5 Explosive Moments In Episodes 15-16 Of "Military Prosecutor Doberman" That Bring Us To A Close

The end is here, and “Military Prosecutor Doberman” makes sure that it’s a bang. After 14 episodes of revenge, betrayal, and plots within plots, we’re finally left with only a few bad guys standing against Cha Woo In (Jo Bo Ah) and Do Bae Man (Ahn Bo Hyun). Unlike the very serious pair of episodes we had last week, the show takes a turn for the comedic as everything starts to slot into place. Help comes from an unlikely quarter as they attempt the herculean task of taking down more than one villain in one shot. Do they succeed? Read on to find out!

Warning: spoilers for episodes 15-16 below.

1. Yong Moon Goo is finally forced to stop quoting “The Godfather”

Ever met someone who watches a show or movie and makes that their whole personality? Well, that’s Yong Moon Goo (Kim Young Min) and “The Godfather.” He’s used the line “an offer you can’t refuse” to Bae Man, to Kang Ha Joon (Kang Young Seok), to Woo In; it’s quite tiring really. He should switch things up.

So, it’s all the more satisfying when Bae Man offers the corrupt prosecutor lady working with Moon Goo a choice: take Moon Goo down and Bae Man won’t mention her role in his ascension, but stick with him and he’ll give the massive dossier he has on Moon Goo to another prosecutor and cut them both down. Like any self-interested person, she accepts the deal. Moon Goo schemes with Ha Joon to call a shareholders’ meeting to vote him in as Chairman and kick out Noh Hwa Young (Oh Yeon Soo). He’s so excited about this he goes over to rub it in her face. It’s surprising that she doesn’t shoot him then and there. Instead, it’s Bae Man who has the last laugh by waiting until Moon Goo is this close to eating his birthday cake, then having the prosecutor lady come in to smash it in his face. Don’t you love it when bad guys take each other down?

Just like that Moon Goo goes from almost-CEO to being voted out of the company altogether. He seethes, knowing that Bae Man couldn’t have done it without inside information. And he’s right. Because Ha Joon’s been playing him from the beginning.

2. Ha Joon’s deception, which didn’t really need to be a big secret

This show really waited until the last possible minute to give us this one, didn’t it? At first it seemed that Ha Joon was playing double agent, but when he went as far as to hurt Woo In by returning the watch, it truly seemed that he’d gone past the point of no return. But, of course, he didn’t. Turns out that he’s been plotting to return IM Defense to Woo In all along.

Bae Man figured it out almost instantly apparently, and the two “reluctantly” join forces to take Moon Goo down. They insist they aren’t friends, but it’s clear that they’re starting to respect each other. This friendship would have been really nice to see earlier. When Moon Goo puts two and two together, he has his sketchy gangster crew kidnap Bae Man and Ha Joon and proceed to beat the stuffing out of them before demanding where the Patriotic Society’s X File is. Bae Man and Ha Joon crack up as they inform Moon Goo that they actually made it up (we know this is a lie, but the two are pretty convincing with how hard they’re laughing).

Right when Moon Goo’s about to add murder to his list of crimes, a very irritated Woo In shows up to beat the daylights out of everyone and drag the two sheepish men home where they confess everything. The thing is, this plan didn’t actually have to be kept secret. Nothing changed once Bae Man knew of it. If anything that made it easier for Ha Joon to execute everything. Just how would Woo In’s knowledge of the whole thing have jeopardized it? We didn’t see Moon Goo spying on Woo In crying or anything of the sort, and Woo In would definitely have given the performance of her life if she’d suspected any spying, so why hurt the poor girl? No wonder she punches them; they deserve it.

With our trio back together, there’s one more character set to pull the rug from under our feet. And he does so in the most dramatic of ways.

3. Noh Tae Nam does a full 180

Color me surprised, but Tae Nam’s actually been reflecting? And writing letters to his victims? It would have been nice to see this change more gradually because he was hateful in the initial episodes, so it’s hard to find this convincing. But he seems to actually have grown as a person. In that sense, time away from his rich, privileged bubble has been good for him. Tae Nam is aghast that his conniving mother plans to use his PTSD to discredit his court testimony (it’s always funny when the bad guys turn good and forget all the tricks they used when they were bad). There are too many people willing to cover for Hwa Young, including her aide. So, in a classic case of redemption-by-death, Tae Nam hands over the X-File (which he’s kept for years to protect his mother) to Bae Man and heads off to blow himself and Hwa Young up. And for poetic justice, he’ll do it in the same warehouse where she traumatized him years ago.

Bae Man arrives too late to stop the explosion but manages to shield Tae Nam from the worst of the blast, leaving him critically injured as opposed to dead (I feel like grenades really don’t work this way). Hwa Young looks shell-shocked, but as usual, it’s hard to tell where self-interest ends and maternal feelings begin with this one. Right when she seems ready to put it all behind her, the dominoes of her empire start to crumble because really everyone hates her at this point.

4. Everyone hates Hwa Young

At this point, there isn’t even much left for Bae Man and Woo In to do. Hwa Young’s son is in the ICU; Yong Moon Goo is living out of a van looking for a way to destroy her; her aide is turning squeamish; her powerful backing is in prison and our duo has the X File; it’s game over, and she doesn’t know it. Moon Goo has the doctor from the Mine Hero case secreted away, who ends up being the lynchpin that allow our duo to arrest Hwa Young. She cooperates with the investigation about as well as you might expect, still somehow convinced that she isn’t going down.

But she sure does. Even her righthand aide jumps ship when she hears Hwa Young dismissing her as a lackey. The once-mighty Hwa Young tries to argue that everything she’s done has been for the military, to boost the might of their nation (and how does owning a ton of shares in IM Defense factor in with that, lady?). It’s a poor rationale, and we never really get a reason for why Hwa Young set off on this path or her determination to rise above all men in the military. Even her mention to Woo In that they could have had a different relationship turns out to be a lie; Hwa Young was just messing with her. It’s actually quite confusing. Why did Woo In’s dad take a picture with her and sign it wishing her peace? We’ll never know. She gets the highest punishment in the military – the death penalty – and still walks out of court with her head held high.

5. The good guys have to pay too?

One year later, Hwa Young refuses visits from Tae Nam in jail (wait, she isn’t dead yet? Is Private Pyun (Kim Yo Han) still alive too?) and reads his letters with an expression that could really mean anything. Tae Nam lets Bae Man adopt Bolt, while sobbing inside, as penance and to teach himself some maturity apparently. He works at a dog shelter now and seems like a much humbled person. Meanwhile, Moon Goo wearily watches Minister Lee Jae Shik (Nam Kyung Eup) and his lackey slap each other in court and wonders why he had to partner with a bunch of idiots.

And Ha Joon goes to jail for a year. Why? He was undercover the whole time after all, and he reaped no benefit from the whole partnership with Moon Goo, so why did he have to pay for crimes he never committed? Should undercover officers be sent to jail now too? This is bewildering. And he isn’t the only one who has to pay for being good. Woo In resigns as a prosecutor, admitting to her vigilante work under her red-haired alias. What? Only Bae Man, who is 100 percent the most corrupt of the trio and who committed actual crimes for five whole years, reaping a ton of benefits, gets off free. If anyone should be paying, it’s him! That’s such a bad note on which to end his character arc because it says that he saw Woo In and Ha Joon reflecting and going to jail (even though they really didn’t need to), and he decided that he was above it all? It’s very strange.

At any rate, Ha Joon leaves jail in time to meet Woo In at the airport. She’s coming back from wherever she’s been for a year, and he’s going off to the U.S. to build something new and get over his heartbreak, poor thing. She returns his watch and hugs him, calling him her best friend. And she looks so cute doing it that he’s clearly smitten all over again. Here’s hoping Ha Joon finds love. Meanwhile, Woo In, who is now CEO of IM Defense, returns to the military base where Bae Man is stationed and steals Moon Goo’s line to make him an offer he can’t refuse. Smiling, he pulls her close, and we’re deprived of an actual kiss scene but Ahn Bo Hyun does a great job of making us think they’re going at it by the speed of that neck grab, whew. 

And with that, “Military Prosecutor Doberman” draws to a close. This show wasn’t as gritty as “D.P” and ran into the problem of “too many villains, not enough time,” so it felt a little rushed to the end. The earlier bad guys required two episodes to take down while the rest, even big bad Minister Lee Jae Shik, was sent off as an addendum. Still, it never dragged, and Jo Bo Ah absolutely nailed this role, down to doing her own stunts. Hopefully we’ll see her in more stuff like it. Perhaps opposite Lee Joon Gi? A girl can dream!

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Shalini_A is a long time Asian-drama addict. When not watching dramas, she works as a lawyer, fangirls over Ji Sung, and attempts to finish up the greatest fantasy romance of all time. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and feel free to ask her anything!

Currently Watching:  “Military Prosecutor Doberman,” “Crazy Love,” “From Now On, Showtime!” “Again My Life,” and “Sh**ting Stars.”
Looking Forward to: “Adamas,” “Why Her?,” “Link,” “Island,” “Insider,” “Tomorrow,” “Little Women,” “The Sound of Magic,” “Big Mouth,” “Chaebol’s Youngest Son,” “Carter,” “Queen of the Scene,” and “Black Knight.”