My weekly review of Vagabond is my public service announcement to raise awareness of the pros and cons (mostly cons, lol) of this kdrama. If you can’t deal with criticisms, please click exit on your keyboard.

1. Who’s Shadow?

No. It isn’t the boss of Haeri, Min Jaesik.

As Gang said, Min Jaesik is a coward. He won’t do this kind of operation by himself.

He’s a panderer. In Episode 2, he tried to suck up to Secretary Yun and invite him sushi dinner. They apparently are from the same tiny hometown. Secretary Yun didn’t answer him. He merely walked away from him.

Just like Shadow.

The Shadow also wouldn’t give Jessica the time of day when she tried to invite him out. He hung up the phone on her.

I think Min was sent to the Jessica so as not to give away the real identity of Shadow.

In my opinion, Shadow is Secretary Yun. He and Min talked outside the safe house.

It was his idea to move Dalgun to a safe house. He asked permission from the Chief of the Presidential Security Service to allow Dalgun stay in the safe house with the NIS agents as his protective service. Then he drove with Dalgun to the safe house there and gave him a stick of gum. He then confiscated Dalgun’s phone, informing him that he couldn’t have a personal cell phone. Like, what’s this? Grade school?

He was also the man walking the German Shepherd. lol. He deliberately released the dog so it went after NIS head and scared him away.

lol. That NIS head is in over his head. The bureau was in a crisis situation and he made them all stop whatever they were doing to have a pep rally to recite their honor code and boost morale. What the heck?

2. Haeri

I don’t know how long the director and writer can keep up with this asshattery. But I want to know which one is Suzy’s anti? Is it the director or the screenwriter?

Why is Suzy’s character this dumb? Does she have a split personality?

One, she acted cutesy and congratulated the “God of War.” Ugh! Yes. Sure, she’s got great memory because she remembered the tattoo on his arm but why was she acting like a fangirl all of a sudden?

Gif credit: seoinsguk’s tumblr

This scene was so unnecessary, Director. It added no value to the script except show Haeri as a ditz. If the purpose of this moment was to show bonding between the two people so the love story could be developed, then there were other ways to go about this. For instance, she could show concern over his injuries or ask how he was holding up.

That would be the normal response. Not this.

Gif credit: seoinsguk’s tumblr

Two, Haeri woke up and saw all three other agents down. What should be the first thought in her mind?

Hmmmm… let me think.

a. she had a wild orgy.
b. she died and she was in hell.
c. they were drugged.
d. she needed to vomit now.
e. her hair must be shampooed.

In the same way that it doesn’t require Calculus to add 1 + 1, it doesn’t need a NIS training to deduce that the delivered food was tampered with.

Standard operating procedures should have kicked in then as soon as she woke up and saw her colleagues incapacitated. She could have called for back-up and she should have checked on the safety of Dalgun.

She could vomit on her way to Dalgun’s bedroom. If Dalgun was still asleep, she should have warned him that all the other agents were down and both of them must go on lockdown and prepare for incursion.

Instead, what did Haeri do? She vomited in the toilet then faced the mirror to say, “My head is killing me. Was the food poisoned?”

Three, she shot Dalgun’s assassin: Hurray! Good job, NIS agent!

But then she panicked: What the heck, NIS agent?

I don’t get that.

This wasn’t the first time she shot a gun. Right?

In Episode 1, she was at a target practice.

This also wasn’t the first time she’d seen a dead body. Right? In Episode 1, she was tasked by Chief Gang to go to Lisbon, Portugal to check on the dead body of Michael. Then, in Episode 2, her colleague died in her arms, shot by the sniper Raymon. She didn’t freak out then.

And she knows physics. Right? When she fired a gun, the bullet was propelled out and stayed in motion toward whatever direction the gun was pointed out. Well, she aimed  the gun at the assassin at close range, and she shot him. The bullet traveled through distance and stopped when it penetrated the assassin’s body. Bam! Body dropped dead.

So, why did she ask, “Is he dead?”

When Dalgun didn’t answer her stupid question, she barked at him, “Dalgun-ssi. Check if he’s dead.” She then GINGERLY approached the dead assassin, as if she was scared to see a dead body. Then after seeing the bloodied face, she COLLAPSED on the couch with a gasp.

Grrr… As I’ve said, she’d seen dead bodies before, so where did this lame, frightened and nervous Haeri come from? Is she bad-ass or not? I wish the director would make up his mind.

Four: while the “amateur” stuntman Dalgun had the presence of mind to search through the dead assassin’s body for his phone, the “’real pro” NIS agent was still in shock.

She was muttering, “Did I kill him? Really? Huh? Dalgun-ssi?”  while Dalgun was trying to reach the assassin’s contact on the phone. Dalgun told her to be quiet.

When Min picked up on the other side and started talking, she suddenly started hiccuping. HICCUPING!

Look, director! It would have been more absurd had Haeri farted a loooong one. Because that was the point of this little detail, right? To make Haeri look absurd.

Her hiccup didn’t do anything to move a plot forward so why was it included in the script? Her hiccups only made her appear incompetent because she nearly revealed to the assassin’s accomplice that the mission failed.

So why not go with a flatus instead of a hiccup, director? That would have been more sensational had Haeri farted as they were listening to Min talk on the phone.

3. Cars

Don’t cars in Korea have airbags?? Two car accidents, zero airbag deployments.

4. The romance between Dalgun and Haeri

It’s not registering on my radar.

A drunken confession doesn’t count. She should clean up her act and stop saying “nekko-ya” (or You’re mine) whenever she’s drunk.

When you think about this, too, is this really the time to think about romance, writer? His nephew just died, he’s being chased by ninjas, and he has a world to save from the evil clutches of terrorists (oops, scratch that) of John and Mark.

So why is this writer pushing this romance subplot on us?

5.  “Give me an empty dish and Cha Dalgun’s head on it.”

lol. This was the witty part of all. The assassin was a jajangmyeon delivery guy and he came to collect the empty dish.

There’s an idiom “to call for somebody’s head on a platter” meaning to demand revenge on an enemy. The origin of this idiom is biblical. There was a king named Herod who was asked by his queen to execute John (aka St. John the Baptist). But Herod was afraid of the man so he refused. But on his birthday celebration, his step-daughter performed a dance for him and as a reward, she was granted one wish. Her wish was John’s head on a platter.

Herod had no choice but to behead John.

In this kdrama, it was Jessica who asked for Dalgun’s head on a platter and Shadow made the North Korean gang “Unkillable” get it.

6. The baddest guy in the drama

But I still think the evilest duo here is Edward Park and his sidekick Micky. Not Jessica and her aide, Mr. Hong.

I also agree with what he said. “Lobbying is not about weapons. It’s about people.” He knew his personnel and who the right guy is to get the job done.

He’s definitely impressed with Dalgun. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hired him to join his — what’s that name of that terrorist association again? — ah! the Axis group.