A lot of The Victims’ Game season 2 is reminiscent of the first season because of the way things play out. Despite a brand-new murder case opening up recently, we get to see videos of the victims on the news exactly as we did in the first season. Parallel to a devastating serial murder; a case of personal vengeance, we also get to see the growing pains of a severed relationship between father and daughter. Though Yi-Jen tries his best to show his daughter how much he cares for her, she finds it difficult to understand him. Additionally, Hai-Yin’s role is diminished this season, as the daughter, Hsiao-Meng, takes center stage and even helps solve the mystery. In the first season, I struggled to understand what was happening in the first few episodes because things were fast-moving, and there was a lot happening. However, this time around, things are well-paced, and everything is clearly laid out right from the start. I suppose if you pay enough attention, you’ll probably be able to figure out the twist ending of the series. So, let’s quickly dive into the major details of what happened in the second season of The Victims’ Game.
Spoiler Alert
Who are the victims?
The Victims’ Game season 2 begins with the introduction of a couple of new characters. In a flashback, young Yi-Jen is beat up by the police to reveal why he assaulted his classmates. Since he is autistic, he isn’t able to speak up about what happened, but a senior detective realizes that Yi-Jen is different and speaks to him in a kind manner, trying to understand him. Mr. Lin asks Yi-Jen to trace back the incidents of the day and reveal what really happened at the scene. There began a mentor-student relationship built on trust and understanding from the day. In the present day, Yi-Jen attends Mr. Lin’s funeral and is genuinely sad to see his dear mentor go. Yi-Jen then learns from his ex-boss and friend that a cold case from 15 years ago involving the deaths of two 17-year-olds in the woods is being reopened. He was the forensics guy on the case, so he’s been called to the station again to help with the investigation. According to the original report, Hsiao Chia-Ying killed her boyfriend, Chen Yang-Yu, and then shot herself. However, according to the new supervisor at work, Mr. Chang, there are many missing pieces in the case, and since Lin is dead, Yi-Jen must take responsibility.
A new forensic investigator named Hsing-Ning has joined the team. On the other hand, Yi-Jen revealed that since 2018, Chia-Ying’s mother has been harassing him about the case, claiming that his daughter was falsely accused of murder. When the case is reopened, Min-Chun, Chia-Ying’s mother, calls Yi-Jen to meet her at a car park, claiming she has evidence to prove her daughter’s innocence. However, when he gets there, he watches her fall from the top floor to her death. Immediately, Yi-Jen becomes a suspect for murder because it appears as if he was trying to hide damning evidence that would ruin Mr. Lin’s reputation.
Soon after, Chief Kuan, Yi-Jen’s ex-boss and now friend, asks Yi-Jen to team up with Hsing-Ning to figure out the answers to this case. On the other hand, Prosecutor Chang does not trust Yi-Jen; Chang believes Yi-Jen tampered with evidence and wants to prove how corrupt the system is. A little later, two murders happen in quick succession, like falling dominoes. Pop singer Yuan Chi-Ling is the first victim, and Shu-Yen, an art director, is next. Quickly, it is revealed that they were friends with the victims 15 years ago and suffered painful deaths. Ironically, every time the team suspects someone, they end up dead, meaning that a group of Chia-Ying’s old friends are being murdered for hiding something nasty.
While struggling to deal with Prosecutor Chang, Yi-Jen and Hsing-Ning somehow manage to find evidence regarding the case and land up on a picture of seven friends, one of whom is behind the camera. They then believe that one of the kids in the picture is responsible for killing off the others. Now, this all seems to be quite the regular rebellious teen story; however, what’s shocking is that the kid who took the picture is Lin Ming-Cheng, the son of Lin Ching-Jui. Now, it’s clear that Lin tampered with the evidence to keep his son from getting into trouble. On the other hand, Wu Chun-Lu, the other boy in the picture, is revealed to be a drug addict. He and Ming-Cheng started a charity foundation called Sevenleaves, but Chun-Lu had to leave it to Ming-Cheng because of his drug addiction. In the present day, Chun-Lu believes Ming-Cheng is the murderer and tries to confront him, but Ming-Cheng hides this detail from the police, making him the prime suspect in Yi-Jen’s eyes.
How Do Hai-Yin and Hsiao-Meng Get Involved?
Parallelly, Ming-Cheng invites Hai-Yin to join the foundation as their PR head. She takes up the job because the foundation helped a drug-addict girl whose story she had written in the paper. This would help her keep an eye on her. In the meantime, Hsiao-Meng moves out of her father’s home because she feels suffocated there and gets a job from Hao’s father to clean up after the dead. While she struggles with the job at first, soon after, she finds a rhythm to it, and it’s quite a liberating experience for her. Hsiao-Meng had been struggling with the fact that she was the only one who ended up living; however, helping those who get left behind is her path to closure. She finally recovers from the trauma of the past. At first, Hai-Yin trusts Ming-Cheng, but when Chun-Lu is found dead in a room in the foundation, she starts to suspect him as the serial murderer. Additionally, there is one more girl in the picture, Hsin-Pai, who was Chun-Lu’s girlfriend. She was a drug addict, too, but she died mysteriously in 2018.
What is Bus 716?
It turns out the seven friends ran away from home 15 years earlier because they believed their parents didn’t care for them. What was initially a harmless act of rebellion (though they did steal a bus) turned out to be quite a terrible experience. Things were going just fine, and everyone was having a great time together until, one day, it all spiraled rather quickly. The friends trusted each other more than family, and Ming-Cheng and Chia-Ying were especially close because they promised each other that they’d be there for each other no matter what happened. During a stormy night, after they’d run out of gas, the kids started to feel restless and worried about being caught by the police. The sirens must’ve frightened them enough to want to send them back home. Ming-Cheng was the most adamant of them all, though, and when they tried to leave, he pulled a gun on them, accidentally shooting Yang-Yu while he was trying to take the gun away.
Chia-Ying tries to stand up for a terrified Ming-Cheng, as promised, and points the gun towards the other kids who want to take the matter to the adults. The kids try to steal the gun from her, suffocating her to death in the tiny bus, to everyone’s shock. To the present day, Ming-Cheng blames himself for her death. However, at that time, all he could do was call his “unloving” father to help him out. This is why Lin covered up the whole situation and made it look like a murder-suicide. Lin told Feng that his daughter had been hurt and sent him off early before he could close the case. Yi-Jen, worried for Hsiao-Meng, decided to leave it up to his mentor to look after the case as he rushed to her. This was his big mistake because the killer blamed Yi-Jen for tampering with evidence, too. However, the truth is that even Yi-Jen didn’t know the man properly. Lin always told Yi-Jen not to be emotional in his line of work; I suppose that’s what ended up weighing down on him at the end of the day.
Who is the killer?
Finally, the investigators realized Ming-Cheng is not the killer, but he admits to everything that happened 15 years ago. This means he is the last victim. To everybody’s shock, it turns out Hsing-Ning, the new forensic investigator, is actually Hsiao Min-Chun, Chia-Ying’s mother. She had reconstructive surgery so she could get to the bottom of this case by herself because Yi-Jen wouldn’t help her. Staging her death completely took her off the grid for the police, and the ironic part is that she was around the whole time. It turns out Min-Chun killed her husband when Chia-Ying was a little girl. She had seen what her mother had done, and to protect her, she never revealed it to anybody. However, Min-Chun ended up becoming paranoid about her daughter caring more about her father and started mistreating Chia-Ying in the process, pushing her away and leading to her ultimate death. The reason Min-Chun went through so much trouble was because she felt guilty for pushing her daughter away.
After killing Ming-Cheng and sending videos of all the victims to the news, where they confess to their sins and reveal the big secret of her daughter’s murder, clearing her name for good, Min-Chun goes after Yi-Jen, who never bothered helping her find the truth because he trusted Lin too much. Yi-Jen tells Min-Chun that her daughter was tired of her mother’s behavior and simply wanted to leave the past behind. Yi-Jen’s words put Min-Chun into an emotional dilemma, and she shoots him, but Hsiao-Meng stops her from killing him. In this situation, there is one thing in common for both women: they couldn’t understand the person they valued the most in the world. Hsiao-Meng with her father, and Min-Chun with her daughter. Hsiao-Meng manages to talk Min-Chun into leaving her father alive, but she takes Hsiao-Meng hostage. Finally, when the police crew arrives, Yi-Jen somehow manages to get rid of the gun in Min-Chun’s hand, and they’re all safe as Min-Chun gets arrested.
At the end of the day, one can blame the parents for not being there for the kids, leading to a string of terrible events born from a single emotion: guilt. If only Min-Chun had spoken to her daughter nicely, none of the kids would’ve run away, and the devastating incidents that followed would’ve never occurred.
The Victims’ Game season 2 ends with Hsiao-Meng and Hai-Yin both rekindling their relationships with Yi-Jen. They finally understand that he truly loves them and cares for them, but he expresses it differently. However, this is not the end of the show because it is then revealed that Prosecutor Chang was the only witness to a devastating incident 30 years earlier, another cold case he plans on opening soon. He’s also part of an organization with a woman at the top who was imprisoned all this time, thanks to Lin. We’ll have to wait for a third season to learn more about this situation, though.
