5 Major Players In Honey Lee’s Case Of The Week In Episodes 5-6 Of “Knight Flower”

“Knight Flower” is at its halfway mark, and we’ve got both the central mystery and the romance heating up fast! Park Soo Ho (Lee Jong Won) is pretty certain that he knows exactly who the masked vigilante do-gooder running across the city is, and he’s alternately fascinated and exasperated by her. Jo Yeo Hwa (Honey Lee) has no idea that her cover’s been blown and continues to wonder why a rather annoying officer with unforgettable abs keeps popping up wherever she is. This week’s mystery brings them together to collaborate on another case. But little do they know that the central players hold their fate in their hands.

Here are those main players:

Warning: spoilers for episodes 5-6 below.

1. The widow

Oh Nan Kyeong (Seo Yi Sook), the wife of the Minister of Finance Yeom Heung Jib (Kim Hyung Muk), has dealt with her husband’s philandering and corruption for decades, bearing it all with a patient smile. But when he strikes her for the umpteenth time, she finally loses it. The next morning, Minister Yeom is found dead, and Soo Ho is brought in to investigate. Yeo Hwa, who’s visiting with her mother-in-law Yoo Geum Ok (Kim Mi Kyung) to offer her condolences, realizes that something’s wrong when accusations of murder get thrown around.

Soo Ho also suspects foul play. There are distinctive sores in Minister Yeom’s mouth, and Soo Ho smells something floral there. Yet, the coroner rules that the attack was blunt force to the head during an assault where Minister Yeom tripped and hit his head on the edge of his trunk. Nan Kyeong is determined that no one should find out that she’s responsible, so she’s taken great pains to feign sorrow. And when a potential suspect emerges, she jumps right on it, uncaring that she’s dooming an innocent man to death. Little does she know that she’s also dooming an innocent woman.

2. The suspect

Lady Baek (Choi Yu Hwa), the widowed daughter-in-law of Geum Ok’s nemesis, the wife of the Minister of Personnel, has been touted as a paragon of virtue in the previous episodes. Poor Yeo Hwa has been held up to her in every way, which is why she’s so surprised to spot Lady Baek and a servant from Minister Yeom’s household, Yong Deok (Lee Kang Min), in an embrace. She keeps the widow’s secret but is left between a rock and a hard place when Yong Deok is accused of Minister Yeom’s murder. Nan Kyeong happily condemns the man, striking him, and accusing the ring in the man’s possession to have belonged to her late husband. In reality, it was a token of affection from Lady Baek. Yeo Hwa can’t speak up without destroying the other woman’s reputation.

Nan Kyeong’s selfishness has several consequences. Yong Deok is imprisoned, beaten within an inch of his life, and sentenced to death, and Lady Baek is locked up at home by her mother-in-law, who also recognized the ring and doesn’t want her daughter-in-law to bring shame to the family. Instead, she’d prefer to starve her until she dies. The fact that it was an acceptable practice for households to starve their widowed daughter-in-laws to death in a supposed act of piety to follow their husbands is proof of how horribly women have been treated throughout history. Determined to rescue both of them, Yeo Hwa gets involved and breaks Lady Baek out, taking her to Myungdo Inn and providing her with all she needs to start a new life. But Lady Baek refuses to leave without her lover.

Yeo Hwa can’t fathom why anyone would risk their life for a man but goes in for the rescue against Soo Ho’s orders.

3. The father-in-law

Yeo Hwa’s father-in-law Seok Ji Sang (Kim Sang Joong) has been a background player thus far. He comes off as this genial, caring old man, but the mask slipped last week when it was revealed that he was behind corrupt human trafficking merchant Kang Pil Jik (Jo Jae Yoon). It slips further this week when Ji Sang digs into the murder of Minister Yeom. It’s clear that he isn’t behind it and equally clear that he suspects Nan Kyeong, down to knowing her murder weapon. But he lets it go, prepared to send an innocent man to death to cover everything up. Which is why he’s so perturbed when Yong Deok goes missing before execution.

Soo Ho has had it with Yeo Hwa interfering with police matters and tries to keep her out of it, not due to any patriarchal nonsense but because he knows exactly how much she has to lose. If she’s caught, she’d be made a pariah, likely executed for doing good. He doesn’t want to see that happen. But Yeo Hwa doesn’t want to see Yong Deok die. Soo Ho and Yeo Hwa’s loyal maid Yeon Sun (Park Se Hyun) can’t understand why she doesn’t see that her life matters too. But Yeo Hwa’s only joy in life comes from helping others live theirs. She doesn’t see her freedom as a possibility. So off she goes in disguise to prison to give Yong Deok a laxative. A doctor’s been bribed to tell the prison guards that he has the plague once the man starts shooting out of both ends, so Yong Deok will be taken out of prison and discarded, whereupon Yeo Hwa and her crew will rescue him and get him back to his lady.

The plan is inches from failing when a guard orders Yeo Hwa to drop her veil, but Soo Ho races in to the rescue. It’s further proof in his eyes that Yeo Hwa can’t keep this up without things going wrong. So he finally gives the truth to her. He knows who she is.

4. The lackey

Yeo Hwa flees before the conversation can get too personal but asks him to meet her at the Myungdo Inn the next night. She’s up all night pondering what to do such that this man doesn’t reveal her identity. She’s unaware that she’s already made a terrible enemy in Kang Pil Jik. He’s no mere merchant. The man is Ji Sang’s lackey and Nan Kyeong’s half-brother from her mother’s affair with a servant.

Both Ji Sang and Nan Kyeong use him for their dirty work, and both treat him like garbage. Not only is he not a fan of Yeo Hwa, he was also the man tasked with murdering her brother Cho Sung Hoo (Park Sung Woo). The show hadn’t revealed whether or not he succeeded, but Ji Sang certainly seems to think so. Yeo Hwa has no clue and even thanks Ji Sang for keeping her in his household for 15 years. That’s going to be one bitter realization.

5. The king

King Yi So (Heo Jung Do) pretends to be an idiot everyday so that Ji Sang doesn’t know he suspects him for his father’s murder. He’s been trying to find evidence of it for 15 years along with his only friend, Soo Ho’s brother Yoon Hak (Lee Ki Woo). Upon Soo Ho’s discovery that the method used to kill Minister Yeom was poison via a dissolvable flower petal (which was found in the scrollbar of the tiger painting the minister prized so much), the king’s on alert. His father was killed the same way, down to the sores in his mouth. And one of the only possible witnesses is Cho Sung Hoon, Yeo Hwa’s brother. Unaware of the royal conspiracy woven around her family 15 years ago, Yeo Hwa focuses on her problem: Soo Ho. She meets with him face to face. She debates on murdering herself, murdering him, and finally settles for the truth and shows him her face. And that’s where we end this week!

This show’s been weaving a tight story thus far, so things are probably going to pick up in earnest with all our major players now in the open. Yeo Hwa continues to show incredible compassion, even telling Nan Kyeong that she understands if her husband’s death isn’t something she mourns. But she’s kept all her hope for others and none for herself. Let’s hope Soo Ho and Se Ryun can change that! Next week shows the arrival of a mysterious man who may or may not be Yeo Hwa’s supposedly dead husband. Let’s hope it isn’t! Soo Ho’s barely gotten started, and Yeo Hwa deserves better than a man who’s pretended to be dead for a decade.

 

cr: Soompi