'Typhoon Family' Episode 3 Recap: Does Tea-Poong Lose His Dad’s Company?

Episode 3 of Typhoon Family is equal parts fun and work. This week, the show focuses on Tae-Poong and the rest of the employees trying to keep Typhoon Trading afloat, but to no avail. The episode is quick-paced, and I’m already very excited about the chemistry between the main leads. The show follows the son of an earnest businessman trying to take over his dad’s company after his death. It is a time of financial distress in South Korea, so much so that the IMF has to interfere, but can Typhoon survive? Tae-Poong used to be a good-for-nothing youth who had a big heart but didn’t really do anything with his life until he was hit with this terrible fate. Will Tae-Poong be able to survive the harsh reality of this world without his father? Will a love story blossom between Mi-Seon, the bookkeeper, and Tae-Poong? We will find out in Typhoon Family episode 3.

Spoiler Alert

At the end of last week’s episode, Tae-Poong had realized that something was wrong with Daebang Textile; everything from the phone being unplugged to the offices being chilly to the lack of the “stain of time” tipped him off. He’d run off to stop the shipment of cloth from making it to Daebang and had thrown himself onto the road before the truck just to block it, with the episode ending on a cliffhanger: does the truck stop for him, or does it roll on over him? Our handsome hero was never going to die, but the dramatic reveal was still satisfying.

At the Daebang Textile office, Mi-Seon hesitates before stamping any contracts or faxing documents back to Typhoon, thinking about what Tae-Poong had told her. She ends up making an excuse and heading out of the building, only to run into a mass demonstration of former employees of Daebang Textiles who are furious that the factory’s just been shut down. Realizing Tae-Poong was right all along, she runs at full speed towards the trucks carrying the cloth and stops them from heading towards Daebang Textiles and (kind of) saves Tae-Poong’s life. Ma-Jin starts pretending he knew all along that something was off with the company and asks the truck driver boss to take their goods back to the harbor, promising to arrange for a warehouse on short notice. That’s easier said than done, though.

On the way to the harbor, the truck driver boss asks Tae-Poong if saving the company was worth risking his life with a stunt like that, and he replies that it was worth 26 years of his dad’s life, earning him the older man’s respect. Once they get to the harbor, though, some of that respect vanishes; they haven’t managed to find a warehouse yet, and the truck drivers don’t have it easy either. They need their trucks free tomorrow morning or they’ll be out of work, so they start dumping the cloth onto the ground, and Tae-Poong has to make a dive to save some from being run over by a truck, almost dying in the process and earning himself a nasty cut on the face. 

When the truck driver boss starts talking about how times are tough for everyone, and how the parking lot next door used to be full of trucks but lies empty now, inspiration strikes Tae-Poong. He asks how much the parking spots go for per night and then calls up Nam-Mo, who’s just had his audition to make it as a big singer, to come down and help him stack the cloth up in big piles on the lot. But it’s not as simple as that; this is no warehouse, and there’s essentially just stacks of luxury product lying out in the open, so Tae-Poong has to keep watch overnight in the freezing cold, clutching a bundle of cloth as a makeshift weapon. When the morning comes and Ma-Jin and Myung-Wan find him, he’s practically an icicle, but the cloth is secure. 

While Tae-Poong is busy trying to save his dad’s company, Nam-Mo’s mother has been left jobless despite having worked for 32 years at the same company, thanks to the financial crisis, and is starting her own chicken shop-pub thing. On the other hand, there’s some hope for Mi-Seon’s sister, who might not have made it as an air hostess but at least has a job in a department store. Mi-Seon spends a lot of time teaching Tae-Poong how the company works. But, soon enough, after a lot of reading up, when she realizes nobody on the market is looking for luxury fabric, it occurs to her that they can get the Italians to buy the fabric back. This idea probably came to her because of what she was teaching her best student. 

Here’s a quick economics lesson: when the value of a currency drops, locals technically have reduced purchasing power in the global market because anything imported from abroad becomes relatively more expensive. However, the opposite holds true as well, and it becomes cheaper for foreign customers to purchase domestic goods, owing to the favorable exchange rate. With the IMF crisis in full swing and the Korean won in freefall, if they can get the Italians to agree to buy the cloth, even at a 30% discount, the difference in exchange rates between the date of purchase and return will make it a technically profitable action. Why would the Italians agree, though? Here’s where Tae-Poong comes in with a devious suggestion: threaten to sell the fabric on the market at less than half the price, crashing the value of the good and ensuring nobody will ever be willing to pay a premium rate for Italian cloth again. The plan’s a good one, so the team drafts a letter and faxes it over to the Italians, but then starts the waiting game.

In the meantime, they’ve got to put the cloth somewhere, and that’s where Pyo Enterprises comes in. Tae-Poong talks to his rival, Hyun-Jun’s dad, who says he should have come to him before. He sends the young man to a not-so-great warehouse, where he and Ma-Jin are handed a suspiciously long contract. However, when they start complaining, the warehouse manager threatens to cancel the contract altogether, prompting Ma-Jin to stamp the document preemptively. There are holes in the roof, and the walls are practically caving in, but it’s something. Satisfied with the day’s work, Tae-Poong walks Mi-Seon home, and they start talking about their dreams. When he asks her what her dream is, she unexpectedly replies that her dream is just to be a trader. Not an assistant to a trader or the girl who makes the coffee, just a trader. 

We also see Tae-Poong’s mom at a pawn store, trading in her luxury bags for a bit of cash, and she’s so desperate for money that the store owner even offers to buy her wedding ring. We saw her being bombarded with notices of forfeiture earlier too, so she’s really neck-deep in financial trouble, but she’s not troubling Tae-Poong about it, even though they live under the same roof. And when it comes to trouble, it never rains but it pours, and the sound of a thunderstorm that night jolts Tae-Poong out of bed. He rushes out without even grabbing an umbrella, but he’s not the only one. Mi-Seon’s out of bed too, knocking down her neighborhood dry cleaner’s door and borrowing several large rolls of plastic sheets.

By the time Tae-Poong shows up at the warehouse, Mi-Seon’s already there, and the two of them get to work covering the cloth and trying to keep it dry. Of course, in the middle of Tae-Poong trying to secure a window with a plastic sheet, he falls over and gets wrapped up with Mi-Seon, their faces almost touching. You can tell the only thing everyone at the company’s worried about is their jobs and getting this cloth off their hands by how they don’t even joke about this lover’s embrace when they show up. The only thing that matters is keeping the cloth safe. They work through the night until it’s 7 in the morning, by which time it’s finally stopped raining.

But this is when Miss Cha realizes what day it is, and she drags everyone to grab a meal, despite their protests at how early it is. In the traditional style, she wishes Tae-Poong a happy birthday with a bowl of seaweed soup, remembering that he was born exactly one day before the company’s founding. When he gets back home, he and his mom try to celebrate too, but someone bangs at the door yet again, ruining the mood. All she tells Tae-Poong is to be quiet. Things go from bad to worse when Tae-Poong realizes he’s been betrayed by Pyo Enterprises, as they’d snuck a clause into their contract that let them confiscate warehouse contents after three days unless an extension was requested. This means Typhoon Trading is done for, as they can no longer return the cloth, and one by one all the employees pack up and leave. Tae-Poong is handed a company dissolution form and told to go to the tax office to try to scavenge whatever assets he still can and shut the business down.

At the end of the Typhoon Family episode 3, Tae-Poong decides instead to become the CEO of his company and asks Mi-Seon to work for him as a trader. Though he is currently in a very difficult situation and Pyo has ruined their chances of selling the fabric back to the Italians, Tae-Poong is certain he will succeed with Mi-Seon by his side. Mi-Seon bursts into tears, because this has always been a dream of hers. She admires traders, and there’s a chance she might’ve never gotten such a role anywhere else because of her lack of schooling, etc. Tae-Poong has just given her the best opportunity she could ever get, even if he has nothing concrete to offer her just yet.