Things are never dull when it comes to Vincenzo and Cha-young. There’s always fun adventures and exciting moments between the two and they know how to win every single game. How much longer can the power couple keep things going and will the two ever be shaken up?
Vincenzo: Episode 7 Recap
It’s the second trial hearing and Cha-young has a surprise announcement for everyone. Since the witnesses that she originally intended on bringing in has now been denied, she’s quick to find a surprise witness. The surprise witness is none other than our Italian lawyer and he struts his way inside the courtroom while everyone watches him in confusion and shock. Cha-young argues that Vincenzo is both a witness and an assailant because of an incident that he caused with employees of Babel Chemicals, therefore, making him related to the case. The idea of bringing in Vincenzo as a witness was something that Vincenzo proposed to Cha-young when they last left the police station. They strategized and they strategized and eventually came to the conclusion that Vincenzo must eventually do something that will turn him into a witness that the court will not be able to deny.
So with that, Vincenzo makes his move and he ends up fighting the team leaders of the research team at Babel Chemicals at a restaurant. He berates them for blaming Babel researchers for their own illnesses and points out that they failed to protect their workers from the toxic agent, BLSD, due to the poor sewage disposal system. Vincenzo causes a scene at the restaurant which he then recaps during the courtroom. Though Lawyer Choi attempts to dismiss Vincenzo from the room, Vincenzo proceeds with explaining Babel Chemical’s involvement in all of this. They are the ones to blame for failing to properly take care of the sewage disposal system for their researchers which eventually lead the workers to be exposed to BLSD. With gestures from Lawyer Choi, Judge Heo attempts to drive Vincenzo out of the courtroom himself, but it’s of no use. Vincenzo has an item with critical piece of information that will be too crucial to turn down. In his hand lies the cellphone from the team lead who he beat up at the restaurant that night. So just how exactly did they get a hold of the man’s cellphone? Wellll, let’s just say Mr. Nam was there to assist Vincenzo in his little stunt and Mr. Nam’s cosplaying skills as a Babel Chemicals employee was extremely helpful. Inside the cellphone contains text messages acknowledging Babel Chemical’s participation in covering up incidents and threatening their victims.
Vincenzo then transitions his attention to Director Gil who he claims lied to the researchers about their health knowing fully well that BLSD was the cause behind so many of the incidents. Wusang once again attempts to invalidate Vincenzo’s testimony so Cha-young has someone else who she brings into the courtroom. It’s none other than Dr. Gil’s wife, Professor Kim Yeo-won, the director of a Pediatric Cancer Center and an expert in the field of leukemia (OOOOH, this is getting goooood!). She will surely know a lot about both her husband and the validity of the medical information that he had been spouting to the Babel Chemical researchers. So how exactly did Vincenzo and Cha-young manage to secure Mrs. Kim?
Mrs. Kim spends her time at an art gallery, admiring the infamous “Liberty Leading the People” painting by Eugène Delacroix. She’s soon joined by Vincenzo who strikes up a conversation with her nearby about the painting and he even compares the lady in the painting to Mrs. Kim. He makes it clear that he’s a fan of hers. Vincenzo takes it a step further when he presents a document of slush funds that Director Gil had been hiding from his wife. There are also photos capturing Director Gil having an affair with his mistress. The affair doesn’t surprise Mrs. Kim too much as she already knew Director Gil was planning to divorce her, but she’s more stunned by all the financial transactions. Vincenzo requests that Mrs. Kim serve as an expert witness at the trial to refute Director Gil’s claims. He’ll even take care of her nasty divorce with Director Gil and help her gain all his assets. Mrs. Kim accepts the request under one condition: Vincenzo is to watch an opera with her. Lol, same Mrs. Kim, same.
And so Mrs. Kim appears in court with a USB drive containing personal email correspondence between Director Gil and Dr. Ramos of the UCLA Medical Center regarding BLSD treatment. In it, Director Gil admits that BLSD was the cause of the blood cancer and also acknowledges Babel Chemical’s failure to take care of the sewage disposal system that exposed the researchers to BLSD. Mrs. Kim was able to gain access to it because Dr. Ramos sent them to her on his own will, not because she was snooping into Director Gil’s emails. Director Gil is eventually allowed back inside the courtroom after being disruptive and he testifies on behalf of the defendant. Mrs. Kim takes things up a notch and exposes the small bag of meth she found in his desk. Not only is Director Gil a drug user, but he also injected the drug into Mr. Lee at the hospital. Once Mr. Lee recovers and is proven innocent, he must be allowed to testify as a witness in the lawsuit. Panic ensues from Wusang and Judge Heo who unfortunately can’t do much to overpower our Jipuragi team. They’re way too powerful and they have too much evidence to be dismissed. And our Jipuragi team strikes again!
After the trial hearing, Joon-woo drags Han-seo with him outside for a private talk. Joon-woo instructs Han-seo to hold a press conference and to apologize for their situation with BLSD. He also urges Han-seo to hurry with the demolition of Geumga Plaza. They have many important people waiting on that building. Cha-young and Vincenzo leave the courtroom in a good mood as they’ve proven themselves to be quite the dynamic duo once again. What would have initially taken 5-6 years to get done, they accomplished in 2 weeks. Woo hoo! As gratitude and appreciation for Vincenzo, Cha-young offers to get Vincenzo anything that he wants. He accepts the offer and Cha-young abides. Time for her to flex! Haha.
Joon-woo drives both Mr. Han and Lawyer Choi on the way back to Wusang. He’s furious and enraged and zooms through the streets while going full speed. Lawyer Choi and Mr. Han hang on for dear life in the back of the car (why is this scene so funny to me? I’m laughing my butt off over here!). So what exactly did Vincenzo decide on as his gift from Cha-young? Of course, it’s his favorite Booralro suit that he sports often. The only catch? He wants 10 suits total. LOL. Cha-young hesitates to accept his request, but she goes through with it because she did say she was going to flex. While the employee at the store admires Vincenzo’s body figure and looks (and I do too), Cha-young plays around with a pair of scissors while listening in on their conversation. Hahaha, she is so over it.
Vincenzo goes through a bunch of different suits, but Cha-young isn’t so interested. She dozes off on the couch while waiting for him and at one point, knocks out entirely while lying down on the couch with one leg up. Hahaha. Vincenzo smiles at the hilarious sighting and it’s obvious he finds the moment cute and endearing. Cha-young might have purchased Vincenzo some of his favorite clothes, but that’s not the end of it. On the way out of the store, she hands him another gift: a fountain pen with his name on it. The pen serves as a token and celebration of their partnership. Vincenzo being Vincenzo, he expresses his dislike for the font, but he’s thankful for the gift nonetheless. Cha-young is a total keeper.
Joon-woo drives Lawyer Choi and Mr. Han out to the middle of a deserted field and reprimands them for not doing their job correctly. He even grabs the golf sticks from the trunk, but holds back on actually doing any damage with it. Lawyer Choi acknowledges her faults and mistakes in not being thorough enough with the trial. She underestimated the Jipuragi team, but Joon-woo criticizes that it’s her old-fashioned way of working that’s holding her back. Neither of them have any creativity with their work unlike Vincenzo who’s the most creative and neat of them all. Moving forward, Joon-woo assigns Lawyer Choi to find anything and everything related to Cha-young. She needs to be taken down. As for Vincenzo, Joon-woo himself will take care of the Italian lawyer. Joon-woo even offers to take care of the Namdongbu Prosecution team that Lawyer Choi initially wanted to buy off, but Lawyer Choi wants the chance to redeem herself. She’ll take care of the Namdongbu project and has three days to get it done. So Lawyer Choi takes out her anger on her team and demand that they get moving with their research on Cha-young. She also gives her former boss, Chief Prosecutor Hwang of Namdongbu Prosecution team, a call.
Our Geumga tenants and Jipuragi team stop by the hospital to pay Mr. Lee a visit. Thankfully, he’s up and recovering and everything seems to be going well. Vincenzo also updates everyone about his plans to purchase a building nearby to relocate the tenants. But there’s something off and the tenants don’t react so great. When Vincenzo proposes for a meeting the next morning, they all pretend to be excited for the meeting. Cha-young and Vincenzo notice that something doesn’t seem right and they have a funny feeling about things. Vincenzo also meets with Mr. Na who updates him about Babel’s plans to take down Geumga in a week. Speaking of Geumga Plaza, Vincenzo receives an update from Mr. Cho about a Korean-Japanese architecture professor from Japan who can help inspect the Geumga basement. Due to the urgency of the situation, he’s scheduled to visit Korea that night to evaluate the room and whether there’s a way to access the gold storage room to minimize the impact on the building.
Lawyer Choi and Mr. Han proceed to meet with Chief Prosecutor Hwang of Namdongbu to discuss a possible deal. However, Chief Prosecutor Hwang is upset and angry with Lawyer Choi’s idea and emphasizes that they cannot be bought off by Babel. He warns the two to never approach them with such an absurd idea again or else he’ll expose everything to the public. Maybe Lawyer Choi should have let Joon-woo handle this task. While walking towards Jipuragi, Vincenzo overhears some giggling and noise coming from the abandoned beauty salon shop in the plaza. He takes a peek inside the shop only to find a creepy looking figure staring right back at him. Vincenzo freaks out upon seeing the face, but it’s actually just Mrs. Kwak’s son, Young-ho, putting on an act for his newly founded bizarre comedy channel. Young-ho has occupied himself with something new now that he’s no longer smoking, lol. When Vincenzo returns to his apartment unit, he turns on the TV and listens to the news coverage regarding the arrival of Coach Rossi, head of the BC Milano Italian soccer team. He’s doing some scouting in Korea in hopes of finding the next Son Heung-min. While the story plays in the background on the news, Vincenzo turns his attention to the fountain pen from Cha-young and he stares at it lovingly (AWWW, this part is making me so soft). The few seconds of rest is interrupted by a phone call from Mr. Cho announcing the arrival of the Professor.
Mr. Cho lures Monk Chaeshin and Jeokha outside from the temple so that Vincenzo and the professor can inspect the room. It’s obvious Mr. Cho doesn’t have anything prepared and he comes up with some random questions to distract the monks, such as why girls aren’t interested in dating monks if they prefer guys who go to church. LOL. Mr. Cho is really just pulling stuff from thin air, isn’t he? Haha. After studying the walls in the temple, the professor delivers not so great news to Vincenzo. There’s no way of directly accessing the gold storage room without demolishing Geumga Plaza. Drilling into the basement will eventually cause the entire building to be destroyed. Joon-woo and Han-seo have some dinner together at Joon-woo’s house. Just like before, Joon-woo hones in on Han-seo’s failures and shortcomings and doesn’t miss the chance to speak to his half-brother in a demeaning fashion. If Han-seo was just a tad bit smarter, Joon-woo would have respected his brother a little bit more. Han-seo isn’t as foolish and stupid as his brother thinks he is though and questions whether Joon-woo has any intentions of hurting him like how he did to their father.
With that, we’re taken back to the day when Joon-woo murdered his father at the hospital a few years back. Joon-woo’s father was severely ill and laying in his hospital bed at the Haemun Medical Center where Joon-woo killed off his dad. With Director Gil’s assistance, Joon-woo’s dad is injected with a drug and he passes away seconds afterwards. The heir to Babel makes the announcement to a nervous and anxious Han-seo who’s sitting outside of the room in the hallway. Fast forward to the present, Han-seo shares that he knew it was Joon-woo who killed their father all along. So maybe Han-seo wasn’t that stupid after all, but he’s still lacking many things in Joon-woo’s eyes. Han-seo will never amount to much and he’ll never meet Joon-woo’s expectations – a harsh reality that he can’t seem to fathom with.
Mr. Cho and Vincenzo update each other on their next moves and plans. The only thing that they can do now is continue to stall time. But how can Vincenzo stall time if the Geumga tenants don’t want to move out? Why did they suddenly change their minds and thoughts on relocating? Well, it turns out that our tenants also know about the gold that’s hidden somewhere in the building. Thanks to the homeless man who stopped by their dinner gathering four days ago, they’re now aware of the situation. The homeless man shares that he was there at the restaurant on the night that all the workers who helped move the bars of gold into the storage room was killed off. He overheard the workers talk about the gold and he shares the story with all of our Geumga tenants in the present. Though they want to so badly refuse the story, they can’t help but feel a little suspicious. Tons of gold hidden somewhere within the plaza. It sounds too good to be true, but there might be some ounce of truth to the story, right?
Cha-young, Vincenzo, and Mr. Nam all watch the press conference where Han-seo apologizes on behalf of Babel for their controversy. As if that wasn’t bad enough, an anonymous SNS post exposes Lawyer Choi for upsetting Chief Prosecutor Hwang in an attempt to buy him and his prosecution service. Things are looking good for our Jipuragi team, but not for long. When they meet with all the Geumga tenants for their 11am meeting, the tenants express their disproval with relocating. They don’t want to move to another building. Even when Mr. Park and his Babel gang show up to the meeting to threaten them to sign an agreement, our Geumga tenants remain the same. They begin to protest within the walls of Chef Toto’s restaurant and chant the words “fight!” over and over again. When Mr. Park and his men leave, they receive the approval from Mr. Na to raid Geumga Plaza. Meanwhile, Vincenzo is extremely frustrated with the tenants and he unleashes his anger back in the Jipuragi office. He’s so mad he even starts ranting in Italian (ok, now that’s how you know Vincenzo is REALLY mad). He can’t seem to understand why the tenants have gone back on their words and why they refuse to leave the plaza. Mr. Nam and Cha-young watch Vincenzo go off in Italian from nearby and Mr. Nam can’t help but admire how good Vincenzo looks even when he’s angry, lol.
Just then, two detectives enter Jipuragi to arrest Cha-young for a bunch of illegal activities that she’s committed. Along with Vincenzo, the two are taken to the police station. The evidence against Cha-young is much more difficult to fight against this time and Cha-young is placed into a jail cell at the police station. Though Vincenzo doesn’t feel so confident, Cha-young isn’t so worried. She knows Vincenzo will find a way to get her out somehow (EEEEEEK, I mean, she’s not wrong!). He is Mr. Mafia Lawyer after all, isn’t he? Vincenzo panics upon hearing Cha-young refer to him as a member of the Mafia, but Cha-young admits that she knew it all along. She is a lawyer after all. She was just playing dumb, but she knew he was a part of the Mafia just based off of all the activities he came up with against Babel and Wusang. There’s no way a normal lawyer could come up with such ideas and strategies. So with that, Cha-young places her trust in Vincenzo and wraps her arms around him from behind the bars. She hopes the next time she sees him, it’ll be because he’s come back to get her out of the prison cell. The Jipuragi lawyer then lays down to get some rest while Vincenzo gets started on helping Cha-young escape. His target? Lawyer Choi.
Vincenzo follows Lawyer Choi to a casino and plays a game of poker with her. Afterwards, they sit down to strike a deal. Lawyer Choi is to release Cha-young if Vincenzo succeeds in getting Chief Prosecutor Hwang for her. He presents the contract that Lawyer Choi is to sign if she agrees to go through with the proposal and even offers Cha-young’s fountain pen to her so she can sign the contract (EEEEK, he carries the pen around with him, I’m crying!). The deal is too good to turn down and Vincenzo makes his move on Chief Prosecutor Hwang. So what exactly is Chief Prosecutor Hwang’s weakness that Vincenzo takes advantage of? It’s his son who dreams of becoming an aspiring soccer player. It’s the perfect opportunity since Vincenzo himself has connections to Coach Rossi of the BC Milano Italian soccer team. Chief Prosecutor Hwang has a hard time believing in Vincenzo who claims that he can help his son work with Coach Rossi. It’s not until the coach shows up at the soccer game and acknowledges Chief Prosecutor Hwang’s son in front of everyone that the tables turn. Vincenzo’s greeting with Coach Rossi proves his point to Chief Prosecutor Hwang and leads Chief Prosecutor Hwang to give Lawyer Choi a call right afterwards.
So Lawyer Choi follows through with her promise and our precious Cha-young is released from the police station. She’s greeted by Vincenzo at the police station who shows up with a cup of iced Americano for her (aww, he’s so sweet! That’s her favorite!). Cha-young is delighted to be released, but it’s not Vincenzo she’s excited to see. It’s the iced cup of Americano that he’s holding in his hands and she runs towards it with sparkle in her eyes. Hahaha. The power couple walk out of the police station together and Cha-young can’t help but grow curious as to how Vincenzo was able to get her out within 48 hours. What did he do or what kind of deal did he manage to strike up? Vincenzo shares that he made a deal with the devil (AKA Lawyer Choi) which disappoints Cha-young at first. The thought of him doing such a thing bothers her.. except it really doesn’t matter for Cha-young is just happy that she’s finally free. Vincenzo must have used his mafia skills to get her out (“of course! as expected of a Mafia member!”). Cha-young is in such a good and is beyond impressed with her partner in crime that she shares the secret with a few police offers passing by. Vincenzo is so embarrassed he drags Cha-young away with him. Haha, they are waaaaay too adorable!!
Our Geumga tenants are invited to Mrs. Kwak’s snack bar shop to celebrate her birthday later on that evening. She sports a pretty long white dress since it’s her special day. Mr. Park and his Babel gang prepare to head out to raid Geumga Plaza like they were given the green light to do so and are to only attack the protestors wearing red. So how exactly was Mr. Park approved to raid Geumga? Well, it was Vincenzo who came up with the game plan. In order to stall time, he worked with Young-ho to find a group of strong, bulky men to pose as protestors for the raid through Young-ho’s social media channel. Vincenzo also demanded that Mr. Na give the Babel gang the green light to raid the building. Vincenzo plans to destroy Babel’s reputation by recording the raid as well as the Babel gang’s fight against the protestors. Once the recording hits social media, floods of criticism against Babel will roll through and their mission will be accomplished.
And so the recruited protestors are thrown onto a bus towards Geumga Plaza. However, a sudden situation pops up and one of the protestors receive a notice from his hospital about possibly carrying a disease after being in contact with a carrier. It doesn’t help that he received the update while on the bus with all the other protestors. Mr. Park and his Babel gang arrive at Geumga Plaza and they prepare to fight the protestors. Mr. An who was just merely returning from the store is the first person they spot and they begin to beat him up because of the red jacket that he’s wearing. Young-ho – who was assigned to record the fight – panics and he interrupts his mother’s birthday party to inform them about Mr. An’s situation. Our Geumga tenants unite to stand up for their fellow tenant and they march out of the snack bar shop with some “weapons.” Cheol-wook finally gets the chance to use his martial art skills to fight, Larry unleashes his dancing skills to trip up his opponent, Monk Jaeokha grabs onto the hair of his opponent which proves to be handy in this case because he’s bald himself. Lol.
And so our tenants fight and fight against the Babel gang. When Cha-young and Vincenzo arrive at the plaza, they assume all the commotion and noise must be coming from the protestors that were hired. But when Vincenzo receives an update from Mr. Cho indicating that the protestors are no longer able to show up because of the infection scare, things only get foggier (literally) and more confusing. If it’s not the protestors that are fighting Babel at the plaza, then who is? And just like that, Vincenzo and Cha-young get the answer to their own question and they witness a shocking scene unfold right in front of their eyes. They find the Geumga tenants caught up with the Babel gang members. They’re all grabbing at each other’s hairs and clothes and their face expressions scream out pain, but there’s something else about the familiar scene that is the most surprising of it all. They’re all positioned exactly like the “Liberty Leading the People” painting that Vincenzo was referring to earlier in this episode. It’s as if the painting has come to life, Geumga-style.
My Thoughts:
I am always in awe at how the drama manages to wrap up each episode in the most satisfying and impressive way ever. This episode came full circle with the “Liberty Leading the People” painting which was such a genius way of ending it. Everything is connected or related to one another somehow and the drama reminds you that every detail that is presented in the episode is presented for a reason. From Young-ho’s new SNS channel to the painting to even Coach Rossi, they each have their own purpose. Although random, each little piece is tied together neatly in a way that contributes to the larger theme and premise. Just when you thought things couldn’t get any better or that the drama couldn’t do better than their last effort, they do. They manage to one-up themselves every time.
I’m fully enjoying all the victories that our Jipuragi team has been winning against Wusang. I knew they were going to win some battles in this drawn-out war, but I didn’t expect them to win back to back like that against Lawyer Choi and Joon-woo. I like that the drama hasn’t been as procedural with our protagonists where they lose one and then win one. The more impressive thing is that even when our heroes are stuck in a rut and it seems as if they have no way out or no way to combat Wusang, they still somehow manage to pull things off. Such as was the case when Vincenzo compromised with Lawyer Choi to release Cha-young. He’s so creative and fearless and knows when to take advantage of his opponents. Vincenzo always has something up his sleeves and combine that with Cha-young’s wittiness and reckless personality and you have the perfect duo.
Maybe this is just me being the naive and clueless person that I am, but I also wasn’t expecting our Geumga tenants to learn about the hidden gold in the plaza this early. A part of me wishes that they had found out a little later. Their reactions were gold though (hahaha get it??) and it’s going to be interesting to see what Vincenzo will do now that the tenants aren’t going to budge. More so than the battle against Wusang and Babel, the harder battle as of now for Vincenzo seems to be against the tenants. Things were going fine and he was earning their trust only for all of that to be lost. Everyone sort of wants Geumga Plaza for their own agenda and reasons, but I’m thinking that the tenants will eventually team up to go against Babel. In the end, they beat the bad guys, become stronger together, and everyone gets a share of the gold bars. That should wrap things up perfectly, right?
But things won’t and it won’t be a while until Wusang and Babel are defeated. Joon-woo is such an evil evil guy, especially for killing his father. I get that he had some sort of vengeance against his father for cheating on his mom and having an affair, but he also did it because he wanted all of Babel to himself. As of now, it was primarily Lawyer Choi (and half of Mr. Han) doing all the dirty work so it’ll be even more intriguing to watch Joon-woo roll up his sleeves to help out as well. Let’s see if he’s as creative as Vincenzo or if he’s smart as he thinks he is. Han-seo’s relationship with Joon-woo is also another interesting sub-plot within the drama and I anticipate that Han-seo will betray his half-brother at one point. He can only take the embarrassment, the anger, all the lashing out at him for so long before he explodes and cuts off those strings that his brother is controlling him with. Whether it’s with Jipuragi or by himself, Han-seo probably won’t be able to tolerate things for much longer and he’ll step into his own role to get back at his brother.
Of course, I can’t talk about the episode without mentioning our power couple, Vincenzo and Cha-young. Their relationship has to be the thing I look forward to the most every episode and I love every single second of it. In episode 6, I loved how Cha-young thanked Vincenzo for visiting Ms. Oh. Although the visit itself wasn’t as positive or nice as she thought, just the act of him going to visit Ms. Oh made her thankful because she felt as if someone was continuing her father’s work and filling in those shoes. In this episode, I loved that Cha-young trusted Vincenzo enough and felt confident enough in him that she would eventually get out of the police station within two days. She had no doubt about it because 1) she knew Vincenzo had the skills and abilities to do so with his experience as a Mafia member and 2) he needs her too much to do all the work alone. He needs his partner in crime to be there with him. From Vincenzo’s end, I loved how he put on his Mafia hat and made a deal with Lawyer Choi to get Cha-young out. Like he mentioned to Joon-woo, a smart person knows when to take advantage of their opponents’s weaknesses and he did just that with Lawyer Choi.
Even the smaller more subtle details between Cha-young and Vincenzo are so great. The way he came prepared with an iced cup of Americano when she was released because that’s her favorite coffee drink or the way he stared at the fountain pen she got him got my heart fluttering. What about the way he smiled when he saw her asleep on the couch when he was shopping? Or the way he pulled Cha-young away with him when she started sharing that Vincenzo was a part of the Mafia and he was embarrassed? And then there’s also Cha-young with the way she gifted Vincenzo his favorite suits as well as a fountain pen to signify their partnership. Or how she wrapped her arms around him and gave him an awkward hug and believed in him to get her out of the jail cell. Everything about their relationship is so fun to watch and they really do have wonderful chemistry and an awesome dynamic. They work well together and they’re so compatible. I love everything about them.
Vincenzo and Cha-young are on a winning streak and as much as I want the two to keep winning, things probably won’t stay that way all the time. Wusang and Babel are bound to bounce back and to prove why they’re at the top of the food chain. Things are looking great as they are right now, but tomorrow might tell a different story.
Extra photos from the episode~
MaryMeKpop 