In the beginning of Payback: Money and Power, Episode 2, a man on a train causes a lot of trouble. Eun-yong is there, but he’s only been out of jail for two days, so he decides not to get involved. Only, a girl shows up out of nowhere, takes his umbrella, and decides to talk to the men.
When more people come from the other side of the train car, Eun-yong can tell that things are about to heat up, so he joins in.
Together, they fight off the thugs and catch all of the gangsters, but they also catch Eun-yong and the schoolgirl. It turns out that girl is Park Joong-gyeong, the woman we saw at the end of the last episode. Hye-rin, her guardian, comes to get her out. She is the CEO of Bluenet, and in the future of this timeline, she will kill herself. Hye-rin is helpful to Eun-yong because he helped Joon-gyeong when she was in trouble.
A Story of Corruption and Redemption
Since Eun-yong has nowhere else to go, Hye-house rin’s is open to him. She made him tofu and signed off as his guardian. She doesn’t care about his past, but she is surprised when he says he robbed a bank and got away with a lot of money. She tells him to stop breaking the law and come with her to Bluenet. It’s the first time an adult has treated Eun-yong like an adult, which is why her suicide is such a big deal to her and hits her so hard.
This is especially true now, as Eun-yong looks through his old emails and finds messages from Joon-gyeong telling him that her mother needs help and is in trouble.
We jump ahead to 2010, where Hye-rin is in the spotlight. She is being questioned about the work diary of Minister Son’s secretary. “Bluenet Yoon, 5000” is written on one of the pages. Hye-rin is accused of giving Minister Son Seung-jun $50,000 to get him to do what she wants. Gi-seok was in charge of all of this.
Minister Son had to drop out of the race because he was accused of taking bribes, and the investigation went away after he quit. Concerning the suicide, the camera footage shows that the camera was stopped on the road, and then all of a sudden, it moved forward quickly and went over the edge of the cliff. Eun-yong sees this and is sure that she would never do something like this.
After the bad thing that happened with GMI Bank in the last episode, our group of bad guys is now talking about what they should do next. Gi-seok, In-ju, and Chang-hyun are some of them. Gi-seok decides to take control of the situation and end the investigation.
Kim Seong-tae came to see Tae-chun after the group threw up. Because of this, the second person is sent up to Special Investigations, and Chief Gi-seok calls him into his office. He tries to get Tae-chun to like him by telling him he’s good in front of the public and giving him a job at Special Investigations. It’s a tempting offer, but it’s just a way to get him off the case and focus on something else.
In-ju and the others decide to delist GMI Bank to try to get out of the stock manipulation charges by getting rid of evidence. Eun-yong sees all of this and decides that the most important thing is to get rid of CEO Oh. To do this, though, means getting involved with cartels, which Eun-yong knows a lot about.
Escape From the Cartel: a Story of Survival and Revenge
Back in 2003, Eun-yong decided to leave In-cartel ju’s and go on his own. In the end, he makes a deal with Hye-jin and Bluenet because of this. Now, Eun-yong and In-ju ran into each other around this time. When everything goes wrong, it’s the last job he does for him. The people who work for Myung drive right into Eun-yong and almost kill him. He gets beat up by In-goons ju’s until the boss shows up.
All of this is what In-ju is doing because Eun-yong is the “golden goose” of their operation. After beating him up, Myung makes him sign over the stocks by threatening to kill his family if he doesn’t. Still, Eun-yong is able to get away and scrambles to safety. His sister, on the other hand, is not so lucky.
As Chairman Myung is forced to deal with the falling stock prices, Eun-yong decides to work with Hye-rin to manipulate the market to their advantage. This completely changes the situation. Myung tries hard to get the press on their side, but it doesn’t work. Hye-rin takes the next step and patents her chip technology for the US with the help of Eun-yong.
At a tense dinner, Eun-yong shows up to talk to Chairman Myung. He teases the chairman and tells him that everything will be settled peacefully, with Eun-yong leaving the country. He tells Myung that if he does this, he can’t hurt his family. If he breaks the deal, Eun-yong promises to come back and fight him right where he lives. Now that Hye-rin is dead, things are heating up, which is shown at the end when Eun-yong comes to see Joon-gyeong in the present and uses his umbrella to protect her.
Payback Episode 2 Review
This next chapter does a great job of explaining the history between Chairman Myung and Eun-yong, as well as the deep-seated problems that have been going on for a long time because of his shady dealings. It’s clear that this small group of criminals will be stopped sooner or later, and it could be done in small steps, like in Korean dramas like Again My Life.
The connections with Hye-rin and Joon-gyeong also make a lot more sense now, which is good, and even though Tae-chun only shows up briefly here, it’s enough to understand the conflict he’ll have with all of this going forward.
Payback is shaping up to be a good movie, though, and next week’s double feature should be great.
Click if you want to know about The Forbidden Marriage Episode 8 Highlights and Recap: The King’s Confession and Shin-won’s Farewell!
Final Words
A girl shows up out of nowhere, takes Eun-yong’s umbrella, and starts talking to him. She is Park Joong-gyeong, the woman we saw at the end of the last episode. Hye-rin, her guardian, comes to get her out. In-ju and the others decide to delist GMI Bank to try to get out of the stock manipulation charges. Eun-yong decides that the most important thing is to get rid of CEO Oh.
To do this, though, means getting involved with cartels, which she knows a lot about. Hye-rin takes the next step and patents her chip technology for the US. The-Chun only shows up briefly, but it’s enough to understand the conflict he’ll have.
