Line #5 Series/BeyondEvil


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/beyond_evil.jpg]]
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3	''Beyond Evil'' (괴물, ''Goemul'', literally "Monster") is a 2021 South Korean thriller series starring Shin Ha-kyung and Yeo Jin-goo.
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5	Twenty years ago, in the year 2000, Lee Dong-sik's sister Yu-yeon disappeared, as did Bang Ju-seon, another young woman who was an acquaintance of Dong-sik. Dong-sik is suspected of both crimes and briefly arrested, but when no evidence turns up (in fact, neither body is found), he is released.
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7	Cut forward 20 years. Dong-sik is still in his hometown of Munju, working as a police detective. He is still haunted by his sister's disappearance. Enter Han Ju-won, a bright young cop some two decades younger than Dong-sik. Ju-won is the son of Han Gi-hwan, a senior police officer who may soon become chief of all police in Korea, but Ju-won wants to prove himself as his own man. He believes that a SerialKiller has been operating in Munju, that Yu-yeon was one of the victims, and that Dong-sik might actually be the killer.
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10	!!Contains examples of:
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12	* AccidentalMurder: [[spoiler: Jeong-je ''thinks'' he's guilty of this because he accidentally knocked down Yu-yeon. But although he injured her, she was actually killed by Gi-hwan.]]
13	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Yu-yeon, Min-jeong, and several other women are dead]], but their killers have been brought to justice.
14	* BoundAndGagged: The killer ties up Min-jeong and gags her with duct tape before cutting off her fingers.
15	* BuriedAlive: If Min-jeong's death weren't terrifying enough, the autopsy reveals that she was ''still alive'' when her father buried her in the backyard. Dong-sik is particularly upset, since he was on the scene very soon after the murder, and he realizes that Min-jeong was probably drawing her last breaths underground while he was frantically searching the courtyard no more than a foot above her.
16	* ComfortingComforter: Dong-sik, who regards Min-jeong as a surrogate daughter, puts a blanket over her in episode 2 when she's sleeping off a night of drinking at the police station.
17	* CouldntFindAPen: Before hanging himself in his cell, Jin-muk manages to tear off one of his own fingertips and write "Dong-sik, I did not kill Yu-yeon" on the walls in blood.
18	* DirtyCop:
19	** Gi-hwan, Ju-won's father, is willing to close a murder case quickly, which would ensure the victim is never identified and the murderer never caught, to prevent the possibility of Ju-won becoming a suspect. [[spoiler: He also killed Yu-yeon by driving recklessly and has kept quiet about it for years.]]
20	** Sang-yeob suggests planting evidence, to Dong-sik's disgust.
21	* DisappearedDad: Dong-sik's dad died before the series starts.
22	* DistantFinale: The last scene skips forward a year as everyone meets for a memorial dinner to Chief Nam. Ju-won has been transferred, and he's also getting past his germaphobe ways. Dong-sik has recently been released from prison.
23	* DistantPrologue: Apart from a brief scene set in the present, the prologue takes place in 2000.
24	* DramaticDrop: Jung-je drops his glass, which shatters, after his mother Councilwoman Do disowns him in episode 15.
25	** Gi-hwan dramatically drops his TV remote in the last episode as he watches the news report about how he's going to be arrested for murder. This is followed by a GlassesPull as the news hits home.
26	* DrivesLikeCrazy:
27	** Ju-won speeds away as soon as the light turns green, barely giving Dong-sik time to get out of the way.
28	** Dong-sik reverses and turns very fast, to Ju-won's alarm.
29	** Jeong-je got drunk and [[spoiler: accidentally ran over Yu-yeon]].
30	** Gi-hwan's terrible driving [[spoiler: killed Yu-yeon]].
31	* {{Egging}}: Jae-yi pelts Ju-won with eggs in episode 4. She blames him for both persecuting an innocent man, Dong-sik, and bringing shame to her by ordering a search of the butcher shop.
32	* FinallyFoundTheBody: Yu-yeon's body is missing for twenty years before it's found, walled up in the basement of Dong-sik's own house.
33	* {{Fingore}}: The killer cuts off his victims' fingers.
34	* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: The dynamic shown in the flashback to 2000 between Dong-sik and his sister Yu-yeon. Yu-yeon is a devout Catholic, hard worker, makes good grades, plays the piano at her grandfather's memorial service. Dong-sik is a goof-off who plays guitar and does not even bother to go to the memorial service.
35	* GratuitousEnglish: Jung-je starts throwing English phrases at Dong-sik when Dong-sik comes to see him in episode 7. After Dong-sik lampshades this, Jung-je sighs and admits that pretending to know how to speak English was a strain.
36	* HandshakeRefusal: Part of Ju-won's HatesBeingTouched deal. Several times in the first episode he refuses handshakes, annoying the people he is meeting.
37	* HatesBeingTouched [=/=] TerrifiedOfGerms: Ju-won dislikes physical contact and insists on wiping the interior of Dong-sik's car.
38	* HowWeGotHere: The first episode opens with the cops finding a body in the marsh. This is followed by a flashback to 20 years ago filling in the backstory of the characters, then a jump to the present day that shows Dong-sik as a policeman, then a scene showing the cops trying to retrieve an old man with dementia who wandered off...which is when they went into the marsh and found a body.
39	* IHaveNoSon: Councilwoman Do to Jung-je in episode 15. She basically tells him that she's sick of him, that she never wanted to be a mom in the first place and she's tired of it, and as of that point she's disowning him.
40	* LastSecondWordSwap: A police officer is about to say that people around Ju-won ask him for favours because his father is expected to be the next commissioner. Then he realises that's tactless to say in front of Ju-won, so he ends his sentence with "His father is still alive" instead.
41	* MamasBabyPapasMaybe: It turns out Jin-muk's wife Mi-hye was a prostitute and it's not at all certain that Min-jung is his daughter. When Min-jung throws this in his face, Jin-muk murders her. Afterwards Dong-sik taunts Jin-muk with a DNA report that proves that in fact, Jin-muk wasn't Min-jung's father.
42	* MyGreatestFailure: Ju-won strong-armed a Chinese immigrant prostitute into being the bait in a sting operation, by threatening to have her deported. She is murdered. Ju-won is tortured by guilt.
43	* NightmareFace: Lee Dong-sik gives a ''terrifying'' one to end the first episode, staring straight at the camera and smiling gruesomely.
44	* NotMeThisTime: [[spoiler: Jin-muk killed many women... but not Yu-yeon. It was actually ''Gi-hwan'' who killed Yu-yeon.]]
45	* ObfuscatingDisability: Jin-muk affects a slow, shuffling walk as part of his supposed disability. Episode 6 reveals that he actually is perfectly mobile and in fact can run fast.
46	** There's a particularly chilling CallBack to this in the last episode. Jin-muk, in a 2000 flashback, is blackmailing Councilwoman Do about the guitar pick. He then drops the stutter and the palsied arm and starts talking normally as he observes that everyone thinks a shy, meek person with a stutter must be honest. Then he goes back to using the stutter, as a horrified Do realizes that he is the killer.
47	* OffingTheOffspring: [[spoiler: Jin-muk]] killed his daughter Min-jeong.
48	* OldCopYoungCop: Dong-sik, a veteran of the police force, and Ju-won, a young cop who is looking to prove himself as something other than his father's son, investigate a serial murder case.
49	* OutlivingOnesOffspring: Dong-sik and Yu-yeon's mother outlives Yu-yeon.
50	* PleaseWakeUp: Dong-sik runs down a pier at the waterfront only to find that he and Ju-won were too late, and Inspector Nam is dead, having been murdered by the bad guy. Ju-won can't process this, yelling "Get up!" at the corpse.
51	* SarcasticClapping: Dong-sik does this in episode 12 when he and Ju-won see a TV news report announcing that Ju-won's father has been nominated to be chief of all Korean police.
52	* SerialKiller: [[spoiler: Jin-muk]] abducts and murders at least seven women, including [[OffingTheOffspring his own daughter]].
53	* StringTheory: Ju-won, investigating the serial murder case, has the typical wall display, with pictures of various people and notes and strings connecting them.
54	* WeCanRuleTogether: In episode 13, Gi-hwan has finally realized the threat that Dong-sik poses to him. He responds by summoning Dong-sik for a meeting and offering him a plum job in Seoul as a senior InternalAffairs guy rooting out corrupt cops. Dong-sik accepts--with every intention of using the job to take Gi-hwan down.
55	* WhamLine:
56	** "Lee Dong-sik was involved in the murder of Bang Ju-seon and the abduction of Lee Yu-yeon. [[spoiler: He was the suspect.]]"
57	** Ju-won, about the murder victim: "You think I did it? In some way, I did. I used her as bait."
58	* WhamShot: The end of episode nine reveals [[spoiler: Ju-won planted evidence in Inspector Nam's safe]].
59	* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The epilogue shows Ju-won visiting Yu-yeon's grave and reveals he now works in a juvenile centre.

Context Series / BeyondEvil