The Smell Of Mint
In the first of a two-part special, Mouse: The Predator starts to fill in the blanks surrounding Ba-Reum’s past. We begin part 1 with Ba-Reum filming Han-Kook while he’s wearing his mask. After ringing Han-Kook’s Mother, Ba-Reum shows up at the office with her. He’s still in character of course, and he plays his part well. As the week continues, Ba-Reum helps Hong-Ju and the others set up their gear back home. However, Moo-Won arrives and asks about Moo-Chi. Ba-Reum stirs things up with him, asking whether he feels any anger or resentment toward his brother. Moo-Won is at peace of course, which winds up Ba-Reum and decides to target him next. A wry smile crosses Ba-Reum’s face, believing that was Moo-Won’s final chance and he’s now blown it. Next, Ba-Reum heads out with his phone and watches the live broadcast for the Sherlock show. With a live stream playing on his phone, he uses a burner to phone the studio and stir things up. With a voice scrambler, Moo-Chi is called out for the Head Hunter case. This time though we see things from Ba-Reum’s perspective. He was the one who orchestrated everything, including setting Yo-Han up as the killer and intentionally stopping the courier outside. To be fair, most of the scenes that follow are simply a rehash of Ba-Reum staging everything leading up to Moo-Won’s death. Various different phone calls and his split personality works well to fool the officers – and us as the audience too! Anyway, after Moo-Won’s death we cut to Bong-Yi at the church. She finds Moo-Won’s body and Ba-Reum immediately attacks. Ba-Reum swipes at her, leaving a slash across her wrist. Before Ba-Reum can plunge a knife into her, police officers arrive sending him scrambling outside. Ba-Reum ditches the face mask and manages to slip away, getting a taxi to take him back around to the church. The scene plays out like before, with Ba-Reum becoming ever more impatient and wanting Moo-Chi to “play with him.” This entices Ba-Reum to release the video about there being 3 days remaining until Han-Kook’s fate being sealed. Chuckling to himself, Ba-Reum comments how the game has now started. With Han-Kook sleeping on his sofa, Ba-Reum learns about the DNA being in Yo-Han’s basement. Heading over, this is when he notices all the pictures Yo-Han managed to obtain from him. Connecting the dots, Moo-Chi shoots Yo-Han on the rooftop. As the episode closes out, we cut to the hospital. Ba-Reum watches the news, where it shows pictures of Han-Kook’s watch.
The Episode Review
Mouse: The Predator serves as an interesting perspective on what we’ve seen before. It doesn’t exactly add too much to the fold, and in a way it actually feels like filler. Hopefully part 2 of this can shed some light around what happened with Han-Kook during the time jump. There’s really not a lot to say about this episode in truth, and most of the scenes we see are a repeat of the Seven Deadly Sins killings. Given we’ve already had a recap episode not long ago, it’s perhaps a little disappointing to see this released so quickly afterwards. Even so, there’s enough here that fans will enjoy but not nearly enough to warrant another hour-long segment. Still, we’ll have to wait and see whether part 2 improves or not!
