Contrary to what one might think, blood, gore, and shock-value are not all it takes to make a crime drama good. Just like the perfect crime, it takes time, dedication, patience, and at least a little reverence. Two episodes and a trial in, Blind is not shaping up to be a good crime drama – between sluggish pacing, overused tropes, and a haphazard plot, it feels like you’ve watched everything and nothing at once.
We open on a dark night (a typically ominous setting – check). A deranged killer, who stays mysterious save for a dreadful whistling that announces his presence (a villian who turns innocuous habits into a chilling calling card – check) brutally hunts down a group of kids who were trying to escape the ironically named Hope Welfare Center.
Fast forward 20 years and another young girl is found dead, bound and stuffed inside a bag in a local garbage dump. Detective Ryu Sung-joon (2PM’s Taecyeon, who starred in Vincenzo) sets out to bring her killer to justice, but finds he may have stumbled upon something far bigger and more malicious. Entangled in this shadowy game are social worker Jo Eun-gi (Apink’s Jung Eun-ji) and Sung-joon’s uptight and idealistic elder brother, judge Ryu Sung-hoon (Ha Seok-jin).
Yet more familiar tropes lie ahead. The young and driven Sung-joon is harbouring a dark secret, which we glimpse in his trigger-happy tendencies. Don’t wonder how a man with obvious anger issues and a chequered record could possibly have made it onto the police force. Instead, focus on his eccentricities – he squeezes himself into bags to empathise with the victim, and holds a colleague at knife-point as he imagines the killer slashing his prey. He’s playing a familiar archetype – the genius with dangerously ambiguous morals – but Taecyeon makes the most of it. He takes time for to get comfortable as Sung-joon, and is guilty of laying it thick, but balances those moments well with subtler beats.
Taecyeon has always been a powerhouse on his own, but he performs best when there’s someone to play off. Here, it’s Ha’s Ryu Sung-hoon, who is his antithesis but also the person whose approval matters most to Sung-joon. Where Sung-joon is a little rough around the edges, Sung-hoon is prim, proper, and committed to a fault. While the difference between the two brothers is obvious, it also emphasises a complex dynamic between the two. Sung-hoon’s uncompromising nature often puts Sung-joon at a disadvantage, but there seems to be a deeper reason why the elder brother always keeps the younger one at arms’ length.
So far, the brothers dominate screentime in Blind, at the expense of Jung’s Jo Eun-gi, the caring, headstrong social worker. So far, she’s still a plot device, which is frustrating as Blind spends an inordinate amount of time drawing out points and scenes – 15 minutes of the pilot elapse before we see our protagonist for the first time. Worse than the draggy pacing, though, are the poorly executed plot twists. A victim’s father, a potential suspect, when he’d suspiciously brushed off his wife’s concerns and ushered her away from the detective with a flimsy excuse? What a surprise.
Blind isn’t set up for success in the crowded landscape of Korean TV because it can’t even meet some of the most basic expectations of crime dramas. More patient viewers may stick around hoping for more thrills and spills – but we’d like to get off here, thanks.
Blind is now showing on Fridays and Saturdays at 22.40 KST on tvN and Viu.