing dirty, knocking out the treasurer and forcing him into admitting to bribes. This incriminates all the victims’ families and changes the complexion of the case immediately. News of this breaks on the morning news too, while U-Yeong is injected with traces of meth. This means both can’t be used as witnesses in a court of law. Vincenzo and Cha-Young are left reeling, struggling to work out what to do next.

Of course Joon-Woo shows up. He asks Cha-Young to return to Wusang but when she refuses, Joon-Woo turns to Vincenzo and confronts him instead. He mentions digging graves, which Vincenzo hits back at, telling Joon-Woo the grave is being dug for him and Babel instead. He refuses to shake Vincenzo’s hand too and stares him down as he walks away.

We then cut forward five days to the second hearing. Hilariously, there’s a bee expert on hand this time just in case, With the tables stacked against Geumga Plaza, they’re forced to listen to these various testimonies. With no witnesses to call, Cha-Young suddenly springs forth a surprise witness as a trump card. That person happens to be none other than Vincenzo Cassano, who’s brought in by a police officer. Joon-Woo is bemused, watching him step up, wondering quite what he has to say for himself.

The Episode Review

The verdict is still out for Vincenzo, which continues to flirt the line between comedic drama and dark action thriller. Over the last 6 episodes, there have been some really great moments, and  some dud ones too. The long episode run-times make it a difficult thing to keep up this level of comedy and at times the tone of this jumps back and forth so much it doesn’t quite settle into something more consistent.

However, there’s some undeniably creative ideas here and when the humour works, it really does work an absolute treat. The idea of using Vincenzo’s smarts to play dirty and completely mess up the court room is a good one, with the bee expert at the end a lovely touch in all this. Director An spying Vincenzo messing about with the electrical scanners is another particularly great moment too, playing on clever ideas and long-form gags that have been the staple of this so far.

By comparison you have the darker drama elements. There’s a distinct lack of action this time around too, and much like last episode this show is starting to sink into a more predictable law drama format. Vincenzo and Cha-Young have some good chemistry together though which helps, while the actual storyline is interesting and has some nice back and forth rapport on both sides of the conflict.

While the show is perhaps a little bloated and could do with a bit more tonal consistency, for the most part this has been an enjoyable watch and has enough pizzazz to keep you watching to find out what happens next.