'Forest of Secrets 2' aka 'Stranger 2' Episodes 9, 10: Is it prosecution or police behind Seo's disappearance?
'Forest of Secrets 2' aka 'Stranger 2' Episodes 9 and 10 continues to see prosecutor Shi-mok (Choi Seung-woo) and Yeo-jin (Bae Doo-na) work together on investigating the disappearance of Prosecutor Seo Dong-jae. At the beginning of episode 9, we see Shi-mok receive a call about the cops receiving a message from whom they assume is the abductor. While Shi-mok is surrounded by cops who do not want to investigate other cops for this - considering he was investigating the Segok Police Station bribe case, Shi-mok begins to see how Prosecutor Seo's kidnapping plays a more important role in the upcoming Police Prosecution Council meeting. Every time he realizes this is when Yeo-jin mentions the reason behind certain investigative methods that are being used during the investigation.
For instance, at the beginning of the investigation, the public opinion was against the cops and sympathized with Prosecutor Seo and his family. Considering the prime suspects in the case were police officers this sentiment was not surprising. So, to change the tide of the public opinion, Choi Bit decides to employ a method that would shut everyone up. She decides to use the message from the abductor. She releases the contents of the message to the public to indicate that the crime was committed by someone who was potentially wronged by the prosecutor. As expected, the news cycle changes and the perspective goes against prosecutor Seo. However, at this opportune moment, Yeo-jin finds out that one of the Segok Police officers might have very well faked an alibi.
Throughout episode 9, the confusion regarding who exactly is behind Seo Dong-jae's disappearance continues. Then at the end of the episode, both Yeo-jin And Shi-mok's investigation leads them towards Prosecutor Park Gwang-su's death. This is the case that Prosecutor Seo had been investigating with fervor from the beginning of the show to get some dirt on Choi Bit. However, he took his findings to a man who was in cohorts with Choi Bit and that is none other than Woo Tae-ha. It is through Prosecutor Seo's web history that Shi-mok figures out what his colleague was up to. Yeo-jin, however, came very close to finding out that her boss Choi Bit is somehow related to her case. However, she misses finding the evidence just by a hair's breadth when she is interrupted by her boss.
In episode 10, we see Shi-mok investigate further into Prosecutor Seo's interest in the Park Gwang-su's death case. While he questions Prosecutor Seo's office staff, he learns about the cases that the prosecutor was interested in off the record and he also figures out that there is something fishy about Prosecutor Seo's assistant. While he is busy digging into the prosecutor's death, Yeo-jin continues to look into one of the Segok Police Officer's after she found out that the alibi was fake. She decides to investigate this officer further and finds out that he worked at his uncle's restaurant which was close by the crime scene.
Of course, Yeo-jin might very well be heading in the wrong path considering what her boss has hidden from her. Will Shi-mok leave her in the dark for too long? After all, he has caught hold of both Choi Bit and Woo Tae-ha's weakness. He continues to dig into Prosecutor Park Gwang-su's death that was reported as caused by a heart attack. He even meets all the witnesses that Prosecutor Seo had met and the more he speaks to the head of Namyangju's Traffic Control department, the more suspicious Shi-mok gets about Park Gwang-su's case.
This leads to Tae-ha feeling extremely anxious and he even tells Choi Bit that he will now remove Shi-mok from the investigating team. Choi Bit feels that this would be more suspicious but Tae-ha is not too great at hiding his fear of getting caught. Be it the first time when we learned that Tae-ha had used his power to close a case, or now when we are certain that he had a part to play in the case of Park Gwang-su's death being closed early -- Tae-ha is not like Choi Bit. So if someone were to make a mistake, it would be Tae-ha. After the traffic cop, Shi-mok approaches Gwang-su's wife for information and he then follows it up with the former prosecutor's assistant at the law firm that Gwang-su had begun working at after he quit as Chief Prosecutor.
Shi-mok begins to put all the information that he collected together and he sees a picture form, this picture indicates that Gwang-su's death might not really be of natural causes and he also finds it odd that Choi Bit was the investigating Chief Officer on the case of the prosecutor's death. While the Namgyanju Traffic cop did not reveal that Choi Bit had asked for the case to be closed early, Shi-mok concludes that Choi Bit is somehow connected. Shi-mok also catches Tae-ha lying to him about the files that Prosecutor Seo had given him. He also lets out an important clue in the process of questioning Shi-mok and that is the fact that Gwang-su's death has something to do with a client that he had met in a vacation house in Namgyanju.
Tae-ha also believes that he can hoodwink Shi-mok but what he doesn't understand is the fact that Shi-mok is perceptive enough to understand that Tae-ha is also hiding something. In the meantime, Yeo-jin and Choi Bit double team the chief who had Officer Song transferred after he complained about the Chief abusing his junior officers. At this moment, Yeo-jin also learns that a witness has come forward to state that he saw a man putting another man in a car trunk, and has now built the courage to come forward regarding the truth. However, this witness ends up having a criminal record, and so finding him turns out to be more difficult than expected.
Also, at this time, Yeo-jin's former reporting officer finds evidence that the person who sent the message could be the police. This is a conclusion that is made after getting the picture sent by the cops analyzed at the NFS. The presence of a watch with three flowers, something that is handed to chief officers in the police department only. So is it really the police officers who are behind Prosecutor Seo's disappearance or is this another false lead?
'Forest of Secrets 2' aka 'Stranger 2' is set to premiere on August 15 and originally airs on tvN on Saturdays and Sundays at 9 pm KST in South Korea and can be streamed on Netflix.