Dead-End Job · Episode 3
Dead-End Job Episode 3 Recap
Plot summary (spoilers)Tap to reveal the main plot lines of this episode recap
- Hyeok-jun is paid 6,018,000 won and tells Mr. S he is done, even though the next job pays 200 times more.
- Investigator Eum Yeon-joo tells him of a staffing agency offering high-paying part-time jobs whose workers all end up with some problem or go missing, and he says the fire in the news was no accident.
- His sister Ji-yoon gives him a secondhand luxury gift after finding his fallen pull-up bar and rope in the trash, and tells him not to do anything stupid.
- His old friend Kwak Byeong-cheol lands in hospital after warehouse work, and the company rejects his work-injury claim, so Hyeok-jun asks Mr. S for the 200x job.
- At Heukran Officetel he has one hour to deliver eleven bottles of milk, but every fourth-floor door reads 444, he seems to land on the wrong floor and a door has no handle.
- After rereading the last address as unit 505, he ends up somewhere he does not recognize, and on-screen text marks the milk delivery completed.
Hyeok-jun walks away
Byeon Hyeok-jun collects 6,018,000 won from Mr. S, the head of Spider Staffing Agency, who praises him for pulling it off again. Hyeok-jun says he is done, even though the next job pays 200 times more. When he says people died in front of him, Mr. S answers that if it had really happened, it would be all over the news. He insists Hyeok-jun has a knack for the work and tells him to think about what matters most to him, because the answer is close by.
Later, Hyeok-jun stops at a memorial for a delivery worker named Kim Chang-gyu. Eum Yeon-joo is standing there and asks whether it hits close to home. He asks if she is following him; she says she was there first. She asks whether he is curious what Spider Staffing Agency really does, and whether any of it is real. Then she invites him for that cup of tea.
Her card names her an accident investigator with the Workers' Compensation Union. Her office takes strange cases too small for the police and wrong for a civil court. Take a staffing agency offering high-paying part-time jobs, whose workers all end up with some problem or go missing. She can help him only if he talks now. A headline reports a major fire at a hospital offsite, cause unknown. Hyeok-jun says it was no accident, though he tried to believe it was a hallucination. Yeon-joo thanks him for his courage, and he tells her he has quit that job.
A gift from Ji-yoon and a shift at the warehouse
At home, his younger sister, Byeon Ji-yoon, asks whether he made some money, since he has bought her clothes and shoes. Then she hands him a gift she found on Karrot Market, a Korean secondhand app. She hoped a luxury item might make him value himself more. She saw that his pull-up bar fell and found rope in the trash, and she tells him not to do anything stupid. He starts to explain, and she cuts him off with a goodbye.
At the Very Good Employment Agency, Hyeok-jun boards the Logistics Group 1 bus to Hanbit Logistics, where supervisors shout for speed. A worker asks to share his cup because they are both blood type AB. It is Kwak Byeong-cheol, who used to eat at Hyeok-jun's house when his family was well-off. Hyeok-jun says he will spend more on painkillers than he earns, and Byeong-cheol tells him he will get used to it.
A text from Mr. S asks whether he really means to pass up a gig that pays 200 times more, and Byeong-cheol wonders if it is a debt collector. A supervisor calls Byeong-cheol back to work. He warns Hyeok-jun not to overdo it, because someone had a heart attack last week. Later, Hyeok-jun deletes every message from the agency.
An interview, then a hospital bed
The Xenon HR team says he has passed the first screening and asks him in for a 4 p.m. interview. The event turns out to be a High Seed Big Tech Briefing. Someone in the room calls it a pyramid scheme, which the hosts deny.
On the phone, Hyeok-jun suggests frozen pork belly after work, but Byeong-cheol says now is not a good time. At the hospital, Byeong-cheol explains that the doctors called it rhabdomyolysis and that he nearly died. Without improvement soon, he may need kidney dialysis. Hanbit Logistics replies to his work-injury claim that it bears no responsibility at all. With no private insurance, Byeong-cheol wonders aloud whether he would be better off dead.
Hyeok-jun calls Mr. S, who asks whether he has found another job at minimum wage. Hyeok-jun says he needs money urgently and asks about the 200x job. It is a milk delivery at Heukran Officetel, 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. The pay covers eight hours, Mr. S explains, but the delivery takes about one. "You won't find a sweeter gig than this," he says, adding that it will more than cover his friend's hospital bills. Hyeok-jun agrees.
Eleven bottles at Heukran Officetel
That night, at the officetel, a Korean studio-and-office building, Hyeok-jun collects eleven bottles of Yeongsan Milk. Someone at the building warns him to finish within an hour, or he might not be able to leave. The same person searches his bag, asks if he plans to rob the place and makes him leave them until he goes, with a warning against delivery mistakes. Hyeok-jun films himself in case something goes wrong, calling it Hyeok-jun's Milkman Vlog: six bottles for the second floor, four for the fourth, one for the fifth.
Floors that refuse to add up
On the second floor, he goes from door to door until one unit he needs is not where it should be. Pressed for time, he moves on, and calls out to ask who is there. On the fourth floor, every door reads 444. He tries doing arithmetic with the numbers and remembers the warning about delivery mistakes. Then he notices something wrong with the time and finally picks a door.
He heads for unit 515 on the fifth floor, but he seems to land on the third instead. At a door marked residents only, he cannot find the handle. Facing the sign again, he pulls out something that brings back Yeon-joo's voice introducing herself and telling him not to throw it away. On it he makes out the words milk delivery, 505, and wonders whether the unit is 505 rather than 515. With twelve minutes left, he tells himself he can do this.
The last delivery
The subtitles go quiet for about 80 seconds here, and this recap cannot vouch for what happens in that stretch. When the dialogue returns, he names 515 again as something goes wrong. Moments later he says Ji-yoon's name, thanks her and cheers. The last bottle is for unit 202, but he decides it should read 505 and heads there.
He finds himself somewhere unfamiliar and asks where he is. He types a message telling Ji-yoon to go to Spider Staffing Agency if she cannot reach him, but it does not seem to work. A television host's voice launches a family show, Challenge! A Father's Miracle, about a father who has practiced for five nights. As the host announces the father's mission, Hyeok-jun calls for them to wait.
On-screen entries follow: event venue, continue; milk delivery, completed. Then comes the line "So this is how it ends." The last entry shows Byeon Hyeok-jun, age 30, with convenience store marked continue.
Up next: Dead-End Job Episode 4 Recap. See every episode in the Dead-End Job episode guide.
