The tragedy that had happened at the end of Season 1 of D.P. turned into some peace when we saw Cho Suk Bong come to meet An Jun Ho during the mid-credits scene of Season 2 of D.P.
Spoilers Alert
The entirety of Season 2 of D.P. had been a way to answer a crucial question raised by Cho Suk Bong: why did nobody do anything to stop what was happening to him? This was the second time that something had spoken so strongly to Jun Ho’s conscience, enough for him to become a deserter and a borderline criminal by going against the army and the government. We see that Jun Ho had always carried the lighter that he had once given Shin Woo Suk. He had never gotten over his death and the role his negligence had to play in it. The key word here is “negligence,” which manifested when Jun Ho chose to party with his senior, willingly or not, instead of doing his job and looking for the deserter.
Shin Woo Suk had given up his life when he saw that the D.P. was hot on his trail. If only Jun Ho had kept looking for him or even bothered to look up at the face of the man he had given the lighter to, Woo Suk may have been alive. It really bothered Jun Ho because this death was so avoidable. This may also have something to do with the way Jun Ho grew up, watching his mother suffer abuse at the hands of his father. We are guessing the following through some hints provided in the series, but we know that Jun Ho probably came to blows with his father. It could also be one of the reasons that he started learning boxing at a young age, so that he could protect himself and his mother.
For the most part of Season 1 and Season 2 of D.P., Jun Ho did not have a good relationship with his mother, and we have previously speculated that it could have come from a place of victim blaming. Therefore, let us apply that sentiment to the context of Shin Woo Suk’s death. Here was another person that Jun Ho was not able to save, and in fact, he was forced to acknowledge that the man had probably chosen something that he thought preferable to going back to the army. Cho Suk Bong was not the first time An Jun Ho questioned his accountability. He had been doing it since he joined the D.P. The most important part of the mid-credits scene was not that Cho Suk Bong had returned. It was that Jun Ho was able to meet him eye to eye and smile at him as an old friend and comrade with a clean conscience. Because conscience was at the heart of D.P. Season 2.
After what happened with Ru Ri, the matter of right or wrong was not a private question anymore but at the forefront of all operations. The importance of authority over life, a meaningless moral compass that insisted on ignoring unnecessary violence, and just the knowledge of plain cruelty couldn’t be ignored any longer. It wasn’t just Cho Suk Bong who had demanded to know why Jun Ho and Han Ho Yeol had not stepped forward to help him. The same could be said for Ru Ri, whom the people had met beforehand, and the others that followed. When Jun Ho tried to stand up for Gi Yeong, it did not end well for him, and even Gi Yeong told him that he would not like him to interfere the next time. This is the answer to the question of the bystander’s silence: when the problem is institutional, what can a single person even do? The best way to protect themselves and others was to let things happen.
But this conclusion was proved wrong in Ru Ri’s case. The conspiracy against the man was strong and had Jun Ho and the others turned a blind eye, they would have lost him to the bullets fired to cover up the truth. But it is because they relentlessly tried to do what was right that they were able to get through to Seo Eun, which eventually saved Ru Ri from an unjust death. Though he was still sent to military prison, and a lot of his bullies did not have to pay for their misdeeds, it was not a complete loss. There was a viable result to standing up for what was right.
The second case that started pushing Jun Ho was probably that of Na Jung Seok. For a change, this time, the dead man was the bully, but the way the circumstances around his death were covered up to protect the real victim, no less, was proof of how rigged the system was. At this point, Jun Ho knew that it wasn’t a matter of whether he found success through his rebellion or not but that he couldn’t simply sit around. He had taken a few steps to address the concerns along with Han Ho Yeol, Park Beom Gu, and Lim Ji Seop, but when that backfired, and justice was once again at stake, Jun Ho did the only thing he could, which was to run away with the evidence so that he could protect it.
Jun Ho quite literally fought all the villains in his quest to bring the USB to court. He had to once again face Shin Sang Woo and everyone else while fighting his way out of impossible situations. In court, even Lim Ji Seop presented his case as to how and why this was the fault of the government and not the individual and the kind of accountability it demanded. Each and every one of them was fighting for Cho Suk Bong and the countless others who had been bullied and harassed to the point of trauma. Though the verdict of the court wasn’t completely what they wanted it to be, in Park Beom Gu’s words, they hadn’t lost the cause either. This is why when Cho Suk Bong showed up to meet An Jun Ho in the mid-credits scene of Season 2 of D.P., he was able to greet him with a smile and be genuinely happy with him. It was an indication that some wrongs had been set right, and they had an incentive to keep fighting.
