Dead-End Job Episode 7 Recap

A textile factory, forty years ago

At a factory, signs demand faster, more and cheaper work and 150 percent of target. A voice warns that missing the quota means overtime. Over lunch, co-workers tease Eum Yeon-joo, a former maid, about her thin side dishes, and one of them says she sends her whole salary home. Then word arrives that their union president, Yeong-chun, has sided with the company. A co-worker tells Yeon-joo, "We're human beings, not machines," and says they have to fight back. Men break up the workers' protest, call them factory girls inciting a riot and shout that they are all fired as the workers run for cover.

Paid in full

At Spider Staffing Agency, Byeon Hyeok-jun finds his sister, Byeon Ji-yoon, already there. She appears to have spent the wait failing to reach Yeon-joo, whom she calls a weird woman, and getting nothing from the owner, and she is relieved simply that he is alive. Mr. S, the agency's head, hands over 128,384,000 won and throws in a bag at no charge. Ji-yoon tells him never to give her brother another job, then makes Hyeok-jun agree that there is no demand for one.

Over grilled meat with their mom, someone asks whether paying off the debt has given Hyeok-jun some breathing room, and the secret is out: Mom knew nothing about any debt. Ji-yoon explains that he lost everything in stocks. Mom asks about his jeonse deposit, the large lump sum Korean tenants pay instead of monthly rent. He insists it is untouched, and Ji-yoon backs him up. Mom says she spent her life on edge over their father. When her children ask if she is drunk, she says money is what made him end up the way he did.

Yeon-joo's door

Hyeok-jun tells Yeon-joo he believes his father also worked part-time at a construction site. He went to one for that reason, and there he heard about a door. It has been 20 years, and he wants to find his father if he is still alive. Yeon-joo says it is not impossible if he crossed into the other world alive. Job sites have doors to the other world and back, she explains, and the only one she knows of is at an amusement park, because she came back through it.

Her story goes back 40 years, to a night when the factory workers gather to sing. The lights snap on, and men storm in and drag the workers out. A co-worker hides Yeon-joo, tells her to wait until it is over and urges her to go out and tell the world. Yeon-joo does not know how much time passed. When she finally opened the door, the textile factory had become an amusement park with a Fantasy Haunted House, and no one remembered her. She tells Hyeok-jun his father, too, may be waiting for someone to find him, and she promises to help.

The Neo World job

At the agency, Mr. S greets Hyeok-jun warmly. Hyeok-jun names Byeon Min-su, says his father did these jobs and accuses Mr. S of sending him to the construction site because he knows who Min-su is. Mr. S again denies knowing him. Hyeok-jun decides Mr. S knows but cannot say, and asks for the amusement park job instead. Mr. S is surprised he has heard of it. He warns that barely anyone has succeeded, but the job can turn full-time, and a full-time employee might learn what Hyeok-jun is so eager to know. Hyeok-jun accepts.

Ji-yoon texts that her interview went well and offers to bring fried chicken. Hyeok-jun types the start of a message asking her to tell Mom something if anything happens. Then he replies cheerfully that he has plans and will be home late.

At Neo World by day, Yeon-joo shows him the door she came out of. It is a storage room, but she says it will not be one once he is working at night. Reaching it will be hard, so he should act normal on the job and wait for his chance.

The wolf at rehearsal

That night, the park looks different. A staff member leads Hyeok-jun to the other performers, who drill in step while counting. The parade manager tells him to put on a wolf head mask. The fable is The Three Little Pigs, and the wolf's only job is to chase the pigs without speaking, since wolves do not talk. Then the music changes, and it is the pigs' turn to hunt the wolf.

At Hyeok-jun's apartment, Ji-yoon arrives with fried chicken and finds the place unusually clean. On a note, she finds his jobs listed, from the convenience store to the construction site, next to a reminder to find Dad.

Back at rehearsal, the pigs catch Hyeok-jun as he protests that he was told he was the villain. The manager calls a halt and praises the pigs. Then come the rules: the role-play is all about image, and a performer never unmasks on the job. "Without your head, you're fair game." In the parade itself, the music keeps changing, a donkey throws punches, and the wolf is told first to chase, then to flee. Hyeok-jun runs off the parade route.

Ji-yoon's visit and the grand finale

At the agency, Ji-yoon accuses Mr. S of sending her brother to his doom again and of working with monsters, and she calls him a devil. He answers that he goes to church too. Then he asks about a person who has been around both siblings and shows her a photo of Yeon-joo. Ji-yoon recognizes her as the woman from the Workers' Compensation Union, but Mr. S says the organization disbanded back in the 1980s. He tells her, "This woman is not human." She is a monster from the other side, he claims, who slipped past the surveillance network and is using Hyeok-jun. He promises to deal with her and tells Ji-yoon to go home and pray.

At Neo World, Hyeok-jun pleads with someone to take the costume head off him. The manager then opens the grand finale. The performers are getting closer to full-time jobs, and they must keep going until only one remains. When Hyeok-jun appears without the costume head, the manager announces a defective doll and orders sanitation work, and Hyeok-jun shouts at them to stay away. The Fantasy Haunted House sign appears. A host's voice opens a family show called Challenge! A Father's Miracle and announces the father's mission for the day.

Up next: Dead-End Job Episode 8 Recap. See every episode in the Dead-End Job episode guide.