Another week, another entertaining and successful resolution in Zombie Detective. I like how an abbreviated schedule (12 episodes, instead of the regular 16) forces the story to be tight. The key background info and emotional content are delivered as needed. There’s no detour and red herrings. Every line and scene either reveal something about the characters or advances the plot. Even the side story of the rival detectives was well integrated; they weren’t written in the script, like an afterthought, but were fleshed out to serve, first, as foils to Zombie, then later on, as his sidekicks.

I’m surprised and pleased at how extremely well the story flows.

1. The pop-culture references

The bathroom scene reminded me of the iconic bathroom scene in “Psycho.”  In the movie, one woman was happily taking a shower and unaware of the murderer coming in the bathroom. In this kdrama, two frightened men were huddled in a small tub and waiting to be discovered by the murderer. In both instances, the sight of the shower curtain being pulled to the side was terrifying.

Psycho:

Zombie Detective:

There was also the rain scene which reminded me of “Shawshank Redemption” with a twist. In the movie, the guy was standing in a thunderstorm. The rain was symbolically washing away his guilt. He was a free man.

In contrast, Zombie was standing in the rain, but as the rain washed away his BB cream, his veneer of humanity was also being washed away. His “true” horrific self was revealed.

Zombie wasn’t a free man; he was a guilty man. In his words, “I thought humans were the most rotten. That rotten human…was me!

2. Detective Lee Sung Rok is a copycat.

He was wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt. I thought he was channeling Magnum P.I.

This seems to be a running joke. From the beginning, he wanted there to be only one detective. He said, “There cannot be two detectives under the sky.” But his sidekick reminded him that there was Sherlock, too. lol.

I believe his insistence on being the “one and only” detective in Gangrim is a reference to “Moon Embracing the Sun.” In the beginning of that famous kdrama, the Queen Dowager said, “From time immemorial, there were two suns in the sky, as well as two moons. Thus, the days were extremely hot, and the nights were very cold. All of creation was in chaos, and mankind was miserable. Then, a hero appeared and used arrows to shoot down one sun and one moon. Only then was there peace in the world.” She wanted the Prince who posed as a threat to the King be eliminated because “there’s only one sun in the sky, and there’s only one throne in the palace.”

That’s where this whole “There cannot be two detectives under the sky” comes from. Detective Lee wanted to get rid of his competitor because two “suns” couldn’t exist in the sky.

Another joke about detectives is his permed hair. He was copying Benedict Cumberbatch’s famous hair in “Sherlock Holmes.” But the tripe lady dissed Detective Lee’s hair, saying it looked like an ahjumma’s hairstyle.

FYI. This is Benedict Cumberbatch’s hair in “Sherlock.”

This is an ahjumma’s perm. From “Reply 1988”

source: soompi

But what had me LOL’ing was when Zombie used the bug they planted in his room as his personal intercom to call them to his office. What a boss move!

“World King Detective Agency President Lee Sung Rok. Let’s meet for a bit. I know that you’re listening so please come here for a bit.”

They looked guilty as hell.

3. The birthday party invitation

The Brother-in-law (BIL) messed up big time here. He wasn’t supposed to invite Zombie to the birthday party but his son wanted to. It was funny how he was caught in a bind. He knew that his wife would get angry at him, but at the same time, he couldn’t be rude and not invite Zombie.

BIL: Well, if it’s okay with you, feel free to come over for dinner.
Zombie: I’ll have to pass.
BIL: Thank goodness.

lol. That was the wrong response, obviously. BIL should have expressed regrets that Zombie couldn’t join the party, instead of relief.

Unnie made it clear that she didn’t like him. When he walked in with SunJi, Unnie made sure to let him know that she thought he didn’t deserve SunJi by hyping up SunJi’s non-existent career.

In comparison, when Detective Cha walked in, she welcomed him like he was family.

SunJi was surprised to see DoHyun, and Unnie said that she invited him. It was a good thing that the birthday boy told DoHyun that he invited “Detective Ahjussi.” It drove home that Zombie was personally invited by the celebrant himself.

I found the choice of cake funny.

It was clear that the two detectives, DoHyun and Zombie, were being set up as competitors for SunJi. DoHyun had an advantage because he was friends with the family. But I think both BIL and the nephew favored Zombie. It’s not that DoHyun is a mean guy to BIL and the nephew. He gave a nice birthday present, the police car. It was an expensive gift, and he picked that car because he was a a police. When he told the boy to study hard, it was as if he was encouraging the boy to study so he could become a police like him when he grew up.

To me, Zombie’s gift was more thoughtful, even though it was inexpensive.

Considering that Zombie and the boy were always haggling over the price of the dog’s upkeep, the coupons were more focused on what the boy was really interested in at the particular stage in his young life.

4. Grilling his arm

SunJi was worried that Zombie would eat one of her family members, and I blame DoHyun for that. He was the one who put that idea in her head. He said that his sixth sense as a detective made him wary of that gleam in Zombie’s eyes. He said, Zombie looked like a ravenous beast.

Sunji then remembered that he killed and ate a wild boar so her brother-in-law would be easy pickings if Zombie really wanted to eat him.

To keep Zombie away from “temptation,” she assigned him to grill. But at the sight of the sampyusal, Zombie became hungry. When he was almost caught eating a big skewer of sampyusal, he quickly pretended that he was putting on a clown show for the kid.

And that’s how he got away with burning his own sleeve. The kids thought he was performing a magic trick for them.

I thought the scene was an ingenious way of showing that he became part of her family. He said, “Even for a moment, it felt like I became a human.”

It also foreshadowed the car bomb fire in the following episode. That time, he felt human, too, but in a different way.

From Episode 8, the killer Mr. Oh was lulling into a false sense of security, and Zombie fell for it.

Oh: I wasn’t planning a perfect crime that the world would talk about. I was planning a perfect life. After you lose what is precious to you, you realize what you had was very precious. That my life wasn’t so bad.

Of course, Oh was speaking from his own experience when he lost his family. But he was being prophetic here, too. Zombie’s memory of his mom would only return after his mom was shot dead in his arms.

Oh: My family was very precious to me. But today I lost another family.

The import of his words would only become clear after his death. His family died in a fire on Christmas day when he was seven years old. He was the lone survivor. When he said that was losing another family “today,” he meant the family he had with his wife. He lost a family member again when the police captured his wife.

Oh: This time, I was going to do well if it wasn’t for you. If only you hadn’t showed up.

Here, he was blaming Zombie for appearing out of nowhere to rescue Sori. To him, Zombie ruined his plan to have ideal family. He deluded him into believing that he was granting Sori’s Christmas wish to be with her father by kidnapping her and becoming her father. In return, he was getting a daughter for Christmas Day.

Oh: (talking about the present he left in the vehicle for Zombie) You want to know the truth? That’s my gift for you.

The booby trap went off and engulfed the car in flames. Zombie didn’t expected that.

Oh: Death will be better than life.

Again, are these prophetic words? For Oh, death was an option, but for Zombie, death was elusive. When Zombie saw the burning remnants of the present, his memory came back. He remembered everything about the kidnapping, and he became enraged.

Zombie: I have no blood flowing through me, but it feels like boiling. I have no heart, but it feels like it’s on fire. Was that my end as a human?

This could be interpreted in so many ways:

A. On a superficial level, he was wondering whether that was how he really died: with a gunshot.

B. But on another level, he was asking a rhetorical question. He was enraged, and wondered whether rage would overcome him and make him lose control of himself. For Zombie, self-consciousness and self-awareness were important. Being human meant being aware, being rational, being nonviolent, and being humane. But this rage was threatening to turn him into an inhuman, barbaric creature. He was becoming bestial.

C. And still on another level, there was irony here. He wasn’t human. He was a zombie. Being human was only an illusion for him. He tried so hard to be a humane zombie who was scared of Ma Dong Seok.

lol.

This is Ma Dong Seok from “Train to Busan.” Notice the wrappings on his forearms?

And here’s our Zombie with a fake bandage on his.

5. On why Zombie refused to eat humans.

Zombie told SunJi why he wouldn’t eat humans.

SJ: Thank you for coming today.
Zombie: You are not thankful because everybody is safe?

lol. I like Zombie’s wry humor. He knew that she was scared that he’d eat her family. She grinned.

SJ: But isn’t it a zombie’s instinct to eat human? Really, why aren’t you eating human?
Zombie: If I start eating human, then I’ll become a zombie for real. A real zombie.

This is interesting because in Episode 8, he APPEARED to have broken this rule and eaten the bad guy. Judging from how this director has been trolling the viewers, I’m crossing my fingers that Zombie did NOT Mr. Oh.

SJ: I guarantee that you probably were a good person.

Note: I do like the way that SJ always saw the good side in him. In the beginning, she saw him as a poor alcoholic who just needed to get himself to the sauna and clean himself up. Then, in Episode 5, she saw him as a hero who’d do great things for others despite being a zombie. “In the movies, those characters with a defect always think of themselves as monsters. But to other people, they are heroes! They save people who are in danger! I think you could be like that. A hero.”

But in a way, SunJi is guilty of hero-worshipping Zombie, too. If she finds out that Zombie failed to measure up to her “expectations” of him and became a zombie that he is, will she ditch him?

6. Zombie’s shooter

As expected, Zombie didn’t know who Mr. Oh was, and Mr. Oh wanted his identity hidden. That’s why Zombie’s eyes were bound.

I find it ironic that the mother kept calling him, “adeul” or son, but Zombie dismissed her entreaties because she had dementia. Then, the killer kept calling him, “hyung” or big brother, and Zombie fell for his lies although he was the demented one.

But I like how the mystery was resolved in one go.

Mr. Oh wanted to rebuild the family he lost in a Christmas fire when he was seven years old. He kidnapped the child Sori so he could raise her as his. Zombie was able to track him because of the lighter. Before he could rescue Sori, he was whacked on the head.

I’m sorry I snorted when he was hit on the head. The back of his head is his Achilles’ heel. I still remember when SunJi knocked him with the flying helmet. He said to himself, “I let my guard down. I didn’t think I would get hit on the back of my head by a human?” Apparently, he never learned from the past because he was always getting hit on the back on his head by a human.

After Zombie died, Mr. Oh took his mother in to “raise” as his own mother. If there’s any small consolation here, he didn’t maltreat Zombie’s mother. He seemed to care for her as if she was his own real mom. He didn’t get mad and beat her up when she continued to ignore him and displayed affection only for Zombie. He cried too when he accidentally killed her.

This framed picture was creepy.

7. Unfinished mystery

We still don’t know how Zombie ended up in the landfill when he was supposedly buried in the mountain.

His burial place in the mountain.

His actual burial ground: a landfill along with the medical waste.

From the news on TV in Episode 1: “Two employees of an animal hospital responsible for illegal disposal of nearly 100 tones of medical waste at a hillside in Gangrim City, Chowoldong have been arrested. (Reporter began speaking) I am now at the hillside where the medical waste has been illegally disposed of. Among the medical waste, there is even an IV used 4 years ago. There is concern for serious secondary infection.

This man will be important.

The TV reporter continued, “They committed this crime in order to save costs. (The whereabouts of the Director of the Animal Hospital, Mr. No, are not clear.) The police are still pursuing Mr. No who ordered the illegal disposal.”

In Episode 7, Zombie found out from SunJi more details on Sori’s father.

Zombie: What kind of person is Sori’s father?
SJ: A year ago, we received a tip that he was laundering slush funds through international business, smuggling contrabands, and relaying and procuring goods illegally. To sum it up, at home, he was a man who would do anything for his daughter. But outside, he was a cold man.
Zombie: He must have a lot of enemies.
SJ: Of course. He even requested protection from Interpol although it didn’t work out.

Part of me wants to tie in Sori’s father’s shady enterprise to Zombie’s death so I’m making a mental note of this tidbit.

8. Finally, Remington Steele

I don’t know if the producers intend this drama to end after a single season. But there’s enough material to expand the story into another season. The show reminds me of “Remington Steele,” a hit detective show in the 80s.

In that series, a suave con artist assumed the identity of Remington Steele, a fictitious male boss that a female private investigator created in order to drum up business for herself. The two of them worked together to solve mysteries. Like SunJi, the girl in “Remington Steele” was the “brains” of the operation, but Remington Steel came in handy with his street smarts.

Remington Steele, aka Pierce Brosnan, always looked dapper in his power suits.

credit: GQ

Just like Zombie.

We have four episodes, and I’ll really be sorry when this kdrama ends.