Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 4 Synopsis

Episode 4: A detective’s pride and the bonds of a father and daughter

At night at Roppongi Police Precinct, a girl waits in one corner. Osugi shows up in front of her with a grim expression. The girl is Megumi, Osugi’s only daughter. She is living with his wife Keiko whom he is currently separated from. Osugi loudly rebukes her for staying out late while Megumi is hostile towards him and lays bare her revulsion. The relationship between father and daughter is strained. Miki appears before the quarrelling pair as they emerge from the police precinct, and tells Osugi that she has a message from Kuraki.

Nakagami, who has succeeded in his attack on Kuraki, gets praised by Higashi. Next, he triumphantly swings into action to capture Shingai alive.

On the other hand, Kuraki has been hospitalised with injuries all over his body. Osugi turns up at his hospital room in accordance to the message passed by Miki. Kuraki tells him about Miki’s connection with Assistant Commissioner Tsuki, the Special Inspector General of the National Police Agency’s Police Administration Bureau. Sharing his suspicion that they are being used as pawns in the investigation, Kuraki points out that she has been made to give out information to them a little at a time, possibly to control their movements. Tsuki’s job to investigate misconduct and crime within the police and cover things up. So the fact that he is at work means there may be some big conspiracy behind the bombing. But Osugi’s immediate reaction is skepticism to what he dismisses as suspicions typical of Public Security. He also refuses Kuraki’s request for him to find out the relationship between Miki and Tsuki while Kuraki is out of action. Just as Osugi is about to stalk off, Kuraki, who has already lost his family, warns him that if he continues with the investigation, his own family could become a victim. “If you want to withdraw, now is the time to do so,” he advises. Osugi is lost for words.

After a task force meeting, Osugi approaches Wakamatsu to ask what happened to the evidence discovered in Shingai’s apartment. Wakamatsu curtly informs him that Public Security is scrutinising it. Not to be deterred, Osugi requests to have the names of the men who are carrying this out so that he can confirm it with them because he believes they are deliberately holding up an investigation that has to be solved. Wakamatsu snidely calls Osugi a silly police officer who cannot tell the difference between a friend and a foe, and uses his position as the commanding officer in charge of the investigation to drop Osugi from the task force.

Miki is accosted in the female toilet by an irate Osugi who insinuates that Tsuki got him out of the task force the moment Shingai’s evidence was handed over to the top brass. She tries hard to hide her amusement as she tells him that Tsuki has no time for him.

At that moment, Osugi receives a phone call informing him that Megumi has been caught shoplifting. He rushes over to the shop to apologise and settle the matter. Megumi tells him that she is innocent, but he does not believe her. Outside the shop, Keiko speaks up in their daughter’s defence. He snaps at her to shut up. Frustrated to see her parents quarrelling, Megumi blames herself for everything including the bad blood between her father and mother, and apologises. Osugi warns that she cannot expect to get off the hook just by saying sorry. So Megumi asks if she will be forgiven if she commits suicide like Yuka-chan’s mother did. She maintains her innocence, claiming that someone planted the item in her bag. But Osugi thinks she is lying. Megumi who cannot understand how can he make an assumption when he did not see anything. Pointing out that this was also the case with Yuka-chan’s mother, she yells that she hates police officers and her father. Osugi stares helplessly as Megumi glares up at him, shaking with anger. Keiko steps in to tell him to go.

That night, a journalist for a gossip magazine appears in front of Osugi as he makes his way home alone. Having got wind of the commotion over the shoplifting in the daytime, the journalist offers a deal to keep this under wraps in exchange for a recording of remarks made by Kuraki who has gone to extremes in investigating the bomb explosion. This raises the suspicions of Osugi who demands to know if it was a police official who told him about that. The journalist merely asks how Megumi would react if the article on her is published and leaves Osugi with a voice recorder and his name card.

Meanwhile, Kuraki wakes up from a nightmare with a start and notices for the first time that someone is standing by his bedside in the hospital room. It is Nakagami who greets him by pointing the blade of a dagger to his throat. He sits beside the bed peeling an apple as if it is the most natural thing to do with the man he deliberately injured. Kuraki asks if Nakagami has come to kill him, but Nakagami calls it a terrible thing to say. He has come for a taste of the loser. This prompts Kuraki to label him crazy. Nakagami lets the dagger lodge in the wall close to Kuraki’s head.

The next morning, Kuraki gets himself discharged and finds Osugi waiting in the car park outside the hospital. He is offered a ride home which makes him wonder what Osugi wants. Although Osugi claims to want nothing, he has turned the voice recorder on. As Osugi drives, he asks why Kuraki is investigating so recklessly. Kuraki says he will do anything in order to find out why his wife got caught up in the bomb explosion. Then he asks about Osugi’s hatred for Public Security. Osugi recounts his involvement in the case of a banker’s wife who starved her 3-year-old daughter to death two years ago. However, this was sensationalised by the mass media. In truth, the dead daughter had anorexia and would reject food no matter how hard the mother tried to feed her. One day, she quietly passed away after her exhausted mother had fallen asleep.

The sister of the dead girl turned out to be Megumi’s good friend, and Osugi found himself stuck with interrogating the mother. That was the time Megumi started to change and become defiant. She told him that the mother was not the kind of person who would kill her own child. However, he paid no attention because he had seen documents from Public Security that the mother had joined a religious group for a time. He also accepted things he was told about the group such as its dangerous ideology and stance on natural death without questioning. The blow came when the mother committed suicide during the period of interrogation. His daughter called him a murderer and would no longer open up to him. Osugi says after the incident, he looked for the Public Security officers who provided him with the information, but Public Security systematically covered this up. This is what he hates most about Public Security. Kuraki simply says that he envies him because both his wife and daughter are still alive. He asks Osugi again what he wants. This time, Osugi claims that he talked too much and cannot remember. After dropping Kuraki off, he dismantles the voice recorder and hurls it away.

On another day, Kuraki and Osugi are invited to a meal at a traditional Japanese restaurant by Miki. An impatient Osugi interrupts the pleasantries and tells her to come right out and say what she wants to. Miki suddenly confesses that she told Kuraki a grave lie. Shingai is actually not the professional killer she made him out to be. He only takes on the assignments but lets his sister Hiromi execute the killings. However, Higashi and his men think Shingai does it himself. Miki explains that her team changed their surveillance target to Hiromi once they realised Shingai was not making much of a move. Hiromi carried out at least two killings while she was being followed by them. In both instances, she stabbed her victims in the back of the neck with a sharp object in the midst of a crowd before anyone realised it. Kuraki immediately catches on that Hiromi was the one keeping watch on Kakei on the day of the bombing. Miki confirms this and tells them Hiromi has been missing since the bomb explosion.

Osugi calls Miki a spy sent in by Tsuki which then makes it extremely likely that he and Kuraki are being used as pawns. He is certain that he is right on the mark this time. The affirmative reply unexpectedly comes from someone just outside the room. The sliding door opens to reveal a middle-aged man who introduces himself as Tsuki.

Tsuki explains that he talked to Miki about the situation after keeping an eye on it a few months ago and she became his subordinate, or spy depending on how they see it. When Kuraki asks what he is up to, he smiles and gives a vague reply of various things. Turning the conversation to the bombing, he proposes an alliance to solve the case and concedes that his side neither knows who planted the bomb on Kakei nor the mystery woman. Kuraki agrees to join hands in the investigation if Tsuki will tell him who is backing Higashi and his men. Tsuki discloses that it is the police. Public Security, to be precise. Now that they know this, they should understand why they have to work together against their adversary.

The next day, Osugi picks Megumi up on her way to school. He mentions that he saw the security camera footage and knows that she did not do it. Megumi guesses it was a senior who put it in her bag. Osugi apologises for not believing in her and vows to do so next time. Touched to hear that, she says without any hint of resentment that these things just happen. He adds that while she may be subjected to unwarranted harassment because of him, he wants her to be dignified and not bow to pressure from anyone. Megumi tells him to do the same too. When he asks how she knew that her senior was the culprit, she smiles widely, “It’s because I’m the daughter of a detective.” Tears well up in Osugi’s eyes.

At that moment, Ami is on her way to meet Shingai at the appointed meeting place along a busy pedestrian walkway. She catches a glimpse of him a few metres ahead of her, but bumps into a passerby. When Ami glances back in the direction where she last saw Shingai, confusion fills her expression. He is nowhere to be found. An unconscious Shingai is dumped into the back of a van filled with cleaning equipment by two men … …

Related Posts:

• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 3 Digest & Episode 4 CM
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 3 Synopsis
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 2 Digest & Episode 3 CM
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 2 Synopsis
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 1 Digest & Episode 2 CM
• Mozu Season 1 ~ Mozu no Sakebu Yoru – Episode 1 Synopsis

© jdramas.wordpress.com.