Agent Kim Reactivated Episode 4 Recap

Orphans become numbered operatives

At the Geumgang Orphanage in North Hamgyong Province, North Korea, Major Ri Eung Ryeong invites the fittest children to try out for what he calls the Republic's athletic corps. One child asks whether members get enough to eat, and Ri Eung Ryeong promises they will. Park Yeong Gwang is told he is the only one who passed the test, and he is sent to the car. Then a second boy passes too, praised for his tenacity. Asked his name, he can give only one: Kim. He grows up to be Manager Kim.

The boys soon learn they are not athletes at all. An officer tells them they now belong to a Special Operations Unit. Its task is to slip into the South and return with the heads of its top officials. He calls the camp hell, where they will either become operatives or die. Names are taken from them: Number 66 says he no longer remembers his, while Number 73 answers that he knows only his surname, Kim, and is told that wild animals have no names. Later, Number 66 is praised as the Republic's finest warrior. When one boy offers his food to a comrade from the same orphanage who keeps losing to him, the offer is refused, and the two brawl until others pull them apart.

Later, a group of operatives is briefed on a joint operation that promises a bigger reward and a heroes' welcome home. The action then moves to Gangwon Province in South Korea. Afterward, Park Gang Seong is told that his brother was the best operative the unit ever had. During a mission, the story goes, a traitor stabbed Yeong Gwang in the back, killed every comrade, took the number 66 for himself and went over to the South. Gang Seong remembers the day Yeong Gwang was driven away from the orphanage. Yeong Gwang promised to succeed and come back for him, while Gang Seong begged not to be left behind.

Kim's watchers step in

In the present, Gang Seong catches up with Kim and calls him "Fake 66." Before he can act, two armed people order him to put his gun down and kneel. Kim identifies them as a woman he works with and the owner of his local dry cleaner, and says he assumed someone was keeping an eye on him. The pair call him Number 66, then Mr. Kim. They tell him he has broken his contract with the government and urge him to surrender. Kim explains that Min-ji has been kidnapped. He gives his word that he will turn himself in once he finds her, and leaves while they call after him. Gunfire follows, and when it ends, one of the watchers has survived a shot thanks to a bulletproof vest. One tells the other not to be such a crybaby.

Kim gets away in Sung Han-soo's car with a bullet graze along his side. He asks Han-soo for a trauma kit and refuses a hospital, while Han-soo points out that a graze still counts as being shot. Then Park Jin-cheol darts in front of the car, and he and Han-soo argue over whether it hit him. Jin-cheol demands to know what has happened to Min-ji, swears revenge on whoever took her and is stunned to find Kim already wounded. He tells Kim to treat the wound as one more hole in his body, which Han-soo mocks. The three head for Hwasin Station to find the homeless man who had Min-ji's phone. In Seonmin-eup, a small town, a team tracking Codename 66 reports Kim's location and notes that Jin-cheol has joined him.

A white car and a man bun

At Hwasin Station, the homeless man is shouting at a boy who will not buy him soju until the boy's father steps in. The trio wakes him and asks about the phone he swapped for a bottle of soju, the Korean rice liquor. He insists he found it rather than stole it, and threatens to call the police on three men bullying an innocent citizen. Once a beating is floated and an alley is mentioned, he gives in. A man tossed the phone into a trash can, he says, and he picked it out. Kim begs him to remember more, and he recalls a white car, a night-time drop and a man with a man bun.

Near Myeongpo Port, a gang boss known as Golden Teeth arrives at a warehouse his men have secured. He needles one of them for eating without him. When someone asks about moving the body, he says food comes first.

Meanwhile, Kim's group searches camera footage and finds the car. They identify the man: Kim Sang-man, 41, with eight prior convictions for violent crimes. He climbed out of the back seat, so they conclude he had company, and they start a real-time search of the car's movements. Kim asks how anyone could do this to Min-ji.

Golden Teeth's grudge against Ju Gang-chan

On the road, Golden Teeth lays out his plan. With the body and a hiding place secured, he will tell Ju Gang-chan that his daughter has killed someone. When one of his men asks why he is so fixated on Gang-chan and another offers him a potato, he loses his temper. Nine years earlier, residents protest the redevelopment of the 40-year-old Midu Apartments, and one man tells another that they both need the rebuild approved to make a fortune. A news report then covers a cleaning worker who fell over a low railing at the complex and has not woken up. Seoul then approves the reconstruction.

Yang Seok-cheol, a company CEO, pleads for forgiveness, saying he was only following orders. Golden Teeth, who worked under Yang, takes over the company and toasts how easy it was to become boss. The executive office of Juhak Construction, Gang-chan's company, calls him in, and he accuses Gang-chan of ordering Yang to kill him. Gang-chan replies that he only muttered a wish that someone would die there, calls Yang incompetent for failing and has his men crush Golden Teeth. He then tells a story about taming a vicious dog by making sure it could never bite its owner. He orders Golden Teeth to open his mouth and threatens to pour boiling water down his throat. Golden Teeth begs for his life and promises to be Gang-chan's dog.

Mole Cricket's ambush at the port

At sundown, Golden Teeth's crew hauls the body into a cold storage warehouse. An old man asks what they are carrying and is told it is a body. Golden Teeth calls Sang-man over, and the old man is assured that they have rented the space and have a contract to prove it.

Kim's search creeps toward 100 percent when one of the men spots Kang Guk-cheol, the director of the Special Missions Directorate, whose codename is Mole Cricket. At Myeongpo Port, Guk-cheol calls for Kim to come out. He says he knows Kim is alive and that coming with him beats being dragged north to die. Han-soo steps out instead. He tells Guk-cheol he has disliked him since the moment he showed up in that fedora, complains about his knees and back, then pulls off a flashy move. He calls the director a mole rat and admits the move was only a distraction, and Guk-cheol shouts for Kim as Kim drives off.

Guk-cheol draws a knife on Han-soo, while Jin-cheol cheers Han-soo on as Taekwondo. Han-soo asks the director whether he has ever been bungee jumping, says goodbye to Jin-cheol and takes the director over the edge with him. The director's men shout for him and wonder whether he can swim. Left alone, Jin-cheol counts 14 agents and squares up. Then he raises his hands and surrenders, crying, "I want peace!"

Min-ji in the cold storage

Elsewhere, Kim pleads quietly for Min-ji to be alive. Inside the cold storage, Kim Min-ji calls out that she is in there and begs for help. Golden Teeth cannot reach Gang-chan's right-hand man, Chief Nam, so he sends Sang-man to the warehouse to take a selfie with the body as proof. When Nam finally answers, the two trade threats, and Golden Teeth demands to speak to Gang-chan. He says Gang-chan's daughter has killed someone, and that if he wants to keep her out of prison, he should call right away.

On Gang-chan's side, a voice recording plays in which Ju Hye-ri offers a man money to get rid of a body, and he refuses. Hye-ri tells her father that Min-ji started cursing at her when she stepped out of a study room for a break. She claims she only nudged the girl, who fell on her own, perhaps on purpose, and that Min-ji bullied her every day. Pressed by Gang-chan, Hye-ri says she thinks she killed her, and he answers that she should have asked him to do it. Learning that Golden Teeth has the body, he gives an order: "Then make it so that he killed her."

In the cold storage, Min-ji pounds on the door and begs someone to open it, then shivers and calls for her dad. Kim reaches the warehouse and startles Sang-man. Holding up Min-ji's phone, Kim asks whether he knows whose it is and where she is. Sang-man squares up to fight him.

Gang-chan phones Golden Teeth, saying Chief Nam has told him everything. Golden Teeth mocks Hye-ri as a girl who takes after her father in killing people and hiding bodies, then tells Gang-chan to stop talking down to him. He orders Gang-chan to come alone with two billion won in cash. He also wants all of Nam's teeth pulled out and brought to him, with a photo as proof. Gang-chan gathers his men and sets off. A phone screen shows a location being shared with Kim Min-ji, and Golden Teeth texts Gang-chan the address, 23, Hangman 10-ro. Golden Teeth wishes he had asked for Nam to be brought along.

Up next: Agent Kim Reactivated Episode 5 Recap. See every episode in the Agent Kim Reactivated episode guide.