100 Days of Deception Episode 1 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Kim You-jung as Lee Ga-kyung
Park Jin-young as Kim Tae-ung (Sato Hideo)
Kim Hyun-joo as Yoo So-ran
Lee Mu-saeng as Yoo Philip
Jin Sun-kyu as Sato Shinichi (Inspector General)
Kam Woo-sung as Keum Seok-jung

A pickpocket at Gyeongseong Station

In Gyeongseong (Seoul) in the spring of 1932, Lee Ga-kyung works the crowd at Gyeongseong Station. A train pulls in, and the journalist Yoo Philip greets his wife, Yoo So-ran, on the platform. Ga-kyung asks a bystander what the fuss is about. He tells her the Inspector General of the Government-General, the Japanese colonial administration, is arriving. When he tosses out an English phrase to sound clever, she explains it back to him: the official ranks second only to the Governor-General.

Sato Shinichi steps off the train to a formal welcome from the interpreter Suzuki Hiroyuki and from Fukuda. Fukuda served under him ten years earlier and is now chief of police of the Government-General. Suzuki introduces Philip, a Korean American from Hawaii who reports from Gyeongseong for the American WWP News Agency and was based in Shanghai until three months ago. Philip presents So-ran as his pregnant Chinese wife, who speaks no Japanese. He invites Shinichi, who speaks Korean, to dinner at their home next Thursday. Shinichi has brought his son, Sato Hideo, and his 12-year-old daughter, Sato Hanako, who uses a wheelchair.

Then So-ran finds her bag missing, and police line up the passengers for an inspection. Ga-kyung slips through the first-class carriage, bumps into a young man and tells him she is from mainland Japan. A guard blocks her at a closed door until the young man asks him whether he has not seen the princess's picture in the newspaper. The guard lets her through, and the young man turns out to be Hideo. Outside, So-ran leaves in a taxi. Ga-kyung meets her friend Lee No-ma, a rickshaw puller, and tells him that in spirit she is already in America.

Bullets in a stolen bag

Outside the Jongno Pawnshop, No-ma teases Ga-kyung about her English. She learned it as a live-in maid in a missionary's house. She admits the household was right when it accused her of stealing bread there: she was starving, and her tears were an act. No-ma never knew until now.

Back with the pickpocket gang, the boss makes everyone empty their pockets. He reminds Ga-kyung that three years ago she stole his money to stow away on a ship. She was caught at Incheon Port and promised to repay him one won a day. When she hands over a bigger item, he accuses her of holding it back and grabs her wrist. Someone points out that an injured hand would cost him money. He tells them to stay out of it and warns her not to forget her promise.

In the shanty town where they live, children taunt Bang Kkot-nim, a girl who cannot walk, and call her Japanese until Ga-kyung and No-ma chase them off. No-ma tells Kkot-nim that her parents died helping the independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun assassinate the Japanese statesman Ito Hirobumi. Ga-kyung points out that the killing happened more than 20 years ago, long before the seven-year-old was born. In truth, Kkot-nim's parents caught her illness and died of it, and she will never walk. Ga-kyung tells her to forget the independence movement and think about eating rice in a warm house rather than millet porridge.

No-ma, whose parents died for independence in 1919, objects. Ga-kyung answers that their deaths won nothing and left him an orphan. She asks why, if he feels so strongly, he carries Japanese passengers in his rickshaw. She is saving money to leave the country for America.

At the Yoos' house, So-ran and Philip fear what the thief will find in the bag. Philip shows her around and offers her a room of her own. She says they should share one so they look like a real married couple to visitors, and she will keep wearing her belly wrap. Elsewhere, Hideo admits to Shinichi that his wallet was stolen and says nothing important was in it. Shinichi tells him not to waste time over a little money.

Back in the shanty town, Ga-kyung, No-ma and Kkot-nim go through the haul. The bag holds clothes and a heavy bundle of white rice. Hideo's wallet yields three won, papers from Tokyo Imperial University's English literature department and a 1919 pawn ticket from the Jongno Pawnshop in the name of Sin Tae-jin. Among the stolen goods, they also find bullets.

A guest brings Shinichi a fruitcake from Itsukoshi Department Store. The talk turns to the Joseon (Korean) pickpockets who once crowded the old Itsukoshi drapery shop, and Hideo says, "I used to be one of them myself." Shinichi takes it as a sign of how fully Hideo has become a Japanese citizen. Hideo is now a trilingual interpreter trainee at the Government-General. In a flashback, Shinichi catches a starving young Hideo who will not beg for his life. Shinichi then tells the police the boy is not the thief, names another child as the pickpocket and, amid a shout about a gun, has him shot. Asked whether he remembers that day, Hideo says it was too long ago.

At the Yoos' house that night, Philip finds So-ran unable to sleep. She has waited 13 years, and the last few days are the hardest. In the shanty town, Ga-kyung is awake too, after a memory of a woman she calls auntie throwing her out and calling her filthy blood. Asked whether she would save a friend or her money from drowning, Ga-kyung picks the friend, then holds up crossed fingers, a sign for lying she learned from the missionary. She crosses them before every theft, she says, so she will not get caught, and she repeats that she will leave Joseon no matter what.

At a pawnshop, Ga-kyung haggles the owner up to 50 jeon, then asks what bullets are worth. He offers ten won and climbs to 20, and she concludes their real value must be about 40. Elsewhere, none of the suspects the police have rounded up turns out to be the pickpocket, who speaks English. Hideo tells the police to contact him directly at the Government-General rather than take her to the police station.

So-ran's plan

At the Hanseong Medicine Clinic, So-ran's contacts give her a gun, bullets for the day and rice. The police will inspect the dinner food, so poison is ruled out and So-ran will use the gun. She rehearses what she will say afterward: she married an unsuspecting American in Shanghai to get to Gyeongseong and kill Shinichi. Her husband, the story goes, never knew her pregnancy was fake. She has changed identities twice, so no one will connect her to the Gugukdan, the Korean independence group behind the plan.

The plan is shown as it should unfold: when the cake comes out, So-ran turns a gun on Shinichi and asks whether he remembers Kyeam-ri. In that village, in April 1919, he shot her daughter and burned 23 more Joseon people alive. Philip offers to wait nearby in a car, but she refuses because of tight security. Suzuki is secretly part of the group and must stay out of it, because the Gugukdan needs his information from inside the Government-General. So-ran says it took 13 years to find Shinichi and nothing will be left for her once he is dead. If she fails, she alone will die.

A flashback to Shanghai three years earlier shows Philip held at gunpoint for asking after the Gugukdan. He explains that Koreans on a sugarcane farm in his home, Hawaii, raised 926 dollars for independence, and he has come to deliver it. At the Yoos' house, he shows So-ran its old foundation stone, which bears the name Heewon, Garden of Joy. He says he wished for many happy years there with her. She asks him to have a hanbok, traditional Korean dress, made for her to be laid to rest in, because the clothes she brought for that were lost.

Dinner at Heewon

On the day of the dinner, police search the house until they are sent outside. Shinichi arrives with Suzuki and Hideo. Hideo apologizes for carrying a gun to protect his father, and the hosts say they hope their baby grows up to be like him. Over six dishes, the conversation switches to Korean for So-ran's sake. Watching her count on her fingers, a guest remarks that she seems Joseon but counts the Chinese way. The table compares the Chinese, Joseon and Japanese methods, which Hideo learned at the Army Academy.

When someone comes to the door, So-ran answers it and finds Ga-kyung. She tracked So-ran down through a taxi driver at the station who remembered a woman in a qipao, a close-fitting Chinese dress. With a guard listening, Ga-kyung claims to be the live-in maid and quietly offers the bullets back for 60 won. So-ran plays along and lets her in. Inside, Ga-kyung threatens to scream with the Government-General's number two in the dining room. So-ran hands her the six won she has and tells her to wait for the rest. Ga-kyung says she will bring the bullets tomorrow and does not care what they are for.

So-ran tells the table she was scolding the maid for staying out late. Alone, Ga-kyung regrets not asking for more, then finds an American passport upstairs and confirms it is real. Philip asks to discuss a sensitive matter with Shinichi in private, and Shinichi sends Hideo and Suzuki out of the room.

Hideo is supposed to be kept busy in the living room, but he finds Ga-kyung instead. He remarks on how small Gyeongseong is and praises her pickpocketing, while she insists she is only the maid. When he asks what she took upstairs, she offers to undress to prove her innocence, and he apologizes. Then he mentions the princess's photo and asks for his wallet back, offering to settle things quietly.

Another caller comes to the door. Ga-kyung, on her way out, answers as the maid: a deliveryman has brought the cake Shinichi ordered from Itsukoshi. In the dining room, Philip starts to bring up President Hoover, but Shinichi leaves for the bathroom. So-ran confirms that the maid is the pickpocket who took the bullets. She says it will not matter once Shinichi is dead: she will shoot him as he walks back in and take Philip hostage. Moments later, the deliveryman orders Ga-kyung to lead him to the bathroom and warns her, "Make a sound, and you'll die first." In the hallway, Hideo stops Ga-kyung, saying they are not done talking, and she warns him in English that it is an assassination.

Up next: 100 Days of Deception Episode 2 Recap. See every episode in the 100 Days of Deception episode guide.