The Long Season 1.03

Episode 3

Hualin, 2016. Xiang goes looking for Biao. He tries Biao's apartment but doesn't find him there. Xiang runs into Liru and asks how things are between her and Biao. She asks him to stay out of their marriage.

Xiang asks around some more and finds out that Biao is gambling at an arcade. Xiang finds Biao but just as he gets to him the arcade gets robbed. The police show up minutes later and everyone is taken into police custody. Biao gets fined but Xiang is let go without further incident.

Xiang decides that they need some help. He turns to the former police captain, Ma Desheng for help. They find him at a dance hall trying to get into a local competition.

Hualin, 1998. Another bag of body parts turns up. This time it is near a noodle shop. The owner knows nothing about it and is worried she will get accused of having something to do with it.

Ma Desheng and the rest of his team show up. They get distracted by a missing spare tire that was taken off the back of a police vehicle. Xiang shows up and locates the tire. It was taken by the son of a coworkers of his. He doesn't turn the son in or tell the police who took it but he gets them the tire back, which earns him some trust with Ma Desheng.

Hualin 1997. Yang gets a job as a waiter where Shen Mo works. He tries to help her after a customer gives her a hard time for not being able to play a song that he wants to hear. It isn't a song for piano. She tries to explain that but the customer gets irate. The manager has to step in to defuse the situation.

Yang witnesses the incident and goes up to introduce himself, after the fact. He later sees the customer getting beaten up although he has nothing to do with the beating. He tells her about it but she has put the incident out of her mind. He remains intent on trying to win her over.

The episode ends with Yang in the bathroom in a good mood but then transitions from 1997 to 1998. The focus moves from Yang to Ma Desheng who has been called to the river where another bag of body parts has been found. Piano music, Debussy's Clair de Lune, the music that Shen Mo was playing in the hotel plays over the end credits.

Thoughts

This is the shortest episode yet. Most of the rest are about an hour or longer but there is one towards the end that is shorter than this one.

Will Yang win over Shen Mo? What happened to Shen Mo? Are those her body parts that keep turning up? What happened to Ma Desheng in the intervening 20 years? Did he get kicked out of the police department? Was it on account of not being able to solve the dismemberment case? What happened to Yang? So many questions.

This show continues to impress me. I like the way it is playing out. It is early enough in the story that I am content to still be just collecting the bread crumbs without really understanding how things are going or where they are going.