Agent Kim Reactivated Episode 8 Recap

Kim in the interrogation room

In a bare interrogation room, men beat Manager Kim and talk as if he has been brought home to the North. They want the commander who spared his life, the agents who crossed into the North and the route they took. They also demand every name in the chain of command of the Cheonsan Unit, the unit Kim left years ago. Between blows, Kim remembers his daughter, Kim Min-ji, calling for her dad, promising to wait and telling him she loves him. The interrogator threatens to put Min-ji through the same ordeal, and when Kim goes limp, the man leans in to check whether he has died. Then someone calls him Number 66. After a stretch with no dialogue, Kim is told, "Welcome back to South Korea."

On the South Korean side, the men behind the test say the setup was convincing enough to fool a North Korean. One of them says he always knew Kim would not betray them. Kim asks why they keep him alive and is told he asked the same thing some 20 years ago, and the answer has not changed. They plan to use him one final time, and if he succeeds, he and Min-ji go free under new identities. The job concerns a top North Korean official who has fled to China and asked the South for asylum just as high-level inter-Korean talks approach, so the South must deny it. Kim is to guard the defector until the talks end and the delegation goes home, and the North is sending operatives of its own.

Kim asks who will keep Min-ji safe in the meantime. The official who speaks for the Special Missions Directorate (SMD) says it will, and that he does not trust spies but would give his life for a South Korean citizen, which Min-ji is. Kim then sets one condition: Sung Han-soo and Park Jin-cheol must be released.

Han-soo and Jin-cheol are dumped in Haenam

In an SMD detention room, a gagged and starving Jin-cheol begs to have the gag taken off. He calls out to Kim's coworker and the agent he nicknames Mr. Dry Cleaner, without result. Told he will be sedated for a transfer, he refuses, so agents fire a tranquilizer gun at him from outside the room. Dart after dart hits him, well past what they say would floor a cow. He keeps vowing they will never get him, until at last he sinks.

At a roadside, SMD agents toss out the two men and throw the keys after them. Han-soo comes round first, blames Kang Guk-cheol, the SMD director codenamed Mole Cricket, for a petty act of revenge, and leaves Jin-cheol to undo his own restraints. Jin-cheol wakes alone and calls for his friend. At a country shop, Han-soo asks the owner where he is and learns he is in Haenam, at the southern tip of the peninsula. Jin-cheol catches up and scolds him for leaving. Neither has money, so they set off on foot, and only then does Jin-cheol learn how far from Seoul they are.

On a golf course, Ju Gang-chan plays badly and blames a sleepless night. His golf partner notes that Gang-chan's resort has been picked to host the North Korean delegation. Gang-chan hopes the talks will produce a free-trade zone where Juhak Construction can build. The partner has looked into the father and daughter Gang-chan asked about, and there is no record that they ever existed in the country. He then hands Gang-chan his own saying: no victim means nothing happened.

At last, Jin-cheol staggers home and thanks every power he can think of. His daughter, Da-bin, has not noticed he was gone. She is mortified by his I LOVE MY DAUGHTER T-shirt and threatens to run away unless he gets rid of it. He tells her he had it made because he is so rarely home. His wife, Ji-yeong, keeps him at arm's length until he takes a shower.

Ri Eung Ryeong comes south

In international waters off the west coast, Kim waits for the defector. He is reminded that he acts alone and that the government will deny any link. In the car, the passenger greets him as 66. He says he asked the South to assign Kim to protect him.

Earlier, in the North, the man is rebuked for sending an assassin south just before the talks. He insists that, as director general of intelligence for operations against the South, he decides who is a traitor. His accuser cites new intel: 20 years ago, a traitor leaked an infiltration mission to the South, wiping out the operatives and removing the former director general. The Party will investigate. Guards storm in to arrest Ri Eung Ryeong for anti-Party crimes, and he calmly asks for his coat.

Back in the car, Ri introduces himself as the Korean People's Army's director general of intelligence. He says the regime's ballistic missile information is in his possession and orders Kim to escort him safely. Then he complains about his welcome at the safe house.

Elsewhere, Min-ji is taken into SMD protection and asks about her father. She is told he is alive, and that whether she sees him in a few days depends on him. At the safe house, Ri goes to bed. Kim is reminded that Ri took the director general's post after Kim's comrades were wiped out. Min-ji's promise that she is fine and will wait bravely plays against the terms of Kim's deal.

At Juhak Heritage Resort, Gang-chan's venue, an official asks why the delegation is staying so far from the talks. The answer is the North's conditions: near Imjingak, the park beside the border, closed to civilians and with no taller building within two kilometres. Vice Minister of National Security Im Do-hyeon tells Gang-chan he is too angry to sleep over the humiliation Kim dealt him and is ready to resign. Gang-chan promises him a generous retirement gift. The vice minister explains that Codename 66 is a wanted former North Korean operative, pardoned in exchange for guarding an important defector. Gang-chan asks where he is now.

Han-soo teaches Tae-hun a lesson

Over beer in a pub, Jin-cheol and Han-soo compare their losses. Han-soo has been handing out flyers, because parents heard he fought SMD agents at his studio and every student quit. Jin-cheol says Cheonsan Unit men stripped him of his gun collection, and he mourns the guns by name. They blame Kim and agree he is on his own. Then Han-soo gets a call from the Yujeong Substation, a police post: his son, Sung Tae-hun, has fought boys from another school and beaten them badly. Jin-cheol tries his own daughter and reaches voicemail.

Han-soo apologizes to the police and takes Tae-hun to the Pure Taekwondo studio. He blames himself, as a father for teaching his son to fight and as a master for failing to teach restraint. To make Tae-hun feel what his victims felt, Han-soo tells the boy to hit him and offers to hit back. Tae-hun lands a hard blow on his father. Han-soo explodes and chases him around the studio.

The delegation arrives at Juhak Heritage Resort

At the safe house, one camera feed cuts out. On television, the North Korean delegation crosses the bridge, and Ri invites Kim to watch with him as a fellow defector. Kim says they are nothing alike and goes to check the perimeter. Ri calls after him that he came south by choice, while Kim was caught and begged for his life.

At the welcome banquet at Juhak Heritage Resort, Gang-chan is introduced to the delegation as their host and raises the free-trade zone too early. On the northern side, word arrives from China that Ri is in the South and already in South Korean hands, and an order goes out to find him. Gang-chan approaches a North Korean official and says he knows the man guarding Ri: "They call him 66." Invited to talk in private, he asks for one thing, to be the one who kills Kim.

The safe house falls

At the safe house, the cameras are shut down with a code and armed men close in. The attackers are ordered to hold fire because the target must not die, and Kim gets Ri out. In hiding, Kim points out that the attackers never fired at the car or at Jung Sang-a, who had been disguised as Ri.

On the phone, Kim tells Sang-a not to report to the SMD. The safe house was found too fast, he says, and he thinks there is a mole, so she is to tell no one, not even General Jang. Elsewhere, word comes that Ri's pursuers pulled back once he reached a crowded area. Someone proposes stirring things up instead and has General Jang contacted. Soon after, the SMD is ordered to track Kim's location.

At Seoul Station, Kim tells Ri they will hide in the city by day and move out after dark. He takes Ri to Jin-cheol's place, where Han-soo and Jin-cheol are waiting. Ri recognizes the trio as old enemies of the regime. The friends tell Kim that General Jang phoned to ask for their help and that Han-soo turned him down at once. Kim says Han-soo made the right call and promises to leave at nightfall. Ri asks for food delivery, and an order for jjajangmyeon, black-bean noodles, goes in for three.

Then the SMD arrives, guns drawn, led by Kang Guk-cheol. He tells Kim and Ri they are going back to the North and gets an insult about Haenam in return. Guk-cheol says he never liked the mission or Kim. When Kim moves, Guk-cheol reminds him who has his daughter and has Min-ji shown to him for a last goodbye. Then he tells Kim, "You failed… your mission."

Up next: Agent Kim Reactivated Episode 9 Recap. See every episode in the Agent Kim Reactivated episode guide.