The Penthouse – Season 3 Episode 4 Recap & Review

Breaking The Wall

Episode 4 of Penthouse Season 3 begins with Seo-Jin finding the poster regarding Dan-Tae’s true identity. Joon-Ki spies her doing this too and encourages her to leave his room. When she does, Seo-Jin locks eyes with Dan-Tae and starts to understand what’s happening.

We then cut back to Japan 7 months prior. Logan Lee was at the prison and approached Joon-Ki while he was behind bars, giving the man instructions on how to leave. He handed over his credit card and promised they’d meet again. Unfortunately Logan ended up dying so that meeting hasn’t come to fruition.

Tensions are obviously high at the penthouse though, especially when Joon-Ki decides to start taking back what should have been his.

Meanwhile, Yoon-Hee continues to do the rounds and investigates the death of Mi-Sook. She approaches Dong-Pil and asks about her death. She questions why he turned himself in and encourages him to open up. He’s having none of it though and shouts at her, walking away. Dan-Tae notices though and decides to keep tabs on Yoon-hee. She’s getting too close to the truth.

At the Cheong A Arts theatre, Yoon-Hee stamps her authority as she shows up and reveals the truth. She’s bought 20% of this building. It sends ripples throughout the penthouse as all the different characters contemplate how and what this means.

Seo-Jin is understandably not happy, believing Yoon-Hee is playing them all and taking Logan’s money. Well, Su-Ryeon questions Yoon-hee about the investment but just as she’s about to admit the truth, Joon-Ki shows up.

With some delicious nibbles on the table, Joon-Ki admits that he thinks Seo-Jin has figured out the truth. For now, they hold onto what they have but it’s clear this is going to come back around soon.

Yoon-Hee using that money all stems back from Logan, who asked her to use as much money as possible to try and find the other twin we’ve been hearing about.

At school, Eun-Byeol gets into a fight but she fakes a cut across her head. As she does, she’s bundled out the back and into a car to safety. Well, only for a bit anyway. Later on in the episode Jin Boon-Hong catches up with her and takes Eun-Byeol back, complete with a maniacal cackle.

While she’s gone, the attention for Su-Ryeon turns to the ownership of Dan-Tae’s company which has been transferred to Seok-Hoon.

Yoon-Hee continues to go on the hunt, determined to find out the truth by heading to the DNA center. Secretary Jo is on the move though, watching her from afar and feeding it back to Dan-Tae. This gets him thinking back to the past where it turns out one of the twins is not actually his. One was swapped out with another child at birth. But which one?

In flashbacks, we see this situation is the sole reason Dan-tae killed Mi-Sook, who knew too much. As news of this ripples back to the present, Yoon-hee receives her DNA results and hurriedly rings Su-Ryeon. She has something massive to tell her about Seok-Kyung – and that happens to be Seok-Kyung’s birth mother is actually Su-Ryeon’s daughter.

However, when she catches wind of what’s happened to Eun-Byeol she heads up to Gimpo Farm and intercepts the cars. She’s dead-set on telling Su-Ryeon everything. The only trouble is, Dan-Tae is in hot pursuit behind her.

Eventually this chase culminates in a literal cliffhanger. Yoon-Hee is stuck, left pushing her car as hard as she can while Dan-Tae places a rock on the accelerator of his car and prepares to push her into the water.

When he leaves, he heads back to the penthouse where he witnesses Dong-Pil smashing up the walls of Hera Palace’s atrium. There, the wrapped up body of Mi-Sook happens to be.

The Episode Review

Penthouse bows out this week with another episode that only reinforces this should have been two seasons. I know I’ve said that a lot over these recaps but it still holds true here.

The show feels like it’s throwing in the same plot twists and the problem with the twisted and deaths in this show, they never feel final. This sucks any tension out of every single situation because we know the writers can just pull any old deus ex machina out their behinds to make our characters survive.

This episode is essentially focused on uncovering more about Dan-Tae’s past. While interesting, it’s also another recycled plot point we’ve seen before. The reveal with Seok-Kyung is a good one, although it remains to be seen exactly how this will play out going forward.

Either way though, this episode does deliver some dramatic moments, like super Yoon-hee managing to hold back an accelerating car. There’s definitely enough drama to tide you over but the show has  lost the spark it once had.