The First Responders Season 2 – Episode 2 Recap and 2 highlights Explained, Review

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The First Responders Season 2 episode 2 plot, the arsonist continues to provoke with a series of fires! This time, there are simultaneous double fires happening in two locations! Song-Seol gets trapped while rescuing someone, and Do-Jin rushes into the fire to save the children! Taewon’s firefighters and police officers face an unprecedented crisis.

↓Last Episode (Episode 1) Review and Recap, Explained↓

The First Responders Season 2 Episode 2 Recap

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Continuing from the first episode of “The First Responders season 2” Song-Seol is trapped in a collapsed underground street during the rescue operation. The oxygen supply is running low, and the special search and rescue team arrives to take command. They order everyone else to stay out and immediately start setting up detectors to locate the trapped individuals.

Song-Seol has no choice but to quickly stop Choi Doo-Joon’s bleeding using the simplest method possible, which causes him to scream in pain. This helps the search and rescue team locate their position, but suddenly, a pipeline bursts, causing gas to leak silently. Despite Song-Seol’s efforts to stop Choi Doo-Joon’s bleeding successfully, the gas leakage and lack of air make it increasingly difficult for both of them.

Unfortunately, Park Ho-Yeon orders that no one should enter unnecessarily at the risk of sacrificing themselves. Therefore, all rescue operations are temporarily suspended until smoke exhaust vehicles arrive.

Dokko Soon comes up with an idea: using high-pressure gas from steel cylinders to displace the concentration of gas so they don’t have to wait for smoke exhaust vehicles before making a breakthrough or performing obstacle-cutting actions.

Jin Ho-Gae doesn’t hesitate and follows along with firefighters without thinking twice; ultimately overcoming all obstacles and avoiding danger while rescuing those trapped inside. However, Song-Seol loses consciousness and even stops breathing.

On another front, Bong Do-Jin manages to extinguish a fire at another scene but learns about Song-Seol being trapped and desperately wants to rush there. However, he encounters several children who say their friend (Woo-Hyuk) is missing.

Bong Do-Jin recalls his own childhood mistake that caused a fire accident where he ran away leaving his friend injured; haunted by guilt ever since then he decides not repeat past regrets this time around thus chooses help these children instead.

The First Responders Season 2 Episode 2 Ending

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As expected, Bong Do-Jin finds Woo-Hyuk only after finding his shoes. He also realizes that the building is on the verge of collapsing, but Woo-Hyuk is too scared to leave. Bong Do-Jin spends a lot of time comforting him and manages to safely evacuate the children first. However, upon seeing a star-shaped flame, regardless of the imminent collapse of the building, he runs deeper into it. In the end, he unexpectedly falls from upstairs.

🔥Fortunately, Bong Do-Jin is still conscious despite the sudden explosion and even the risk of collapse of the building. However, he managed to walk out with his injured body. As for Kang Do-Ha, he secretly observed the scene and made a phone call saying that this would be his last involvement. When Jin Ho-Gae rushed to the scene, he discovered a dead body.

The First Responders Season 2 Episode 1 – 2 highlights Explained,Review

The First Responders 2:The target of the serial arsonist.

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In the beginning of “The First Responders season 2” Episdoe 2, the screenwriter and director dedicated a considerable amount of time to depict the predicament faced by Song-Seol and Choi Doo-Joon as father figures. This predicament serves a purpose, primarily to reflect Song-Seol’s character development. In Season 1 of “The First Responders,” we learned that Song-Seol is an EMT who values every life dearly, but this has its reasons.

During her time as an EMT, there was an incident where a male student fell from a tutoring center building. This case left Song-Seol with deep regret and self-blame. She mentioned having encountered many children attempting suicide repeatedly, including one child who had attempted it three times before drawing on his shoes with Song-Seol’s handprint, leaving her with a lasting memory of how life slips away in her hands.

Furthermore, Song-Seol herself was abandoned at a hospital as a child and never experienced the feeling of being held by her mother. This sense of being “abandoned” lingers within her heart.

Therefore, in “The First Responders season 2” Episode 2 , the writer deliberately portrays the interaction between Song-Seol and Choi Doo-Joon, highlighting their parent-child relationship challenges. The screenwriter aims to showcase Song-Seol’s unwavering determination not to give up on any life while confronting Choi Doo-Joon’s self-abandonment tendencies.

When faced with this situation, Song-Seol says, “Who said you can take one step ahead? You should be supporting Nari.” Through these scenes in “The First Responders season 2” the screenwriter emphasizes Song-Seol’s longing for familial love – even if it means having an ineffective father figure – because such presence holds significance for her daughter Choi Na-Ri. Despite feeling that her father often hinders her life journey, Choi Na-Ri anxiously seeks him out.

However, in the second episode of “The First Responders season 2” ,the screenwriter naturally had to keep the story closely tied to the main storyline. In this episode, Bong Do-Jin encounters several children urgently looking for their friend at another fire scene.

This is a trauma that Bong Do-Jin has carried since the first season of “The First Responders.” Initially, I thought that the screenwriter would once again make Bong Do-Jin face his inner demons, but later I realized that was not the intention. Instead, it was meant to echo the understanding and manipulation of firefighters by the serial arsonist himself.

In our discussion about Episode 1 of “The First Responders season 2” we felt that the arsonist may have been a firefighter in his past. It seems like he understands what firefighters think and blame themselves for, especially after Cho Il-Jun’s death case which caused Bong Do-Jin great guilt.

The arsonist lures Bong Do-Jin into staying longer at fire scenes as if tempting him to be the last person to come out because facing such inner demons is something Bong Do-Jin does not want to experience again due to self-blame. This echoes Ha-Young-Doo’s statement: “If those who extinguish fires become targets, then who will put out those flames?”

In other words, if firefighters become targets and they get injured or attacked, then who will extinguish the remaining fires? It means there will be no one left. To some extent, Ha Young-Doo’s words imply that arsonists intend to put firefighters in mortal danger.

That’s why Jin Ho-Gae tells Bong Do-Jin not to push himself too hard; he is worried that Bong Do-Jin might fall into an insurmountable trap set by the arsonist. However, Ha Young-Doo also mentioned that Jin Ho-Gae is also one of the targets because he is one of the individuals who directly rushes into fire scenes.

The First Responders 2:Who should put out the raging fire?

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So in “The First Responders season 2” , viewers can actually see who are the people who would rush into a big fire at the scene of a fire? That would be Song-Seol (regardless of whether the rescue team is about to enter, Choi Doo-Joon), and Bong Do-Jin (regardless of the fragile building structure, he goes to find children). The serial arsonist seems to have targeted their willingness to go all out into the fire, thus luring them further into the flames.

During the rescue process, viewers will also notice that Bong Do-Jin says “I’ll take another look around” and “There’s a star-shaped flame here, I’ll go check it out”. In episode 2 of “The First Responders season 2” , the writer uses these two fires to emphasize the danger intentionally set by the serial arsonist. Song-Seol and Bong Do-Jin unknowingly step into this trap.

These two rescues silently respond to the question of “if firefighters are targets, then who should extinguish those flames?” I think the answer is clear: behind Song-Seol there are her fellow firefighters, her family, and those who care about her. Especially in episode 2 of “The First Responders season 2” , where Dokko Soon becomes a pillar protecting his junior members. I really liked this part; I was afraid Dokko Soon would be sacrificed in that scene which made me very nervous but luckily, as expected from a kind-hearted writer XD

And I really like how after Song-Seol is rescued and leaves on an ambulance, director specifically focuses on those firefighters who worked hard to save her life. Just these two shots already illustrate that even if firefighters become targets themselves while putting out fires, there is still a group of people behind them who love them and will save them – including Jin Ho-Gae being most important among them.

The scene of Jin Ho-Gae performing CPR on Snow echoes the moment in “The First Responders season 1” when Song-Seol saved the dying Jin Ho-Gae. This time, it’s Jin Ho-Gae trying to pull Song-Seol back from the brink of death!

[Note] Kang Do-Ha’s character is really suspicious, especially since the director deliberately shows his scarred hand. In episode 1, I thought he had just returned to the country and wouldn’t be a serial arsonist, but episode 2 overturned my speculation.

He feels like that person Ma Tae-Hwa mentioned in “The First Responders” season 1 who was waiting to return home? And in the ending of episode 2 of “The First Responders season 2” , Kang Do-Ha makes that phone call at Bong Do-Jin’s fire scene saying “This will be my last involvement”. So is he the mastermind behind this series of arson cases?