I’m back with a review, this time I’m writing about season 2 of ‘Voice’. This season came out in 2018 and follows our characters as they settle in new teams. If you want to start by reading our review for Season 1, you can do that here.
This script was written by the same person, Ma Jin-Won who also wrote the script for the first season. Though for this season we did change directors to Lee Seung-Young. It was again released by OCN. It had one of the highest viewership ratings so I have to admit my expectations were quite high.
Plot
Jang Hyuk isn’t present in this season. He is still alive but is in the US for his child’s hospital treatments. The most you’ll hear from him is some emails being sent to Lee Ha-Na’s character Kang Kwon-Joo.
Lee Ha-Na reprises her role as Kwon-Joo as she once again leads the Golden Time Team to have incredible success rates with her ‘special’ hearing. This time she teams up with Do Kang-Woo, portrayed by Lee Jin-Wook.
There are parts I liked and disliked. I have quite a few mixed feelings really. The story for this season of ‘Voice’ starts with Do Kang-Woo dealing with a serial killer who collects body parts (yes, I did roll my eyes while writing that). He manages to escape, though he has to leave his co-worker behind and eventually he gets suspended because no one believes that he didn’t kill his partner.
The Good and Bad
The same serial killer, or one of his cronies at least kills team leader Jang Kyung Hak (played by Lee Hae Young). That’s what brings the two leads together, eventually. One of the things that annoyed me a tad was how easily they breezed past this major plot point. Yes, they did have a funeral and a dramatic moment where they’re all in uniform. However, for the rest of the season the mentions are sparse and almost nonexistent.
Something I like were the topics of some of the cases. For example the case with the pedophile was interesting and haunting. The story took a couple of jumps I didn’t see coming and it was just really well done. I still hate clowns with my entire heart.
There’s also the episode with the date violence with agent Park Eun-Soo played by Son Eun-Seo who reprised her role from the first season. Her ex-boyfriend was aggressive and domineering and was blackmailing her. That entire episode proved to be interesting and dealt well with the touchy topic.
Season 1 vs. Season 2
I feel like I hardly spoke about the major arc of this season. It’s a lot more open and is easily transferable to season 3 (which I haven’t watched yet but I’m planning on it). The serial killer of this season wasn’t the end boss and merely a pawn so it’s easier to slot together stories like that without having to invent a new backstory each time. Though, admittedly I do miss the villain from season 1.
In the last episode there was one thing that thoroughly annoyed me. There might be a tad of a spoiler here, so skip this paragraph if you don’t want to read it. The fact that Kwon-Joo went into that basement despite her ‘super’ hearing was so idiotic, I found it hard to believe. She’s proven time and time again that she can hear through multiple layers and detect deception so why would she fall into a basic trap like that other than plot devices.
Also another pet peeve were all the mentions of the co-workers about her being pretty and smart to agent Do Kang-Woo. I understand that they maybe want to entertain a romance in later seasons but it was a little on the nose.
Anyways, in short, if you enjoyed season 1 of ‘Voice’ I would recommend watching season 2. It was still very entertaining and I’m a total sucker for a police drama where there’s a woman in a leading position. I need to dive into season 3 and the eventual season 4 that is scheduled to be released in 2021.
Here’s the trailer (though I couldn’t find one with English subtitles).
‘Voice’ Season 2 is available on Netflix.
