\u201cYou know, up until about an hour ago I would\u2019ve given anything to know my Dad was still alive.\u201d So far, David Jung\u2019s big plan \u2013 come back from the dead, reunite with his daughter, and then\u2026 \u2013 well, let\u2019s just say we don\u2019t know what he thought was gonna happen once his very alive self revealed his nine-year lie, because it\u2019s been chaos ever since. In Jung\u2019s SUV, during the drive from Andong to Busan, the silence is deafening whenever Rebecca isn\u2019t lobbing cutting digs like the one above. She\u2019s enjoying needling Jung as much as she seemed to enjoy assassinating that Russian diplomat 24 hours before. When they make a roadside pit stop, she climbs out the window of the bathroom just to make him squirm. In Butterfly, maybe we\u2019re supposed to be rooting for Jung. But it\u2019s Rebecca\u2019s steely attitude we like the most.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In Episode 1, Rebecca saw what Juno texted Atwood (Josh Plasse), her fellow operative\/friend with benefits (KILL JUNG). She knows the Caddis Private Intelligence boss is playing some kind of bigger game, knows she can\u2019t fully trust her. But she calls her on a burner anyway. Oh, there\u2019s \u201calways a place\u201d for her at Caddis? Juno wouldn\u2019t hesitate to snuff out Rebecca along with her dad? At Caddis HQ, Piper Perabo emphasizes a nurturing tone in Juno. But of course it\u2019s a lie. The call ends and Juno turns to Oliver (Louis Landau), her son and right hand. \u201cWe need to take him off the board.\u201d As in: the kill order for Jung stands. And if Rebecca gets in the way, that\u2019s the cost of doing business in their private intelligence world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Rebecca and Jung get hung up at a police roadblock \u2013 they gotta shoot their way out; somehow no one is hit; it all feels very perfunctory \u2013 Juno is phoning a friend. And here\u2019s where Butterfly gets interesting again. Kim Ji-hoon is a South Korea-based contract killer known only as Gun, and he\u2019s in the midst of some dirty business when Juno calls to send him after Jung. \u201cI like a challenge\u201d is one of his few lines. But Kim, with his long hair and heavily brooding presence, plays Gun as one of these action movie-style characters where you know he\u2019ll just keep advancing at a steady, psychopathic pace. Jung is highly skilled. For that matter, so is Rebecca. In calling in a guy like Gun, Juno is basically acknowledging that any of her off-the-shelf Caddis goons aren\u2019t necessarily gonna cut it.<\/p>\n
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Jung also receives a visitor. Since his inspiring turn Top Gun: Maverick<\/a>, Charles Parnell has made a nice niche playing military\/government types with gravitas, and he\u2019s doing that in Butterfly as Senator Charles Dawson. Dawson arrives unannounced at Juno\u2019s office in Seoul, and invites his old intelligence community colleague out for bowls of budae-jjigae. The mood is friendly. (\u201cHow\u2019s Oliver?\u201d) But these people are clearly feeling each other out. Dawson mentions Karpov, the Russian. He was in Seoul to meet with him \u2013 until he was killed, that is. The senator and Intelligence Committee member doesn\u2019t say his old friend had a hand in the assassination. But the look he gives Juno over his bowl of stew is one of informed suspicion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Speaking of suspicion, drugging your own daughter isn\u2019t gonna help redeem a decade-long disappearing act. But Jung decided it was the only way to figure out if Rebecca had contacted Juno, which of course she did. When she wakes up, the tension is high in the Daegu makgeolli bar\/safehouse where they\u2019ve landed, and their talk turns to the raw emotions left in their separation. Rebecca fires another arrow. Does Jung think this \u201cfucked up like daddy-daughter adventure\u201d they\u2019re on is gonna make everything OK? It\u2019s just gonna paper over how he let her believe he was dead and gone? Again, we\u2019re on Rebecca\u2019s side in this. Especially because Jung\u2019s response \u2013 \u201cIt was the only way I could keep you safe\u201d \u2013 is just more of the stock dialogue we\u2019ve been calling out since Butterfly began. They throw a few blows until it turns to frustration and tears.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Rebecca, this on-the-run reunion will just get more aggrieved, because now Eunju is calling Jung. You know, the woman he didn\u2019t tell her his supposedly-dead ass is now married to. At Caddis, Juno and Oliver have triangulated Eunju\u2019s position at Dongdaegu Station. This sets up a cat-and-mouse situation inside the station\u2019s large glass atrium \u2013 Caddis goons advancing from one direction, Jung\u2019s impending first with Gun from another \u2013 that has some exciting moments, but mostly feels like a static riff on the classic Waterloo Station sequence in The Bourne Ultimatum<\/a>. Especially because, like that film\u2019s cuts to the screens and techs at a CIA substation, Butterfly keeps switching to Juno and Oliver being frantic in the Caddis operations center. They\u2019re like a two-headed version of David Strathairn as the Bourne films\u2019 Noah Vosen.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n We do get some threat-trading, however, once Jung invades Caddis comms. He says he\u2019ll destroy Juno if she goes after his family. (If?) She says she built the agency into an empire while he played dead. And so their game continues. And just when it looks like one of Juno\u2019s people is gonna make the grab, Rebecca shows up to slice that guy\u2019s Achilles tendon. Nice! Jung, disrespecting his daughter\u2019s professional skill set: \u201cI told you to stay at the bar.\u201d Rebecca, with that impish smile we like so much: \u201cI wanted to meet your wife.\u201d<\/p>\n The train to Busan is leaving, with Eunju on it. A final confrontation with Gun on the platform, who hacks a gash into Jung\u2019s belly before Rebecca joins the fray and pushes the killer off. (Check out Kim Ji-hoon\u2019s own sly grin as Gun watches them go; he will meet them again.) And a final revelation as this family reunion just gets more chaotic. Jung and Rebecca meet Eunju on the train\u2026and an adorable little girl, worried for her daddy. The irony is colder than the look in Rebecca\u2019s eyes. \u201cYou have a daughter?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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