Voice 2 is a 2018 Korean Series that ran for 12 episodes.
It is the follow-up to smash hit 2017 drama, Voice. Kang Kwon-joo continues to head her own creation, the "Golden Time Team" of first responders, the crack squad that answers the most sensitive 112 calls (the Korean equivalent of 911). Tragedy strikes when Jang Kyung-hak, Kwon-joo's police captain, dies in a bizarre traffic incident where he plowed his van into a bunch of hikers. Violent Crimes Unit leader Na Hong-soo believes Jang took himself out in a murder-suicide, but Kwon-joo thinks there must be another culprit. Who will help Kwon-joo catch the killer?
Not Moo Jin-hyuk, her partner from the first season of Voice, who has taken his chronically ill son to the USA for treatment. This time around Kwon-joo's partner is Detective Do Kang-woo. Three years ago, a masked killer murdered Kang-woo's partner right before his eyes, but oddly left Kang-woo alive. Kang-woo is bent on finding the man who killed his partner, Na Hyung-joon...brother to Na Hong-soo of the Violent Crimes Unit. Hong-soo for his part thinks that Kang-woo killed Hong-soo, but he can't prove it.
Kang-woo hears about the strange death of Capt. Jang, and believes the MO fits that of the man who killed his partner. Cunning police work from Kang-woo and Kwon-joo proves that Capt. Jang was actually murdered, by a man who planted a remote control acceleration device into Jang's van and basically piloted him off the road to his death. The cops catch the killer, a tow-truck driver, but Kwon-joo and Kang-woo are convinced that he had a partner, the true mastermind behind the crimes. Will they catch the bad guy, who is targeting cops?
Followed by still a third Voice series, Voice 3, in 2019.
Tropes:
- Action Bomb: Episode 1 finds the Golden Time Team dealing with a deranged loon on the subway, who has a hostage and is wearing a dynamite vest.
- Audible Sharpness: In the fight between Je-soo and Kang-woo in the last episode, somehow the blade Je-soo has in his hand makes a zing noise when Je-soo is slicing through the air.
- Battle in the Rain: The first scene of the first episode shows Kang-woo on a fishing boat out at sea, tied up, in the pouring rain. He watches, bound and helpless, as the masked man kills his partner.
- Catapult Nightmare: In episode 4 Kang-woo has a nightmare in which Hong-soo is trapped in a well, calling for help. Kang-woo bolts upright in classic catapult nightmare style.
- Chalk Outline: There are outlines in tape on the road, of where the people whom Captain Jang hit with his car fell.
- Cliffhanger: Unlike season 1 which told a self-contained story, Voice 2 ends with a cliffhanger in which Kwon-joo is blown up by Bang's bomb, and with the identity of the older mystery man who's been helping Bang still unknown.
- Creepy Souvenir: In the prologue the killer chopped off Hong-soo's hand as a souvenir. In the present day, the bad guy slices off Capt. Jang's ear.
- Dead Partner: Kang-woo is haunted by the murder of his old partner Hong-Soo and is determined to catch the culprit.
- Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Kang-woo and Kwon-joo eventually deduce that the real bad guy is a mastermind who coaxes other people into committing murders of cops, then kills them and pins the blame on them.
- Dirty Cop: In the backstory, Na Hong-soo was on the take.
- Distant Prologue: The first scene shows Hyung-joon being murdered in 2015 while Kang-woo watched. Then there's a three-year Time Skip to the main story.
- Dramatic Thunder: When aspiring Internet star Ko David is creeping around an abandoned building looking for ghosts in episode 6, thunder repeatedly booms outside. Lampshaded when Ko and his partner giggle about how the thunder and lightning will make their podcast more dramatic.
- Ear Ache: Capt. Jang had his ear cut off. This is what draws Kang-woo's attention to the case, as it reminds him of his partner, who had a hand severed by the killer before he was murdered.
- Enhance Button: Korea has some awesome CCTV security cameras. Then can zoom in to show the tattoo on the arm of a man driving a tow truck.
- Every Car Is a Pinto: The tow truck that Su-bok was driving in episode 2. It careens off the road, falls maybe eight feet to the earth below, and flips over. Then it bursts into flames.
- The Faceless: As with the first season, the face of the killer is always hidden, either in shadow or away from the camera. Until the end of episode 4 where his face is finally shown, that is.
- Finger-Twitching Revival: How the old lady who was nearly strangled to death is shown to be regaining consciousness at the end of episode 5.
- Fingore: Poor Seo-yul gets his finger chopped off by Bang and his minions in episode 11. The Golden Time Team retrieves it in time for the finger to be reattached.
- Flashback: Many. One reveals that it wasn't Kang-woo who was on the take three years ago, it was Na Hong-soo. Kang-woo kept this a secret, and Na Hyung-joon still thinks that Kang-woo was the one taking bribes.
- Flipping the Table: Kang-woo does this in episode 2 when Kwon-joo says bluntly that she will not give her alibi evidence, and will in fact let him go to jail, if he doesn't join the Golden Time Team.
- Gossipy Hens: Je-soo has a loud, gossipy neighbor who says all sorts of malicious things to the other people in the building about him and his mother. That gossip gets the gossipy neighbor murdered by Je-soo.
- Incest Subtext: In all of Bang Je-soo's imaginary chats with his imaginary dead mother, she is tarted up to look like a hooker: extremely tight dress with a very short skirt and lots of cleavage, and lots of makeup to boot. Notably, in the flashbacks where we see how Je-soo's mom actually looked, she didn't dress that way at all.
- Inspired by…: The first episode starts with a disclaimer saying "This drama is a work of fiction inspired by true stories."
- The Mole: It turns out that one of the cops at headquarters is one of Je-soo's followers, and he happily murders another cop to help Je-soo escape police custody.
- Monochrome Past: Kang-woo's memories of how his own father, Hyung-sik, murdered the little girl he used to play with are presented in black and white.
- Monster Clown: Episode 3 involves a demented pedophile who dresses as a clown in order to abduct a child.
- Mummies at the Dinner Table: Episode 4 reveals that the Arc Villain is keeping his mother's desiccated corpse in the apartment, and chatting with her, Psycho-style.
- Never Suicide: The first episode finds the cops thinking that Captain Jang killed himself. No one seems to consider that his ear was cut off, but eventually Kwon-joo convinces the others that Capt. Jang was murdered.
- Put on a Bus: A voiceover from Kwon-joo in the first episode explains where the missing characters are. They're both in America: Jin-hyuk took his son for medical treatment, Hyun-ho to study. Also, Dae-sik, badly beaten by the killer at the end of the first series, is in rehab.
- "Shut Up!" Gunshot: Kang-woo does this in episode 3 when the interaction between a knife-wielding hostage taker and Kang-woo's partner gets a little too wordy.
- Split-Screen Phone Call: Used repeatedly when somebody, usually Kwon-joo, is on the phone with one of her people during an emergency call.
- String Theory: In episode 2 the cops go into Su-bok the tow truck driver's apartment and find pictures of all the Golden Time Team members on the wall, with arrows pointing from one to the other as well as notes where Su-bok vows to kill them all. Eventually Kwon-joo decides that the photos are too neatly arranged, and in fact were planted there by the true mastermind.
- Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Capt. Jang, Gold Time Team supervisor in the first series, is killed off in the first episode of the second series.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Jin-hyuk in Season 1 was a driven Cowboy Cop who swore a vow to catch the man who killed his wife. Kang-woo is a driven Cowboy Cop who swore a vow to catch the man who killed his partner.
- Translated Cover Version: In episode 3 the people in a Christian worship ceremony are singing "Nearer, My God, To Thee" with Korean lyrics.
- Where's the Kaboom?: The suicide bomber in the first episode actually tried to detonate his bomb, but the wires came loose.
