Let’s dive right in.

1. Bong TaeMin

Role: Tactical Weapons Developer and Specialist.
Petname: Stinky

He reminds me of two things:

a. The cartoon character “Pig-Pen” from “Peanuts” by Charles M. Schulz. But while Pig-Pen travels in swirls of dirt, TaeMin travels in a mist of stench.

b. A skunk. Viewers laugh at his scenes without appreciating that his foul smell is his de facto defensive armor. He was most likely left alone by the bullies because they couldn’t bear to be around him and they couldn’t make him worse off than he already was. Then remember what that Russian guy SeulGi said of Bona hating the smell of chicken because the Russian kids dunk her chicken in dirty water or poured whisky in her chicken soup? But Bona could tolerate Taemin’s smell.

In this episode, he displays his protective side toward BoNa.

He quickly volunteered to “meet” with their new client, Gu JongRyeol, the biological dad who only received 2 years of jail time for child neglect. Their team leader Mr. Kim jokingly wondered if something was going on between him and The Poisoner as they both raised their hands at the same time, as if they were in sync.

Side note: Kingfisher’s next target should be Lindsay Clancy. Change my mind.

Naturally, the viewers knew the reason The Poisoner was invested in the case. She, too, was abused by her father. But TaeMin was a relatively unknown character in the drama.

I like how the director gave the viewers a hint by focusing the camera first at BoNa, who slightly shifts her face while looking directly at Taemin, and then at Taemin who locks eyes with her before looking down.

This nonverbal communication between the two characters captured on film is great because:

a. it prefigured an understanding/awareness borne of a long-term relationship. In Episode 12, it’s revealed that they were together in an orphanage. Even back then, Taemin was already constructing toys for shooting and BoNa was borrowing from him. When he had the chance to join the other orphans to an emergency childcare facility, he opted to follow BoNa instead. That’s how they both ended up in Russia.

b. it suggested that TaeMin was doing the mission to spare BoNa from taking it on herself. The mission should have comprised of just The Hacker, The Poisoner and Taemin, but to his surprise, BoNa decided to join in. Seeing her there, he gave The Hacker a heads-up.

TM: Keep a close watch?
Hacker: On what?
TM: (sighing) I mean, Yoo BoNa. If something feels off, we’ll call off the meeting immediately.
Hacker: Ms BoNa? Is something bugging you?
TM: This client makes me think of someone. Some memories from childhood don’t fade easily, you know.

In Episode 12, it was TaeMin, with his steady, composed voice, who cut through her cloud of fury.

TM: Yoo BoNa, ije geumanhae.

Note: Viki subbed it as “Stop it now.” But it can also mean, “That’s enough now.” In English, there’s a slight difference between the two. “Stop it now” means her action needs to stop at once. “That’s enough now” implies that she should have gotten her fill of revenge already so she should cease punching the abuser. Obviously, TaeMin understood why she was pummeling the abuser —  it stems from her childhood trauma — but he was calling her back to sanity.

It was at this moment that he gained my respect for being a stabilizing voice of reason for BoNa. She immediately listened to him.

I also like what TaeMin said to The Poisoner when they were in the elevator. He observed her checking her travel-size poison dispenser.

TM: You always seem to have venom in your veins.
Poisoner: Of course.
TM: You’re very wary. Did you have a rough childhood?
Poisoner: I had a childhood as miserable as anyone’s.
TM: I don’t even know what my parents look like.
Poisoner: Must’ve been nice, not having a dad.
TM: At least, you must know when you were born.
Poisoner: I know exactly. Because I broke a rib on my fifth birthday.
TM: (looking at her) You can break a rib even without a dad. An arm or a leg too.

A few points:

a. Look who’s talking! Yes, she has venom in her veins, but he has guns in his mancave. He’s in no position to judge. They both manufacture weapons according to their expertise.

b. “Who has the worse childhood?” isn’t a game the members of Team 3 should be playing. Being a winner isn’t something one can brag about.

c. I think that, in the orphanage flashback, he was the boy being water-tortured with a hose by the Abusive Man.

d. I like that TaeMin gave The Poisoner a few points to ponder. She isn’t the only one who suffered in childhood, and abusers come in many forms.

2. Camera Work

I like the way the director set up the opening scene of Episode 11: the Kingfisher Task Force had a press meeting and the Durumi Team 3 watched them on TV. It looked like they were having a virtual face-off:

Mr. Kim versus Mr. Gu, the head of the Kingfisher Task Force
Yoo BoNa versus Yoo MiJin (profiler and mother of Yul’s classmate in kindergarten)
Yoo BoNa versus DongJin
Yoo BoNa versus DongJin’s sidekick (they played computer games with each other)
The Hacker versus DongJin’s sidekick

Then, as Mr. Gu addressed the cameras, Mr. Kim asked the table if this was the third task force the police assembled to capture Kingfisher. Their doctor answered that it was the fourth; the police had been creating and disbanding task force every three to four years. It was implied that this fourth iteration of the Kingfisher task force was nothing to worry about.

Uh-oh. Is this hubris? I hope their overconfidence won’t lead to a fatal mistake and their team disbandment.

I wonder if Mr. Kim knows of Mr. Gu. As of Episode 12, I can’t decipher Mr. Gu’s role is in Kingfisher’s organization.

a. Is he a copycat who killed the man in jail because of a personal vendetta or hatred for criminals?

b. Is he a sympathizer who assists whenever he can, like passing on intel?

c. Or is he an undercover agent embedded in the police force to gain access to info and/or block progress? Judging by the emotional way he studied his son’s picture (presumably deceased) in Episode 12, he looked unstable to me.

I also like how the director shifted the camera from one character to another. First, he focused the camera temporarily on BoNa who nodded her head, then on the TV where the people on the task force were lined up against the wall (like suspects, lol), then on The Hacker who recognized SeAh’s cop-buddy,
then on BoNa again who looked down, pensively.

To me, the camera work was presaging the coming battle of wits. Of course, BoNa, the Hacker and the rest of Team 3 cannot use physical force to fight the police. They’ll need to use strategy, mind games, new tech, coordination, and foresight to win.

3. Circumstantial evidence

As of Episode 11 (correction, Episode 12), the Kingfisher Task Force has a weak case.

Yes, the pickpocket who assaulted TaeSeong during the Soccer Game can testify seeing a woman, dressed up in the Red Devil mascot gear and carrying a backpack, come out of the building. And yes, the 911 dispatcher can testify that a woman made an emergency call at 11:06pm.

However, these aren’t direct evidence to prove that the woman they saw or heard is Kingfisher who fired the gun.

Kingfisher could have come out later that evening after the pickpocket was gone, or exited out of the building elsewhere, or stayed in the building until the following morning. Also, who said that Kingfisher had to make an emergency phone call? If he was a cold-blooded killer as they made him out to be, then he wouldn’t mind another dead body, would he?

The only testimony that matters is TaeSong’s because he claims to be eyewitness.

This is his conversation with DongJin in Episode 12.

DJ: Are you in league with Kingfisher?
TS: (frustrated) What kind of nonsense have you been spouting lately?
DJ: The person you said you had to protect with that embargo, is it Kingfisher?

In his head, TaeSeong is telling himself that he hasn’t decided whether to choose BoNa and protect her or fulfill his professional obligation as a reporter.

TS: (calmly) No. I’m on your side.
DJ: I’m being serious.
TS: That man I saw before, he really is Kingfisher.

Then, words come tumbling out. It’s his eyewitness account, and he sounds convincingly agitated.

TS: On the day of the Haegong-dong incident, I tailed Yeon Chang Bok’s mom and found where Yeon Chang Bok was hiding. I searched the nearby rooftops, spotted Kingfisher taking aim, and got caught.

Hmmmm…that bit is false, though. He didn’t see Kingfisher taking aim because he was knocked out before he could open the door. However, misremembering is not unusual in eyewitness testimonies as memory can fade over time, become distorted due to trauma and stress, and/or be reconstructed by information and biases acquired post-incident.

DJ: (angrily) Yah! Why are you only telling me this now?
TS: Because he threatened to harm my family!
DJ: Then, the person you said you had to protect…?
TS: (shakily) My wife and my child. My beloved family. I need to protect them.
DJ: (sighing)
TS: You’ll be on my side, right? Huh? You said you wanted to repay the favor.

Awwww. He looks like he’s about to cry. ☹️

Because TaeSeong claims to have encountered Kingfisher on that fateful day, his testimony in court will have bigger impact than the combined statements of the pickpocket and 911 dispatcher. (And note: on that fateful day, SeulGi *did* take BoNa’s place as Kingfisher because he fired the shot. TaeSeong is NOT incorrect to call SeulGi Kingfisher.)

He can also back up his claim that Kingfisher threatened him by presenting his work colleagues who had pressured him to write about Kingfisher. For years, he desisted from reporting on Kingfisher out of fear of retaliation.

He can also show the late-night text that he received from a restricted number. SeulGi had written, “You keep your promises well. Good. Another good night, TaeSeong.” This text came after Kingfisher shot the child abuser, Pyo Kyu Cheol, who was fleeing on a boat. (Episode 8)

4. The Task Force meeting

But what stuck in my head in this Episode 11 is the presentation of DongJin at the Task Force meeting. It was aggravating. 🤣

DJ: The shooter was definitely just one person. But as you can see, there may have been an accomplice involved in everything besides the shooting. We can’t rule out the possibility of a separate team operating independently.
Yoo MinJa: Kingfisher may have an organized group of accomplices? That’s plausible.
DJ: Yes. If that’s the case, it’s highly likely their methods go beyond simply carrying out sniper attacks, based on what we’ve uncovered so far.

Arrggh! Do you get his convoluted reasoning? It goes like this:

If shooting is done by Kingfisher, then there may be accomplices involved. However, if accomplices are involved, then manner of death isn’t limited to shooting by Kingfisher. Death can be caused by (he’ll list this shortly) “various accidents, car crashes, falls, electrocution, drowning, and so on.” And oh! Let’s not forget, cardiac arrest, too.

Do you see the problem? By his reasoning, any and all deaths by ex-convicts can be blamed on Kingfisher and accomplices because their methods of killing are varied and limitless. This sort of argument doesn’t fly. It’s faulty generalization.

Mr. Gu: What’s that supposed to mean? If it’s not a shooting, then what?
DJ: (showing Pyo Kyu Cheol’s case on the PowerPoint slide)
Mr. Gu: Pyo Kyu Cheol? Hey, he was shot and killed.
DJ: I believe Kingfisher’s side originally planned to make it look like an accident. But some variable arose, forcing him to finish the job with a shooting.
Mr. Gu: What’s the basis for that?

Good call! Where’s his evidence that the original plan was to make PKC’s death look accidental but Kingfisher had to step in? Did he see it? Did a witness come out? He can’t just say that he believes it, and expect his boss and colleagues to accept it without questioning or investigating it further.

Also, notice how instead of showing his evidence, he refers them to deaths of other child sex offenders. He’s deflecting. It doesn’t matter if there are 8, 10, or 20 other such cases. I want to know how he connected PKC’s movements and came up with this theory that Kingfisher intended to make PKC’s death look like an accident but had to settle for a Plan B.

DJ: (showing more photos of criminals) We tracked eight serious child sex offenders from the past 15 years since Kingfisher first appeared. All eight were confirmed to have died in various accidents, car crashes, falls, electrocution, drowning, and so on.

Isn’t he cherry-picking? Have there really been only 8 “serious” child sex offenders in 15 years since Kingfisher appeared? Woooow! Amazing society! It could be argued that he suppressed/excluded data and selected these 8 cases because they confirmed his position that Kingfisher was involved in them.

Yoo MinJa: While Kingfisher draws attention with a shooting, a separate team eliminates criminals by disguising their deaths as accidents? That’s an interesting theory.
Mr. Gu: Yah! Ms. Yoo, why are you doing this, too?
DJ: We tracked 20 serious criminals who received relatively light sentences and were released over the past 15 years. 11 were killed by Kingfisher’s shootings, while 8 died in apparent accidents. And the most recent victim, Hwang Cheol Beom. He was so afraid of Kingfisher that he voluntarily went back to prison, but he was found dead inside the prison last week. The cause of death was cardiac arrest.

Interesting. Was Hwang Cheol Beom’s death carried out by Kingfisher’s team doctor or did Mr. Gu (the head of the Task Force) decide on his own to kill the man? See that? That’s the problem with his broad — or should I say, undefined? — parameters. Anybody can become an accomplice of Kingfisher, and any death of an ex-convict can be attributed to Kingfisher and the team.

Mr. Gu: Aigoooya. Some died in accidents. Others from illness. Are we a criminal obituary task force or what?
Yoo Minja: If 19 out of 20 are dead, who’s the one who hasn’t died yet?

Then somewhere across town, at the Team 3 office, Mr. Kim begins their new client briefing.

Mr. Kim: Gu Jong Ryeol….

To me, the Task Force meeting is the weakest scene in the kdrama thus far. (Lol. It hurt my head skimming through it. 🤕) It appears to be cobbled together in order to move DongJin and the rest of the task force closer to finding out the real identity of Kingfisher. If this were to happen in real life, I would advise DongJin to take a short break from everything Kingfisher because he was exhibiting signs of paranoia.