Brain Works episode 11 opens with our team getting two cases, which, unlike looking different on the outside, turn out to be more connected than they assume.

This time it isn’t a matter of who is the culprit but why he did it. Luckily, our neuroscientist is quick on his feet to connect the dots and give us a shocking but unsurprising revelation.

Brain Works Episode 11: Our neuroscientist is in a pickle

Picking up where we left off, Myung-Se and Se-Jung get Mo-Ran’s call about the discarded body.

Meanwhile, Ha-ra has a facedown with a masked man. Ha-ru’s confrontation with the masked man sparks forgotten memories in his mind.

It isn’t the first time someone has broken into his house like that. Before his parents died, the same thing happened.

Could it be that his parents were killed by a thief who barged in and not in a car accident, as he believes? Was he abducted after that and locked in a car?

One thing is for sure, it isn’t a simple breaking and entry but an attempt to force Ha-ru’s memories back.

Despite his efforts to catch the masked man, Ha-ru unfortunately trips and fails to catch up. He quickly calls the case in, but the problem is there is no single CCTV around the house.

Neither does Ha-ru use a dashcam in his car. Ha-ru’s choices are working against him now, which means Ha-ru has to ask his detective partner to help check the footage of the main street.

Oblivious to what happened to his neuroscientist partner, Myung-Se heads to the crime scene to investigate the discarded body.

We learn the victim is a woman who used to work as a makeup artist. The culprit used the fact that she lives alone, used smoke bombs to stage a fake fire, and killed her as soon as she opened the door. The next day, the culprit discards the body. And it is how Mo-ran stumbles on it.

Brain Works Episode 11: Two cases but a single culprit

A typical violent case, right? But a strange message (I only did what my brain told me to) the culprit left behind suggests something else.

Myung-Se starts by questioning the neighbors, who unfortunately have failed to spot the culprit.

They aren’t lying like Myung-Se suspects, but as Ha-ru says, they have been too occupied with the fire to spot anything else.

With no information other than the culprit wearing a helmet, Myung-Se has to pull an all-nighter, looking through the footage, which means suffering for both his eyes and shoulders.

It is okay, Myung-se. Se-Jung is here to root for you and give you a massage.
Luckily, the CCTV footage captures the culprit entering a convenience store, so we learn from the part-timer that the culprit had a badge on his shirt as the one policemen have.

But something makes me feel it isn’t a police officer’s, but a jail guard’s. Thinking about it, the culprit looks too similar to the masked man for it to be a mere coincidence. Perhaps Doctor Hwang sent the jail guard to Ha-ru to remind him of his forgotten memories.

Further, Hwang kept hinting that Ha-ru’s parents didn’t die in a simple accident, but Ha-ru’s memories were distorted. Seeing how obsessive he is with Ha-ru, I won’t put it past him to manipulate the guard into breaking into Ha-ru’s house and somehow re-enact the accident from the past.

Brain Works Episode 11: Going after the wrong culprit

For now, our team checks out if there are any police officers around the victim, and as luck would have it, the victim’s boyfriend is a police officer.

Myung-Se and Ha-ru question the boyfriend, who claims it was his day off and he stayed home all day. They can look into his mobile signals to check out his alibi.

The boyfriend looks too collected for someone who recently lost his girlfriend. To make things worse, he got accused of hitting his ex-girlfriend when they were dating.

With no signs of robbery or sexual assault, it is more likely that the victim learned of her boyfriend beating his ex-girlfriend, so she broke up with him.

That might not have sat well with him, so perhaps they fought. Hence, he killed her by accident. Sounds plausible, right? But the trouble is the boyfriend’s alibi checks out.

Our team may have reached a dead end on that count, but when Myung-Se looks through the CCTV footage from around Ha-ru’s house, he discovers a new clue that suggests that the culprit in both cases is the same.

It can’t be a coincidence that the masked man and the one who killed the woman wore the same helmet. After discarding the body, the culprit wore his reversible jacket on the other side and went to Ha-ru’s house.

Brain Works Episode 11: Catching the real culprit

Just as they are thinking of a way to get the culprit to turn on the victim’s phone, which he probably took away, the phone gets turned on.

The signal suggests the culprit is now in a specific prison where a particular death-row inmate is incarcerated.

As expected, everything was Hwang’s plan, from turning the guard to his side, making him break through Ha-ru’s house, and deliberately turning on the phone.

Although Ha-ru is quick to connect the dots and figure out that Hwang is the mastermind behind the whole thing.

He heads with Myung-Se to the prison to check, but it is useless, as the guard is already at the station.

It is funny how they call the chief, warning him that the culprit is nearby and that he is a jail guard, not a police officer, all while the guard is standing in front of the chief.

The guard doesn’t plan to escape. Actually, it is the complete opposite. He walks into the station on his will as if he is publicizing that he is the culprit, taking out the victim’s phone and unzipping his jacket for them to view the badge on his uniform.

Before he goes to prison, he wants just one thing: killing those around Ha-ru, thus giving him more pain.

The guard takes out his knife and attacks the chief, but luckily, Se-Jung quickly jumps to rescue, and the guard is arrested.

Brain Works Episode 11: The truth behind the case

It turns out that the victim was the guard’s ex-girlfriend. She broke up with him a while ago, but just like a typical obsessive boyfriend, he refused to believe they split up and only thought of it as taking a brief break.

One day, he spots the victim with her current boyfriend and deludes himself into thinking she is cheating on him, so he kills her.

For someone as devious as Hwang, it is child’s play to figure out the guard’s psychopathic tendencies and control his mind.

In return for helping him get a lighter sentence after killing his ex-girlfriend, Hwang asks the guard for a simple favor, breaking into Ha-ru’s place. It is so sickening how Hwang tells the guard that since it is his first offense and as he is “ill,” he will only go to prison for a few years. Infuriating.

Unsurprisingly, a large law firm takes charge of the guard’s case. Also, the defense attorney summons Hwang as a witness to support the idea that psychopathic tendencies should be considered a mental illness. Thus, acting as a mitigating factor.

Brain Works Episode 11: A shocking yet unsurprising revelation

It is funny yet irritating how Hwang shows up for the trial in a wheelchair, acting as a vulnerable man whose psychopathic traits took the best of him and made him commit crimes against his will.

When the prosecutor in charge argues that psychopaths should be locked up as there is no remedy, Hwang throws the ball in Ha-ru’s court and hints at the psychopathic brain-rebuilding project he spearheads.

However, our neuroscientist sees it coming and prepares a counterattack in advance. Having psychopathic traits doesn’t mean the person has to develop into a killer.

There are other people who, despite having the same qualities, lead a successful life. The defense attorney argues it is all theoretical, but Ha-ru socks it to him.

There is someone whose brain condition is worse than the guard’s but who didn’t walk down the same path. It is Ha-ru himself.

I knew we were getting there at some point, but the way the drama played that arc out was better than I expected.

The drama’s main strength point is that it doesn’t take itself so seriously. It takes all those complicated conditions and portrays them in a light and sometimes funny way.

Instead of giving us a shocking revelation and showing Ha-ru heartbroken and torn after discovering his psychopathic traits.

They go with a completely different tone. Instead, Ha-ru figures the truth out on his own. It won’t be a knife in Hwang’s hand but a card for Ha-ru to counterattack Hwang’s schemes.