The Penthouse – K-Drama Episode 19 Recap & Review

The Truth Is Finally Revealed

We begin episode 19 of The Penthouse with Su-Ryeon telling the adults exactly what their kids have been doing, including nonchalantly brushing aside the fire that nearly killed Seol-A.

As the kids begin weeping, Logan tells them over the loudspeaker to write down exactly what they did to Seol-A. While they do, Su-Ryeon forces the Hera Palace residents to turn on themselves. They begin fighting as Su-Ryeon gives them an ultimatum; if they can admit the truth then the parent and child to do so will go free from this death-trap.

Well, everyone continues fighting and no one can agree on exactly who killed Seol-A. As things continue to escalate, Su-Ryeon brandishes a shotgun and destroys the masked figure standing before them. It turns out it wasn’t Yoon-Hee after all but actually just a mannequin.

Su-Ryeon eventually shows her face to them and admits that Seol-A was her daughter. She tells the adults she never got a chance to hold Seol-A or call her her daughter and walks away. As she does, the countdown ends and the adults wind up soaked. The cage doors open and they all rush away.

Only, on the way out they’re forced to wade through raw sewage to escape the junkyard. The adults head back to Hera Palace and reunite with their children but the reunion is short-lived. Ho-Dong shows his face and tells them he’s going to pass on these letters of remorse to the police.

With things looking up for Su-Ryeon and Logan, the former visits Yoon-Hee who continues to act shadily. That’s only made worse when Su-Ryeon admits she knows who killed Seol-A. It was Yoon-Hee. “Why did you kill her?” She asks outright as Yoon-Hee spills her drink and loses her composure.

Now we see that actually Su-Ryeon followed Yoon-Hee to her meeting with Joo after having suspicions over what she was doing. It turns out several bits of DNA were under Seol-A’s fingernails including Seo-Jin and Joo’s,.. but also someone else who wasn’t a resident from Hera Palace. That backs up the notion that Yoon-Hee was the one responsible.

Yoon-Hee tells her things are over between them and she’s clearly not of sane mind. She tells Su-Ryeon she must have fabricated the whole thing and goes on to plead with her not to tell Ro-Na anything about what she’s done.

Just then, Chairman Joo shows up with his goons to take Su-Ryeon home. While they do, Yoon-Hee tells herself that she’s done the right thing turning to Joo’s side.

As we cut to Joo, he has Su-Ryeon tied up in his study. He wants to know who she’s working with but for now, she remains tight-lipped. Logan rings to lead him out the room, prompting our American to head in with a strobed torch to dispatch the guards and free Su-Ryeon from her binds. Together, they take off on his motorbike.

With Su-Ryeon safe, he shows up at the bar and plays his part as an investor well with Joo seemingly not suspecting he’s responsible for what’s going on. There’s an investment presentation the following day but for now Logan is in the clear. As we soon find out too, Su-Ryeon is wise to what’s going on and knows Yoon-Hee is working with Joo.

While they work to get their story straight, Joo gathers the Hera Palace residents and aligns their story to say they made false confessions under tremendous stress. As the residents go about their days like normal, Seo-Jin receives a resignation letter from Ho-Dong who leaves the school.

Yoon-Hee snaps photos of Su-Ryeon whom she sees leaving Logan’s place. Afterwards, she meets Logan and shows him the photos she’s managed to obtain of him. Only, Logan is smart and shows photos of her kissing Joo.

With an important business investment coming up, he warns her not to mess anything up and it seems they’re both at a stalemate. It turns out Logan is also trying to convince Su-Ryeon to leave and head to America with him. For now though, it all boils down to this investment meeting.

Seo-Jin’s prospects of becoming Director at Cheong-A take a huge blow. Someone tips off the authorities about Eun-Byeol’s irregular exam results and reporters immediately question her. They ask whether she forged her daughter’s score to get accepted. Even worse, the kids at school learn about Eun-Byeol and what she’s done too.

Police arrive to investigate Seo-Jin’s office and the school at large, armed with a search warrant to look through everything. Prosecutor Yoon leads the charge while Seo-Jin remains confident that she’ll be okay based on her background and who she is.

At the investment meeting, everyone anxiously awaits Logan showing up. Only, he’s actually at Joo’s house stealing things from his safe, including switching the contracts around. With no Logan in sight, Joo decides to begin the briefing alone for the casino. Midway through though, detectives show up and arrest Joo in front of everyone for embezzlement.

As he’s taken into the main lobby, Logan shows up and chuckles to himself. It turns out he’s the one who reported Joo to police as the truth about who he is finally comes to light.

The Episode Review

Well, that was dramatic! Aside from the wonky motivations of Yoon-Hee, this episode was pure, pure drama from start to finish. The bus incident leading all the way up to Joo and Seo-Jin getting their comeuppance was so beautifully orchestrated that it made the whole thing incredibly satisfying to watch.

The kids in particular have been traumatized by this event as we’ve seen but now Eun-Byeol is about to taste exactly what Ro-Na has been for the past episodes. Quite how that will feed into this story however, remains to be seen.

Penthouse has missed a few golden opportunities, namely the romance between Yoon-Cheol and Yoon-Hee which could have been an intriguing and sentimental inclusion to balance out the drama. Instead, we’ve got Yoon-Hee turning evil quicker than a professional wrestler in WWE. Still, the show continues to deliver the goods and this is easily the best guilty pleasure on TV right now.

It’s not the best written, and at times the acting is so exaggerated and over the top but there’s something endearing and engaging about this one to keep things watchable. This is going to be an agonizing week as the finale of this show looks set to end things in a suitably spectacular way.