The Apartment Job: Episodes 7-8
by lovepark
Striking a deal with a devil comes at a cost, and our apartment president learns exactly what his price is. Though our clever hero finds a few loopholes to get around the tests thrown his way, tricks can only take him so far against a foe willing to bloody his hands.
EPISODES 7-8
The good news is Hae-kang has found the reserve fund. The bad news is a crazy man named Chung-won is the owner. Recognizing a threat when he sees one, Hae-kang offers to take over the previous president’s role as the keeper of his vault, but Chung-won points out that he cannot leave a thief to protect his money. Though he retreats for now, Hae-kang is too close to the end to give up, so he does what he does best: hatch a new plan.
Meanwhile, Ha-ri gets caught a second time by her sister and comes clean about her stand-in job. In the ensuing argument, she says a few things she regrets, and once alone, cries over her can of beer. Hae-kang stumbles across her mid-sob, and the fake couple take a walk, sharing their experiences growing up under someone other than their parents. As her life senior, Hae-kang tells Ha-ri that failure can help you see, and when she asks what he saw, he replies, “People. Those protecting me, and those I need to protect.”
In order to win Chung-won’s trust, Hae-kang and his men dig into President Seo who seems to have gone missing. In fact, his entire family has disappeared, which only tells them that their target is a very dangerous man. However, inspiration can come from the most unusual places, and in this case, Hae-kang finds it in a stuck elevator with Ha-ri. While he clings to the wall for dear life, Ha-ri stands utterly unfazed and complains about the inconvenience. She explains to Hae-kang that most people are willing to pay more if it makes their lives easier, and his eyes light up as he comes up with another crazy solution.
Inspired by Ha-ri’s comment, Hae-kang makes a bold proposal during their next association meeting: increase the reserve fee by 100%. The other residents object, but our president expected their pushback and suggests a community vote. They agree since no one would willingly want to increase their bill, but then, the circumstances change. Suddenly, all the elevators start to break, and at their next emergency meeting, Hae-kang points out that replacing all the elevators would cost 20 billion won; 3 billion less than they have in their reserve fund.
The proposal gets passed with a majority of the votes thanks to this serendipitous timing, but was it really a lucky happenstance? As it turns out, Hae-kang caused all the elevators to break by asking Chung-won for his help — the man owns basically everything, including the repair companies — and much like the relic incident, our president makes his own luck to get what he wants. Impressed by his skills, Chung-won digs into his history and discovers an ironic twist: Hae-kang wanted to steal his money to pay… him.
The CEO practically gleams, finding this entire situation funny, and comes up with one last test to see if he can trust Hae-kang. Handing over ten billion won (the exact amount he needs), Chung-won orders the new president to deliver it to a different apartment complex, but on the way, Hae-kang gets a call from the police chief, telling him that his boss is terminally ill. His three month deadline has moved up since Yong-man will be dead by then, and Hae-kang turns the car around, deciding to buy his boss’s life with the cash on hand.
However, as Hae-kang grabs the bag, he spots the family picture Kyung-bok drew for him, and it finally hits him: Yong-man isn’t his only family now. Rather than fall for the chief’s threats, Hae-kang turns the tables by pointing out that the deadline has moved for both of them since if his boss dies, then the chief will never get his money. Realizing the truth behind his words, the chief relents a little and makes sure Yong-man gets proper treatment, which buys Hae-kang some time.
As a result of his last minute clarity, Hae-kang passes Chung-won’s test, so the next step is discussing payment. Getting straight to the point, Hae-kang asks for ten billion won, and Chung-won seems open to the amount. Despite their tentative partnership, neither side truly trusts the other, so when Hae-kang returns home to an empty apartment, he assumes the worst. Thankfully, the others jump out, throwing a surprise birthday party, and Hae-kang smiles at his new family and people he must protect.
Now that the elevator hullabaloo is over, a new problem pops up at the apartment. Apparently, non-residents have been using the community sauna for free, and people want to install a facial recognition system to stop the trespassers. Their proposal feels like overkill since all they have to do is stop the individuals taking advantage of their facilities, so Hae-kang and Sook-jin take it upon themselves to uncover the perpetrators by combing through the CCTV footage. Alas, word gets out about one particular rental unit of elderly residents abusing the system, and this tiny incident snowballs into a class war between rental and owned properties.
As people start to harass the exposed renters, they eventually move out, apologizing for their mistake and paying for any skipped fees. The thin envelope containing the money really hits home that people are destroying lives over pennies, and to make matters worse, out of the 108 units that brought in non-residents, 104 of them were self-owned apartments. In other words, all their rhetoric about poor renters leeching off the system was another decisive tactic meant to divide the community and distract them from their real enemy: the actual thief living in the penthouse.
However, when Sook-jin points out these issues at the association meeting, the young mothers club get their chance to attack her for all the times she nagged them. Their leader and building representative, Ru-yi’s mom, brings up the fact that Sook-jin is actually a renter, and a government subsidized one at that. According to community guidelines, only owners can participate in these meetings, and poor Sook-jin is left to defend herself, asking why there must be requirements to want to better her community.
Despite her impassioned speech, our bright neighborhood busybody loses her color as she sulks at home, and I already miss her bold outfits and booming voice. I’m not the only one, though, who wants the old Sook-jin back since her standoffish son sits down with her before school and tells her that he was happy about moving here not because it was a nice apartment but because it made his mom happy. He reminds her that it is the people inside the place that matter, and Sook-jin silently cries after hearing his words.
No-good Chung-won sees this recent strife as an opportunity to spur an all-out war and tasks Hae-kang with exposing the renters in their complex. Doing so would cause even greater harm to people like Sook-jin, so our kind-hearted president comes up with a scheme that can meet Chung-won’s demand without fulfilling his intentions. With Ha-ri’s help, they discover an oversight in the community regulations, and the next day, Hae-kang finds Sook-jin.
He tells his senior secretary that she has to quit… so they can work together as presidents. According to the revised rental housing laws, large apartment complexes like theirs must allow renters to have their own representation, and who better to become a voice for the community than the woman who works tirelessly to improve it. With Hae-kang’s help, Sook-jin easily wins the election, and any remaining doubts she had about the ex-gangster turns into gratitude for all he has done for her and their neighborhood.
In the midst of all these tests and trials, the Kang sisters sub-plot also hits its climax. After her talk with Hae-kang, Ha-ri tells Ha-jung that she failed, but by accepting her reality, she finally saw all the sacrifices her sister made on her behalf. She feels grateful and guilty for taking her youth, and wants Ha-ri to pursue her own life while she works on her dream by herself. Unfortunately, things are a bit more complicated for Ha-jung since Chung-won reveals himself to her, making it impossible to quit.
The only way Ha-jung can escape from Chung-won’s grasp is to use the secret ledger she has been handwriting all these years, but her ace turns out to be a double-edged sword. First, Ha-ri finds the books while cleaning the house, causing another schism between the sisters, but the real issue is Chung-won. When the CEO learns of the ledgers, he decides to leave no loose ends and gives Hae-kang one more task before getting his ten billion won. All he has to do is drive a white truck of doom… into Ha-jung.
His family or a random stranger? The choice is up to Hae-kang, but to Chung-won’s disappointment, the new president fails, what he deems is, the easiest job. He wonders why Hae-kang would spurn his advances — they were, after all, in a situationship — but Hae-kang tells him that he is done flirting with trash like Chung-won. It’s time they play a different game, and Hae-kang promises to make things more interesting.
I never considered Hae-kang and Chung-won to have any sexual tension, so that last exchange was a riot. As a villain, Chung-won is absolutely delicious to watch because he creates so much tension with his mercilessness, but coupled with his idiosyncrasies, he becomes funny as well as terrifying. Besides our wonderfully evil antagonist, this week had a lot of emotional scenes that packed quite the heavy punch. I loved watching Hae-kang and Ha-ri slowly open up and realize they were more similar to each other despite choosing different paths in life, and I also really enjoyed Sook-jin’s storyline and her son’s pep talk. Too often people try to find scapegoats for their problems, and the inherent stratification within society — in this case, property ownership — festered an already growing false consciousness amongst the residents that allowed injustices such as the lack of representation to go unnoticed. While Hae-kang may have started this job with impure intentions, he is turning out to be a godsend like Sook-jin said, and it’s been clear from day one that Hae-kang may try to act as the cool bad boy but he’s really just a soft marshmallow wanting to protect those around him.
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