Café Minamdang Episode 9 Recap (2022 Korean Drama)
**This recap of Café Minamdang Episode 9 contains spoilers**
Trigger Warning: Topics of suicide, murder, rape are a ongoing theme of this show. Please look after yourselves.
After sorting out the aftermath of accidentally shooting Han-Joon, Jae-Hui and her team return to Daeun Police Station. Here they proceed to interrogate Jeon but he refuses to talk, claiming ignorance.
At the same time, the Police Chief receives a call from Park Jeong-Hyeon, demanding he let Jeon go. Recognizing the powerful and politically connected Mr. Park, the Chief agrees after only minimum resistance.
Jeon is released shortly after, much to Jae-Hui and her teams frustration. His goons, on the other hand, face indictment after claiming responsibility for all charges.
Café Minamdang Episode 9
Meanwhile, Han-Joon and his team are looking through the documents he managed to take from Jeon’s safe. Keeping an eye on things through video surveillance like always, they see Jeon walking out of the police station. But instead of chasing him and catching him again, Han-Joon announces they will make Jeon come to them.
The team sets up a series of events all aimed at making Jeon feel like misfortune has befallen him, just like Shaman Nam warned him would happen. At his wits ends, a distraught Jeon comes to Café Minamdang to ask Shaman Nam’s help.
Swiping his phone and using the information obtained from it, Han-Joon manages to scare Jeon into giving up the name of Gu Tae-Soo. However, he refuses to tell anything else he knows, seeming to fear the powers behind Gu.
The team discovers that Gu is a director at Joyce Entertainment in name only. None of the employees know him and there is also no trace of him in their employee records. The only possible link is a company card without a name that was used up until a few months ago and likely belonged to Gu.
Café Minamdang Episode 9
After leaving Café Minamdang, Jeon returns to his office. While having some drinks, he watches a video recording showing the lifeless body of Kang Eun-Hye on a bed. He then contacts Gu to inform him of the clips existence, threatening its release unless he receives a large sum of money. Jeon’s call prompts Gu to seek out a powerful shaman known as “The Oracle” or Auntie M.
Auntie M is in the middle of performing a ceremonial ritual seemingly related to an ongoing election for the Mayor of Simyeong. The conservative and progressive party’s representatives are neck-to-neck during the final minutes of the voting period. In the end, one party celebrates its win, while the other calls for an ambulance as their representative collapsed while holding his chest. The elected new mayor, Yang, calls to thank Auntie M for her contribution.
When Gu meets up with Auntie M, it is clear they are no strangers to each other. He informs her of Jeon’s threat, worried he has become a loose cannon and may expose them. She proceeds to open a safe containing a gopuri – burial shroud – amongst other items. One of these is Jae-Jeong’s folder with Han-Joon’s name on it that went missing during his murder.
Taking out the tied up burial shroud, Auntie M writes Jeon’s name on it in red dye and hands it to Gu. She orders him to get rid of Jeon because that’s what he HE wants. (A/N: It sounds like the “he” she refers to is a higher god-like being)
Café Minamdang Episode 9
The team reviews the footage of Eun-Hye’s last known location and see her being dragged into an unknown car by Jeon. With this new evidence, they set out once again to arrest him.
Detective Jang catches on to Prosecutor Cha’s infatuation with Jae-Hui. In fatherly fashion he advises Cha to be direct to her about his feelings as she has no romantic bone in her body.
Hoping to catch Gu, Han-Joon and Su-Cheol are on stake-out near Jeon’s office building. Concerned about a prolonged lack of movement and no lights being on inside, they decide to go investigate. Entering through the unlocked front entrance, they find a lifeless Jeon in his chair with pills scattered all around him. Su-Cheol goes to check the back of the building. To them, this is a obvious set-up to make a murder look like a suicide.
Left alone, Han-Joon senses the presence of someone else inside the room. Following the beep of a microwave leads him into a kitchenette. Just in time he is able to block an attack from who he recognizes instantly as Gopuri. As they fight, the makeshift bomb fashioned by the attacker using the microwave explodes.
Café Minamdang Episode 9
Hye-Joon, unable to reach her brother, alerts Su-Cheol. He immediately turns around to run back inside the building, coming across Jae-Hui and Cha in front of the entrance. Just moments after, an explosion sounds from inside and everyone rushes inside. They find Han-Joon who tells them Gopuri was there and just ran away. Jae-Hui and Su-Cheol head out in pursuit.
While the others went inside, Cha noticed a suspicious figure dressed in black walking away from the side of the building. After a short foot chase, him and the suspect engage in a fight, giving Cha the chance to confirm his opponent has a burn mark on his wrist. Noticing Jae-Hui and Su-Cheol running by on a nearby cross street, Cha calls out to them for help. As they head towards him to aide him, the suspect manages to flee.
Within a short time Jeon’s office is filled with police officials and crime technician collecting evidence. They locate a crushed cellphone without a memory card and an apparent suicide note. The note, supposedly written by Jeon, states his guilt over Eun-Hye’s murder. He wrote that he brought her to Choi Yeong-Seop for the purpose of prostitution but Choi ended up killing her.
Café Minamdang Episode 9
Han-Joon is certain the note is fake, expressing to Jae-Hui that Gu Tae-Soo is the real killer and the face behind the man with a burn scar on his wrist. She remembers Gu from their undercover stint at the Joyce Entertainment auditions and immediately call detective Kim with instructions to look into him.
While on the topic of Joyce, Han-Joon decides to reveal in front of everyone that director Park Jin-Sang is Cha’s cousin. After initially being stunned, Cha states that this fact will not affect the investigation as he is capable of keeping personal and business matters apart.
Deciding to keep silent about the fact that Cha came face-to-face with the killer, Jae-Hui arrests Han-Joon as only suspect. She tells him that no one can collaborate the existence of another person on the scene of the crime.
On their way back to the police station, detective Kim updates Jae-Hui with his findings regarding Gu which mirror those found by Han-Joon’s team earlier.
With Han-Joon in their interrogation room, the detectives take a close look at his profile while observing him from the next room. Detective Jang discovers Han-Joon is the famous former profiler at Headquarters nicknamed Cold Case Hunter. Admitting his admiration for the guy, he ponders that shaman Nam must have already used his psychic powers back then in order to solve all those cold cases.
Jae-Hui admits that she doesn’t actually believe him to be guilty but used the opportunity to bring him in hoping to get some information out of him. Her reaction to Han-Joon’s background information leads both Jang and Cha to questioning her on the length of her acquaintance with him.
Café Minamdang Episode 9
After Jae-Hui leaves the room, Jang warns Cha to be on his toes as he seems to have a rival now. He then gives a pointed look towards Han-Joon.
Inside the interrogation room, Han-Joon is trying to convince Jae-Hui how he knows the murders all lead to Gu. He mentions the Gopuri cloth (burial shroud) found with all victims containing similar red splashes. Jae-Hui remembers the lab’s findings that the dye used for talisman-like writing matched on all three cloths. Han-Joon ventures the killer sees himself as someone superior sent to give punishment for sins. He likely uses the knotted gopuri cloth as part of a ceremonial ritual after committing the murder.
Jae-Hui believes that Han-Joon maybe did see the killers face before but is too traumatized to remember. She attempts to convince him to try out hypnosis but he vehemently refuses. Not even the threat of putting him in a cell overnight works at first.
Café Minamdang Episode 9
When Han-Joon is placed inside a small cell with a extra smelly and unkempt individual, he quickly changes his mind. However, just as he predicted, due to his alert personality, the hypnosis is not successful.
The doctor suggests the hypnosis might work if Han-Joon was distracted or not fully conscious. To his shock, this prompts Jae-Hui to punch Han-Joon, rendering him partially unconscious. However, this does enable him to take Han-Joon’s subconscious back to November 23, 2019, the day of Jae-Jeong’s murder.
Han-Joon relives the events of that day and Jae-Hui witnesses how traumatizing it was for him seeing her brother die. Finally starting to understand how he suffered, she cannot help but reach out her hands and hold on to his arm.
Café Minamdang Episode 9
Once out of his hypnotised state, a crying Han-Joon admits how that incident still haunts him to this day. He is afraid of failing once again to protect those he cares about the most. Jae-Hui assures him what happened was not his fault and comforts him with a hug.
While driving him back home, Jae-Hui stops at a park along the river. As they sit on a nearby bench, she bandages a small cut on his hand.
Han-Joon keeps recalling her words and facial expressions earlier when she was comforting her. Feeling his heart rate increase at her nearness, he mutters under his breath that it must be an aftereffect of the hypnosis.
Jae-Hui notices his odd behavior, but before she question him, her phone shows an incoming call from the Daeun station. Her team call to inform that Gu Tae-Soo just presented himself at the station.
Epilogue
A video compilation shows the killer at Eun-Hye, Do and Prosecutor Han’s crime scene, placing the burial shroud on each victim.
