Copycat Killer recap guide: All 10 episodes explained

Copycat Killer episode 3 recap

Despite the killer’s claims, it’s too late for Yi-jun. She’s already dead. The VHS tape shows him strangling her. Poor Mr. Ma is devastated when he sees it. News that a serial killer is terrorizing the city quickly circulates, and the press is immediately all over Hsiao-chi and Mr. Ma. In the meantime, the killer moves on to his next victim, Yu-tong’s friend Zih-cing, who he kidnaps one night after the club.

At TNB, Ya-cih comes up with a plan to improve ratings. She wants to get Mr. Ma on the show, and since Yan-jhen has a close relationship with him, she volunteers to assist. While hesitant to put Mr. Ma in the eye of public scrutiny, she also wants to gain Ya-cih’s approval for her missing women’s special and believes this could be the way to do it.

Yan-jhen gets lucky because Mr. Ma wants to go on television. He asks her if she can help him so he can plead directly with the killer to return Yi-jun’s body to him so he can bury her. But the segment takes a turn for the worse when Ya-cih takes callers, who are quick to criticize Yi-jun and victim-blame her on air, directly to Mr. Ma. Disgusted with Ya-cih’s treatment of Mr. Ma, Yan-jhen quits her job.

The killer does ultimately “return” Yi-jun’s body, but not without one final act of mockery. He drapes her body over a cross in a graveyard with her protection charm fluttering in the wind as if to remind all who see it that nothing they did could have saved her. Hsaio-chi and Detective Yong previously learned Yi-jun was secretly attending a Catholic church and had been baptized.

She didn’t tell her grandfather because her family owns a temple, and she feared disappointing him. That’s why the killer drapes her on the cross, to further insult her and her family. Of course, when the detectives tell Mr. Ma the truth about Yi-jun’s baptism, he doesn’t care.

Speaking to her grave, he tells her he loves her no matter what and there was no reason for her to have stayed away from him for so long to keep something like that hidden. Hopefully, now, Mr. Ma and his granddaughter can find some semblance of peace.

Later, Yan-jehn returns to see Mr. Ma and apologizes for what happened at TNB. She admits she had selfish reasons for allowing him on the show, but he won’t hear a bad word against her, believing her to be different from other reporters. He also gifts her a protection charm similar to the one he gave his granddaughter.

In continuing the investigation and looking for clues to the killer’s identity, Hsaio-chi and Yong (with assistance from Yun-huei), realize the killer is deliberately leaving behind clues to mock his victims, that’s why Yi-jun was placed on the cross. Hsaio-chi realizes the polaroids of Yu-ping tied up in the killer’s lair have her posed in the exact same positions she drew in some of her artwork.

This lead helps the detectives figure out the owner of the severed hand. They notice a distinctive rash on just three of her fingers, similar to what someone who works at the bank would have due to the finger gloves they wear when counting money. Following the clues, they deduce that the victim of the severed hand was a young woman named Jheng Jia-yi, who went missing several weeks prior.

Copycat Killer episode 3 ends with yet another sinister twist. Detective Lin Shan-yong’s daughter, Tu-young, is kidnapped by the killer, and in the final seconds, Da-chao reveals the murderer has just called the TNB news station.