He’s Back!
Episode 6 of The Penthouse Season 3 begins with Seo-Jin back as the Director of Cheong-A Arts Center again. She attends a press conference, thanking everyone for their support and deciding they need to reform the education system. She’s not exactly happy with Dan-Tae being there with her though. Still, they’re both in the same boat given they’re shareholders. For now, Seo-Jin is going to have to grin and bear this. Seo-Jin next visits hospital where Eun-Byeol happens to be recovering. Unfortunately Yoon-Hee’s eyes are haunting her. She sits up and reflects back on the cliff incident where it’s revealed that Eun-Byeol was conscious at the time and watched as Seo-Jin helped push the car over the edge. In order to free her of these ghosts, she pleads with Seo-Jin to get her a drug that will help erase her memory. Seo-Jin is unwilling to do this until Eun-Byeol starts screaming and shouting. Eventually Seo-Jin caves and tasks Mr Do with bringing the drug. Meanwhile, Ro-Na shows Su-Reon a board Yoon-hee was working on with numerous lines and pictures drawn up across different people. She’s not sure what the root cause of this is but she’s determined to find out. Ma-Ri can sense something is up with her husband, who finally admits the truth about what he’s hiding. He slumps, telling her about his framing and how Dan-Tae killed Yoon-hee. Ma-Ri is crushed and immediately heads off to see Su-Ryeon, asking for help. They both know Dan-Tae is the killer and remain determined to stop him no matter what. However, that still doesn’t stop Su-Ryeon from despairing and calling Dong-Pil an animal. Ma-Ri makes her move and decides to mobilize her contacts from the bathhouse to find camera footage that could incriminate Dan-Tae. That includes all the chips gathered from different dashcams in trucks. The chairwoman puts on a lucrative sum that could reach 500,000 dollars if the group find him. Meanwhile, Bun Hong continues to make Seo-Jin’s life a living hell, deciding she should go and see Eun-Byeol when she wakes up. Of course, she’s in collusion with Dan-Tae which makes Seo-Jin’s ability to push against this that much harder. Interestingly, the dashcam footage comes back not long after, with Su-Ryeon realizing the pair are working together. They were seen in the Gimpo area but Su-Ryeon decides not to go through the court system this time. Instead, she’s going to go through hell and make each player burn. Starting with Jun-Ki. Jun-Ki is far from saintly though. He has a pretty nasty gambling addiction and tends to blow large wads of money on different games like blackjack. After running out of money, he rings his contacts and asks for more. This person happens to be Seo-Jin, who meets him and hands over a bag of cash. Dan-Tae uses this weakness to his advantage, teaming up with Dong-Pil for the next stage of their plan. Elsewhere, Ro-Na visits Eun-Byeol in hospital. Unfortunately she’s lost her memories so doesn’t remember what happened up at the cliff Instead, she continues to pedal the same story that Yoon-Hee tried to kill her. At the end of her tether, Ro-Na warns that if she follows through with this then she’ll do her best to expose her and getEun-Byeol thrown out of school. Su-Ryeon takes Yoon-Hee’s old words to heart. In order to get back at those who have wronged her, she adopts the persona of Ae-Gyo once more. After getting the same butterfly tattoo (properly this time), she sets out to exact revenge on those who have wronged her. We then jump forward 6 months later. Je-Ni and Ro-Na are back being friends. Ma-Ri and Dong-Pil’s relationship though is strained. Elsewhere, Dan-Tae and his cronies continue to work on their district, determined to move a school across to the neighbourhood to help skyrocket the land price. While this is going on, Eun-Byeol and Seo-Jin attend press conferences while the former works on her singing. She’s quick to slip into old ways though, berating Ro-Na as she applies for a lucrative position. Seo-Jin even grabs her application and rips it up . Su-Ryeon fully embraces her Ae-Gyo persona and prepares to meet her contacts. At the same time, Seo-Jin forces Yoon-Cheol to work on a surgery for a heavily bandaged man. That person? Logan Lee. He survived the blast and Seo-Jin did everything in her power to keep him alive.
The Episode Review
Another week, another fake-out death. The problem with this tactic is that it completely diminishes any tension this show manages to build up. After Logan survived that blast, Su-Ryeon survived death thanks to the power of twinning and all our characters avoid certain death – is there really any doubt over Yoon-Hee returning? Given how this show has been developed over the years, it’s hard not to see her return. The characters themselves are a real mixed bag too, with most having not really progressed meaningfully in the past 3 seasons. All the hard work done last year has essentially been undone with many characters regressing back to their original personas. Eun-Byeol is still selfish and looking out for herself. Ro-Na is still struggling in an unjust world. Kyu-Jin weasels his way out of situations while Dan-Tae an Seo-Jin are still on top of the world. Given this is the final season though, hopefully the show can give a resolute ending this time when it comes to a close. For now though, Penthouse bows out with an episode full of twists and turns, but also a reminder that you can’t really believe anyone has actually died in this show!
