The Killing Vote addresses some taboo subjects like child SA and bribery in the Korean legal system. It’s an intriguing show with a very fast-paced and thrilling plot that thickens by the second. The series follows a detective who is the scapegoat of the police department as he’s left to do the dirty work. He is accompanied by a cop from the cyber department who was outed for being a whistleblower by the media. They are the most eligible team to fight against The Killing Vote, which is an act of vigilantism. If they catch Gaetal, they will be hated by the public because he’s considered a man who will give commoners justice, but on the other hand, if they don’t catch him, the police department will face backlash. The show airs only one episode a week, but so much happens at once that it’s difficult to keep track!
Spoilers Ahead
Kwon Seok-Joo And Mu-Chan’s Relationship
Eight years ago, Mu-Chan was the officer in charge of Professor Kwon’s daughter’s case. He was devastated to see the little girl’s body and couldn’t stop Kwon from seeing his own daughter in that condition. It is clear that they knew each other before then and were close enough to treat each other like brothers. When injustice was done and criminals were set free without warning, Seok-Joo was on the side of the law, whereas Mu-Chan was the one who would get aggressive and want to fight back. In the present day, Mu-Chan gets bombarded by the media for lying to the country about being severely injured. He admits his lie but also promises to catch Gaetal and reminds the public that Gaetal is, in fact, a criminal.
Inside the prison, Seok-Joo still sits with the police chief and gets special treatment. The prison worker, Chul-Min, beats him up with the excuse of making the chief look unbiased in front of the higher-ups. Joo Hyun takes Mu-Chan to her house because he won’t be safe anywhere else. She tells him that he can lay low there until things settle down. Joo Min hates the idea and tells her sister to throw him out early in the morning, or the neighborhood women will gossip. Before heading to sleep, Joo Min has an argument with Mu-Chan about Gaetal. She becomes emotional when Mu-Chan is against Gaetal, whereas Joo Min, whose family has faced injustice, sees him in a more gray light. She tells Mu-Chan that if he went through the same thing as her and Joo Hyun, he’d have a different opinion of Gaetal, too. He’s surprised by her detective skills, though, and it is clear that Joo Min would actually make a good investigative journalist.
Joo Min gives them objective evidence about the guy who hit Joo Hyun in the back of the neck. She says he smelled like firecrackers or gunpowder, meaning it might’ve been the same person who bombed the car. Joo Hyun explains to Mu-Chan that she got the scar behind her neck when she was 20 and got in a car accident. The scar tingles every time she’s stressed out or worried about something. She asks Mu-Chan to explain why Seok-Joo talked to him like he was Gaetal himself. He tells her how Seok-Joo and he were friends back in the day and how the case was completely messed up when the evidence that was used to catch the culprit was replaced. The toy that had been smeared with blood was suddenly clean, with all DNA evidence erased, leading the judge to free the man who assaulted Seok-Joo’s daughter. After that, seeing no other option for himself, Seok-Joo took matters into his own hands and killed the man.
Joo Min And Min-Soo
When Mu-Chan is shown lying to the whole country, Min-Soo watches as he sits with his lover. She tries to touch his chest and talks about his pacemaker as if it were a plaything. In a fit of anger, Min-Soo grabs whatever’s close to hand and hits her hard in the head. She’s bleeding on the floor but still alive when he throws his expensive watch beside her and leaves the house. She’s an actress, and she goes to the store the watch is from and tries to return it, only to be struck down by Min-Soo’s mother, who does much worse than just ruin her career. She’s left with scars on her face and no job. This is the power of the assemblywoman, who will go to any lengths to protect her son, and he acts like he knows it.
At school, Joo Min stops a couple of bullies from mistreating her friends. One of them tries to hit her with a broken easel, and Ji-Hoon intervenes to save her. His arm is badly hurt, but he will survive. On the other hand, Ji-Hoon notices Min-Soo staring at Joo Min inappropriately. At the hospital, she sees a doctor trying to take pictures of an unconscious patient and immediately wants to take action. Ji-Hoon tells her that catching perpetrators requires evidence rather than courage alone. He may be gathering evidence to catch Min-Soo, which is why he just makes observations at school.
When Joo Hyun arrives, she apologizes profusely, and this is the first time she’s met Joo Min’s teacher. He explains the situation to her and asks if Joo Hyun can visit the school and give a talk someday. She accepts, of course, now that her sister has caused trouble. He also tells her that the bullies are being investigated by the police, and Joo Min may need to give a statement. On the other hand, Ji-Hoon’s grandmother, who works in the hospital, tells him that he should stay away from Joo Min because she smells like trouble. On top of that, Joo Hyun is a cop. Ji-Hoon replies that he will not let a situation like this repeat itself, even though he’s clearly trying to get close to Joo Min (hmm. What’s this new twist in the tale?).
Gi-Chul’s Wife
While having beers with Joo Hyun and telling her his story, Mu-Chan gets a notification that Gi-Chul’s wife is dead. She was killed in the same way as Gi-Chul, but through evidence, the team is certain that it was not Gaetal who killed the man. On the other hand, during the investigation, the team finds a familiar face in Gi-Chul’s funeral video. It’s the taxi driver who drove him home on the night that he died. Why would he have been at the funeral if, as he claimed, he didn’t know him before?
The Journalist And Joo Hyun
Joo Hyun tries to get Do-Hee to give her the contact information for Gaetal because she’s sure that Do-Hee has some way of reaching him. Do-Hee refuses, and Joo Hyun physically assaults her to get it out of her, but she still denies she can reach him. It so happens that she was the one who sent the video clip from the day of the car incident to Gaetal, and Joo Hyun was right. Additionally, she’s the reason Joo Hyun is shunned at work because, while they were working together, Do-Hee broke Joo Hyun’s trust and publicly announced her name as the department whistleblower.
Is Seok-Joo In Possession Of Significant Evidence From Gaetal?
Chul-Min is put in charge of checking Seok-Joo’s letters after he beats him up for disobedience. The chief suddenly thinks he’s right, and Chul-Min finds several letters from a person who calls themselves Seok-Joo’s number-one fan. Chul-Min offers to give Mu-Chan the letters in exchange for money. Mu-Chan creates a scene at the cafe and arrests the man to teach him a lesson. Finally, he takes the letters to Joo Hyun. The letters describe exactly what Gaetal has been doing and prove that Seok-Joo knew something about Gaetal. The letters are also missing some pages in between, which may detail the people who would be killed by Gaetal next. The only person who could’ve hidden them has to be Seok-Joo.
Finally, Joo Hyun visits Seok-Joo in prison to get that information out of him, with Mu-Chan listening from the other side. She is nervous at first, but then she plays the music that she found in Seok-Joo’s house to get him to let go of his inhibitions or be distracted. Unfortunately, it backfires because: 1. Seok-Joo has already flushed the missing pages down the toilet; and 2. He knows Mu-Chan is listening in on the conversation. Joo Hyun is sure that Seok-Joo knows who the next target is. He tells her that the names of the targets are not mentioned in the letters, but the things that make Gaetal angry are. That could narrow down the possibilities of who the next target might be. At the end of The Killing Vote Episode 4, Seok-Joo proposes a special pardon in return for helping with the investigation of The Killing Vote.
The next target will be a sex offender, and Seok-Joo breaks down why it is common for sex offenders in Korea to live without fear. He says it’s because of the hierarchical system of society that compels people of lower ranks to be wary of holding people of higher ranks accountable. Joo Hyun concludes that the sex offender is from the military. The evidence points to this because Gaetal talks about a system that is essential for the country. Ultimately, Seok-Joo gets his freedom because they need all the help they can get, and he has all the information they need to catch Gaetal.
We don’t know if Seok-Joo knows who Gaetal is or if he’s pretending to be on the other side for his freedom. Technically, Gaetal is doing what Seok-Joo did himself, but for other people rather than himself. The Killing Vote returns on September 7th.