The first episode turned up the volume on the romance, but our two leads still don’t know if the feeling is mutual. I kind of feel like the mystery part of Queen of Mysteries will take center stage in this episode now that the will-they-won’t-they aspect has been established (they will, right?). The first episode was really fun so I’m looking forward to this one!
UPCOMING LIVE RECAPS: Our March Live Recap Lineup!
NEWSLETTER: I plan on sending out our first newsletter in about a week! Subscribe here.
How we do this: We update the post around every 10 minutes. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later depending on the scene. There will be typos, but we try to fix all those once the episode finishes airing. Also, there might be updates galore at the bottom (time permitting), so check back in!
Shorthand (Character Chart)
Yu Seol-ok – SO | Ha Wan-seon – WS | Woo Sung-ha – SH | Jeong Hee-yeon – HY | Kim Kyung-mi – KM | Bo-kook – BK | Ha Ji-seong – JS | Cho In-ho – IH | Gae Sung-woo – SW | Wuk Seong-hwa (sergeant)- WSH | Shin Jang-gu – JG | Shin Na-ra – NR | Hwang Jae-min – JM | Gong Han-min HM | Kim Moon-ki – MK | MC J (Duty Police rapper) – MCJ | Lee Sun-ho – SH
How To Watch: On Demand Korea, Viki
Airing Time: March 1st, 22:00 Seoul
Countdown: KKEUT
QUEEN OF MYSTERY 2 LIVE RECAP: EPISODE 2
OPENING
Someone is walking in an alley, it is Seol-ok, flashback to her friend asking if she got it, did she pass? Seol-ok tells her…. you succeeded. Oh no, it looks like her friend Kyng-mi passed but Seol-ok failed again. She is crying as she walks the alley, she thought she would pass this time, but she failed. Then she notices a cake shop, it is Hee-yeon’s cake shop. Seol-ok goes inside and the woman behind the counter asks her what kind of cake she would like. Seol-ok tells her that she wants her sweetest cake.
Cut to Wan-seong also walking down the street like a zombie. We flashback to Wan-seong talking to BK about his dead ex-girlfriend. They wonder why someone is pretending to be her. Wan-seong thinks there must be something to this. Wan-seong gets home and runs into Kyng-mi. Kyng-mi is looking for Seol-ok, she went to the corner store but didn’t come back. Wan-seong asks if they got the result and she tells him, yeah.
Cut to Seol-ok talking to a mini mother-in-law standing next to her cake. The mini MIL wants Seol-ok to come back home, she doesn’t have to try and be a policewoman anymore. Meanwhile, Kyung-mi and Wan-seong are walking the alleys looking for Seol-ok. They hear an ambulance and run to it, but it is a fire truck. Kyng-mi wonders if Seol-ok is thinking something bad and then they spot Seol-ok eating the cake. Wan-seong tells Kyng-mi to tell her that she will get fat if she eats those things at night.
Kyng-mi goes up to Seol-ok and is surprised to see Seol-ok so happy, she says that her cake is so good. How is it so good? But then they talk about the test. Seol-ok says that she will try it over and over again until she passes and keeps eating her cake. Kyng-mi wants her to know that she will pass, but she should at least eat her cake with tea or something. Seol-ok is happy and says that she failed, but at least she found this yummy cake shop, she will enjoy it and try the test next time, here try it! Seol-ok reaches out to feed Kyung-mi but Kyng-mi just tells her that she is acting like her mom again.
We then cut to them walking down the street arm in arm. They come up to a lot of people standing outside, is it a fire…is that our house? A lot of camera people are there and notice Seol-ok, they quickly run to her side. Is she Seol-ok? Is she the one who busted that Wedding fraud scheme? Did you work with the police? Seol-ok is caught off guard and doesn’t know how to answer all the questions. We cut to Wan-seong looking at the news and smiling. It looks like he is the one who told the reporters that Seol-ok made that case.
POLICE HONOR
Seol-ok gets an honor as an honorary police officer. Or an honor police? She is in a police uniform and everything and all the higher-ups are there as she gets this award. But then two police people start talking, why is she in our department? Why did she catch the criminal in our department, not Wan-seong’s department? They look pretty put off by it.
But Seol-ok is ecstatic and talks to the director about really being a policewoman? He says she is an honorary police officer and gets in his car to leave. But he mutters that he hopes they don’t have this kind of incident anymore (normal people catching the police).
MORNING
That next morning, Kyung-mi and Seol-ok are walking somewhere. They spot Wan-seong and ask him if he is moving? He says that he is, and he tells them to have a good life, he isn’t going to look for them anymore. Just like that he leaves.
Seol-ok drops the friend goes to the police academy, they wave goodbye. Then Seol-ok gets on the bus and thinks that she is really alone now. Some other guy asks her, ajumma is the seat empty next to you? But Seol-ok just thinks, don’t call me ajumma.
Wan-seong gets to his new apartment and Seol-ok looks around her empty place. She decides to go to the cake shop again and is eating something delicious when she hears, FIRE, FIRE! Seol-ok runs outside and sees some trash on fire, she is able to put it out. A woman says that someone must have put a cigarette there by accident, but Seol-ok tells her it was done on purpose, someone wanted to start a fire over here. She starts inspecting the scene. The woman wants to know if she is a police officer and Seol-ok says that she is and shows off her newly minted police badge with a smile.
POLICE DEPARTMENT
The section chief, IH is sitting at his desk and trying to be a writer. He wants to be a novelist. Then we cut to the corporal HM talking to a new recruit, NR. HM tries to tell her things, but then we find out that the woman’s father is the Superintendent of the station, JG. Cut to everyone turning their heads as Wan-seong walks down the hall in slow motion.
Wan-seong tells them that he moved to this station and smiles. But he pretends like he is sorry that he reported the bribery and all those things at the last station. The Superintendent tries to avoid him, but Wan-seong just salutes and tells them that he will lead them well, they won’t have any inspections under him! Meanwhile, NR and HM were looking at Wan-seong and wondering who he is.
We get a little tour of the station from Wan-seong’s point of view. It is a very large and lively place. Someone taps on Wan-seong’s back, it is a person who went to the police academy with him. Sung-woo is the team leader, which means that Wan-seong is under him. This changes their dynamics as SW laughs and tells Wan-seong to do a good job, so he won’t have to discipline him. SW then shows Wan-seong to his desk, it is completely empty as there are only 3 people who will work with Wan-seong.
SCENE
Wan-seong goes to a scene of another fire, it is a truck fire case. Wan-seong looks around and imagines someone throwing bottles of fire at the truck from the balcony. Then a lot of kids show up and jump all over the truck. Wan-seong tells them all to git and even pulls one of the kids off of the table. Then we see him talking to a neighborhood halmae. She also had a fire and wants Wan-seong to catch the culprit! Catch him! CATCH HIM NOW! Wan-seong tries to get away from her but she keeps telling him to catch the arsonist!
INVESTIGATOR WOO
Investigator Woo Sung-ha is also looking into these fires. He talks to his colleague about it. But then Seol-ok shows up and runs up to SH. SH apologizes for not mentioning Seol-ok on the program, but Seol-ok isn’t that put off by it. She just looks happy to see him again. SH gets a call about a clue about the arsonist and Seol-ok asks him about it. But SH mostly ignores Seol-ok and leaves. But Seol-ok is all inside her head as she thinks about this arsonist and takes off running somewhere.
Meanwhile, Wan-seong is still walking to all the arson locations. He wonders what kind of chump would do this and sees one of the plastic bottles with acetone. Then a woman talks to him about the fire, another of her stores had the same problem, who is doing this? Wan-seong tells her that he is inspecting it, but then we see another fire.
Inspector SH and Seol-ok see the fire as well as they are driving around, so they get out and go inside. While walking they see a turtle story on the side of a building but keep walking. They get to the motorcycle fire and start asking questions and doing their CSI things. Seol-ok sees several cigarettes and thinks that there are people at least. One for the filter, one to light it and one to throw it, three guys. Maybe they stole some oil from another motorcycle.
Inspector SH says that happens often, it is easy to steal if you have the right tools. He imagines the scene and then freezes it as he walks around the scene like Sherlock. He thinks the person spilled the gas and then went over to his friends and asked for a cigarette. They smoked the cigarettes and dropped it on the ground, but the cigarette accidentally lit on the spilled gas and trailed back to the motorcycle. So, this may have been an accidental fire. They think one of the persons should be in a hospital with 1st-degree burns, but maybe this isn’t the arsonist they are looking for.
CAKE SHOP
Wan-seong goes to the cake shop and talks to the owner, HY about the case. Wan-seong tells her to be careful of a light and touches it, but Seol-ok sees him just at that moment.
Cut to the police officer who wants to be a novelist. He is waxing poetic about something as team leader SW comes in to talk about police things. But the chief just wants SW to read his book.
Back at the cake shop, Seol-ok talks to Wan-seong about the case. Well, they argue about it. Seol-ok says that she is an honorary police officer and shows her badge. But Wan-seong wants to know why she is there with that profiler. The profiler tells them that Seol-ok always says “we” and Seol-ok just says that she says we a lot. But the inspector says that Seol-ok only says “we” with Wan-seong. It is an awkward moment for Seol-ok, but the inspector just moves on to the case.
Outside, one of the policemen is looking at his cell phone while working and a man comes up to him and tells him he shouldn’t be looking at it while working. The police officer puts the phone up and stands like he is in the military.
Inside, everyone is on the case and speculating. Inspector SH thinks the suspect does the fire during a certain time of day, which means that he is working somewhere during the day. Cut to a man working. Then they think that he lights fires on the way home. A lot of small fires that aren’t reported. So, he is mostly spontaneous. Wan-seong thinks that the suspect is……that ajumma! And he points to Seol-ok. But Seol-ok says that it is Wan-seong! And we see Wan-seong trying to burn everything up.
Seol-ok starts cracking up as she tells them about this, but they all just think she is crazy and they get back to the regular case. They think the man takes the bus, not the train. He lives in one section and goes to another section of the city. Cut to Wan-seong and Seol-ok looking at a bus CCTV.
They also think they know what district he might live in, but they think they should investigate every place that sells acetone.
POLICE STATION
Meanwhile, SW is at the police station and is trying to figure out which fire case is a real case. Officer Na-ra come up and wonders what she should do. He tells her that she doesn’t have to anything and tells her that he will see her tomorrow.
Then we see the novelist chief, IH. He gets on the phone and starts yelling at SH about something. It looks like Sergeant SH is reporting back to the chief on all the things that Seol-ok and Inspector SH are doing.
CAKE SHOP
The ragtag team is all together. The cake owner tells Seol-ok that she added a special ingredient to the cake that is why it is so good. But then the profiler says that he will go do some more profiling and leaves. Wan-seong looks at him with an annoyed look and we cut to the police station saying that they will catch the criminal!
THE SCENE
Wan-seong and Seol-ok are still together and investigating the scene. Wan-seong thinks that Seol-ok is really upgraded, she is a real policewoman now. Wan-seong tells the duty policeman to look after Seol-ok, but do not remove her from the scene. Then we see the duty policeman watch something on youtube of a fire person. Then he sees the same mark on the cakeshop plate.
Cut to Seol-ok and Wan-seong at the police station. They aren’t really talking to each other and are doing their own thing. Seol-ok asks Wan-seong what he is doing but Wan-seong just says that he has his own work, but in reality, none of the police team want to give Wan-seong any work because he is a troublemaker. We cut to them both outside and the cake person runs up to them. She shows them the youtube video of the arsonist saying that the cake is super expensive.
All the policemen start to work on this arsonist case and look at the YouTube video. This video is in the deep web (so not YouTube) and it is a video of this masked man telling everyone what he will do in the future. He uploads a video at 12 ever night and then sets the fire the next day.
They look through all the videos and start to see the reasons that the man is setting the fires. This man is getting his revenge on these people. The old woman threw water on him and didn’t apologize, the kids didn’t have any manners… So, everything profiler SH said is right.
Cut to the police say that they can’t track the IP because this is the deep web.
Seol-ok wonders what they can do to catch him. Seol-ok thinks that she saw this poster somewhere and thinks back, it is the turtle poster that she saw from earlier! She thinks that this is the next place for the fire and takes off running towards it. She hops in a taxi with Wan-seong and takes off.
Then we see the young policeman taking a phone call and the other policeman is watching him.
Cut to the arsonist going inside the cultural center, perhaps he will make an even bigger fire this time.
CULTURAL CENTER
Seol-ok and Wan-seong run to the cultural center and start to run everywhere inside the building as they look for him. At the same time, the team leader of the police is also giving everyone a lot of orders as they try to find the culprit. Seol-ok thinks that the culprit might be in a place where people will think that gas isn’t gas…the restroom!
Cut to the arsonist thinking back at the kids saying that his hands were all burned, is he a zombie? The arsonist lights the fire in the bathroom. At the same time, the police and Seol-ok/Wan-seong run into each other. Why are they each there? To catch the arsonist?
Meanwhile, there is a kids’ play going on in the building. Several of the kids have to go to the bathroom, so the teacher walks with them. Seol-ok sees them and thinks that they shouldn’t go there, it is dangerous, and we see the arsonist hiding in the bathroom as the kids go inside.
He leaves and Seol-ok spots him. The police yell at him to stop and give chase, but Seol-ok is more concerned with the bathroom, they have to find it! We see the fire in the bathroom and all the kids telling their teacher that there is a fire. The teacher grabs the bucket of gasoline, but she thinks that it is water and she is about to throw it on the fire, but Wan-seong stops her at the right moment and only a small amount gets on the fire.
Seol-ok is screaming for everyone, are they all okay? She is very concerned about it, but we see Wan-seong come out and tell her that they are all okay.
Then we see SW and Wan-seong talking. SW says that he will forgive Wan-seong for investigating without his permission, this is the first time. Then he says that he will see him tomorrow.
Seol-ok wonders if Wan-seong is okay and also wonders how someone could be so bad. But just then the cake person comes up and asks Wan-seong if her cake shop will be okay? She thanks him, and it starts raining just then. The young policeman is also there, Wan-seong tells him to go home, it isn’t his fault, they asked him, and he answered, that is it.
Wan-seong tells ajumma that she was good today, but Seol-ok gets embarrassed and runs away, she forgot her shopping bag in the cake shop!
She goes home, but she can’t sleep, she remembers something about the fire. There must be another guy there, not just one arsonist. Then we see another arsonist. He says that they will never be able to catch him and his judgment by fire will continue, his next target is Wan-seong, that garbage detective.
Wan-seong also wakes up startled, his house is on fire. He sees smoke coming under his door and opens it quickly. Everything is on fire! He tries to go through the flames, but they are too great, the fire is everywhere.
Fade Out
PREVIEW
Yes! Will update today with it. The preview is all about the fire case.
TEXT PREVIEW
WS’s house is on fire. They already caught the serial arsonist, so why is there another fire? SO is sure that there is not just one arsonist so SO seriously investigates this on her own. However, the section chief, Cho In-ho wants to stop her from doing the investigation because of a party for an honorary police event.
Meanwhile, WS and SO receive a phone call from HY (cake shop owner), she saw the arsonist!
SCENES
Scene 1: SO is recognized for solving crimes because of WS’s tip-off
Scene 2 : SO became a honorary policeman!
Scene 3: SO and WS are separated from each other
Scene 4: WO came back to Joung-Jin Police station again
Scene 5: Mysterious serial arson case! SO met SH again.
Scene 6: SO failed the police test again! She is about to cry, due to her distress.
Scene 7: SO and SH investigate the serial fire case together.
Scene 8: WS and SH, a delicate mood?
Scene 9: The four main team investigate the fire case!
Scene 10: Who is the arsonist who wants to judge HY’s store?
Scene 11: SO find out where the next target is!
Scene 12: The serial arsonist want to set a fire where a lot of kids are.
Scene 13: Fortunately, WS rescued kids from the restroom.
Scene 14: WS is the next target?! There is a fire at his place!
Source YouTube
Drama Milk contains ads and affiliate links that keep the lights on over here. The ads use cookies to aid in your viewing experience. If you like what you see then consider whitelisting us from your adblocking software so we can keep doing what we do!
I just watched episode 1, almost busted a seam laughing. I’ve never thought of Kwon Sang Woo as a comedic actor, his early dramas were almost always intense, dramatic. While season 1 was an eye-opener, the first episode of season 2 is a real reminder as he hams it up at the “I object to this wedding” scene. Particularly funny when they play some old melodramatic music in the background. I’m pretty sure they were referencing one of his melo works LOL
I think the romance elements have been slightly nudged aside with the end scene of episode 1 with that “ghostly” first love appearance, she’s probably bad news. So I guess the maybe in love, maybe not will continue as a side theme all season. But hey, it’ll be relief from some of the creepy crime stuff and the overarching conspiracy thing. Still, I would have liked some closure to season 1: like where’s the earnest cop? Where’s the annoying lawyer? What happened to WS’s father?
Kwon Sang Woo was really funny! I think the fight scene was also did a throw back to a movie he made called Once Upon a Time in High School. Especially the part where he jumped off the car and kicked that guy. I would need to rewatch the movie to be for sure though.
After letting the first episode sink in for awhile, I really like it. The first season was pretty creepy and this season looks like they might go lighter, though still with a bit of creepy.
who know what song that played during ajumma send her friends to the police academy?