[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Grandpas Over Flowers Investigation Team" Episode 8

The drama appears to have given up on being an episodic mystery altogether here, as the conflict is built entirely around the nefarious forces that are conspiring against the team due their fateful agebending shenanigans from the first episode. It takes a moment to actually get to his point. First the good guys have to engage in customary silliness over their dumb ideas to try and acquire an important lead. Then there's an excursion at the water park. Then we finally get to the actual story.

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I'm not sure what to make of the current turnabout actually. The villains seem just a little... mean-spirited. In order to pull off the initial kidnapping, they had to do several obviously impossible things in a crowded area without anybody noticing. If we're accepting that they have this level of skill, it's hard to imagine why the bad guys are using this particular scheme to deal with Joon-hyeok and crew. All it really does is make them look unnecessarily evil.

The team, too, acts in unusually ambiguous moral terms, which really doesn't go down well with the light comedy at all. This isn't like earlier in the drama, though, where the sheer darkness of the mystery subplots made everything feel off balance. It's more like "Grandpas Over Flowers Investigation Team" is pretending at a level of character depth that really doesn't go down right with what we've seen of these people so far. We really need at least a one episode to act as a transition between goofy streaker death and serious gun standoff.

Yes, the gun. I was surprised to see a gun show up at all, actually, given that for the most part "Grandpas Over Flowers Investigation Team" takes place in a relatively gun-free zone and characters have to get violent in other ways. So of course the existence of the gun is really important. Not in a good way, though, since it just serves to reenforce the fact that the action has taken a serious turn that's rather out of step with silly antics at the water park.

As of yet it's difficult to tell whether we've just started the final case or if this is just a breather to remind the viewer that a larger plotline is still ongoing. Either way this really isn't a good episode. The only part that works out particularly decently are the decoding of mystery elements to lead to further revelations. Unfortunately this once again mainly serves to beg the question of the improbability of the plans coupled with odd character motivation.

Review by William Schwartz

"Grandpas Over Flowers Investigation Team"is directed by Kim Jin-young, written by Moon Seon-hee and features Lee Soon-jae, Byun Hee-bong, Jang Gwang, Kim Heechul, Lee Cho-hee, Kim Eung-soo.

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