Agent Kim Reactivated Episode 9 Recap

The North threatens to walk out of the talks

Somewhere unidentified, a man is told that since he took a hit, he should now pay it back. He thanks the speaker for a chance to make up for his failure. The personnel records of Park Jin-cheol and Sung Han-soo appear on screen. Neither man in the exchange is named.

A few hours earlier, at the inter-Korean government talks, the North Korean side suddenly wants to cancel. On the South's side, an on-screen caption reads "Assemblyman Sim Jong-seon, Prime Minister." The North accuses the South of preaching peace while betraying the regime. Its complaint is that the South has intercepted Director General Ri Eung Ryeong and put the Republic's most wanted fugitive in charge of guarding him. Unless both traitors are handed over at once, the North will walk out, and relations between the two countries will change sharply. A Southern official orders an aide to reach General Jang.

Under the Korean Marine Veterans Federation banner, Kang Guk-cheol, the Special Missions Directorate (SMD) director codenamed Mole Cricket, tells Manager Kim that his mission has failed. Elsewhere, Ju Gang-chan meets the North Korean official he tipped off. The official credits him for the easy win over the South's prime minister. Gang-chan asks for his reward, the right to kill 66 himself. The official agrees on one condition: Gang-chan must act alone, since killing 66 on Southern soil after an official settlement would embarrass the North. Gang-chan tells him not to worry.

On the South's side, a subordinate argues that Ri must stay alive until the missile information is secured. A superior overrules him. The mission has failed, the prime minister has ruled, and 66 and Ri go to the North. If Kim acts on his own, however, that is no concern of theirs, and they will simply watch. The superior is sure Kim will do anything to see his daughter, Kim Min-ji, again.

Han-soo and Jin-cheol come for Kim

Han-soo and Jin-cheol talk over the news that Mole Cricket handcuffed Kim, knowing it will not hold him. They doubt he can get back from people this serious. Kim has also left his own phone behind and taken one of theirs. Its owner is still paying it off, so both men set out to get it back. Before they leave, one of them shares a supplement for their joints, and Han-soo grumbles that the hero should be the one driving the car.

In a North Korean vehicle, agents are pleased to have sent 66 ahead for someone else to deal with. Their superior orders word sent to the South and to the Party that Ri and 66 were both executed on the spot. Ri is driven away as a traitor.

By the roadside, Gang-chan taunts the handcuffed Kim. Kim reminds him that he promised to turn himself in and says their parents' meeting is not over. Kim calls him a rat for siding with the North, and Gang-chan calls Kim the traitor. He says they are alike, two good fathers who would do anything for their children. Kim once vowed to end him for Min-ji, and Gang-chan now vows the same for his own daughter, though not here. He has Kim put in the trunk.

Han-soo and Jin-cheol arrive and knock out the men around the car. One of them claims he only came to return the phone and joined in because of the gunfire, and Kim thanks him. Kim believes Ri is still alive, since the North tried to take him alive. Gang-chan dares them to shoot him and leave the children fatherless, and a shot is fired. He then offers a deal: if they spare him, he will help find Ri. When Kim thanks Han-soo, the answer comes back: "We want to see Min-ji walk down the aisle."

A plan for the Juhak Heritage Resort

At the Juhak Heritage Resort, Gang-chan's resort and the venue of the talks, security waves the North Koreans' car through. South Korean guards resent being kept to the perimeter, and one says the building is basically North Korea. A diplomatic pouch goes inside, and radio calls track someone codenamed Jongilbong 25 up to the fifth-floor VIP suite. There, the North Korean official greets a haggard Ri as Comrade Director General. He demands to know how much missile information Ri has given the South and orders the bathtub filled.

Word reaches Kim that a North Korean car brought a large bag into the resort, and the group concludes that it holds Ri. Military police guard the outside. Inside, National Intelligence Service (NIS) agents can reach the staff areas, but the North watches them. The delegation holds the fourth and fifth floors, and the group reasons that the North's surveillance room is on the fourth. Gang-chan gets simple terms: if they get Ri out, he lives, and if they fail, he dies. He reveals an emergency passage to his chairman's office with no cameras, and his protocol pass will get them past the barricades.

The plan takes shape. The North has shut off the resort's cameras and runs its own from the surveillance room, so the friends must seize it. Once they locate Ri, Kim will go in for him while the others draw the guards away. A laundry truck at the first-floor loading dock will carry him out, arriving at 7:20 p.m. and leaving at 7:30 p.m. That gives them ten minutes, and the North checks in every three. The friends gear up, hide their wounds and argue over a rigged game of rock-paper-scissors. Gang-chan complains that they shot him with tranquilizers four times.

Into the surveillance room

At the barricade, Gang-chan claims that Vice Minister of National Security Im Do-hyeon sent him to handle protocol. A guard checks with the vice minister, and the barricades move. A fingerprint scanner then opens a hidden door into the chairman's office. The friends remark that men with dirty secrets always build an escape route.

In the office, the group studies the blueprints and cuts the time to take the surveillance room from three minutes to two. Jung Sang-a picks her point of entry, two minutes from the loading dock. Asked whether she will be all right, she says she will manage. They agree to regroup in the office, where Gang-chan, under guard, points out that no one would hear him scream.

A room-service order goes in by phone. Jin-cheol squeezes into a borrowed chef's jacket, and Kim says he will move the moment Ri is found. Since Jin-cheol will not fit in the serving cart, Han-soo is folded into it once again and asks whether he is origami paper. At the entrance, the laundry truck clears the checkpoint on a talks pass in the name of Jeong Jae-wook. Upstairs, the North Korean agents open their door for room service, and moments later the surveillance room is secured. Han-soo and Jin-cheol bicker through the footage until they spot the bag and follow it to the fifth-floor suite.

In the suite, Ri insists he gave nothing away and never even met Southern officials. The official counters that 66 counts. Word comes that the agents sent to kill 66 have vanished. With Southern guards outside, the official orders no shooting unless necessary.

Then he clears the room and makes Ri a private offer. He does not care about the missiles. He wants the access card to a private safe at the Fanta Casino in Macau, where Ri turned eight million dollars in operations money into chips. In return, he will smuggle Ri to a third country. Ri says he hid the card in China, and the official threatens to execute him on the spot. At that moment Kim reaches the suite and takes Ri, reasoning that the North cannot open fire freely.

A blackout and a brawl

Han-soo and Jin-cheol launch the distraction. They tell their neighbors from the North that their security has been broken, and the battle cry goes up: "Rock and roll!" They agree to take 15 men each. Over the radio, Kim learns there is no clear route yet. Soon the North notices that the surveillance room has gone silent, and Kim is told to get out.

Learning that three attackers hit his men, the official orders a jamming device switched on and the cameras restored. The radios go dead. The jammers mean the real attack is starting, and fighting breaks out in the corridors. An alert tracks an unknown attacker into the fifth-floor emergency stairwell. Once the cameras are back up, the official orders an EMP charge readied to cut power to the whole building.

Han-soo and Jin-cheol both claim the same takedowns and settle on ten each. When more agents arrive, Jin-cheol steps into an elevator alone despite Han-soo's warning, and Han-soo takes the stairs. Kim hides Ri in a kitchen storage room as agents comb the reception hall. At the loading dock, the ten minutes run out with no sign of them. Staff send the laundry driver away because of a situation inside. Then the power goes out.

In the dark elevator, North Korean agents call out their names to find each other. Jin-cheol answers with his own, and the fighting starts. The official orders both 66 and Ri killed at once, and Kim and Ri leave the storage room on the run.

In a corridor, a North Korean fighter greets Sung Han-soo by name and says the sports heroes of North and South meet again. Han-soo does not remember him and guesses rhythmic gymnastics. Mid-fight, he works out from the man's moves and ears that he is a wrestler, and the man introduces himself as Jang Tae San, a gold medalist in wrestling. Han-soo explains that he runs a Taekwondo studio but sometimes teaches judo. Their fight tears through a kitchen. When the wrestler announces his name yet again, Han-soo tells him nobody asked.

Back in the chairman's office

Jin-cheol finishes his elevator fight and declares it rock spirit. Back in the chairman's office, Han-soo and Jin-cheol regroup, but Kim has not returned. Gang-chan has untied himself, and the friends work out that one of them tied the knots. Gang-chan plays them a video of tied-up children begging a man to let them go. Jin-cheol grabs him, and Gang-chan warns that if anyone touches him, their kids are dead. Han-soo pulls Jin-cheol off. Jin-cheol swears that if anything happens to his daughter, Da-bin, he will tear Gang-chan apart, and the two fathers demand to know where their children are.

Up next: Agent Kim Reactivated Episode 10 Recap (Finale). See every episode in the Agent Kim Reactivated episode guide.