The Apartment Job: Episodes 9-10
by lovepark
The cat-and-mouse game has commenced. While our penthouse villain thinks he is in control at all times, our wily hero proves that he is much more conniving than given credit for and teaches his opponent a painful lesson this week about underestimating him. However, as both sides get into a direct fight, their battle boils down to one thing: who has more to lose?
EPISODES 9-10
Much to Chung-won’s chagrin, the test he set up for Hae-kang turned into a trap for himself as the apartment president reveals that he knows much more about the situation than he let on. In fact, he knows everything since Ha-ri came to him for help, and the key to take down Chung-won’s empire is now in Hae-kang’s grasp. Unfortunately, that same ledger is also a death sentence for Ha-jung, and Chung-won knows this, too.
After digging into Hae-kang’s background, our penthouse villain discovers his fake family and takes this opportunity to sow division. His target is Ha-ri, and our smart but naive lawyer-to-be is not swayed by money but words. He tells her about Hae-kang’s true motives for becoming apartment president, and the effects are immediate. While Chung-won may be an outright villain, Hae-kang is a scam artist who hides behind a facade, and for someone who defended his character, the latter comes as a bigger blow.
Rather than admit his mistakes, Hae-kang lashes out when confronted and argues that Ha-ri has no place to act as the victim since she joined his family for money, too. However, those close to them know that these aren’t their real feelings, so Ha-jung reminds her sister of all the times he helped them without expecting anything in return while Lizard explains to Hae-kang that her words stung so much because they came from someone who trusted him. After cooling down, our fake couple sits down for a proper conversation, and Hae-kang tells her about Yong-man and apologizes for deceiving her.
Thanks to their conversation as well as Kyung-bok’s intervention (nothing works better than a kid pointing out how childish everyone is acting), our intermittent family hug out their problems and focus back on their real enemy. As expected, Chung-won wasn’t just stealing reserve funds but also cutting corners in his construction business. Unfortunately, that means their apartment was shoddily built, too, and Sook-jin comes knocking on their door, confirming their hunch: the kindergarten is breaking.
While the students are relocated to a kids cafe, this solution can only last for so long since even one day babysitting has completely drained the team. Luckily, an answer to their problems literally walks through their doors when the young mothers club joins their cause. One of their members is secretly a huge YouTuber, so they create their own media buzz to expose Taesan Construction’s wooooonderful work. The slanted floors are great for workouts, the leaking roofs provide free cement mist, and the huge cracks are just avant-garde art pieces.
As their video goes viral, Chung-won gets into some hot water with the old fogies in One Club who are more than ready to change out their “spare tire.” While Chung-won is without a doubt an evil man, I hate these pretentious elites even more, so I really hope when Hae-kang takes down Taesan, Chung-won brings the whole ship with him. However, one shoddy construction is nowhere near enough to topple Chung-won since, according to him, the great equalizer in this world is shoddy construction. Everyone does it, which means everyone turns a blind eye to it, and the sad reality is that he’s right. When the other residents hear about the kindergarten, their first reaction is not about the children’s safety but their property value.
Since Hae-kang gave him such a huge gift, Chung-won returns the favor and spreads fliers of the president’s fake family all across their neighborhood. He even has Hae-kang arrested without a warrant because his goal isn’t to screw him over or give him a warning; no, his goal is to shift the narrative and damage his credibility. However, what Chung-won did not account for was Ha-ri, and in Hae-kang’s absence, she acts as the family anchor and keeps everyone together until their leader returns.
When Hae-kang is released, Ha-ri becomes his shield against their angry neighbors, but when she trips, he becomes hers. Hearts practically fly out from their eyes as the naysayers yell at them to stop acting, and poor Kyung-nam third-wheels in the background, asking for some protection, too. While Hae-kang will catch the real thief and accept anything the protestors throw at him, he warns the crowd that if anyone messes with his family, then there will be consequences.
Besides our intermittent family, the only other person who believed in Hae-kang was Sook-jin. She even confronted the facility manager to clear her co-president’s name, so when Hae-kang tells her that it wasn’t all false — he really did try to embezzle the money — she is understandably conflicted. However, Sook-jin decides to believe in the person she saw, the one who went out of his way to deliver packages and help the community, and in her own roundabout way, she tells Hae-kang to stay and continue being her neighbor.
After overcoming Chung-won’s attack, the family has gotten stronger, and Ha-jung finds the courage to take responsibility for her actions. As a result, Ha-ri is now free to hand over the ledger to Hae-kang who then uses it to strike a deal with the police chief since the enemy of my enemy is a friend. He tells the chief that One Club is a sinking ship, so rather than sign away the commissioner’s career, why not build him a new ladder to climb? Though a bit skeptical, the chief accepts the proposal since he thinks Chung-won is a ticking time bomb as well but only agrees to release Yong-man after seeing Hae-kang bring the CEO down.
Though shoddy construction can be remedied with a fine, Hae-kang knows that a tarnished reputation is not as easily fixed. Thus, the moment Chung-won tries to flip the narrative with a fake apology during a press conference held at their apartment, Hae-kang crashes it with a sledgehammer. In front of a live audience, he smashes the wall, revealing a pile of garbage where steel should be, and the damage is done. Hae-kang has trapped Chung-won within his own frame, and Taesan stocks plummet by the second as a result.
With this latest attack, Chung-won decides to go for Hae-kang’s jugular and pays a visit to Yong-man in the hospital. However, rather than strike fear into the older man’s heart, Yong-man reads him like an open book and calls him a pitiful boy lashing out at the world to protect himself. Proving Yong-man right, Chung-won causes the older man to die by preventing him from calling for help, and by the time Hae-kang arrives, it is too late. As if that wasn’t enough, Chung-won then attends Yong-man’s funeral and stifles his chuckle as he tells Hae-kang that he got rid of his hangnail for him.
I knew Yong-man was probably going to die after his conversation with Hae-kang (it was death flags after he called him son), but a part of me still wanted him to live and see Hae-kang find his dreams. Though he didn’t have a lot of scenes, Yong-man was such an integral part of Hae-kang’s story and the reason why our hero turned out to be such a great man. As Ha-ri told Kyung-bok, family isn’t just about blood but about who you stick by, and Yong-man showed Hae-kang exactly how to do that. Unlike Chung-won who saw his mom get beaten and decide to become the one with the stick, thus perpetuating the cycle of violence, Hae-kang saw Yong-man love without conditions and followed in his footsteps. As a result, our villain stayed stuck as a boy poisoning the air around him in an attempt to control the world while Hae-kang grew up into a man able to heal the generational trauma he carried and become a leader who brings out the best in people.
Now that everything is out in the open — the fake family, Chung-won’s identity, the embezzled funds — I suspect the stakes will only get higher from here. Hae-kang has lost his most important person, which I assume will make him even more protective of his current family. As for Chung-won, he will be desperate to reclaim his position and will most likely take even bigger risks to prove his worth. However, while Chung-won has been cutting off every single accomplice in his pursuit for power, Hae-kang has been amassing them as he grows. Not only does our hero have his fake family, but every opponent he has faced has turned into an ally (Sook-jin, the facility manager, his neighbors, etc.). In the end, Chung-won’s poison will be his own downfall, and hopefully, when he goes, he will take the trash out with him.
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