Episode 13 opens at a funeral, and for a long stretch after that, the jokes don’t show up. Earlier this season we got magicians, Lover’s Day murders and case-of-the-week fun. This hour is a different kind of episode.
By the end, the team has a real case against Yoo Seong-won. Then the fire starts.
Quick Facts
- Show: Flex X Cop Season 2 (K-drama, action-comedy-crime)
- Episode: 13 of 14, aired Friday, September 18, 2026 on SBS
- Director / Writer: Kim Jae-hong / Kim Ba-da (both back from Season 1)
- Main cast: Ahn Bo-hyun (Jin I-soo), Jung Eun-chae (Joo Hye-ra), Kang Sang-jun (Park Jun-young), Kim Shin-bi (Choi Kyung-jin), Yoo Seung-ho (Yoo Seong-won), Kim Hye-eun (Jung Tae-sun)
- Runtime: roughly 70 minutes
- Streaming: Disney+ in many regions (check your local app)
- Finale: Episode 14, Saturday, September 19, 9:50 pm KST
The Funeral, and a Book Nobody Expected
Jeon Min-jae’s funeral is where we start. Team 1 shows up to pay respects, and then Min-jae’s family blames Hye-ra for his death.
Hye-ra has been the tough boss all season, and here she has nothing to say. I-soo watches this and can’t take it. He walks away alone.
He ends up in a bookshop, staring at The Little Prince. That book pulls him back to the first time he met Seong-won, in the office of his childhood psychiatrist, Seo Yuk-yung. I liked that a plain book cover, and not a clue board, sets off the memory. It’s a small touch, but it feels human.
Seong-won’s Origin Story: Creepy, But Not New
I-soo visits Yuk-yung in prison, and she tells him Seong-won has been fixed on death since he was nine.
The flashback is the scariest part of the episode. His mother, Tae-sun, brings him to the clinic after he kills his puppy, Jackie, by hanging it from a tree with its own collar. His reason is what got me. The dog barked and bit at him, and he hated that it acted like it was above him. He felt good once it couldn’t do either anymore.
He wasn’t angry. He felt challenged, and he fixed it. That is a much colder kind of person than a screaming villain.
The second flashback is his teenage years. He finds his father dead in a hospital room, locks himself in, and paints the body like a piece of art. Tae-sun then sends him to a psychiatric hospital, and Yuk-yung helps turn his obsession into actual artwork.
That last part is the sharpest idea in the episode. The treatment didn’t cure him. It gave him a career. I also liked that the answer to “where do we find proof?” comes straight from this history. Yuk-yung guesses he keeps a hidden room where he displays his victims’ belongings, so he can relive it.
My problem is that “kid hurts an animal, grows into a killer” is an old shortcut. It works, but I’ve seen it many times.
The Investigation Finally Clicks
Jun-young and Kyung-jin find the pattern in Seong-won’s alleged victims. Each person was with him the day before they disappeared. After that, they show up somewhere crowded or far away, where cameras clearly catch their faces.
I-soo’s theory is that Seong-won wears the victims’ clothes and walks in public himself, so it looks like they were alive a day later. It’s a clean idea and easy to follow, which matters in a show with this many characters and cases.
Meanwhile, Hye-ra retraces Min-jae’s last steps and finds he visited A-reum’s neighbourhood. The street cameras are broken, but a car dashcam shows Seong-won’s butler, Mr Hwang. Forensics then match a fingerprint on Min-jae’s car to him. The detectives finally have someone to grab.
Mr Hwang, the News Crew, and the Cruellest Scene
This is where Seong-won’s side moves faster than the police.
A day earlier, Tae-sun had threatened police chief Tae-gyun and told him to report every development. So when Team 1 goes after Mr Hwang, Tae-gyun’s leak reaches Tae-sun, who reaches Seong-won. Seong-won tells Mr Hwang to run.
The chase ends at an abandoned construction site. Mr Hwang calls Tae-sun and she tells him to wait there. Then she sends a news crew. When the cameras arrive, he jumps off the building.
I couldn’t shake that image. The fall is bad, but the cruelest part is that the crew was already there. UBS, the network Tae-sun runs, then airs a special report tying the death to I-soo and the murder of Young-hwan.
For two seasons, this show’s joke has been what happens when a rich person throws money at crime. Here the villains do the same thing with a TV network, and it isn’t funny at all. That is the show at its smartest.
I-soo Quits
Tae-gyun suspends Team 1. I-soo works out that Tae-gyun was the leak. He resigns, and he tells Tae-gyun that if he keeps going after the team, he will expose the leaked information.
Team 1 learns he gave up his badge to protect their jobs, and Hye-ra feels responsible. I-soo tells her to keep chasing Seong-won and says he’ll help from outside.
This was the best emotional beat of the episode for me. It fits I-soo too, because he says he’s glad he no longer has to play by the rules. That makes me a little nervous, because it sounds like a promise to do something reckless.
I don’t fully believe the resignation will last, though. A show this fond of its lead is unlikely to keep him out of the badge for long.
The Gold Handcuffs
I-soo visits Tae-sun and gives her a pair of custom-made gold handcuffs. It’s expensive, petty and a little cruel, and it’s classic I-soo. It’s also a trap. A listening device is hidden in the packaging.
He also gets his fixer, Mr Choi, moving. He asks for hackers, cancels all advertising deals with UBS, and files a defamation lawsuit. The hackers start hunting for Tae-sun’s assistant.
This is the flex the season needed at this point. It also pays off fast. Through the bug, I-soo overhears Seong-won and his mother talking and learns Seong-won plans to leave the country in two hours.
The Studio, the Airport, and the Fire
Hye-ra, Jun-young and Kyung-jin race to the airport. I-soo sneaks into Seong-won’s villa. He finds a trapdoor leading to Seong-won’s real studio, where the murders are shown in photographs and mannequins wearing the victims’ belongings.
He calls Mr Park and reports everything. At the airport, Hye-ra arrests Seong-won, and he looks completely unbothered.
Back at the studio, Tae-sun’s assistant ambushes I-soo. They fight, and the assistant knocks him out with a hammer. Then he sets the basement on fire and leaves I-soo unconscious in the flames.
Seong-won’s calm at the airport bothered me. My guess is that he knew this would happen. That is just my theory, but the arrest felt too easy, and his face said he had a backup plan.
What Worked
The pacing is good. The hour moves from grief, to a psychological deep dive, to a chase, to a betrayal, to a trap, to a fire. Nothing drags.
The villain is properly frightening. Seong-won is a killer who treats death as a gallery, and his mother’s media power makes him feel out of reach.
The emotional core also holds. I-soo giving up his badge and Hye-ra carrying the guilt gave the action some weight.
What Didn’t Work
I-soo goes into a suspect’s home alone. He’s no longer a cop, has no warrant, and the evidence he finds could easily be thrown out in court. He does call Mr Park, but the show doesn’t seem interested in that problem.
The ambush is also predictable. A loyal assistant, a hammer and a fire is the standard cliffhanger recipe. It works, but I saw it coming.
Finally, the comedy has almost disappeared. That might be right for this stage of the story, but if you tuned in for the “flex” part, you’ll notice it’s missing. A few viewers commenting on AsianWiki said the same.
How the Ratings Look
According to Nielsen Korea, the episode scored a 9.4% nationwide average. That is a season high and the most-watched program of any kind on Friday night. The season premiered at 6.1%, which was already slightly above Season 1’s 5.7% start. Season 1 went on to peak in the 11% range.
Verdict: Hit or Flop?
Hit. As an episode, it’s tense and well built. As a season, the ratings say viewers are staying.
It has flaws. The backstory is a bit stock, and the hero’s solo mission asks us to ignore how the law works. Still, the funeral, the news crew scene and the gold handcuffs are moments I’ll remember.
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5)
Where to Watch
In many regions the show streams on Disney+. One guide lists Hulu for the US, and an Indian listing says JioHotstar. Availability changes by country, so check your local app. The finale airs September 19 at 9:50 pm KST.
Your turn: Do you think I-soo makes it out of that basement? And how does Seong-won get away with looking so calm? Tell me in the comments.