More CEOs and nepo babies should take note of ‘Flex x Cop’s ending

Flex x Cop sounds like a strange title until you realize that the lead guy is literally a multi-millionaire who joins the police force for fun.

As hilarious as the title is, Jin I-soo (Ahn Bo-hyun) didn’t become part of the police just to flex on his coworkers as the wealthy son of Hansu Group chairman Jin Myeong-chul. His mother was murdered when he was a child, and the case went unsolved. As he encounters other cases, I-soo and Gang-hyun (Park Ji-hyun) eventually get to the bottom of things. For the most part, Flex x Cop is a comedy K-drama, and many of us stuck with it to see I-soo’s unserious antics when working with the police. When the story shifts to I-soo’s family and his upbringing, that’s when the story typically takes a serious tone.

Spoilers ahead!

That’s why the ending of the K-drama is all the more surprising, unless you’ve been watching it like a hawk. The true murderer had the most to gain by killing I-soo’s mother. For most of the story, I-soo suspects his step-mother, Cho Hee-ja, as his mother’s killer, as I-soo’s existence is a threat to her son’s, Seung-ju’s, position as Myeong-chul’s first son and heir, given that the chairman was not actually Seung-ju’s biological father. This was all a false lead, and it was Seung-ju himself who killed his brother’s mother.

It was disturbing enough that Seung-ju killed I-soo’s mother, but he didn’t stop at that. He later killed Chairman Myeong-chul to secure his position as the heir of the Hansu Group. Seung-ju feared that Chairman Myeong-chul would find out that he wasn’t his legitimate son, but even this murder was pointless.

Chairman Myeong-chul knew, but still decided to treat Seung-ju as if he were his real son. He trusted Seung-ju to make decisions for the Hansu Group. Seung-ju basically killed everyone who would’ve treated him with kindness, went to jail, and lost his wealth, all for nothing.

What Happened to I-soo?

Not all K-dramas have to end with the heir taking back their rightful inheritance. I-soo doesn’t take the chairman position and instead passes it on to Choi Jeung-hun, who has been a loyal employee of Chairman Myeong-chul. This is probably the best employee of the decade award I’ve seen in my lifetime, but that’s why it only happened in a K-drama.

I-soo even acknowledged that he wasn’t right for the job and returned to work as a detective with Gang-hyun. I don’t know how you feel about nepo-babies, but more of them should take notes from I-soo.