“Brain Works” stars Dr Shin Ha Ru, a famous neuroscientist who got fired from his job for forging a dead prisoner’s consent form to get access to his brain. It was detective Geum Myung Se who blew the whistle on him and to get his revenge, Ha Ru joined the special scientific investigation department where Myung Se works. Ha Ru helped solve some interesting cases, but his main motive was to gain popularity so he could go back to work at his lab. Moreover, he had been secretly tailing Myung Se to find dirt on him, and when he saw Myung Se receiving money from the same person twice, he reported to a journalist that Myung Se was a corrupt cop.
Spoilers Ahead
Who Has Been Trying To Contact Ha Ru?
Ha Ru was excited to read the article, but the article praised Myung Se instead of bashing him. After investigating, the reporter discovered that Myung Se helped an ex-convict set up a business by taking a loan under his own name, and he hadn’t been taking bribes but receiving the money that he owed from that person. Everyone praises Myung Se for his good deed except his ex-wife and daughter, who think that he will go broke if he doesn’t stop showing kindness to everyone. Ha Ru refuses to join the celebration with his colleagues and leaves the police station but stops when Myung Se tells him about the new case. A man is suspected of murdering his wife, but he claims that he could never do that because he is unable to recognize people’s faces. Ha Ru could ignore everything else in the world, but not an interesting case related to neurology.
A Vietnamese woman named Thoung was found dead at her friend’s house, and her face and hands were burned, which made it difficult to confirm her identity; however, an identity card was found near her, so they arrested her husband, Lee Jong Koo, as a suspect. They confirmed that it was Thoung by testing the DNA found at her home. Her husband still claims that he cannot recognize faces, so Ha Ru confirms via MRI that he has a neurological disease called prosopagnosia, which proves his claim true. However, he still remains a suspect. Myung Se and Ha Ru visit the factory where Thoung, her friend Haoi, and Haoi’s boyfriend Loc work, but neither Haoi nor Loc have shown up to work since Thoung died. Haoi’s boyfriend had found Thoung’s body. He avoided the police because he was an illegal immigrant, but Myung Se and Ha Ru managed to track him down. He tells Myung Se that Haoi and Thoung had an argument over money before Thoung died, and he hasn’t been able to reach Haoi since then.
Captain Seol often gets scolded by her boss because she never does fieldwork. More than scolding, her boss practically bullies her constantly, and Seol’s shy and anxious personality doesn’t help her take a stand for herself. To prove herself, she goes to Haoi’s house for an investigation and finds an important piece of evidence. She calls Myung Se to inform him but gets into an accident before she can pass it on. Seol is still unconscious after the treatment, so Ha Ru uses the neurological method to get the information from her. Even if Seol cannot speak, her brain can react to what she is asked about. She reacts to Myung Se’s questions and reveals the shocking news to them that it was Haoi who was killed and not Thoung. However, they cannot get the evidence until Seol wakes up. They can only guess that someone must have purposely kept Haoi’s items in Thoung’s house to alter the DNA test results.
Myung Se and Ha Ru visit Thoung’s house to talk to her husband, and they find his cold storage warehouse suspicious. They enter the warehouse, and someone locks them inside. They try everything possible to escape but to no avail. If someone doesn’t rescue them soon, they will likely freeze to death. Even Ha Ru, who never loses his cool, gets scared. While he is trapped inside the warehouse, his aunt finds a letter in his letterbox and gets worried. It is a letter from Hwang Dong Woo, a neurologist and a psychopath who is on death row for serial murders. He has been trying to contact Ha Ru lately, and it concerns his aunt. She calls Dr. Park, who was Hwang’s mentee, and he gets stressed after hearing the news as well.
Who Died And Who Is The Murderer?
The temperature inside the cold storage was getting dangerously low when Thoung’s husband, Jong Koo, rescued and took Myung Se and Ha Ru into his home. Jong Koo tells them earnestly that he wasn’t home and opened the warehouse because he had a bad feeling about it. They check the CCTV camera next to the warehouse and see Thoung’s sister closing the door of the warehouse. As a detective, Myung Se understands right away that she had wanted to get something from home. They go to Thoung’s sister’s house, but her husband tells Myung Se that she hasn’t been home for some days and that her phone is turned off as well. Thoung’s sister has Thoung’s baby with her, and her behavior is suspicious. It turns out that Thoung was the one who impersonated her sister to enter her house. She took her passport and went to the airport, where her sister had been waiting for her with her daughter. Thoung is going back to Vietnam after what she did to her friend Hoai. As Captain Seol said, it is Haoi who is dead and not Thoung.
Thoung is about to board her plane when Myung Se finds her and arrests her. Myung Se and Ha Ru were staking out Thoung’s sister’s house when they realized what could be so important that Thoung’s sister was searching for it. For a foreigner, the most important thing is their passport. Moreover, they find out that Thoung’s sister didn’t register Thoung’s death, which means that Thoung can still use her passport without getting caught. Myung Se caught her at the right time and believed that he had found the murderer, but Thoung pleads that she didn’t kill Haoi but only scorched her face and hands. Thoung’s husband was abusive, and she had wanted to escape him. When she found Haoi’s dead body, her desperation made her do what she did. She tells the police that she suspects Haoi’s boyfriend to be the murderer because they have been fighting a lot lately. They chose to test the two other suspects using Thoung.
Ha Ru uses a neurological method similar to the lie detector test to find out who, between Loc and Jong Koo, is the murderer. When Thoung appears in front of Loc, he reacts with shock and replies that he hasn’t killed Haoi when Thoung accuses him of doing so. Ha Ru’s test shows him that Loc had no idea about anything and that he is genuinely shocked. On the other hand, Thoung’s husband, Jong Koo, who cannot recognize faces, recognizes Thoung from her earrings and gets scared. Ha Ru catches his lie, and Jong Koo has no choice but to confess his crime. He killed Haoi, mistaking her for Thoung because she wore the same earrings as her. Both Jong Koo and Thoung get charged, one with murder and the other with tampering with a dead body. Captain Seol, who gave a very important hint regarding the case, regaine consciousness after the case is solved. However, there was a big change in her. Seol was no longer a shy and anxious person. She was bold and fearless. She surprised everyone at the office with her bold new look, and her boss, who always bullied her, got a taste of his own medicine when Seol bullied him. Ha Ru diagnosed that her brain had been damaged at the time of the accident, but it had actually worked in her favor.
‘Brain Works’ Episode 4: Ending
Dr. Park reluctantly visits Hwang Dong Woo in prison, but he has to talk to him about Ha Ru. He asks Hwang why he wants to meet Ha Ru now and if he is not going to keep the promise he made years ago. Hwang saw Ha Ru on the news and heard about his research about recreating a psychopath’s brain, and Hwang thinks that he has a perfect psychopath’s brain. Hwang seems to know Ha Ru from his childhood, and he asks Park if Ha Ru still doesn’t know the truth behind his parents’ deaths. Park leaves the prison after telling Hwang not to contact Ha Ru ever again.
Hwang is a terrifying person, and even guards around him are not permitted to talk to him as he easily manipulates people by tapping into their weaknesses. Guards around him work in rotation, and no one is allowed to stay near him for too long. “Brain Works” has a villain in focus now, and the villain, Hwang, has finally managed to contact his new victim, Ha Ru. As soon as Park leaves the prison, Ha Ru enters. Ha Ru’s unstable brain and Hwang’s psychopathic brain are about to collide, and like Ha Ru’s aunt worries, we will have to see if Hwang will manipulate Ha Ru to do something violent.
