Ghosts from the Past
Episode 9 of Juvenile Justice begins with Eun-Seok waking up in hospital. She’s suffering from burnout syndrome, which is essentially being malnourished and exhausted. With no emergency contacts or next of kin to note, Tae-Ju shows up and plays the role instead. Eun-Seok discharges herself and heads home. Tae-Ju follows and notices her apartment is void of items. Save for books wrapped up and empty bottles of water, she has very little. Tae-Ju leaves Eun-Seok to sleep, heading out and getting her some food and water to see her through for a while. In the morning, Eun-Seok shows up at the office ready to tackle this gang rape case. The victim is a girl by the name of Seon-A. Her dad is a truck driver, gone for extended periods of time and he reports her missing to the police. Seon-A does show up some time later though, passed out on a mattress at a construction site. Bruises cover her like a grotesque, purple blanket while it would appear that the boys forced her to drink. DNA collected from her incriminate two of the men who later confess, but Seon-A’s statement is inconsistent, with her unsure whether there were 3 or 4 men involved. The situation then turns to Hwang In-Jun, which certainly riles up Eun-Seok. Geun-Hee makes the decision for Eun-Seok to be the lead judge for the two boys accused of raping Seon-A, while Tae-Ju is assigned the In-Jun case. Eun-Seok is not happy. So what is Eun-Seok’s emotional stake in this? Tae-Ju does some research into In-Jun and learns he actually killed someone back in high school. He dropped a brick off the roof, which hit the victim, killing then instantly. Geun-Hee was the judge in charge at the time. This has a personal connection to Eun-Seok but the case itself already has audio evidence of In-Jun admitting to being “roped into” joining the gang rape. While talking to Seon-A’s father, In-Jun shows no remorse and even laughs about what happened, making it out to be a big joke. Unfortunately, despite the confession, Seon-A’s father assaults the boy, meaning the evidence can’t be used in court. In-Jun has been on probation 7 times and for a litany off different reasons, including assault and murder. When Eun-Seok tells Geun-Hee she abhors young juveniles, she decides to switch the case over and allows Eun-Seok to front the case after all. It’s soon revealed that Eun-Seok’s son was the kid hit with the brick. Eun-Seok is determined to show him how scary the law can be and wants to make sure he’s sentenced for a long time. In court, In-Jun claims he wasn’t anywhere near the crime scene and also tried his best to stop the kids from raping Seon-A. However, Eun-Seok has done her due diligence and teams up with Detective Ko, trying to find some evidence to use against the boys. And that evidence comes from dash-cam footage from a car across the street. The audio and video footage has not been tampered with, which includes a verification certification. In-Jun has been found to be lying in court with irrefutable evidence. Based on this, In-Jun is going to be further investigated, with another trial coming in 3 weeks time. If there’s more evidence or he’s found guilty in that time, it’ll be sent to the prosecutors. Tae-Ju catches up with Eun-Seol after court is adjourned and claims there’s another boy involved in this case – Baek Do-Hyeon. This boy happens to be the same one involved in the brick incident. I-Hwan’s mum shows up and slaps Eun-Seok in the face after court. She blames her for the death of her granddaughter and makes a massive scene in front of everyone. When Eun-Seok heads home, I-Hwan catches up and apologizes for what his mother did. Eun-Seok shrugs it off and tells him never to show up again.
The Episode Review
The penultimate episode to Juvenile Justice turns the attention to a case that hits home for Eun-Seok. She obviously has a personal stake in this and she’s determined to see In-Jun go down for his crimes. Most of this episode focuses on Eun-Seok getting more and more invested in this case, as well as shedding light on the past and how this has influenced what’s happened with her now. There’s a good deal of drama surrounding all this too, and Kim Hye-Soo has done an excellent job bringing her character to life. Everything is resting precariously on a knife-edge leading into the final episode and quite how this one is going to turn out remains to be seen.
