Recap Korean Drama "Taxi Driver" Season 1 Episode 9

Jul 24, 2022

Episode 9 of Taxi Driver begins with Go Eun and Do-Ki finishing the U Data case and walking away. While they do, Do-Chul stabs Sung-Chul. He’s stopped from hitting the killing blow though, as Chairman Baek arrives with her right-hand man. He effortlessly takes out Do-Chul with a sleeper hold. This cliffhanger is resolved with Baek taking the unconscious man back to his cell while Sung-Chul is raced to hospital.

An enraged Do-Ki fights his way through Baek’s men to get to Do-Chul. Only, he’s not actually there when Do-Ki shows up at the prison cell. Do-Ki eventually catches up with Baek, who admires the fire in his eyes and reminds him Sung-Chul is still alive.

Meanwhile, the charred remnants of U Data after the explosion are examined by police. Apparently they haven’t found anything out the ordinary. However, among the belongings they uncover is the ID card for Do-Ki.

Jo Jin-Woo inevitably heads back to the hospital, handing the ID card over to Sung-Chul and questioning him over what’s going on. Sung-Chul remains tight-lipped though in the wake of his friend’s questioning. He keeps up the pretense of not knowing anything.

On the news, Ha-Na takes the reigns of this U Data case and reminds the public that the three ringleaders at the top (minus Chairman Park of course) are still on the run.

As Ha-Na fronts the investigation, Jin-Woo hands her the ID card and encourages her. He tells Ha-Na that if she needs to assemble a team she has his support.

First thing’s first though, Ha-Na wants to find out more about this deluxe taxi, and believes this may well be the clue needed to piece everything together.

Inevitably, Ha-Na heads over to Do-Ki’s house, intent on asking questions about his whereabouts that evening. Do-Ki’s had a busy day though, running errands for Sung-Chul on behalf of Blue Bird. As they sit together, Ha-Na probes about the taxi and believes the man is acting suspiciously. Given he has a second phone inside, Ha-Na sees right through his lies and decides to have Do-Ki’s calls traced.

Meanwhile, a new case falls right into the lap of our Blue Bird candidates. Numerous cases of voice phishing are recorded at the police station, and seeing these poor men and women being scammed rallies Kyung-Koo into action. The group finally decide to band together and set this up as their primary case.

Among those in the scamming group is Jin-Eon, who sports a new haircut and passes himself off as a 20 year old. A very old-looking 20! He’s encouraged to hop on a bus, which in turn brings the group to a place called Ssangyon Spot. They’re all going to be working deep in this case, scamming customers and making heaps of cash in the process.

As Do-Ki himself reminds the boy, this time it’s about the money not the people. The place is also rife with gambling, which is inevitably rigged with house rules one would assume. However, Do-Ki is there disguised as a gambler and for now it seems, these criminals are going to get a taste of their own medicine.

During the epilogue, we cut back and see the poor grandmother who’s saved up 1020 dollars scammed. As the camera cuts back to those at the office, they’re completely nonchalant to this and bemoan their slow day.

The Episode Review

Taxi Driver returns with a look at a brand new case, involving Madam Min (or Edna from The Incredibles, let’s be honest) and voice phishing. This is something that a lot of older people fall prey to and it’s unfortunately all too common in society.

However, the episode also tackles the remnants of the U Data case, with Ha-Na starting to piece everything together and believing that Do-Ki could well be behind what’s happened.

With his ID card found at the crime scene, it does feel like a pretty glaring omission by his standards and something he should have probably been more careful with. Ha-Na is like a shark that smells blood, and she certainly won’t stop until she uncovers the truth.

The different ideas and cases are certainly interesting though and they feed into a larger cautionary tale about the dark underbelly of Korea. All of this works beautifully across the season, and tomorrow’s follow-up looks to be an exciting one as we dive deeper into the phishing case.