Bargain – Season 1 Episode 4 “Panic Room” Recap & Review

Panic Room

At the beginning of Bargain episode 4, Hyeong is not getting angry at Joo-young for telling the truth. He wants to create a ruse where he tries to convince the bidders that she is an informant for him. The plan was for his backup team to break into the building and nab all the organ leggers. He lies that Joo-young and he had been working on the operation for an entire year. Since he is indeed a detective, the bidders seem convinced when they see his badge. But two of them, the guy with the knife and the lady who outbid Geuk for Hyeong’s kidney, do not believe them.

They think the pair might be with the organ leggers and are not willing to open the door. When the bidders are distracted and infighting, Joo-young whispers to Hyeong that they need to turn them against each other to the extent that they draw blood. The plan works without them having to do anything as Hyeong is set free. There is a lot of mistrust among them as Hyeong declares that he will arrest anyone who perpetrates violence from there on in. Two bidders are stabbed to death by the one who had the knife earlier.

He asks Hyeong to fetch a phone from the lobby (from the ones that were deposited when the auction started). If he cannot bring it back, he threatens to kill Joo-young. The cop goes down and instead of looking for the phone, tries to improvise a makeshift weapon. He looks around and finds that Geuk is alive. Geuk comes at him with a knife but Hyeong hides behind a door. Geuk doesn’t stop and keeps stabbing the door which is broken down.

But before he can enter, one of Hee-sook’s goons stops him. Geuk is able to get the upper hand when Hyeong distracts him. He once again asks the cop to take responsibility. Is it the start of a new alliance? Geuk emotionally reveals that he himself has just one kidney. It wasn’t a match for his father, and it was just thrown away. He is angry, desperate, and confused. Hyeong promises he can get Geuk two kidneys when they get out. If he can’t find them, he will give Geuk’s father his own.

Geuk also gives him a phone, but it doesn’t have any signal. Hyeong takes the phone and says to Geuk that he will go to the third and Geuk will go to the fourth. Before leaving, Hyeong tells Geuk his name and the unit at the police station where he works. When he makes it to the third floor, he notices one of the bidders, who was earlier holding on to her dead husband, has killed the other aggressive bidder and possibly the others too.

The Episode Review

Episode 4 is a mess and there aren’t two ways about it. The plotting and writing were completely off. A lot of interactions and scenarios did not make sense; neither did they feel as organic as how the rest of the story has come to pass. The infighting wasn’t as nearly exciting enough as Geuk’s anger when he saw Hyeong again. Given the former was the central premise for the episode, its lack of effectiveness isn’t a surprise.

I won’t say the creatives have lost us off the hook, but their grip has certainly loosened. The story needs to be a little more enterprising here and sustain momentums through twists and turns. If the trends in episode 4 are kept up for the final two episodes, Bargain will end in disappointment. And given its sensational start, that would be a huge letdown.