Netflix’s Mission: Cross by Lee Myung Hoon felt like a perfect mix of comedy, thriller, and action! The story revolves around Park Kang-moo, a devoted husband, and his wife Kang Mi-seon, a rebellious detective in Seoul. The twist comes when Kang Mi-seon starts to suspect that her husband might be cheating on her, even though Park Kang-moo seems like one of the most loyal guys ever. So, what is he hiding? And will Kang Mi-seon, with her detective skills, figure it out? But wait, there’s more to the story than just their relationship drama. It turns out there’s a big mission involving someone named General Park. Will they be able to catch this person? Let’s find this out from Mission: Cross‘s explainer.
Spoilers Ahead
What is the real identity of Park Kang-moo?
Park Kang-moo used to be a secret agent for the Korean Defense Intelligence Command. About six years ago, he was on a mission in Russia with his team. They got news of some illegal weapons being shipped to Korea and needed to stop the shipment. The problem was that they didn’t have any official orders to do this, but Park decided it was too risky to ignore and went ahead with the operation. Sadly, one of his team members, Geum Seok, lost his life on this unauthorized mission. As a result, Park was fired from his job and had to give up his secret agent career. He went back to a normal life, married Kang Mi-seon, and settled into a routine as a regular husband. He cooks, cleans, and takes care of his wife, who is a major detective in the crime investigation division. She’s the main breadwinner, where Park’s pretty broke and drives a school van to get by. There’s more to it, though. Park drives the school van partly because Geum Seok’s son’s a passenger on it, and he looks out for him. It’s like he can’t quite move past the guilt from that mission, and it’s something he’s never really forgiven himself for. Even though he’s moved on from his past life, he still pockets a bit of money from Mi-seon’s purse now and then to make ends meet. Mi-seon doesn’t know anything about his secret agent days. To her, he just seems like an ordinary, underachieving husband. But, hey, marriage is about accepting each other’s flaws, right? After all, if he had been some famous person, would he have taken care of her the way he does now?
Why did Park Kang-moo decide to go back to help out Jang Hee-joo?
Everything was going smoothly for Park Kang-moo until one day he ran into Jang Hee-joo, one of his former colleagues from his secret agent days. She was being chased by some guys on the street, and Park stepped in to help her out. That’s when he realized she was caught up in something big. Jang Hee-joo revealed that her husband, Kim Jung-san, who used to work with Park, had gone missing. Jung-san was on the verge of blowing the whistle on the Ministry of National Defense (MND) for a massive procurement fraud. The MND had announced a next-generation defense project using Russian aerospace technology, but it was all a scam. They had managed to make off with 3.5 trillion won through this fake project. The mastermind behind this operation was someone named General Park. Jung-san had put together a team to catch General Park and stop the fraud. However, instead of going after General Park, the defense counterintelligence command was actually managing the slush funds. Jung-san had managed to get hold of the slush fund account file as he hoped it would lure General Park out of hiding. But that was the only thing she knew about her husband’s operation. Park and Jang Hee-joo were then contacted by one of Jung-san’s colleagues, who knew where he was. After meeting him in a hotel, they learned that Jung-san was still alive but had been kidnapped by General Park and was being held in a torture chamber at a mental health education center. The kidnappers wanted him to reveal where he had hidden the crucial file. Jang Hee-joo, who was pregnant, was in no condition to handle this intense operation on her own. Seeing this, Park knew she needed help. So, he decided to reprise his agent role and help Jang Hee-joo find her husband and secure the important information.
How did Kang Mi-seon get to know about Park Kang-moo’s real identity?
All these years in their marriage, Kang Mi-seon had never suspected that her husband, Park Kang-moo, could be cheating on her. That was until one day when her colleagues at the detective precinct saw Park with Jang Hee-joo and started gossiping about an affair. At first, Mi-seon brushed off their comments, but she couldn’t ignore the photos and the change in Park’s behavior. He was coming home late, skipping house chores, and seemed constantly busy. It all seemed suspicious. Mi-seon decided to follow her husband and even tracked him to a hotel where he was meeting with Jung-san’s friend with Jang Hee-joo. But she had work to do, and she didn’t want her personal life to mess up her professional responsibilities. There was a case involving a woman named Baek Seon-su, who had been shot. After waking up in the hospital, she revealed that she was working with Jung-san to lure General Park using the account file as bait. While reviewing CCTV footage from the area where Baek was shot, Mi-seon saw Jang Hee-Joo at the end of the street—the same woman she thought was having an affair with her husband. Shocked, Mi-seon followed the address she found, hoping to uncover the truth. Meanwhile, Park Kang-moo, with Jang Hee-joo’s help, managed to rescue Jung-san from the torture chamber at the mental hospital. He took him to the hospital for treatment, and Park was able to reunite Jang Hee-joo with her “husband.”
Jung-san naturally trusted Park and gave him the password to the locker in his safe house where the crucial file was hidden. But just as Park thought they were making progress, they realized he’d been played. Jang Hee-Joo was actually the real General Park, who was after the slush fund money. Jung-san wasn’t her real husband; she had faked the whole situation to gain their trust and get the information she needed. She had rigged the hospital with cameras and sent her men to grab the file from the safe house once Jung-san revealed the passwords. Mi-seon, who had also discovered the safe house location from the CCTV footage, arrived just in time to see General Park’s men trying to seize the file hidden in the chip. She managed to destroy the microchip containing the file to prevent them from getting it. Enraged, General Park’s men captured her and took her to the mental hospital to torture her. Realizing he had been deceived, Park Kang-moo rushed back to the mental hospital, but General Park’s men tried to kill him on the way. Fortunately, Park survived and arrived just in time, only to find his wife there, battered and drugged, but he was able to rescue her from there. It was also revealed that Mi-seon had used Park’s phone to uncover his affair, discovered the hidden file, and handed it over to General Park’s men in a desperate attempt to save herself. In the end, Park saved Mi-seon, and despite her initial disappointment with the secrecy, they realized they had a much bigger mission: to catch General Park and stop the laundering of 3.5 trillion won to offshore accounts. Their perspective on each other and their mission had completely changed, which brought them closer together in their fight against corruption.
In Mission: Cross’ ending, we see the husband and wife: Park Kang-moo and Kang Mi-seon join forces to catch General Park and recover the stolen money. It was an intense chase, but they managed to capture General Park and stop the money from being laundered by securing the file from her. Mi-seon got the police involved just in time, and with their backup, the operation was a success. But that’s not where their story ends. Now that they know each other’s true stories, they realize they can’t just go back to being regular husband and wife doing household chores. They have a bigger mission: fighting corruption and saving the nation. Fast forward six months, and we see them in a secret safe house in Doksan-dong, working together to arrest a drug dealer. It’s clear they’ve got more important missions ahead of them, and they’re fully committed to their new path. It’s a whole new chapter for them, and we hope that maybe now Mi-seon won’t see her husband as an underachiever anymore.
