A Shadowy Presence
Despite a slightly slower pace and less drama, Graceful Friends more than makes up for that with lots of questions surrounding who killed Kang-San. There’s plenty of suspects and although it seemed likely to be Jung-Hae several episodes ago, that theory is completely debunked now. Episode 6 of Graceful Friends continues to deepen the mystery, beginning with Jung-Hae’s version of events from that night. As we cut back in time, we see Jung-Hae hitting Kang-San in the head with a trophy. Passed out on the floor, she quickly leaves while accidentally misplacing her necklace. Back in the present, Jung-Hae answers the questions presented to her calmly. She wants to solve this quietly and tells Detective Cho that it was self defence. However, the blunt object at the crime scene, along with Mr Joo’s phone, are both missing which really doesn’t look good for her. Goong-Cheol causes quite the commotion in the police station when he arrives. Eventually Cho confronts him and speaks in private about Jung-Hae’s confession. Although they want to release her, there’s suspicious events from that night that they can’t account for. After saying goodbye to Jung-Hae, Goong-Cheol heads outside and explains what’s going on with Jung-Hae to his friends. He tells them about Jung-Hae’s predicament and the guys decide to band together in order to find the culprit. Jae-Hoon however suggests they take a few days to mull it over as after that time they can release Jung-Hae if they don’t have any evidence to pin on her. In the wake of this, Jae-Hoon meets with a guy called Jae-Sook and requests his assistance in being patched through to the most successful law firm. He clearly needs a lawyer but what for? Forensics phone Cho while he contemplates what to do regarding Jung-Hae’s statement. Eventually he heads back inside and talks to her frankly, admitting that he doesn’t think she is the culprit but the fact the cellphone and trophy are both missing, means someone is trying to cover her tracks. Jung-Hae sits forward and seems to incriminate Goong-Cheol, telling the police they can interpret what she’s saying any way they want Hyung-Woo and Choon-Bok have other ideas and while wearing face masks and sunglasses, decide to try and stake out the crime scene and sneak in. Their suspicions are that the real killer will return there to try and clean up any evidence left behind. When the officers outside are called away, it’s just what Hyung-Woo needs to sneak inside and look around. As he does, Goong-Cheol suddenly grabs him. It turns out he had the exact same idea and managed to get past the officers earlier in the day. Later that evening, Goong-Cheol picks up Yoo-Bin and finds him hanging around with another girl. As they sit and eat together, Goong-Cheol receives another message through on his phone and immediately goes quiet, staring at the screen in shock. Leaving Yoo-Bin with his food, Goong-Cheol immediately heads to the police station sand shows them the video taken privately from inside the closet. Someone was hiding inside there while Jung-Hae scrambled away from Kang-San. The real story is different to what Jung-Hae claims occured. She fled from him and didn’t hit Kang-San with a blunt object. As she scrambled outside, Kang-San promised to kill her. With no evidence to use against her, Cho lets Jung-Hae go but remains suspicious over what happened. As he watches them drive away, a shadowy figure that looks a little like Jae-Hoon without glasses on sees them leave and follows. In the past, Hyung-Woo recounts what happened with the moments he saw Kang-San. It turns out he has incriminating photos of Hyung-Woo and it appears as if he was blackmailing our Director. These photos show Jung-Hae and Hyung-Woo together in bed. Even worse, one shows Jung-Hae taking a selfie while he’s passed out. Meanwhile, Goong-Cheol and Jung-Hae drive out to the lake and discuss what happened. He took the necklace that was there but didn’t touch the cellphone from the scene. As they sit together, both of them wonder exactly who’s responsible for this. Goong-Cheol convinces her to put this behind them and try to move on with their lives. Only, this is a blatant lie as 14 days pass and Goong-Cheol heads to the black market. With no fingerprints and no clear motive, Goong-Cheol tries to figure out exactly who is behind this. For now, he remains suspicious of everyone. With Kang-San gone and no friends and family to speak for him, the police turn their attention to the killer. Armed with a whiteboard full of photos, they suspect whoever killed Kang-San was close to Jung-Hae and is also a perfectionist given what we’ve seen from the crime scene. With everything that’s been going on, Goong-Cheol suggests heading up to the mountains to clear their heads. It’s just the get-away they need too. However, Joon-Hae has other plans and bails on them. Those other plans involve meeting Jung-Hae and playing golf with her. As we know, these two certainly have a history together. After a heartfelt goodbye to Man-Sik and wishing him happy birthday, the trio find their familiar bar renovated. As fate would have it, the owner happens to be Hae-Sook. As Goong-Cheol and her lock eyes, Joon-Hae suddenly appears at the door. As the episode closes out, we jump back to the past as we see the group watching Hae-Sook dancing and all of them seemingly falling for her. Who did kill Kang-San? There’s plenty of motive here for both Hyung-Woo and even Hae-Joon too. The latter has been acting incredibly suspicious this episode and it seems likely that there’s more to him than first meets the eye. It also fits the profile given he has history with Jung-Hae. What about Hyung-Woo though? His drinking and thinking back to the moments that night could be a direct reflection of his guilt. Still, there’s plenty to digest here though and Graceful Friends leaves the door wide open for the future episodes.
