Recap Korean Drama "A Model Family" Episode 8

Aug 13, 2022

Episode 8 of A Model Family begins in the past. We see an important flashback involving Dong-Ha and his father, Deuk-Soo. The former is on the verge of getting married but their relationship breaks down, with Dong-Ha telling his dad he can live just fine without him.

In the present, Deuk-Soo leads his son into the back garden and demands to know what’s happened. Dong-Ha admits that he’s an accomplice to all this and he can’t go to the police. “They won’t hesitate to kill my whole family,” He admits.

Joo-Hyun watches the family from afar, unaware of the bodies, but Hwang-Chul is also watching her so she doesn’t make any moves or gets closer to them. She heads back to the team and decides to look into Eun-Joo and her connection to this as well.

The thing is, Deuk-Soo isn’t saying anything about the danger his son is in, and when Joo-Hyun asks for an update, he shrugs it off, claiming he needs a bit more time and that there’s nothing to report.

Dong-Ha urges Eun-Joo to have patience but she’s all out of that now. Despite being a drug mule and involved in an even more dangerous vocation than before, she scoffs over the fact that Dong-Ha still isn’t making any money. In fact, she’s going to leave and take the kids to stay at her mum’s place again.

As for Dong-Ha, he has a busy day, and he can’t exactly pull a sickie to be there for the kids. Dong-Ha is starting to crack and with his family falling apart, he asks Hwang-Chul how long he has to do this for. “Until I say so.” Is the reply.

Dong-Ha exasperates over this, but loads up the car as he’s supposed to and prepares for the next stage of this mission.

Only, when Dong-Ha arrives at the drop point, Eun-Joo is there waiting. It turns out she’s struck a deal with Kwang-Chul. For her silence, she wants the kids to be safe and money for Hyun-Woo’s surgery too.

Knowing that the police are onto them, the cars split up with Dong-Ha and Eun-Joo switching with Kwang-Chul, leading the police away. Kang-Jun is also being followed too.

Eun-Joo is tasked with keeping an eye on Dong-Ha and if she does that, then the payday will be enough to support them through these hardships.

With Hwang-Chul free from his tail and all eyes now on the money, the police, Kang-Jun’s group and Hwang-Chul all move into position. As for Dong-Ha, his position in all this is to keep the police busy, with Eun-Joo under instructions to stay in the hotel room.

Dong-Ha starts to be swayed by Kang-Jun’s promise of freedom from all this and keeping his family to be safe. When Eun-Joo finds out, she’s shocked and points out that Hyun-Woo’s life is hanging in the balance, relying heavily on them getting the money for this surgery. Without that, they’re in big trouble.

Kang-Jun shows up at the hotel room and brings Dong-Ha and Eun-Jo downstairs with him. Realizing they’re in a world of trouble, the pair manage to slip away with the money still in the trunk. Kang-Jun clearly had no intention of helping, and after seeing the guys stab Yun-Seok (the agent working with Joo-Hyun) they head off up the road to safety.

A car chase inevitably ensues, with Dong-Ha swerving at the last second, narrowly missing a large truck which ploughs into Kang-Jun’s car, tips over and ignites.

Kang-Jun stumbles away but he walks right into Joo-Hyun. He realizes he’s been double-crossed and plays his trump card – the cop he’s been working with all this time. Kang-Jun admits to he has no idea where the money is but he does have info on the Sangseon Ring and the crooked cop.

We also learn here that Kang-Jun was the one who killed Han-Cheol at the start of the season. Stuck in an impossible situation. she lets him go.

When Dong-Ha checks the bag in the trunk of his car… there’s a problem. The money isn’t actually there. It turns out Yong-Soo has it and he makes the trade with the Messenger as requested, settling the dispute but leaving Dong-Ha back at rock-bottom once again.

The Episode Review

An exciting episode of A Model Family sees all roads leading to the hand over with the Sangseon Ring guys. There’s a lot of intriguing elements to this show, especially the relationship between Dong-Ha and Eun-Joo, as well as how that ties in with the hierarchy at play with the drug runners.

This episode is arguably the best of the bunch, and it’ll be interesting to see exactly what will happen with Dong-Ha moving forward from here.

It seems the nightmare is not over for him yet but will he ever escape the inevitable? We’ll have to wait and see!