Recap Korean Drama "Big Bet Season 1" Episode 4

Cha Moo-sik is brought in as the bodyguard for the president of NCSR, but soon he realises he had no heart fro such activism and in order to escape the rigmarole he became keen on joining the military. Since he’d already been imprisoned once due to the same reason, he’s unable to bring his notice form. His desire of doing the marine corps isn’t quite accomplished, but while he tussles with the administration at the location for military sign-up, Mr. Kim spots him and recruits him for another similar intelligence unit that required tough individuals. He shows up for the physical test and his athleticism grants him the opportunity he was looking for.

In 2001, Manila, Min Seok-jun boasts about Moo-sik’s feat of getting all his old debtors to repay him. Moo-sik brings in Sang-gu as an agent for the casino and he gets acquainted with Jung-pal. In the meanwhile, he receives a call from his old associate Sang-chul about one of his friends, Seo Tae-seok, visiting Milan. A former gang member in Masan, Sang-chul asks Moo-sik to look after him. Their first meeting catches Moo-sik off guard as Tae-seok gets him with a brazen attitude.

Moo-sik joins the intelligence unit in the fourth episode.

Seok-jun discusses his frequent meetings with the son of the owner of a construction company in Korea, as the two we’re introduced to each other via Mr. Woo. Moo-sik guides him to keep his distance from Mr. Woo, and not to let him borrow any money from him. Eventually, Tae-seok cuts the slate clean by meeting with Moo-sik again and introducing himself in a better way than before. He mentions that life’s been pretty hard for him lately, so Moo-sik offers him $10,000 without a second thought.

Also read: Stuck With You (2022) Review: Short, Silly and Slapstick

Thinking that they’re close enough now, Tae-seok also asks for any opening in the casino as he would like to work for him. Moo-sik is yet again taken aback by how straightforward the man is despite this being their second meeting. At the same time, Seok-jun reaches the place and Moo-sik sees through how distraught he is feeling. Linking the dots, he realises it’s probably Mr. Woo’s doing. Jung-pal confirms his doubts and relays the humiliation his boss had been out through. Apparently, Mr. Woo had asked him for $50,000, and when Seok-jun disagreed to lend the amount to him, his lackey threatened him with violence. Seok-jun had to beg on his knees to be excused.

Moo-sik can’t let this slide as he owed everything to his boss, Seok-jun. Paying a visit to Mr. Woo, he’s surprised to see his friend, Sung-il there as well. He directly target Mr. Woo and asks him to back off and stop messing with Seok-jun. Mr. Woo is left wide-eyed by Moo-sik’s attempts to defend his boss like that and asks him to down a huge bottle of alcohol in one go. Once he succeeds in doing so, Mr. Woo promises to leave Mr. Min alone.

Moo-sik helps Tae-seok in the fourth episode.

Skipping straight ahead to Manila of 2010, Seok-jun’s status has clearly inflated since the old days and the team of four key members – Seok-jun, Moo-sik, Jung-pal and Sang-gu – had earned 70 billion won in just over a decade, while also waking side-by-side with illustrious Filipino political leaders. Moo-seek explains the concept of “rolling” in casino to have played the key role in this achievement. Once the customers start winning big, the agent plays his game by earning a commission depending on the measure of the customer’s performance. Since they only earn about 1.2-1.6% in the process, the agents try to bring in more customers to the junket owner, who grants him an even bigger commission.

The agents don’t earn a fixed salary with this method, with part of their payments being earned in cash while the other as ‘comps’, which are basically cashable coupons used for hotel amenities. Moo-sik turned this into a business as a means to help out the agents get more cash instead. Due to the use of comps, about 40% of their money stayed tax free. With ample of comps left behind, their female employees enjoyed the morning buffet at Purvio everyday, which was nearly impossible to get in for locals, even with good money.

During one such stroll to the morning buffet, Moo-sik spotted the chief of staff for the president, and he’d been a frequent visitor to the hotel. In order to keep any such business going, one should have good contacts in one’s pocket. And, Moo-sik ensured the same by buttering up the chief and giving him several political funds annually. He suggests another incentive by sponsoring his team’s regular meetings at the hotel despite it requiting heavy funds.

A still from the fourth episode.

The meetings started off small with the mayor, the governor, the commissioner general and some generals joining in, along with Moo-sik sitting in the meetings. Within three months, the scale of these meeting expanded exponentially. This helped Moo-sik gain respect in their eyes as a vastly wealthy businessman from Korea, but they never knew he was making it all happen through the remaining comps. In order to spend off the last few comps as well, he increased these meet-ups to twice a week.

Gradually, these seminars became the talk of the town and even the son of the president would drop by. All leading political figures and business moguls in the Philippines would make it a point to show up. Impressed by it all, the Chief, Carlos even introduced Moo-sik to Big Boss Daniel, the kingmaker responsible for choosing the next president. Moo-sik hits the jackpot by entering into business with the god of gambling himself.

The new venture takes Moo-sik and Jung-pal to Caliz in 2010, where the latter lays eyes on the woman of his dreams. Moo-sik, on the other hand Moo-sik meets with Mr. Woo and Phlip, Sang-gu’s friend. Clearly, Mr. Woo’s business is running slow and his interest rate keeps climbing up. Moo-sik and Jung-pal reach out to him to collect the money, while Mr. Woo asks for an extension on the deadline, which Moo-sik disagrees to and informs him that they’ll have to take over the place if the money is not paid for by the end of the month.

Moo-sik meeting with the Chief in the fourth episode.

Relaying the same news to Seok-jun, Tae-seok gets upset over the fact that moo-sin didn’t let him handle the situation. Jung-pal asks the boss to kick him out but he doesn’t and tells them to look after him. Back at his place, Tae-seok watches the news, reporting about a Korean-man’s death in Manila. Tae-seok sits in the bathtub, pointing the gun against his head. He pulls the tigger but since that particular shot is empty, nothing happens.

Big Bet Episode 4 Ending

A warrant against Moo-sik is handed out charging him for assault, and the fax is forwarded from Korea to Philippines. Moo-sik is friends with the police chief and meets up with him, hwhiel the latter invites him for dinner with a friend of his. Once they reach the venue, ‘the friend’ happens to be a fellow Korean, Jo Yungi, the same man who received the fax earlier, and seems to be working at the Korean embassy. Eventually, Mr. Jo pulls out the fax with Moo-sik’s name on it, and the latter dashes away for the taxi and leaves the premises after lying about his identity.

Turns out, when Moo-sik was collecting Mr. Min’s bonds, he got into a fight with gang boss, ho later charged him for extortion and assault. Eve though the consul didn’t have the right to take Moo-sik in, he still ran away from the location. Following this, the government also underwent a major change and all the people Moo-sik had been backing up till now, lost their posts and power.

A still from the fourth episode.

Seok-jun somehow convinced the son of the construction company owner to build a hotel in Caliz, and since Mr. Woo didn’t pay his interest in the end, Seok-jun’s team wrapped up business in Manila and went straight to Caliz for new opportunities.

On an evening, Jung-pal invited Moo-sik to a fine restaurant with his girlfriend, So-jung, but during their soiree, Seok-jun calls him to ask if he’d put in the bid for Bolton, which Moo-sik hadn’t. Arousing Seok-jun’s anger, he tries to calm him down but fails to do so. Simultaneously, a new mysterious Ms. Ko summons Seok-jun. She asks him if the new hotel has a casino too, and he replies with his priorities lying with the hotel and golf course at the moment. In order to commemorate the opening of the new hotel, she pulls out the big guns and bets quite a few gold plaques, which severely raises the tension.

Big Bet Episode 4 Review

Keeping the pace to a minimum, the fourth episode focuses on Moo-sik’s drive for negotiations as he pulls political strings to the business’ aid. Not much ground is offered to the supporting character, with the prime attention remaining on Moo-sik’s role yet again. Although this tactically allows for his development to show on the surface and prove his high name in the game, the show pulls us away from liking any other character at all because we never get a peek into their psyches.

Big Boss Daniel in the fourth episode.

While the action remains slow, it derides many others of any significant role in it. Lee Dong-hwi’s Jung-pal is essentially one of the major three characters, but even doesn’t get any chance to prove his essence other than merely tagging along with Moo-sik. Every episode brushes through several timelines together so it’s bound to introduce us to new faces, which only adds up to the puzzling mess that hasn’t cleared up with the first half of the season already over.

Hopefully, we’ll see the police acting against him soon enough, which will help multiple the intense moments, but till then, we have a lot to discover about Moo-sik himself, and that saga is far from monotonous.