Big Mouth (빅마우스) is a crime-thriller-mystery Korean TV series directed by Oh Choong-hwan and stars Lee Jong-suk, Im Yoon-ah, Kim Joo-hun, and Yang Kyung-won, alongside other cast members. The series takes over MBC’s Friday-Saturday 10 PM KST timeslot, previously occupied by Doctor Lawyer.
Big Mouth episode 1 has a runtime of 63 minutes.
Disney+ describes the series as:
A lawyer, caught up in a murder case, becomes a notorious and genius con artist overnight, in order to fight against a huge conspiracy and survive.
– Big Mouth Episode 1 Recap Contains Spoilers –
Big Mouth episode 1 opens on a rainy night as we see a truck pull up into a warehouse. The grim and dingy surroundings, however, are no match for the gold that is being buried in a muddy pit without much care or consideration and soon, it’s cemented shut. An ominous man towers over the site, and news reports talk about several horrible incidents in Korea which were done by someone named Big Mouse.
Our protagonist, Chang-ho, a lawyer by profession, mentions that he wants to be the best and most successful at his job, so much so that he can eradicate the negativity in the world. However, his daydreaming is shattered when his wife, Mi-ho, and father-in-law, Gi-gwang, get there to share an anniversary dinner, but he is soon whisked away to Gucheon Hospital. Unfortunately, on the way, he is drugged and gets into a major accident.
7 days earlier, we get a glimpse of the bumbling fool that Chang-ho is. He’s off to fight a case where he got scammed but bribing the judge only gets so far. We hear about his nickname and why he got it, and as he tries to pacify the angry mob for losing their case, an angry Mi-ho asks him for a divorce.
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That night, Chang-ho gets a call from the mayor of Cucheon, Choi Do-ha, who asks to meet him as soon as possible. The lawyer drives to a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere, and after meeting the mayor, the latter asks him whether he knows about the Gucheon University Hospital murder. The case is quite interesting, but the conditions for taking on the case seem quite sketchy.
Do-ha, however, isn’t after helping the accused but wants Chang-ho to help him in finding the dashcam footage in order to find out the real murderer. If this wasn’t lucrative enough, he also offers Chang-ho a ton of money. With that in mind and hand, Chang-ho starts working on his secret mission – his first order of business is visiting the prison.
At the prison, meeting Chae-bong, Jae-ho and Du-geun turn out to be quite the feat as all three of them are quite entitled and annoying, and their prison cell is absolutely gorgeous. Anyway, Chang-ho plays it quite well so that the three of them don’t question his motives and think of him to be a no-good lawyer who needs their favours to make it big.
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In actuality, Chang-ho turns out to be quite smart – he plants a bug in his coffee cup and overhears the accused talking about giving the video to Han Jae-ho’s wife. He immediately tells Do-ha the information, who promises to go and see Jae-ho’s wife and get the recording. Unfortunately, before he gets there, his wife is attacked by an unknown assailant and they find her unconscious
They learn from her that the fourth member is Gong Ji-hoon and Chang-ho goes off with Min-jee to get the video from her. When he eventually gets his hands on the video, Min-jee warns him to be careful – taking on this case might just spell doom for him. In the dashcam footage, we see the three of them murdering Seo Jae-young in their car.
Big Mouth Episode 1 Ending
That night, he tides over the problems at home with the money from Do-ha and things seem nice… until you learn that the fated anniversary is the next day.
The next day, Chang-ho, for some reason, goes to meet Gong Ji-hoon to blackmail him with the dashcam recording. It doesn’t work and Chang-ho goes back with his tail between his legs but with the added disadvantage of Ji-hoon having knowledge of it.
As we see the dinner party from the first scene, then Chang-ho drinking a random drink and then getting into the accident, we can’t help but wonder, could this have been stopped? As he sits in a mangled mess of his car, he wakes up with wild eyes.
Big Mouth Episode 1 Review
I am genuinely curious as to why every new thriller is nowadays starting in the middle of the night in the rain. The similarities among these new shows are quite striking; however, don’t worry, the similarities only end there.
As an introductory episode, Big Mouth has a lot going on. We not only learn about all the major characters, but also some major plot points. Of course, the biggest is yet to come about but the show does a great job at not only telling us who is who, but also setting the stage with the important plot points that the entire show will be based on.
The central mystery is intriguing, and I am genuinely curious to know who this Big Mouse is. What are his motives? Why did the murder take place? Several other questions plagued my mind as I watched the episode, and I am sure we will be able to come up with more as the show progresses.
Lee Jong-suk as Chang-ho fits right into the role of a rather dorky lawyer with the worst luck. He’s goofy and makes the worst decisions one after the other. You feel pity for him, but you feel the worst for his wife, who has to bear the brunt of his silliness.
So, who is Big Mouse and what does Chang-ho have to do with it?
Check out the series on Disney+ and on MBC.
I can’t watch the drama cause I live in the US , this w recap is helpful thanks
Glad to help 🙂 thank you for reading!
Thank you for the summary. The series isn’t available yet in my country. I was going to say your comment about the rain and nighttime made me laugh. If you go back to the early days of film noir, rain and nighttime were motifs, along with smoking, one source lighting, dark alleyways and of course femme fatales. Also, film noir was often filmed at night, as during the day the big Hollywood stars of the day would shoot the A movies so the emigre director’s would film in the evening, hence how B movies got their name. They often had no budgets, so used one source of lighting which gave film noir it’s distinctive style. I think they are sticking to the roots of film noir as opposed to neo noir (like Chinatown) which came later. Which means it’s going to be a wild ride. Enjoy the show.
Hey, you too! And thanks for that summary; it was very interesting to read. 🙂