Death's Game (2023) K Drama Episode 2

Episode 2 starts with a glimpse of a crime scene and a mystery about an identified woman. Yee-jae’s passport photo is on the ground near the woman’s purse. The scene then goes to his meeting with Death after his second life ended painfully. Death is armed and ready to send him to his third life, but Yee-jae pleads for her help in understanding the situation.

Death has told him that he could survive if he tried, but he wakes up in situations in which he cannot avoid Death. Death reminds him that he is under punishment because he sinned. In addition, she tells him that he needs to figure out his sin, or he will not be able to avoid hell even after surviving in one of the bodies.

He starts to whine about wanting to die again, but Death is not hearing any of it. She shoots him, sending him to his third life. 

Yee-jae wakes up in the body of a high school student, Kwon Hyeok-su. Hyeok-su’s experiences are similar to Yee-jae’s as they both lost their fathers at the age of five and were raised by a single mom. Yee-jae takes over Hyeok-su’s body on his way to commit suicide to escape the bullies, making his life at school a living hell.

Yee-jae thinks he finally has a chance to survive since he will not repeat the same mistake and take his own life. Soon after, school bully Lee Jin-sang comes at him, making him experience Hyeok-su’s miserable school life. However, Yee-jae is unwilling to let him get away with it, and he plunges after him, knocking him down with a chair.

Jin-sang’s crewmember comes to his rescue, but Yee-jae quickly subdues both. He almost wins the fight, but a stronger opponent, Na Tae-seok, overpowers him, and he is almost beaten to a pulp but is saved by the teacher’s appearance. The beating starts again after school, and Park Min-ji arrives in time to stop Jin-sang and his crew. 

Later, Yee-jae arrives at Hyeok-su’s home, and the uncanny resemblance to the house he grew up in with his mother’s note on the wall suddenly takes him back to his life as a high school student. While sharing a meal with Hyeok-su’s mother, Yee-jae gets a flashback to life with his mother and is filled with regret and sadness. He almost calls his mother, but Jin-sang’s message reminds him to focus on the current problem. 

He goes to school the next day, planning to bring Na Tae-seok into his fold. He is much stronger than Jin-sang, but he lets Jin-sang boss him around. He follows Tae-seok to the restroom, and using his understanding of Tae-seok’s mind as a teenager, he gets him to spill on why Jin-sang, a wimp, is the boss around the school.

Tae-seok opens up and tells him that Jin-sang is protected by the real boss in that area, his superior,  Kim Seong-hyeop. 

During lunchtime, Yee-jae puts his plan into motion. He had previously warned Tae-seok not to interfere no matter what he did to Jing-sang. Yee-jae’s goal is to draw out Jin-sang’s superior.

When Jing-sang almost knocks him into his food over lunch, Yee-jae bravely pours it over his head and runs off after taunting him. Jin-sang orders Tae-seok to run after him, but he declines and asks Han Jun-sang not to either. Jin-sang is humiliated in front of a hall full of students and runs out crying. He then approaches his superior, Seong-hyeop, and asks him to teach Hyeok-su a lesson. 

Kim Seong-hyeop and his crew march to the classroom to confront the one who dares disrespect their clique member. Meanwhile, Hyeok-su is unbothered and happily reading a webtoon. Seong-hyeop violently enters the room, knocking over people and furniture in his way. He assumes Tae-seok is at fault, but Jin-sang enthusiastically points at Hyeok-su. #

When Seong-hyeop calls him, Yee-jae puts on his most innocent wimp face, making Seong-hyeop and his friends embarrassed to be associated with Jin-sang, a coward who cannot deal with one little wimp. 

Yee-jae understood that people like Seong-hyeop would easily dissociate themselves from people to cramp their style. Therefore, when Jin-sang asks his superior’s help to handle him, he loses the privilege of being Seong-hyeop’s friend. Once that privilege is removed, Jin-sang will become a nobody, and no one will dare bully Hyeok-su again. Yee-jae feels that the threat to his life as Hyeok-su is over, and he starts building more muscle and working towards getting a job and money.

While on his run, Jin-sang comes to him, blaming him for how his life had turned out. Yee-jae reminds him that he gave him no choice but to fight back and treats Jin-sang as he had treated Hyeok-su, calling him a moron. Jin-sang thinks back to how many times people have called him a moron recently.

As Hyeok-su walks home relaxed and ready to start over, he narrowly misses Death by getting run over by a truck driver, only to die in the hands of Jin-sang as he bashes his head in with a stone. 

Yee-jae meets his nemesis, Death, in the familiar dark room outside hell’s gates. He starts complaining about Death lying and rigging the game when she sees that Yee-jae is about to win. His sentiments anger Death, and he gets a beating and a warning never to try and accuse Death of lying and never to take his life while in punishment. She tells him that the choices he made led to Hyeok-su’s Death.

Yee-jae tries to reason with Death to put him in a body where surviving will not be as hard, but Death tells him that the pain has just begun. The upcoming deaths will be more painful, and it will be extremely hard to survive. 

In the next body, Yee-jae is a hostage under interrogation. His new body is a 35-year-old fixer, Lee Ju-hun. He is part of a secret organization in the criminal world with clients all over the world. Their job description is to fix their client’s problems using any means necessary, which includes murder.

His current predicament is that he stole money from his boss to save a woman, Kim Eun-jae. However, he is caught on his way to get the woman after safely hiding the money. Now possessing Lee Ju-hun’s abilities and memories, Yee-jae successfully fights out of the situation. 

Lee Ju-hun lives a dangerous life, and Yee-jae almost decides not to choose to live his life until he remembers Death’s warning about taking his own life. He decides to take the risk and live dangerously and hopes that with Lee Ju-hun’s abilities, he might survive Death’s game.

He successfully jumps off the moving trailer with a motorcycle and, for a moment, starts appreciating his new life given Ju-hun’s motorcycle riding abilities.

One of the people who survives in the trailer calls their superior to inform him of Ju0hun’s escape, and suddenly, a team of professional trackers starts to dig out his location on the numerous CCTV cameras.

His location is sent to hunters all over the network, and with a two billion reward, everyone is after him, like a scene from a John Wick movie. 

The Episode Review

This episode proves that viewers should throw any theories they might be formulating out the window and bask in the joy of experiencing the twists and turns the plot will provide.

When you think that Yee-jae has finally made the right decision, Death reminds him that surviving will not be as easy. He helped Hyeok-su deal with his bully, and one would think he did a good thing only to get Hyeok-su killed soon after.

The series is dishing out lessons about life choices, and Yee-jae has yet to make the right one. Is he responsible for the deaths of the people whose bodies he takes over? Lee Ju-hun’s life is so impressive and enjoyable to watch.

His fighting and motorcycle skills are mesmerising. Will Yee-jae finally manage to survive? If not, how will his life as Lee Ju-hun end?