REVIEW: ‘A Shop For Killers’ Season 2 Is Driven By Good Action And Antagonists

To say A Shop for Killers Season 2 takes a significant leap in expanding its world of assassination and illegal firearms shopping would be an understatement. While the majority of the story in Season 1 took place in the Jeong family household, this new season is all over the place. Not in a messy way, but it depicts the wider scope of people involved this season. Season 2 truly ratchets up the stakes, increases the cast size, and adds many more dynamic fights to the mix. 

A Shop for Killers Season 2 picks right back up after the dramatic ending of the first season, where Jeong Ji-an (Kim Hye-jun) survives an onslaught attack by assassins determined to seize control of Murthehelp—the secret online black market marketplace created by her uncle Jeong Jin-man (Lee Dong-wook). Even though Ji-an and Jin-man reunite by the end of Season 1, Ji-an parts ways with her uncle—opting to try to live a peaceful life in secret. 

As Season 1 was based on The Murderer’s Shopping Mall by Kang Ji-young, the show’s screenwriters Lee Kwon and Lee Eon-hee had some help following a general track of all the character and plot points. With A Shop for Killers Season 2, Kwon and Eon-hee had a big undertaking creating new characters and interweaving them in brand new plot threads, without breaking the canon from the first season. For the most part, Season 2’s general story beats hit on similar levels to espionage-action-thriller shows like Jack Ryan or Reacher. 

The first few episodes of A Shop for Killers Season 2 provide some excellent setup.

Episode 1, “Jinman, That Same Day,” is a cool prelude or setup for Season 2 since it recaps Season 1, but from Jin-man’s perspective. By the end of the episode, it offers an epic conclusion to Season 1’s main story while setting up the stolen Babylon server as the main conflict for A Shop for Killers Season 2. It’s been about two years since Season 1 premiered, so this is the perfect Episode 1 for returning audiences or even for significant others who maybe didn’t watch Season 1 and can still hop on in Season 2.  

Episodes 2 and 3, “Recluse” and “Past Is Past, Present Is Present,” introduce the season’s new cast: Kusanagi Jin (Jung Yun-ha), Q (Hyunri), J (Masaki Okada), K (Jeong Mu-seong), M (Kim Min-su), Marco (Justin John Harvey), L (Byun Hee-sang), and X (Kim Sung-hyun). Their introduction between the two episodes is great because it shows how menacing these new assassins from Babylon Japan are. It also establishes how some of them are connected to Jin-man’s past. 

Episode 4, “Raid,” is a great conclusion to the issues Ji-an and Jin-man faced in Season 1 because it wraps up any animosity Ji-an and Jin-man had with Season 1’s main antagonists: Bale (Jo Han-sun) and Lee Yong-han (Ahn Kil-kang). By the time the credits roll in Episode 4, it clearly showcases the stakes of A Shop for Killers Season 2 being a lot higher. RIP Woojin, and RIP Bale. Bale is truly one of those evil characters who is the epitome of being that scumbag who kills people for the fun of the game; Han-sun played the character perfectly. 

The writing starts to dip halfway through the season.

A Shop for Killers Season 2, Episodes 5–8 is where the whole season begins to crumble. Season 2 commits the cardinal adaptation sin by configuring its characters to fit the plot Kwon and Eon-hee created. All the character-building elements in the first four episodes are smartly written, but by Episode 5, “Negotiation,” the story begins to skew everything in Ji-an’s favor. It’s great that the audience sees Ji-an’s character growth as the protagonist. However, it shouldn’t come at the cost of other characters’ development. 

By the final showdown in Episode 8, “Listen Up, Jinman,” the whole plot seems to look like Kwon and Eon-hee simply wanted to find a way for Ji-an to say the same thing Jin-man told Ji-an at the end of Season 1. It’s as if the other characters didn’t matter anymore, which can be said about the way Ji-an and Jin-man deal with grief.

Understandably, they’re the heart of the show, and they’re supposed to be heartless assassins, but the plot of the first few episodes in A Shop for Killers Season 2 sets up Ji-an as a more compassionate leader of Murthehelp—only for her to be just as emotionally dead inside as her uncle. There’s a good callback in Episode 7, “The Enemy of My Enemy,” where Ji-an is still seeing Lee Seong-jo’s (Seo Hyun-woo) ghost, but he disappears after she seemingly accepts the act of killing. It would’ve probably been better to have Ji-an also see the ghost of Woojin, who acts as the light that pulls her back from being a ruthless killer. 

The production value has gone way up in A Shop for Killers Season 2.

Arguably, the third protagonist of A Shop for Killers Season 2 is Q, and casting Hyunri was chef’s kiss for this role. Unfortunately, Q’s story arc is also butchered to bolster Ji-an. Q has an amazing origin story with her brother J, and how she fell in love with Jin-man at first sight. Then, she’s built up as this fearless, stoic leader of Babylon Japan’s Alpha team. She gets betrayed and has the opportunity for revenge, but Ji-an ends up killing the person Q should’ve killed in the end. It’s like the writers got the revenge threads tangled. 

Give Yun-ha an Emmy or Baeksang Arts Award for playing Kusanagi so unhinged, though. The fact that this high-ranking person stress-eats when events don’t play out the way she anticipated is all too relatable. Yun-ha delivers ten-out-of-ten crashout moments that a lot of other Kdramas would tone down. While her final moments are silly, seeing her attempt to suit up and get in the field is one of the funniest, most human things to watch. The writers definitely had fun writing her, and came in as a close second or third to fleshing out her character. 

The biggest leap in quality from Season 1 is how much production value goes up in A Shop for Killers Season 2. Logistically, this makes sense since most of Season 1 mainly took place in one location. It’s only the Jin-man flashbacks that changed the scenery. But this season goes above and beyond with having bigger action and stunt set pieces, showing off fights or chases in warehouses, restaurants, and even ATV chases across the Hanam-do island. All of these factors help sell the larger scale of this world compared to Season 1.

The action and antagonists drive A Shop for Killers Season 2 home.

Not only are there multiple locations and action sets, but the choreography is also higher quality this season. The first episode goes so hard with the Jin-man versus Bale fight, but honestly, a lot of the 1v1 fights in A Shop for Killers Season 2 are also solid. Only one critique would be that some of the fights end a little too quickly, and some of the punches or sword slashes are noticeably staged quite far from the actors. Coming off the highs of The Furious, realistic, almost-exhausting fights are always appreciated. While there aren’t many group fights in this show, the one in Episode 3 is a great way to see Q and J’s team in a melee skirmish, especially compared to all the shooting throughout the series. 

Building on Season 2’s bigger production value, the CGI/VFX work is more abundant this season. There were a couple of explosions and robot dogs in Season 1, but this season brings a whole new level with small bomb-dropper machines and humanoid robots resembling fleshless T-1000s from The Terminator. Some of the explosions and fire-spreading shots don’t look natural, but the CGI/VFX holds up for a TV budget. 

The action and antagonists drive A Shop for Killers Season 2 home, elevating the production quality from Season 1. However, the overall writing takes a deep plunge, choosing to focus primarily on Ji-an above all else. Audiences will be shaking their heads at certain character choices and deaths, but at least there are some fun, entertaining moments sprinkled throughout the season. 

A Shop for Killers Season 2 is streaming now on Disney+.

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