'Dead-End Job' Full Recap (Episodes 1-8): Does Hyeok-Jun Survive The Part-Time Gigs?

Hyeok-Jun is a 30-year-old with no job and no salary, and he’s blown all his inheritance on stocks, but that was not a good idea. The man clearly doesn’t have a way with money, considering he’s also fallen victim to a scam, which seems to be the norm in all K-dramas. Dead-End Job begins with Hyeok-Jun wanting to kill himself, literally. He stands in front of the Han River (presumably), ready to jump, only to change his mind at the last moment. He doesn’t actually want to die, this world just wants to kill him. Luckily for him, as he holds on for dear life, now under the bridge (kinda), he finds out about a company offering fifty times the minimum wage. So that’s where this show really begins, at Spider Staffing Agency, said company that pays more.

Spoiler Alert

What Kind Of Odd Jobs Does Hyeok-Jun Take Up?

In Dead-End Job episode 1, Hyeok-Jun is introduced to Spider Staffing Agency through the flyer under the bridge. We don’t know how he got out from under there, but he shows up to the company’s offices to try and get one of these part-time gigs that pays 50 times more than any other part-time gig. This would help him pay off his debt and probably lead a happier life. There are some rules that Hyeok-Jun has to follow while doing these jobs. He agrees to do whatever it takes, as long as it doesn’t involve doing anything illegal. This man is so easily scammable. The first job involves working the night shift at a convenience store. The rule is that he has to go into the storage room just for five minutes to do inventory. However, at any other time, if he hears a sound from the storage room, he should not go inside. When Hyeok-Jun starts seeing scary things at the convenience store, with the lights dimming and weird noises, he freaks out and wants to run away. But that would mean no money. However, he feels better when he finds out that he has a colleague to help him out. But this 22-year-old colleague, while good for company, doesn’t help Hyeok-Jun with much. Well, this is because he’s not human. He’s the first entity that Hyeok-Jun encounters. Suddenly, we’re seeing giant Ratatouille in the convenience store, ready to kill Hyeok-Jun. He also sees a weird-looking creature inside the storage room, and he can’t leave this convenience store, so he’s basically stuck there trying to fight off a giant rodent. Ultimately, he manages to survive, thanks to the sun coming up.

Considering how bad this first job went, you’d imagine Hyeok-Jun would not want to take up any more, but now the price hike goes from 50 times to 100 times more than a regular part-time job. Obviously, this would help him pay off his debt and enjoy a decent life with his sister and mom again, so despite the craziness of the previous job, which makes him believe he was seeing things, he decides to take up another. In the second job, Hyeok-Jun is an assigned driver, and he’s meant to take a man named Jun-Seop from one place to another, but at the same time, he has a clown with him. Specifically, Jolly Pierrot. Things go off course after the clown does some weird stuff inside the van and eventually ends up killing Jun-Seop. Now, the thing to keep in mind is that Jun-Seop is not a good person in any way, and we already know the job he does is something shady. But still, watching him die in front of his eyes in the weirdest way thanks to Pierrot, Hyeok-Jun feels awful about taking up the job. Though now he has no choice but to take the clown to the party at the KD event. When Hyeok-Jun gets there, the clown forces him to introduce him to the crowd. Everybody’s wondering where Jun-Seop is; Hyeok-Jun has no answer, but as soon as he’s introduced the clown, Pierrot transforms into a Pennywise-looking clown. The next thing you know, Hyeok-Jun is watching the entire crowd die in front of his eyes as he walks out helplessly.

Dead-End Job episode 3 sees Hyeok-Jun taking up a regular part-time job, which pays regular wages, and he’s immediately miserable. More importantly, he meets an old classmate, who seems to be in the same boat as him. But he has it worse, because he’s been doing this job for a while and keeps getting yelled at. On the other hand, Hyeok-Jun’s sister buys him a belt that looks expensive in order for him to get a good job and feel good about himself. and to remind him that she needs him alive and well. Hyeok-Jun goes to a job interview while still looking at the message from Spider Staffing Agency that says he could get paid 200 times minimum wage at the next gig. When he gets to the job interview, he picks up pretty quickly that it’s just another scam and walks away from it. Now, while this could actually be a scam, it could also be that Hyeok-Jun is too caught up with Spider Staffing Agency and genuinely wants the other gig. At the same time, he finds out that his friend, Byeong-Cheol, has suffered a serious illness, and might need kidney dialysis. So, Hyeok-Jun decides to take the other job so he’s able to pay for his friend, whom he hadn’t met in years and didn’t even recognize. I think the point here is that Hyeok-Jun is a terribly good person and would sacrifice himself for the well-being of others. This is also likely why Mr. S from Spider Staffing Agency tells him he has very strong Yin energy.

This time, the gig is delivering milk. It sounds easy enough, until Hyeok-Jun can’t find the flat numbers and also ends up having to walk on the walls in order to get to a specific door. Let’s just say it’s like playing a video game, and if he delivers to the wrong flat or doesn’t make it in the one hour that he has, he loses. Unfortunately, Hyeok-Jun ends up dropping the last bottle, which leads to a fog of black clouds coming straight at him. To save himself from said fog, Hyeok-Jun opens the door to one of these houses and goes inside, but there is no inside, because the door was the threshold between our world and the other. 

Why Does Ji-Yoon Also Take Up A Job With Spider Staffing Agency?

Lucky for Hyeok-Jun, he had messaged his sister that if he didn’t return home, she should go to Spider Staffing Agency to find out more about what happened. Realizing that Hyeok-Jun isn’t responding to her, Ji-Yoon ends up going to see Mr. S and being really creeped out by him. She tries to file a missing persons notice, but it’s not possible because Hyeok-Jun is an adult and it probably looks like a prank or like he did it on purpose. Now, Ji-Yoon hears about another job, and decides to take it up specifically to go find her brother. Yes, she goes back to Mr. S, because she just loves her brother that much. Ji-Yoon isn’t a scaredy-cat like her brother, and faces all the demons at the cinema with ease. I’m not going to lie, the surveillance one with the eyes was definitely creepy. But things get really weird when Ji-Yoon ends up seeing herself on the big screen and realizes that she’s actually in it. A scene from her childhood repeats itself, where Ji-Yoon ended up running backwards without realizing it during a track race. This scene is hard to understand, because it could imply Ji-Yoon also has some powers herself. But nothing gets explained in this season of the show, so maybe we’ll have to wait and watch to find out more. Anyway, Ji-Yoon manages to get out of the screen after tazing herself, and then also tazing the creepy cinema manager. This happens to be a bad idea, though, because he’s the only one who can keep her safe. Finally, Ji-Yoon somehow manages to find a door that leads her straight to “the Other Side.” See, I told you she has some kind of power. As soon as Ji-Yoon is inside the door, Hyeok-Jun wakes up back in the real world, only in the middle of a field in the countryside. 

Now, Hyeok-Jun has no choice but to ask Yeon-Ju for help. Yeon-Ju is an accident investigator who has been showing up consistently in front of Hyeok-Jun ever since he took up the job at Spider Staffing Agency. There’s something weird about her, but you can’t really put your finger on it until later in the show. Hyeok-Jun wants her to help him find his sister, but he’s unable to get any new job opportunities at Spider Staffing Agency. Luckily for him, Yeon-Ju has suffocated the guy who got the job in order to steal his phone. So now Hyeok-Jun can pretend to be that guy and go do the job. Luckily for him, Ji-Yoon ends up being able to open one of the doors from the other side, which leads her straight to the lab that Hyeok-Jun is working at. Turns out, Byeong-Cheol is also one of the patients getting experimented on, just like Hyeok-Jun. Hyeok-Jun tells him not to swallow the pill that they give him, but he does it anyway. In the meantime, Ji-Yoon manages to take one of the scientists down and steals their hazmat suit. But, the siblings end up getting caught because they look too suspicious, and they’re taken into the same room. This is good for them, because they’re able to untie each other and escape. But the creepiest thing happens in that moment. A leech seems to crawl out of Hyeok-Jun’s nose, and when he throws it away, it latches onto one of the researchers. Suddenly, the leech is too big for even 3 humans to handle. Ji-Yoon and Hyeok-Jun escape, and they try to drag Byeong-Cheol out of there too, but he doesn’t go with them because he’s desperate for the money. I think it’s safe to say that Byeong-Cheol ends up dying that day, because we see something like his spirit in the final episode of Dead-End Job. Anyway, now you’d think Hyeok-Jun and Ji-Yoon are done, but they’re not.

What Is Yeon-Ju?

Yeon-Ju used to be a seamstress some 40-odd years ago in a terrible factory. Her co-workers were all unionizing but ended up getting in trouble for it. Yeon-Ju tried to fight the people in power too, but one of the older ladies knew that she was sending money back home and tried to save her from certain death by putting her inside of a small box where nobody would find her. But when Yeon-Ju woke up after the commotion, she got out of the box into Neo World Parade, an amusement park that replaced the factory 40 years into the future. Apparently, you can time travel through the other side too it seems.

But Yeon-Ju is no human. She is now a monster too, but one who has a conscience. She’s kind of a ghost, but people can still see her. That’s why Hyeok-Jun can interact with her, and she can drink a cup of tea. It’s all a bit confusing, especially since it’s left unexplained on the show. Hyeok-Jun ends up doing a job at a construction site after realizing that his father might be on this “other side” too. He feels he might still be alive and ends up going in search of him. The construction site is where his dad disappeared, but the man who manages the workers there has killed hundreds of them in order to build a tower of bones. Why? Well, I guess to bury the truth of the overwork and unpaid labor. Hyeok-Jun nearly ends up killing the manager, but manages not to do it in the end. Hyeok-Jun learns about the door to the other side at the construction site, and feels like he can find his dad and get answers from him if he goes in. He goes to Yeon-Ju for help, and she obviously agrees to join him because she has her own plans.

Does Hyeok-Jun Succeed In Closing The Door?

Now Hyeok-Jun has to take up the job at the amusement park if he wants to find the door there. The amusement park job is the only one that can become a full-time job, but this is because everyone who goes there ends up getting killed. They also get sewn into their character suits for life (yikes). Hyeok-Jun nearly dies, and also ends up having to take off his mascot head by inflicting a wound on his own neck. But hey, he manages to save himself from becoming a fur monster. In the meanwhile, Ji-Yoon finds Mr. S again and asks him to take her to his brother. Finally, Hyeok-Jun ends up running to the haunted house at the amusement park. This is when he realizes he’s inside of a memory or a figment of his imagination. Either way, it leads to him finally seeing his father. But this version of his dad is an illusion. Hyeok-Jun thinks he can stop his dad from making a fool of himself on the TV show that Hyeok-Jun forced him to go on for money, but it doesn’t work. Instead, things start to get even weirder. It’s like going from one room of a haunted house to another. Plus, it’s called “Fantasy” haunted house, probably implying that Hyeok-Jun wishes he could save his father, and is therefore seeing this as a scene in his head.

Hyeok-Jun nearly gets choked to death by a rope in this haunted house, but maybe it’s his good energy that keeps the worst from happening to him. When Hyeok-Jun finds his dad, he tries to talk to him, but that’s not his dad, it’s some creature that can shape shift into all of the many monsters Hyeok-Jun has encountered. Finally, Hyeok-Jun runs away and finds the door. Yeon-Ju shows up at the same time and asks him why he’s hesitating to open it. She provokes him by bringing up his dad, and how he might end up being swallowed by the darkness by now. That’s when Mr. S shows up, having hit Ji-Yoon in the head and left her unconscious somewhere because she would make things difficult for him. He has a gun in his hand and tells Hyeok-Jun to step away from the door. Hyeok-Jun just wants to know what’s behind the door. But apart from his dad, there are loads of entities who will all get access to this world if he opens the door. Hyeok-Jun sides with Yeon-Ju instead of Mr. S, despite him calling her a monster. The real monster is the man who sends people straight to their deaths, no?

Mr. S looks like he’s killed Yeon-Ju, but she’s still doing fine, just waiting for the right moment. Hyeok-Jun ends up opening the door, and that’s when Yeon-Ju gets her strength back. She sends Mr. S straight into whatever black clouds are coming out of the door, while she decides to follow him in there too. But this is when Hyeok-Jun learns that her intentions were to end this world, because nothing has changed in the past 40 years. Those in need of money are still desperately doing whatever they can and never getting a win. It’s always the rich “monsters” who continue to profit.

At the end of Dead-End Job, Hyeok-Jun takes a step through the door and ends up going to the place where his dad is. Even in the middle of all of this, after all these years, Hyeok-Jun’s dad who obviously doesn’t recognize him, gives him the envelope of cash that he made at the construction site and tells Hyeok-Jun to give it to his family. All he cares about still is that his family has money. Hyeok-Jun realizes he can’t bring his dad back in this state anyway. So, he leaves him there, knowing what happened ultimately to him. But at the same time, Ji-Yoon finds her brother and drags him out of the door. They both shut it together, but so much stuff already came out. There’s no way this adventure is over yet. The show ends on a cliffhanger, with Hyeok-Jun looking for new jobs and Ji-Yoon getting one at a Kyungil company. Kyungil has shown up before in the show, so it seems like they’re a name we can give for the bad guys. On the other hand, Hyeok-Jun gets a message from Mr. S to take up his place now that he’s gone. This was a recorded message, and it seems Mr. S is confident that Hyeok-Jun is cut out for this role. The show ends with us wondering if Hyeok-Jun will actually take up the job and turn into the monster that sends people to their deaths. 

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