A Killer Paradox episode 2 continues following Lee's life after he murdered a man in self-defense, then later finds out his victim was a serial killer. Armed with this knowledge, something seems to have shifted inside him.
Lee is regarded as an average, even unremarkable citizen. He goes to work in a convenience store, plays video games, and lives in the shadow of his sister who is married and seems to have a perfect life.
If that isn't bad enough for him, things get worse, when a mysterious woman shows up and starts blackmailing him after he thought he got away with murder.
Elsewhere, the police are reeling from the discovery that the man Lee killed was Yeo Bu-il, a criminal who had managed to evade capture, with pressure mounting over their failure to arrest him before he was killed.
Here's what went down in A Killer Paradox episode 2...
Lee gets blackmailed
The episode begins with a dog chasing Lee, who has a hammer in his bag. He wakes up believing it to be a dream, before he goes to his parents' house and is told to go to church. Whilst he is disposing of some trash, he sees a decapitated head in the bin, but barely reacts before closing it again.
Meanwhile, Jang goes to a flower shop but the shopkeeper is busy on the phone, clearly talking about some personal matters. Jang tries to get her attention several times but she ignores him, so he puts the flowers back and leaves.
We realise he had been expected to bring flowers for his father, a former police officer who is unconscious in bed, and his mother is angry at him for not bringing flowers.
We cut to Lee’s mother noticing that he’s lost weight and fussing about him missing college classes but is interrupted by one of her friends. They enter the church, where his mother tells him to go abroad if he wants, reassuring him that she and her father won’t be a burden to him. This reflects his earlier comment in episode one where he explained he wanted to do a year working in a different country.
Back at the police station, criticisms have popped up, questioning why Bu-il wasn't caught before he died. The captain arrives and pulls Jang aside, telling him to stop fixating on "that guy". We learn he has been chasing a former cop, and has become quite obsessed with the case.
Lee gets himself a new phone and then goes to work. While there, the blind woman we saw in the alleyway arrives but delivers a bombshell. She is not completely blind and knows that Lee killed someone, and even worse, she picked up the murder weapon and took it home with her. She blackmails him and demands he pay her two million won, otherwise she's going to the police.
Unsurprisingly, this sends Lee into quite a panic. His friends at college are confused about why he's asked them all for money, and he tries to sell his new phone but has no luck. The mysterious woman is asking him for a lot of money, so his efforts to rack up enough aren't going very well.
He manages to get a salary advance from work, but since he's a minimum-wage worker, he needs more. Desperate, Lee ends up stealing house savings account details from his parents and liquidating it, hoping that will be enough to shut her up.
Leaving prints
Later on, Lee returns to work with a duffel bag full of cash. The owner tells him he saw the blind woman, and he later finds a cigarette box with a time and address to come and meet her.
Back at the station, we learn that Jang has been trying to avenge his father and he gets in trouble with the captain for pursuing the case despite repeatedly being told not to do it. After another argument, he claims he's just doing his job.
At noon the next day, Lee makes his way to the woman’s house. She makes coffee and engages in small talk but Lee is visibly nervous and just wants the whole ordeal to be over. He presents her with the cash but is shocked to learn that she meant monthly payments of two million won, and not a one-off.
Presenting the hammer, she mocks him and says she wouldn't risk becoming a murder accomplice for such a small amount of money. Despite this, Lee leaves the money with her and goes to leave with the hammer, but she cooly explains that even without the evidence, the police would be able to catch him.
Lee snaps when the woman reveals she knows everything about his family, and kills her with the hammer. He grabs his things and flees the scene, but not before leaving a bloody print on her front door.
Flashforward
We jump ahead in time, and as packages start piling up outside the woman’s front door, the delivery man checks on her, discovering her body. We learn her name was Yeo-ok. Police arrive on the scene and learn the body has been mauled due to her pet dog trying to eat her. The dog is still there, and they find him in the garden, where he has conveniently dug up some crucial evidence.
During the debrief, we learn that two skeletons were found buried in her garden. Luckily for Lee, they were not able to find any identifying prints or DNA on the property, due to the dog tampering with the crime scene and sniffing and licking everything.
However, Lee is distraught and assumes the police will come for him any minute, even trying to take his own life to make the pain stop. One of his friends comes over and tricks him into opening the door, and the two get into an argument about his recent behavior. Lee admits he was the one who stole his tablet, and his friend claims he always knew.
At the police station, they are confident that someone else was at Yeo-ok’s house on the day. But there’s no evidence to prove anyone was there. Later, the decision has been made for the dog to be put down and an officer is told to take him to the pound.
On the way to the pound, the dog sniffs around and becomes interested in the local karaoke bar, where Lee is moping in one of the rooms. Before things can escalate further, the two young boys from the first episode show up again.
They see the officer walking with the dog and decide to mess with him, with one choosing to stab him with a broken bottle. Meanwhile, Lee sees a news report about Yeo-ok and learns she murdered her own parents, so he has killed another bad person.
The two boys are still wandering the streets and decide to mess with Lee this time, which turns out to be a terrible decision for them, as the scene cuts to their bodies lying in a dumpster.
Lee wakes up at home and is horrified to see he's covered in blood, not remembering what he did. He sees a bloody brick next to his hammer, alongside a small note.
He suddenly remembers that somebody carried him home, but doesn't recall anything about them. The note tells Tang to ask for help if he needs it with a link to a telegram named Only For Heroes.
All episodes of A Killer Paradox are available to stream on Netflix.
