Good Boy – K-drama Episode 6 Recap & Review
Episode 6 of Good Boy begins with Dong-ju infatuated and barely listening to the doctor as he shrugs off the man's concerns. Instead, he blames it on vertigo. He looks with puppy-dog eyes at Han-na and brushes off his symptoms completely , jumping right back into the case again.
Min Ju-yeong seems to know exactly what they've been up to, and his history is suspiciously clean. Dong-ju believes he may be using a burner phone, dispatched somewhere around the parking lot. Well, Dong-ju does actually find the phone with a bit of digging, and he finds it ripped into two pieces.
Unfortunately, Dong-ju also finds himself trapped inside the drain after retrieving one of the pieces. He teases Jong-hyeon after his kiss with Han-na and this continues their rivalry throughout the episode, as the pair continue to try and one-up the other.
The phone is eventually brought back to the lab, where the team confirm fingerprints from Ju-yeong, and trace it back to our slippery customer.
Despite being kicked out his mum's noodle shop, Dong-ju continues to look out for Mi-ja, making sure the kids who have been graffitiing the place are reprimanded and kept in check. He isn't too harsh with them though, offering food and being kind, but it doesn't go unnoticed by his mum. In fact, she decides to invite him over the following evening to patch up their issues.
Elsewhere, Drug Demon continues to hold up at the safehouse but she's bored and wanting Dong-ju to head back. However, she's intending to head out and find whoever is cooking up fake Candy.
This guy is actually at Baukgu Port, so Drug Demon decides to use this intel to fool the police into doing her dirty work. It works a treat, especially as Dong-ju and Han-na (who's fresh off falling out with Gyeong-suk about reopening the case intro her father's death) show up.
As all the police race off to find this copycat, going by the name of Bbong-pil, Drug Demon spins her web of deceit. Everybody thinks this is the right play, except for Han-na who isn't sure that Drug Demon can be trusted. After a bit of product placement for Kopiko (to be fair, these candies are super tasty), the group prepare to head out after staking the place the entire night.
Bbong-pil shows up at the dock but soon susses that he's being tailed, leading to a big chase. However, it's Dong-ju who comes up short this time, thanks to not being able to swim and ending up in the drink.
Regardless, the group check out the lab and realize the stories they know about Drug Demon don't really line up with what they know about this infamous character. Bbong-pil has never heard of Ju-yeong and doesn't seem to know what's going on, even with Dong-ju's unconventional questioning.
Dong-ju does get the hair samples and roughs the guy up but it seems Dong-ju also knows that he may not be their guy. The irony is, they've actually done Drug Demon's work for her, taking out another player and letting her continue her operation.
At the station, things take an unexpected turn when Jeong-a shows up. She clings to Jong-hyeon like her life depends on it, and it seems she's back from the Philippines now. Dong-ju and the team are tasked with making sure she doesn't run away, and she's inevitably thrown into the same safe house as Drug Demon, whom they still haven't figured out is their guy.
While Man-sik delivers a statement to the police about their big win, Jong-hyeon and Han-na have been digging into the records. Now, according to Cheognil Shipping's revenue data, they were among the top domestic shippers in the industry but the following year they deliberately filed for bankruptcy. At that point, TAE corporation bought them out. Furthermore, the company handling the logistics happens to be J9 Security, run by Oh Jong-gu. The same Jong-gu, who's working for Ju-yeong.
TAE corporation smuggled in chemicals, disguised as regular Russian frozen pollock, which Jong-gu handed over to the Drug Demon. Ju-yeong was overseeing this entire gig and knew the ins and outs… but its not as simple as jumping in and busting them all.
TAE corporation is lead by CEO Steve Roh, whose father holds a lot of power. He happens to be the Mayor of Insung City, Deok-gyu. This is the same guy who's chummy with Commissioner Cho too, so trying to take down this house of cards is not going to be easy.
With everything out in the open, Ju-yeong is forced to apologize to the Mayor for messing everything up. Instead, Ju-yeong decides to beat down the Mayor and leave him a bloody mess. He's the one who managed to get the Mayor's name on this, so he beats the guy down and demands he get the traffic case off his back too.
This show of power keeps Jung-gu quiet but when questioned, as this maniacal Ju-yeong asks whether he's actually a bad guy, he's not sure how to answer Ju-yeong's question. He chuckles and tells him he's not, but it's clear Ju-yeong is a bit deranged. He's actually annoyed that Dong-ju and the others think he's crooked and he decides to bring some guys onboard that can keep quiet and show how bad he can really be.
Man-sik is attacked outside the bathroom by Ju-yeong's goons following their team dinner that night. Unfortunately, they take his gun and bring it straight to Ju-yeong. He fires wildly while being sure to keep his fingerprints off, clearly designed to get Man-sik in trouble.
Meanwhile, Han-na learns the truth about Drug Demon and who she really is. Unfortunately, Jeong-a also finds out about her real name and it causes them to leave the safe house together, putting the Captain on edge even more when the place is left a fiery mess.
As for Jeon-ha, she brings the Captain's daughter to Ju-yeong, whom she's aligned with. The gun here has one more bullet left and unfortunately, a nasty grin crosses his face as he gets an idea.
While the team scramble for answers, Dong-ju receives a present… which happens to be Man-sik's gun with the bullets gone. It turns out Ju-yeong hasn't targeted Jeong-a, he's gone after Gyeong-il.
When Dong-ju shows up at the restaurant, he finds her in a bad state. Covered in blood, shot and on oxygen, Dong-ju is grief-stricken. Even worse, the table is all set for their dinner together too, with bits of cucumber on the side. The same cucumber that Ju-yeong would remove methodically from his plate.
With his mum dead, Dong-ju shows up at the dock and immediately smacks Ju-yeong clean out, knocking him to the ground. However, we also get scenes here that seem to hint that Dong-ju's brain injury is very serious… will we find out the extent of it next week?
The Episode Review
Counterpunch is a great name for this episode, given Ju-yeong counters with a horrific blow to Dong-ju and takes out his mum. This whole case has been made that much more serious, and it could well cause even more trauma for Dong-ju too, given his internal injuries. I'd imagine this guy either has CTE or some form of brain injury as a result of his time boxing.
The tone in this drama really switches hard from comedy to melodrama, and that ending has seemingly hinted that we're taking a turn down a dark path for the episodes ahead.
We do learn this episode about the Mayor being involved as the higher-up, which seemed like an obvious little trope to throw in at this point. However, the twist to this cliched Korean trope is that Ju-yeong seems to be the one in control here rather than subservient to anyone else.
The guy effortlessly plays a villain you can't wait to see taken down, while simultaneously, Park Go-bum is acting his heart out as Dong-ju. Given the guy has been typecast as a stoic, quiet nice-guy in many shows, it's great to see him flexing his acting chops and showing what he's capable of.
Either way, everything here is left wide open for where it may go next week.
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The constitutional principle of 'one country, two systems', agreed with the British before the handover in 1997, was abandoned, with Hong Kong's pro-democracy parties later disbanding as the possibility of peaceful political change receded. 'At the time I attended my first protest, I was expecting it to be completely peaceful because I was taught at school that we have freedom of speech and press in Hong Kong,' Cheung recalls. 'Then suddenly, the police started shooting teargas and rubber bullets at us and started arresting people really violently; dragging protesters and standing on their necks. I was just 14 and my worldview completely changed. 'I realised whatever we had been learning in school was a lie,' she says. 'I'd been brainwashed. I felt helpless and fooled.' Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team after newsletter promotion Thousands of protesters and opponents of the new powers were arrested and charged in a brutal crackdown that led to condemnation from countries including the UK, which offered residents in Hong Kong the chance to resettle. Although her parents were not political, Cheung says they could see that it was better for her and her younger brother's future to move to the UK. Her family, says Cheung, 'knew I was someone who doesn't know how to shut up. They didn't want either of us to end up in prison for speaking our mind, because my mum said, 'You are kind of nobody. No one would know that you're in prison.'' The family arrived in Leeds in 2020, where Cheung, then 15, threw herself into studying for her GCSEs. With the UK going through Covid lockdowns, she spent most of her time at home catching up on the syllabus and practising past exam papers. After a successful first year, she went on to study maths, further maths and economics for A-level. Her first taste of activism outside Hong Kong came at 18 after she made a submission to the UN on the experiences of women during the 2019-20 protests in the city. She was later invited to the UN office in Geneva to join an NGO meeting on the topic. It was here that she met members of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong, which advocates for democracy. 'At that point I knew I could not afford to go to university yet [as she would have to pay the higher overseas tuition fees] so asked the committee if I could take a job working for them,' she says. 'I didn't imagine it would be a career and when I was hired it was just on a short-term contract, more or less as an intern,' says Cheung. 'I was happy just to save up money.' She soon began taking on a more public role at the committee, speaking to MPs and journalists while using her real name. She thinks it was this that irked Chinese officials. 'I spoke with a lot of media and my quotes were used as someone who was born and grew up in Hong Kong and so with a personal connection. The authorities saw that and intentionally want to target people who have got a profile.' After the bounty and warrant for her arrest were announced, Cheung says she did consider taking herself out of the public spotlight. 'But I thought if I do this now everyone will know it is because I am scared and giving up,' she says. 'They [China] want to stop others from speaking out publicly, but I know I am fortunate to have my family here in the UK.' However, it has not been easy. Cheung has faced an onslaught of sexual harassment and abuse via social media and was followed by two 'suspicious-looking' Chinese men to a restaurant after an event. She reported the incident to the police. She has had to change her address and is now cautious about meeting new people. In 2022, a pro-democracy protester demonstrating on the pavement was dragged into China's consulate in Manchester before being beaten up in a 'barbaric' attack. 'It was certainly because a UK police officer broke diplomatic protocol and stepped into the grounds of the consulate to save him that something worse didn't happen to that protester,' she says. 'He could have disappeared. It's just a matter of time before someone is kidnapped or killed, given how much China is escalating their overseas repression.' Aside from her personal safety, Cheung realises her public profile is now limiting her future choices in life. 'I have shut off a lot of job opportunities with any company that has business ties or trade with China. They won't hire me now. 'I don't expect to live a normal life, but compared with the people in prison back in Hong Kong, my sacrifice is nothing. I really want to see a free Hong Kong so if my public role can help the situation a little bit, it will be worthwhile.' A spokesperson for the government of the Hong Kong special administrative region said Cheung was an 'absconder hiding in the UK' and wanted for 'blatantly engaging in activities endangering national security'. They added that she would be 'pursued regardless of distance'.
