Outstagram
Episode 2 of Vincenzo begins with Vincenzo himself hauling Seok-Do up from the window as he bemoans the scar that Vincenzo may well have left him. He tells his goons to attack… just as police officers arrive and disperse them before everything explodes into chaos. In the aftermath of this, Yu-Chan takes Vincenzo aside and talks to him about his tape measure stunt. He tells Vincenzo to go home but he refuses to do so, promising to fight for the building and get it back. As he leaves, a reporter arrives to speak to Vincenzo but he’s obviously already left. With him gone, the other residents think about teaching Vincenzo a lesson. Well, regardless of what they do, they all decide to stick together for the time being. Vincenzo heads to the hospital and speaks to the Geumga Plaza resident hit by the dreaded truck, who happens to be in a bad way but still very much alive. He talks about the building and implores him to demolish the building before Babel do. 3 years back we see a bit more of the special room housing the gold. It turns out there’s a special contraption with the basement, which sets off charges to destroy the foundations if anyone tries to break in. This meeting with Wang Shaolin eventually cuts us forward 2 years later where the news reveals that he died of a cardiac arrest after a swim. After this, Vincenzo worked to move the gold across to this building. However, we’re still not entirely sure how. In the present, Vincenzo does his best to try and find a way into the temple but continues to raise his voice which, of course, startles the monks. Meanwhile, Cha-Young is close to wrapping up the Babel case, given her Father has no more cards up his sleeve to play. However, she suddenly receives a visit from Joon-Woo who confirms that Babel’s pharmaceutical division have called with urgent news. One of the quarantined researchers have gone missing. This causes Cha-Young to head out and speak to the Chairman of Babel directly but he brushes aside her greeting as she once again heads in the wrong direction to her car. Cha-Young eventually talks herself up as she heads in to see her Father. Vincenzo speaks to Yu-Chan as well and manages to convince him to trust the consigliere for the time being. Yu-Chan gives the green-light to see all the documents on Babel. While he looks through them, Cha-Young shows up and claims she’s lost her wallet. Of course, this is all a ploy to see the Babel documents. Well Vincenzo has thoughts on Babel, calling them all assholes. Given Cha-Young is currently there she’s taken aback as Yu-Chan steers Vincenzo’s loathing toward Law Firm Wusang, which Cha-Young obviously works for. Cha-Young follows him out and the two wind up eating food together. While they wait for their dishes, Cha-Young tells him to head back to Italy. An argument breaks out in the restaurant though, which leads to Vincenzo’s food spilling all over his lap. This inevitably brings him back to Chef Toto where he makes him saffron risotto. Once again he spits the food out and tells the chef it tastes like vomited baby food. Toto breaks down when he hears this though, as Vincenzo heads out to see Deok-Jin, the mobster working at Investment and Development. With a Bill of Indictment in hand, Vincenzo forces a meeting and sits with this manager. The envelope he has is completely empty though, which is all a ploy to get in the room with this man. Vincenzo threatens to take his family and abduct him, as we hear another reference to The Godfather. It seems to work too. Back at the office they learn more about how this operation works. Despite being illegal, Law Firm Wusang forcibly evict the residents one week after the notice and then demolish the non-residential areas as a way of spooking the rest of the residents. When the residents leave, they’re given a small settlement but it’s not enough, especially given how illegal this is. While they work on a solution,Vincenzo and Yu-Chan head out together for a drink where Vincenzo learns the meaning behind the title of his law firm. Only, he receives an ominous call from someone out in the rain who we later find out is that whistle-blower. Yu-Chan soon hangs up though and the pair continue drinking together. Meanwhile, interspersed around this story is a separate plot line involving Prosecutor Myung-Hee. She’s being made the fall victim for several businessmen but she’s having absolutely none of it. Seung-Hyeok shows up though and encourages her to join his law firm. With Babel group on their side, he makes a convincing argument as Myung-Hee admits that the alcohol is getting to her. On the back of this, Myung-Hee hands in her notice, claiming she’s sick of being her boss’ hound. After making a statement, she shows up as Woosung Law Firm as a senior lawyer. With her firmly set to take over, Cha-Young is not exactly thrilled to see her. Everyone else however, is happy given Cha-Young’s behaviour. Well, the group hold a meeting where Seung-Hyeok goes over his plan to evict those inside Geumga Plaza. Cha-Young is not happy though, especially with the way she’s been pushed out of this operation. She bemoans the residents for not moving out on their own accord, showing she’s completely unsympathetic to their plight. Vincenzo heads in to Yu-Chan ‘s apartment and learns for the first time that Cha-Young is his daughter. The pictures of her up on the wall are very different from the character we’ve come to see here though. Anyway, Cha-Young comes crashing in and announces that there’s a serious problem with the building. Before she can announce the demolition date, that researcher whistle-blower phones Yu-Chan and asks to meet. Anyway, he rushes out to check up on him while Vincenzo learns about the demolition of Geumga Plaza. Cha-Young admits that she doesn’t care about the residents though, she just cares about her own livelihood and her Father’s well-being. Vincenzo contemplates what he can do to help them, as he shows up to the Geumga Plaza meeting. The only one missing is Yu-Chan who’s obviously out at his meeting. With time running out, all our characters contemplate exactly what to do to try and save Geumga Plaza. Day turns to night and Park Seok-Do orchestrates all the diggers. Only, when they get there they’re stopped by an impromptu party outside full of dancing, food stalls and fire-breathers. It’s a pretty ingenious ploy, one that sees the place brimming with people. When Cha-Young shows up she sees Vincenzo and the others partying which puts a wry smile across her face. And now we see how this came to be. Vincenzo plastered his own face and real name all over social media to make this a high-profile event on Outstagram. As they stare one another down, Vincenzo offers his glass of wine in a toast.
The Episode Review
So I’m by no means an expert when it comes to mob families or the mafia but surely the consigliere of the Italian mafia wouldn’t be so reckless as to plaster his own name, photo and location all over social media would he? Given how we ended things in Italy, this paints a massive target on his back and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see that crime family taking their revenge for this. In the meantime though, Vincenzo’s second episode slows the pace down a fair amount as we start to settle into the law drama side of things. The entire event revolves around Geumga Plaza and making sure it isn’t demolished… which would be fine if we didn’t already know what happens. As we’ve seen from the opening shot of the first episode then we already know it does so that diminishes some of the tension a bit. The characters themselves are also a bit of a mixed bag of archetypes and annoying tropes, with Cha-Young the biggest culprit here. Her character is a ruthless lawyer and clearly uncaring to anyone else’s feelings. The moments of humour that she’s placed in, and the style (outright slapstick) just doesn’t work for this sort of character. When you compare Vincenzo to Mr Queen, tvN’s previous drama in this time-slot, the humour was totally in-sync with the darker drama. The verdict is still out with this one though and nothing has quite clicked into place as smoothly as one may expect. However there’s definitely potential here. The opening shots, like I mentioned last time, were absolutely beautiful but if this is supposed to be a comedy/drama, I’m questioning why such a straight and shocking opening (along with such a dark, moody and dramatic set of posters) were chosen to demonstrate this. I mean, just as an example, do these posters seem like something from a comedy?
We’ll have to wait and see how this one plays out of course, but for now this first week bows out with a promising prospect of things to come.
