The Merger
Hyena returns this week with another slice of law drama, one that sees the past start to come back and haunt our two plucky lawyers. While they both dance around each other’s true feelings, the two cases they’re working on come to a close while leaving things wide open going forward after a shocking cliffhanger ending. Episode 11 of Hyena begins with Geum-Ja calling Hee-Jae sheltered as she walks away from him. Hee-Jae heads back to his office in anger while Hyeon-A meanwhile, presses Geum-Ja on what she meant about her comments regarding a difficult life. Geum-Ja manages to expertly navigate past this question without revealing too much though and they fist bump as Hyeon-A leaves. Geum-Ja heads off to see Un-Mi and shows her the complaint file she’s drawn up, something that should turn the tide in their favour. With this in her possession, she heads back to see her Mother at the church and throws stacks of copies for this complaint in the air. A shocked Hee-Jun sits with Geum-Ja and they discuss the case. Meanwhile, Hee-Jae heads out to the bar where Gi-Hyeok and Yoo-Mi drink together. However, things turn sour when she mentions the Kevin situation and Hee-Jae liking Geum-Ja again. He look at her incredulously and leaves. As he does, he rings Geum-Ja while in his car and invites her out for food. She declines though but as she hangs up the call, you can clearly see some regret in her face. While Hee-Jae gets some good news from Congressman Lee, who decides to let him represent him, Geum-Ja receives a call from Hee-Jun who’s folded and decided to meet. She presents her with an offer of 1 billion won to settle the whole case and as they talk, Geum-Ja tells her she won’t get a better offer. Eventually she folds and Geum-Ja feeds this back to Un-Mi. Ms Kim continues her coup to usurp Song and change the company to her vision. While she does, the case is settled and Kevin signs the files. As the group applaud their efforts, Kevin receives a call from Geum-Ja in the aftermath of this and agrees to meet her. At the restaurant, Kevin proposes they start seeing each other but Geum-Ja is reserved and talks about work instead. He calls her a rollercoaster and after a friendly dinner, the next day Kevin tells Kim he doesn’t want to rush things with the merger between Issume and Gnosis she’s proposed. Geum-Ja heads in to see Hee-Jae, showing off her good side, as Un-Mi arrives to see her Mum at the church and hands over the cheque for 1 billion won. As she does, and things are live on broadcast, the world comes crashing down for Hee-Jun as she’s exposed infront of the whole world. While the team head out to celebrate, Kevin meets with Song and they talk about the proposed merger. Song tells him that instead of the initial merger, he and his company should merge with a smaller company first. As they talk about the finer details of this, they toast over drinks. Hee-Jae meanwhile runs into problems with his case leading him to speak to Congressman Lee and tell him to have faith in the company as his reputation hangs by a thread. However, our lawyer reminds him this is all part of their initial plan and to have some faith. Begrudgingly, Lee agrees to trust him before Hee-Jae heads up and waits for Geum-Ja outside her house. As they talk and Hee-Jae asks her to comfort him, they both receive an urgent call. Rushing out, it turns out to be Chan-Ho, who staggers over to the front door of his apartment bloodied and clearly intoxicated. As the camera pans out, we see Jung-Hwa lying face down on the floor covered in blood. With a consistent rhythm now to each episode, the contrasting cases and fortunes for Hee-Jae and Geum-Ja are a nice touch as the two lawyers work on these around the romance that hides in the shadows. The characters are ultimately what make this show so memorable and while the cases themselves don’t do an awful lot to stand out, they do a good enough job of filling the time between Hee-Jae and Geum-Ja’s will they/won’t they love angle. With a shocking climax and plenty of questions left unanswered for this one, the next episode of Hyena looks to be a very interesting proposition indeed.
