Dead-End Job Episode 5 Recap

Ji-yoon goes dark

Byeon Hyeok-jun still cannot make sense of his sister's text. Byeon Ji-yoon has written that she went to Spider Staffing Agency and took a strange part-time job to find him. He is stranded somewhere he does not recognize, shouting for anyone, and the people in a passing car refuse him a ride. When he finally calls Ji-yoon's number, her phone is switched off.

At the agency, the office is empty and a sign says the staff are out on business. A voice that appears to be the agency's head, Mr. S, says he is away and has no jobs on offer. Ji-yoon should be fine for now, he says. He has plenty of questions for Hyeok-jun too, and they should meet soon.

Hyeok-jun turns to Eum Yeon-joo, the workplace-accident investigator, and blames himself for the text that sent Ji-yoon to the agency. Yeon-joo tells him that if Ji-yoon is safe anywhere, it is probably at tonight's job site, a hospital. When he says the agency will not give him work, she answers, "If no job is offered, you steal it." Other people take the agency's jobs too, she explains, and one of them, Seon Gyeong-min, matches Hyeok-jun in age and build. She has already arranged to borrow Seon's phone. All Hyeok-jun has to do is reply Accept and become him.

Seon Gyeong-min reports for the trial

At Yangcheon Bio Clinic, a staff member greets a breathless Hyeok-jun as Mr. Seon Gyeong-min, and he answers to the name. His job card lists a clinical trial from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. With all 16 subjects present, staff lead the group upstairs. The pill, they say, is a harmless copy of a stress-relief product that is already sold. Subjects take it and give blood an hour later.

In the line, a familiar voice calls him Seon Gyeong-min. It is his friend Kwak Byeong-cheol, who saw Hyeok-jun's text and came to check out the agency and its sweet gigs for himself. He wants to know why Hyeok-jun has a new name. Hyeok-jun warns him not to take the pill, but Byeong-cheol says he has to if he wants to be paid, and a staffer hushes them both. Hyeok-jun is handed a pill and told to drink plenty of water, and staff check that he has swallowed. Soon a subject announces that the medicine works, while Hyeok-jun wonders whether Ji-yoon is even here.

When Hyeok-jun tries to slip off to the restroom, staff threaten him with quarantine unless he returns to his bed. On the phone, a staffer tells someone addressed as Director that all 17 subjects are in good condition. Asked why there are 17 when there were 16, the staffer says the extra person will be transferred shortly. Someone is then told to take a cart down to the basement, and a shout goes up to stop a woman.

Byeong-cheol fakes a stomachache

Hyeok-jun tells Byeong-cheol his sister may be in the building. He refuses to simply ask the staff, insisting the place is dangerous. Byeong-cheol agrees to help, joking that his body is such a mess he can play sick with ease. He asks whether this pays Hyeok-jun back for Byeong-cheol's hospital bill, and they agree to settle the bill in frozen pork belly instead.

Byeong-cheol fakes a stomachache. A doctor checks his mouth, ears, eyes and nose and finds nothing wrong. Meanwhile Hyeok-jun runs, calling Ji-yoon's name through the halls. Staff catch him, and though he fights and screams for help, they tie him up.

Hyeok-jun wakes up next to Ji-yoon

Hyeok-jun comes to with Ji-yoon shouting at him to wake up. Both are tied down, and he wants to know why she is here at all. Using a foot and a sock, they work the ties loose until both are free. Then a creature comes out of Hyeok-jun's nose while voices argue over whether to pull it. One of them insists it is too soon and asks why it came out so fast. One of the siblings works out that the pills did not carry it. The water did.

Ji-yoon begs her brother to keep it together, and they run with a monster behind them. The elevator fails them, and no one is around. They head for the stairs, but Hyeok-jun stops. He has to check something, he says, or he will regret it, and he goes back as Ji-yoon calls after him. He finds Byeong-cheol and hauls him up. Groggy and nauseous, Byeong-cheol stumbles after them toward the exit.

The woman at the locked door

The exit door will not open. A woman tells them it opens only when she opens it herself, and whatever they use on her will not change that. Hyeok-jun admits he is not Seon Gyeong-min and says they do not want the money. Ji-yoon is not there to work, he adds, and Byeong-cheol is new and clueless. Asked who these people are and what their reason is, the woman answers: money, and keeping the world in balance. The creatures, she says, drain human bodies of their life force and nutrients. The clinic pulls them out before they are fully grown and sacrifices them instead of people.

She lets the three of them go as an exception. Two of them are not even on her list, and the clinic has already met its quota by sacrificing its own employees. She calls it a humanitarian gesture. Then she offers Byeong-cheol the last ten minutes of the shift and his pay. He hesitates, apologizes and turns back: if he leaves without earning a penny, he says, he is dead anyway. Hyeok-jun grabs him and shouts, but a voice that reads as Ji-yoon's calms him, telling him he has done enough and to think of their mom. Byeong-cheol stays behind.

A father's sweet deal

Afterwards, Ji-yoon tells Hyeok-jun it is not his fault and asks about his debt. He says he has paid off a lot of it. Then she asks him never to disappear again, the way their dad did.

A memory follows. A father brings his young son to a model home in an eco-friendly, child-safe community to look at what he calls their home. The boy asks whether they are poor. His father says he got a really good job and will make lots of money once he finishes it, and he calls the job "a sweet deal." A voice says their father disappeared after that.

Up next: Dead-End Job Episode 6 Recap. See every episode in the Dead-End Job episode guide.