Snowdrop – DS : EP15 Scene 35-37

These scenes themselves weren’t cut, but some of the dialogue (including a few lines clarifying Soo-hee’s fate) were left out...

n.b. The script for <Snowdrop> was written by writer Yoo Hyun-mi and is the intellectual property of JTBC Studios and DRAMAHOUSE Studios. Intellectual rights to the translation belong to yours truly .

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Scene 35	Lim Ji-rok’s Office (FB)
Lim Ji-rok	Do you know who he is? Li Tae-san, the son you abandoned for the sake of advancement. The Lim Soo-ho you just ordered killed is none other than Lee Tae-san, I tell you.
Choi Soo-ryeon	!!!!!!
Lim Ji-rok	(callously) If you want to save your son’s life, don’t even think of ousting me. We know nothing of the 300 million dollars Kang Cheong-ya intercepted. We don’t even know of Kang Cheong-ya.
Choi Soo-ryeon	(glaring daggers)
Lim Ji-rok	All we have to do is tell the South Korean boys to send us 300 million dollars and it’s sorted. Would they possibly refuse? When the South Korean election rests in our hands!
Choi Soo-ryeon	(glaring daggers)
Lim Ji-rok	So, don’t report to the Party. Since Haegeum-seong is inside the dormitory, one word from me and killing your son will be duck soup.
Choi Soo-ryeon	(inexorably) Radio Haegeum-seong at once. Tell him to kill Lim Soo-ho without mercy.
Lim Ji-rok	(privately surprised) ?!!
Choi Soo-ryeon	Lim Soo-ho has to die for the hostage situation to end easily, no? And for us to get another 300 million dollars sooner!
Lim Ji-rok	(glaring daggers at her with a disconcerted look)
Choi Soo-ryeon	(wearing a cold smile) It seems you’re under a misapprehension, but my son, Li Tae-san, died eighteen years ago. Since I discarded my reactionary husband and even cut off* my children for the sake of defending the Supreme Leader at all costs. *n.b. The word she uses here literally means something like ‘to gouge out/scrape off’ as one would a piece of rotten meat, for example. As though, since her husband was labelled a political dissenter, she considers their children ‘contaminated’ as well.
Lim Ji-rok	(could not have predicted this reaction. It’s disconcerting) !!!
Choi Soo-ryeon	Eighteen years ago, as Tae-san-ie was wailing, calling for his mother, I grabbed him by the throat and taught him. That his mother was now ... not Choi Soo-ryeon but the Party.
Lim Ji-rok	!!!!
Choi Soo-ryeon	Lim Soo-ho is undoubtedly your son. He’s your child. A reactionary who betrayed the homeland and spearheaded the effort to intercept 300 million dollars of the Party’s funds with Kang Cheong-ya!!! Which means that you, as his father, will have to take full responsibility for this state of affairs.
Lim Ji-rok	!!!!!

Scene 36	Choi Soo-ryeon’s Office (Present Time)
	Choi Soo-ryeon is seated at her desk, face utterly cold .. Soon the phone on the desk rings.
Choi Soo-ryeon	(picks up the receiver) This is Choi Soo-ryeon. (pause) Understood. (she says, hanging up the phone and turning the dial) Arrest Lim Ji-rok at once. Send him and his family to Custody Centre 15. (she says and goes to hang up) Ah, I suppose I ought to say my goodbyes before he leaves?

Scene 37	Lim Ji-rok’s Office
	Lim Ji-rok, bound with rope and both arms held by SSA agents, is just entering the office; the moment to do away with him has finally arrived. So you raised my blood right under my nose and honed him into a blade, did you? Wearing a cold smile, she comes to stand right in front of him.
Choi Soo-ryeon	In order to kill me, you forged a child you picked up off the streets into a keen blade.. but what to do? Since I don’t bleed so much as a drop of blood even when stabbed.
Lim Ji-rok	I know. The greatest mistake of my life ... was having seen you as a human being. Having seen you as a mother who’d lost her child.
Choi Soo-ryeon	(writhes. That’s unpleasant)
Lim Ji-rok	I did as you suggested, comrade, and radioed Haegeum-seong. Lim Soo-ho will soon die.
Choi Soo-ryeon	(without the slightest hitch) Farewell. Since your daughter, Lim Soo-hee, has been married off anyway, I’ll overlook her. Don’t worry for your daughter.
Lim Ji-rok	(in remorse) Don’t try too hard. Since one day, comrade, you too will end up like me.
Choi Soo-ryeon	(stone cold) Take him.
	At her order, the SSA agents drag Lim Ji-rok from his office. Just then, we see Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son sitting on the coffee table.
Choi Soo-ryeon	(abruptly) Comrade Yeon-hwa!!!!
Yeon-hwa	(runs in hurriedly with a frightened expression) You called?
Choi Soo-ryeon	(indicating the painting with her chin) Burn that.
	CUT TO/ Inside a steel drum, Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son is burning furiously. Choi Soo-ryeon stares at the painting wordlessly. It’s as though she herself is burning. In that moment, the sobs she’s been suppressing in her subconscious threaten to burst out and, though she grits her teeth to hold them back, in the end a single tear rolls down her cheek before she can stop it.
Choi Soo-ryeon	(internally) No. A bloody traitor couldn’t be my son. My son died eighteen years ago. He’s dead.
	As the smoldering flames scorch those eyes that had shed tears ...