I will go with the majority!

Do I get to say I told you so now?

 

Go ahead and brag, Theresa. You were right. But why am I not surprised that Talese is so far ahead of everyone else?

OK, so for now it's one episode every weeknight. We haven't yet decided on the weekends -- shall we skip Saturday and Sunday, or continue to watch straight through? Let me know.

Here's my quick summary of tonight's episode:

EPISODE 4

In Episode 4, we begin with the same scene we saw at the very beginning of Episode 1 (it wasn't the ending after all). Hyeon-jun receives an assignment directly from his superior, Vice-Director Baek San, instructing him to assassinate the North Korean Party Leader, who will be visiting Budapest on a diplomatic mission.

He succeeds in killing the man, but is almost caught, and is injured in the process. Bleeding from his wound, he commutes all over Budapest while being hunted by Cheol-yeong and his men (who are North Korean agents) as well as by the Budapest police.

When he finally arrives in his hotel room, he calls his superior, Vice-Director Baek San, for help but the superior tells him he is on his own and no one will be coming to help him. (Somewhat like the old "Mission Impossible" series from the 70's, in which every assignment ended with this message: "If any of your agents are caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.")

His superior, Vice-Director Baek San, calls Sa-woo, and gives him an order (we don't hear what it is). A bit later, Sa-woo arrives at Hyeon-jun's hotel room. Hyeon-jun is really happy to see Sa-woo, until Sa-woo points a gun directly at Hyeon-jun, and says "I'm sorry, it's an order". WOW!!

End of Episode 4

muscovy_2000 wrote:

But why am I not surprised that Talese is so far ahead of everyone?

Sorry Maria. You know me I just couldn't help myself! But I'll try and wait for you guys to get to epi. 10. Yeah who am I kidding, we're getting another snow storm I'll probably be finished by the end of the week!

EPISODE 5

Sa-woo points the gun at Hyeon-jun and tells him it's a direct order. Just then, the North Korean team bursts on the scene with an artillery of heavy fire, in which all of the North Korean assassins die, Hyeon-jun escapes, and Sa-woo somehow makes it out of there without a scrape and without anyone seeing him.

Sa-woo meets with his superior,Vice-Director Baek San, and it appears that the initial order was not to kill Hyeon-jun (I'm a bit confused on this, but this is what it looks like) but now he is given the order for real. Vice-Director Baek San says the NSS planned it all along, and mentions to Sa-woo that it's because of Hyeon-jun's parents. Sa-woo says he can't kill Hyeon-jun. But the Director scorns him for refusing a direct order, so he tells him he'll have another agent do it, and he says: "Send in Seung-hee." (The scene ends here, but the impression I got was that Sa-woo finally accepted the order, because he couldn't let Seung-hee receive an order like that.)

Back at NSS headquarters, Hyeon-jun's belongings are being removed, and his supervisor is told that Hyeon-jun is suspected of spy activities, and that anyone communicating with him would be investigated. We learn that many years earlier, another two NSS agents were accused of espionage and they disappeared without a trace (we are to assume they were Hyeon-jun's parents).

Vice-Director Baek San misinforms the President, telling him the NSS had nothing to do with the assassination of the North Korean party leader.

Hyeon-jun, still badly injured, is now being hunted by the Budapest police, by the North Koreans and by the NSS.

While on the run, he arranges with Seung-hee, who is in Budapest, to escape together.

While wandering through the train station in Budapest, he is pursued by the North Koreans. He runs to the parking lot where Seung-hee is waiting for him inside a car. Before he reaches the car, it blows up, supposedly killing Seung-hee. (Who are they kidding? We all know she won't die this early in the story). He escapes, with the North Koreans in hot pursuit, and manages to get to the airport where he highjacks a small plane. While on the runway, Sa-woo tries to cut him off with his car and pulls out a high-powered rifle. In shock from the loss of his loved one and the betrayal of his best friend, Hyeon-jun manages to lift off and flies away.

THIS EPISODE WAS SUPER INTENSE!!

End of Episode 5.

Finished ep 5...I want to know what kind of force field or luck Hyeon-jun has. They sent at least 20 people to get him when he was hiding out in that building. Even though he had been shot and losing blood he overtakes them and escapes, while running through the building multiple guns are fired at him and miraculously miss hm. Yet, when he turns and shoots at his pursuer he doesn't miss them. They send a helicopter to track him. He outruns the bullets being fired at him from overhead. A missile of some sort is fired from the helicopter and misses him. Although the blast does knock him down. He still is able to escape because yet again they have not surrounded the place so he can get out by another exit.

Did anybody else yell at the screen when he told Seung-hee to stay in the car while he went to buy tickets. Why wouldn't he stay in the car and send her in to buy the tickets? After all, she isn't wounded and even better they're not searching for her! Of course we know what happened to the car. Anyway I found myself laughing at quite a few scenes that I don't think it was the intention of the writers to be funny.

EPISODE 6

As the plane lifts off, Sa-woo shoots it, and damages it, causing it to crash into a river in the distance.

We learn that Seung-hee is alive and well (although we are not told how she survived the explosion), but she is devastated by Hyeon-jun's death, and she is no longer with the NSS.

Seon-hwa, who had been thrown in a North Korean prison for her failure to kill Heyon-jun, is released so that she can have one final chance to pursue and kill Hyeon-jun, otherwise she'll be put to death.

Hyeon-jun survived the crash and is in a Budapest hospital or medical facility, from which he managed to escape. While there, he received a mysterious phone call from a man who said he knew everything that had happened to him, and that it was all a conspiracy that had been planned from long ago. He doesn't identify himself, but he said he'd call again.

Hyeon-jun was pursued by Seon-hwa through a snow-covered mountain of Japan. She tried to kill him, but failed. He had the opportunity to kill her, but spared her life.

In Japan, he is cared for and nursed back to health by a Japanese girl named Yuki. He is still carrying the chain and cross that had been given to him by the North Korean defector, Hong Seung Ryong. (I'm betting it contains some hidden information that the North Koreans are looking for). While he is asleep, the girl picks it up. We don't know if she keeps it, or gives it back.

Seon-hwa again finds him at the place where he is staying and tries to kill him. Once again he takes her gun and spares her life. She is later arrested in Japan carrying photos of Vice-Director Baek San and she is transported to NSS for interrogation. Seung-hee pleads to be the interrogator, and Vice-Director Baek San agrees, but instead of helping the NSS, Seung-hee just wants to confirm whether Hyeon-jun is dead or alive. With her interference, she deliberately paves the way for Seon-hwa to escape.

The last scene is painful to watch. Hyeon-jun has been captured and is being horribly beaten and tortured. No explanation is given. (I hate these torture scenes!)

END OF EPISODE 6



It finally dawned on me who Kim So Yeon is (the actress who plays Seon-hwa). She's the same actress from All About Eve and Autumn Shower. I simply did not recognize her at first because she looks so different. I guess it's the cute, short hairstyle, but she looks absolutely stunning in this drama.

 

I think we may be moving faster than Dramafever is putting up the episodes. Let me know if we need to slow down a bit. After Episode 8 tomorrow, I think we should skip the weekend, and wait until Monday for Episode 9, to give Dramafever time to put up more episodes. Or, if you don't mind downloading the rest of the episodes, there's a download link for IRIS on the first page of this thread.

EPISODE 7

We learn that Hyeon-jun's torturers/interrogators are the Japanese Intelligence Agency, who suspect him of being a terrorist and/or assassin.

One of the Japanese agents makes a deal with Hyeon-jun, offering him his freedom, in exchange for killing a corrupt politician with Mafia connections. After Hyeon-jun does the job, the Japanese betray him and try to kill him, but he escapes back to the inn where he had stayed before. At the inn, Yuki shows him the "chain and cross" that she wears around her neck to remember him by (remember that "cross and chain"?).

Seon-hwa has escaped to Japan. She learned that her entire family in North Korea has been killed because of her, and that Cheol-yeong did not protect them as he had promised, causing her to question her allegiance. Now both the NSS and the North Koreans are after her.

The South Korean President arranges a secret meeting with the North Korean party leader, proposing a reunification. The party leader agrees to take the message back to Leader Kim. But back in North Korea, he and Cheol-yeong both agree that the reunification cannot take place.

As Hyeon-jun plans to leave Japan for Korea on a merchant marine ship, he receives a call from Yuki, who is terrified. Someone has massacred several people in the inn (including her parents), and have taken her hostage, looking for Hyeon-jun and the "USB drive" that Hong Seung Ryong gave him. (AHA! that's what's in the chain & cross). We later see the caller is T.O.P. They meet at a bridge, where we see that Yuki is wearing a bomb and T.O.P is holding the detonator. Hyeon-jun gives T.O.P. a false USB, and when T.O.P sees that it is false, they fight. Hyeon-jun manages to escape with Yuki and defuses the bomb, but they fall over the bridge (quite a distance) under a hail of bullets from T.O.P.

End of Episode 7

(I'll give you a spoiler right now, so you don't feel compelled to cheat and go on to Episode 8. Obviously, our main character isn't going to die this early in the story, right? I only watched the first minute or so of Episode 8 to see how they made their escape: They hit a snowbank, which cushioned their fall, got into a car and drove away.)

Some screencaps from Episode 7 (courtesy of SOOMPI):
  ......  

I'd like to know where everyone is on this, since I haven't seen any postings from anyone. Are you able to get all the episodes from Dramafever? Should we slow down a bit and go back to three days a week? This drama is a bit intense, so if you guys want to watch at a slower pace, please let me know.

I haven't been watching on DramaFeve,r it does not work right for me. I've been watching on another sight that has all the episodes. I've been watching 1 a day, so far. I'm on ep 8.

EPISODE 8

Hyeon-jun and Yuki hit a snowbank (which cushioned their fall), got into a car, and drove away. T.O.P. follows them, rams into their car, and a high-speed chase takes place under a hail of bullets from T.O.P., during which Yuki is killed.

Hyeon-jun learns that what the others are looking for is something that he received from the North Korean defector who was killed. He realizes that it's the chain and cross that Yuki was wearing, and he retrieves it from the top of her coffin at her funeral service.

Back in Korea, Seung-hee is given false information (made up by Sa-woo) on the plane crash and because of it, she is finally convinced that Hyeon-jun is dead. After a period of mourning, she returns to her former job at NSS.

In Japan, Seon-hwa and Hyeon-jun team up, and exchange information. He tells her how he planned to escape from Budapest with Seung-hee until she died in the car explosion. (Upon hearing this, Seon-hwa is taken aback because she knows that Seong-hee is alive and looking for Hyeon-jun, but she doesn't say anything to him).

We learn that the North was not responsible for the car explosion in Budapest nor the killing of the North Korean defector, and the South was not responsible for ordering the assassination of the North Korean Party Leader, and both of them wonder who ordered these events. In a hideaway together, they are able to decipher the password to get the information contained in the USB/cross. It contains the dossier of the members of an unknown organization called IRIS, which includes Vice-Director Baek San!

Hyeon-jun learns from his mysterious caller that IRIS is a secret organization that has existed for a long, long time. It profits from conflicts between nations and the development of arms (an anti-peace organization, in fact). It actually creates conflicts (assassinations, terrorism) in order to cause wars, and has enormous powers. It was IRIS (not NSS) that chose Hyeon-jun, used him, and then abandoned him. The mysterious caller asks Hyeon-jun to turn the files over to him, and he will help Hyeon-jun get his revenge. Hyeon-jun hangs up.

Back in Korea, Sa-woo is surprised to learn that Hyeon-jun survived the crash, is alive, and was interrogated by Japanese Intelligence, who do not know his identity. He does not mention this to anyone.

Cheol-yeong receives a message that Seon-hwa is in Shanghai and wants to meet with him there. When Cheon-yeong arrives in Shanghai, Seon-hwa takes him to a location where he is surprised to see Hyeon-jun waiting to meet with him!

END OF EPISODE 8.

Screencaps for Episode 8 (courtesy of SOOMPI)

 

EPISODE 9

Hyeon-jun asks Cheol-yeong to help him revenge against those who abandoned him: Vice-Director Baek San, the NSS, and the Republic of South Korea. He submits to a full interrogation by the North Koreans and gives them complete information about the NSS. (This is a first--a South Korean spy defecting to North Korea!)

Meanwhile, Seung-hee is now back at her old position with NSS. Sa-woo hopes to romance her, but she sees him only as a friend.

The North Koreans arrange for Hyeon-jun and Seon-hwa to return to South Korea, together with a team of North Korean terrorist agents, in a highjacked South Korean fishing boat. When they arrive in South Korea, they hide out in a warehouse until they can complete their mission, which is to attack the NSS headquarters.

Hyeon-jun arrives at the house where he used to live with Sa-woo, and uses Sa-woo's NSS computer to unlock a file on the USB drive. The NSS discovers the computer access and sends a team to the house. Hyeon-jun and Seon-hwa leave hurriedly, leaving behind the chain and top part of the cross (but not the bottom part that contained the USB). When Sa-woo arrives at the house and sees the chain, he knows Hyeon-jun was there.

The NSS discovers the group's suspicious movements and sends its agents to the warehouse in full attack gear. The NSS arrive in the building while Hyeon-jun, Seon-hwa and the North Korean terrorist agents are still inside...

END OF EPISODE 9.

Screencaps from Episode 9:

 

Posting this a bit early tonight, but I just finished the episode and didn't want to wait too long before posting, otherwise I'll forget half the stuff I saw, even though I took notes.


EPISODE 10

The NSS Tactical Assault Team enters but the place is empty! It was a setup. The North Korean Terrorist Team is elsewhere, but left misinformation for the NSS, making them believe they are going to attack the location of an important East Asian conference.

The day of the conference, the entire NSS counter-terrorist agens are heading to the conference to protect the delegates. Seung-hee is sent back to NSS headquarters to support the remaining staff. She arrives at NSS while the offices are under attack, and she encounters dead security agents on the ground floor. The terrorists have disconnected all communications to and from the building.

Seung-hee manages to establish a temporary communication with Sa-Woo, who immediately heads back to the building with his crew. The terrorists are looking throughout the building for the person who made the communication, while Seung-hee gets a glimpse of one of the terrorists from above, but she doesn't know it is Hyeon-jun. Seon-hwa, who managed to see Seung-hee on the security camera's monitor, runs to prevent Seung-hee and Hyeon-jun from seeing each other, but too late. Seung-hee enters the room where Hyeun-jun, with his face covered, is tampering with the computers. He turns around and looks straight into the face of Seung-hee! She yells at him to throw his gun down. Someone comes in from behind her to shoot her, and he pulls out his gun and shoots him to protect her. She thinks he is shooting at her, so she shoots him. She approaches him as he lays on the floor, and slowly reaches out to pull down the cover from his face...

End of Episode 10.

Have you guys noticed how every single episode ends in a cliffhanger? No wonder you feel compelled to go on to the next episode to see what happens next. It's a great tactic to keep you focused on the drama!

Screencaps of Episode 10 (from SOOMPI):

 

EPISODE 11

As Seung-hee is about to remove the mask from Hyeon-jun's face, Seon-hwa (who also has her face covered) arrives and knocks her out, so that Seung-hee does not see him.

Sa-woo and the NSS agents arrive at the building, only to find that it has been securely shut down, and they need to blow open the entrance doors. The terrorists begin to flee the building; Seon-hwa revives Hyeon-jun who wants to go looking for Seung-hee but she convinces him to leave. The terrorists set a bomb to explode in ten minutes, and the building is evacuated while the two bomb squad agents try to defuse it. Running against the clock, Sa-woo looks for Seung-hee, and finds her injured and unconscious. He gets her out of the building. Fortunately, the bomb is difused. After she gets out of the hospital, she starts to realize that the person with the covered face did not accidently kill his comrade while trying to shoot her, but rather, he shot his comrate to protect her. She suspects that he was was Hyeon-jun. She asks her friend to double check the information that confirmed Hueon-jun's death, and later learns that the information was false. She tells Baek-san and Sa-woo that she knows that Hyeon-jun is alive (leaving them both flabbergasted).

NSS investigators find that the terrorists' target was a special room that contains a specially developed and highly sophisticated nuclear device that, when combined with Uranium, can be assembled into a nuclear bomb. Vice-Director Baek San conveys this information to the President in a private meeting.

Hyeon-jun and Seon-hwa discover the truth about Hyeon-jun's parents -- they were nuclear scientists involved in the development of nuclear weapons. They were killed by Baek San's orders, and Baek-san was the one who took him to the orphanage.

Back at the terrorists' hideout, the terrorists have the nuclear device in their possession. Only the leader and a bomb specialist know what it is, the other terrorists (including Seon-Hwa and Hyeon-jun) are being kept in the dark. From the highly secured hotel where the North Korean delegation is staying for the summit, Cheon-yeong circumvents the security system to deliver a uranium capsule to the North Korean terrorist team, so they can assemble a nuclear bomb which they plan to use to destroy Seoul. I'm a bit confused here, but I believe Baek-san is involved in this, and he brought in Sa-woo as an accomplice. He said to Sa-woo that the terrorists cannot be caught until after the nuclear bomb goes off!

Hyeon-jun is given permission by Cheol-yeong to go about freely as long as he is accompanied by Seon-hwa. He goes to the orphanage to speak to the priest again, and when they arrive, a car drives by and shoots at them (Baek-san's doing, no doubt!) When they arrive, they find the priest has been murdered. But inside the priest's Bible, he finds a photo of himself as a child with another man ([?] doesn't look like his father).

END OF EPISODE 11.

Screencaps of Episode 11 (Courtesy of SOOMPI):

 

EPISODE 12

A little background (from Soompi) Baek-San has indeed recruited Sa-woo into IRIS. So now we know that Sa-woo is also a member of IRIS, although it's not specifically stated in this episode. And even though we haven't been officially told who Vick is, (the character played by T.O.P) he is an assassin for IRIS. I got this from SOOMPI, and it helps us to understand the story a little better.

In Episode 12, Hyeon-jun takes the photo, plus a ring, from the priest, and runs out with Seon-hwa. As they leave, they are shot at again (by order of Baek-San), but they manage to escape. At the office, Baek-san admonishes Sa-woo for having failed to kill Hyeon-jun back in Hungary, and instructs him not to fail this time.

Seung-jee finds out that the priest she had met at the orphanage where Hyeon-jun grew up, has been murdered, and she deduces that it's related to Hyeon-jun. She begins to investigate the case and breaches the confidential files of the NSS. She is caught and taken off duty.

Sa-woo finds the location of the warehouse where the North Korean terrorists are staying, but deletes the information from the NSS computer.

Hyeon-jee arranges to meet his mysterious caller, and is secretly taken to a remote location (surrounded by guards) and led up to a room where he sees a man in a hospital bed, hooked up to various machines. When we see the man's face, he is the man in the photograph that he found in the priest's Bible!

In a long narrative, the man says he worked with Hyeon-jun's parents in the nuclear arms development but that everyone in that group was eliminated and he was the only survivor (albeit paralyzed and in a wheelchair). He tells Hyeon-jun that IRIS has very deep roots, and also informs him about the nuclear device that the terrorists (whom we now know are working for IRIS and not North Korea) stole from the NSS. He tells Hyeon-jun that IRIS is preparing to detonate a nuclear bomb in the center of Seoul to terrorize the citizens of South Korea in order to stop the summit (all of this while Seon-hwa is standing by his side, listening). He instructs Hyeon-jun that he must stop this from happening.

While in Pyeongyang, North Korea, with a South Korea delegation, Baek-San leaves the hotel to meet with the North Korean Party Leader, who appears to also be a member of IRIS, and who informs him that he is the one responsible for the chaos that is going on in Seoul, and for the upcoming detonation of the nuclear bomb. Cheol-yeong is informed by his assistant that Baek-san left without permission to meet with the party leader. Cheol-yeong is curious as to why the two are meeting (is Cheol-yeong not a member of IRIS? Does he truly not know what is really going on?)

Sa-woo, with the NSS Tactical Forces team (SWAT Team) pretends to go searching for the warehouse where the terrorists are located, but without success of course, since he deleted the real warehouse from the list. Seung-hee connects through a colleagues' computer and finds the missing warehouse that had been deleted. She goes by herself to find Hyeon-jun. Following her computer trail, the NSS office team find the missing warehouse and send Sa-woo and his team there. Sa-woo reports to Baek-san that the real location has been discovered. One of the office staff remembers giving the information about that warehouse to Sa-woo, and realizes that Sa-woo must have deleted it.

The terrorists are alerted (probably by Baek-san), and prepare to evacuate. At that point, Seung-hee arrives outside the warehouse. One of the terrorists comes up behind her with a gun and brings her inside (presumably to kill her). Hyeon-jun turns around and sees Seung-hee and the two look at each other in complete surprise!

END OF EPISODE 12.

Screencaps of Episode 12 (from SOOMPI):

 

Part of the reason I wound up marathoning this drama was the cliff hangers. At the end of each episode I would want to just watch the beginning of the next episode to see what happened. I would get so sucked in that by the time I realized it, the next episode's cliff hanger would be happening.

I assume from the silence in this thread that everyone has either marathoned it or they are so wrapped up in it they can't comment yet.

 

mtlandis wrote:

Part of the reason I wound up marathoning this drama was the cliff hangers. At the end of each episode I would want to just watch the beginning of the next episode to see what happened. I would get so sucked in that by the time I realized it, the next episode's cliff hanger would be happening. I assume from the silence in this thread that everyone has either marathoned it or they are so wrapped up in it they can't comment yet.

Yeah, I feel like I'm kind of talking to myself. Those of you who have already seen it, please feel free to jump in and comment on whatever you remember about the current episodes we are watching, so that I don't feel so lonely.

muscovy_2000 wrote:

mtlandis wrote: Part of the reason I wound up marathoning this drama was the cliff hangers. At the end of each episode I would want to just watch the beginning of the next episode to see what happened. I would get so sucked in that by the time I realized it, the next episode's cliff hanger would be happening. I assume from the silence in this thread that everyone has either marathoned it or they are so wrapped up in it they can't comment yet. Yeah, I feel like I'm kind of talking to myself. Those of you who have already seen it, please feel free to jump in and comment on whatever you remember about the current episodes we are watching, so that I don't feel so lonely.

Aww...welcome to my world, ladies. Now you know how I felt when we were watching He Who Can't Marry.

Greg, I've noticed that there isn't a lot of comment when we watch a comedy or "feel-good" type of drama. But when we watched Slingshot, which had a lot of action, everyone commented on almost every episode. I thought it would be the same with IRIS.

What I think happened here is that everyone has jumped the gun, and has watched this to the end. I've been tempted to do it myself, but as moderator of this group, I've stuck to the schedule.

Ladies, those of you who started out with me, if you've already finished it, let me know. If everyone else is done, there's no point in me just watching 1 episode per day. I'll just marathon the remaining episodes, and be done with it (I'll continue to post summaries). That way, you can all jump in and say what you liked about it and whether or not you liked the ending. We'll finish our discussion on IRIS and then start thinking about our next drama.

So, step forward and confess, OK?

OK I confess! I finished last weekend.

I haven't marathoned it yet, but that's only because I haven't had the time to. I'm sure I will

What I'd like to know is: Does Hyeon-jun have some GPS chip under his skin? How do they seem to find him wherever he goes. I mean seriously they find out he is in Japan and even though he has had a head start somehow Seon-hwa is right behind him-tracking him through the snow covered mountains. I know they have a really cool satellite system but I'm pretty sure you need to have a general idea of where to look besides a whole country. We need these peoples help to find Bin Laden. lol

lettle wrote:

OK I confess! I finished last weekend.

NOOO!! I just can't believe it of you, Talese!! (Actually, with your track record, I'm surprised it took you that long. )

jigsaw1800 wrote:

I haven't marathoned it yet, but that's only because I haven't had the time to. I'm sure I will What I'd like to know is: Does Hyeon-jun have some GPS chip under his skin? How do they seem to find him wherever he goes. I mean seriously they find out he is in Japan and even though he has had a head start somehow Seon-hwa is right behind him-tracking him through the snow covered mountains. I know they have a really cool satellite system but I'm pretty sure you need to have a general idea of where to look besides a whole country. We need these peoples help to find Bin Laden. lol

You mean, you don't have the ability to track down anyone at any time in any place? And to dodge bombs and bullets that are heading straight at you from above, ahead, behind and sideways? And with only one solitary gun, and your hands and feet, kill ten men coming towards you from all sides with machine guns, while not sustaining a scratch yourself?

Why didn't you let us know you were so handicapped? Poor Jigsaw!!