Recap Korean Drama "Payback: Money and Power (2023)" Episode 5-6

As we’re thrown right back into the fire, we watch as Jun-kyung shocks the world on live TV admitting she’s a co-conspirator with her partner being Ki-seok. Ki-seok shrewdly realizes that this couldn’t have been her idea and someone like Yong must be pulling the strings behind the scenes.

Calling Myung, concerned about the threat Yong poses, Ki-seok hears Myung being arrested by Tae-choon over the phone. Yong, meanwhile, has met with CEO Oh to finally push forward with helping Oh become a assemblyman. Yong, after putting some pressure on Oh, breaks down his wall and Oh gives Yong a press pass.

In what feels like the smallest hallway ever, Tae-choon and Ki-seok lock eyes. After remarks are made regarding Myung’s arrest, Tae-choon lets Ki-seok know he will find his way to the seventh floor (Special Investigations) on his own – proving that he’s cut off his want and need for Ki-seok’s approval.

Yong makes his way into the prison where Myung is held to greet him from the dead. Myung, seemingly unfazed by his predicament, laughs it off and tells Yong that he can just get out by paying a fine. Easy-peasy. Yong reveals the press pass he was given and makes it clear to Myung that he plans to dive into his illegal wealth.

The Supreme Prosecutors Office shows up to investigate Ki-seok and suspend him. He drops his key card in front of them with disrespect and broods away into the abyss. Side note: I want to talk about the color grading in his office. It’s all so melancholic and gloomy. It complements his personality so well, and it’s not subtle at all!

Back at his home, Ki-seok takes his anger out on his mirror. Bloody-knuckled, he turns to look at his wife who walks in on his boxing match. She hugs him, mends his wounds, and gives him some encouragement. Here, we see that she has her own ambitions — one of them being to make her way into the Blue House.

Myung finds a way to weasel out of having to be interrogated by Tae-choon by asking Bok-sun, the woman he burned with an iron and took her shares from, to sue him. She follows through and Myung ends up being interrogated late at night at the detention center. He’s left alone in the room and manages to leave the detention center unscathed after disguising himself… somehow. Having to return in three hours, he makes his way into the city.

CEO Oh meets with him on a rooftop and Myung tries to persuade him to stay loyal. When he denies, Myung stuffs a piece of paper in his pocket, written by Ki-seok, and pushes him off the edge for a horrendous death. With the false suicide note cooked up by Chef Hwang (Ki-seok) being found on Oh’s person, all eyes shift from Myung to Yong, as he’s blamed for the “suicide.”

Inspectors show up at Change Equity Fund and demand Han-na to contact Yong. Our hero, meanwhile, realizes the bold move he must make against such a powerful opposing move. Walking into the middle of GMI Bank all nonchalant as though he’s not a wanted man, Yong finds Tae-choon and asks him to cuff him as that’s the only move he has.

On live TV, talking to the press, Yong brings up his good relationship with CEO Oh and states that he has “reliable friends” that can vouch for them. After riding the elevator up with Yong, Tae-choon is almost arrested as well for sending Yong the confidential documents, until Ki-seok stops them and brings Yong into his office.

In a room full of tension, the two players, unflinchingly and confidently give each other back-handed compliments. Ki-seok brings up how if they weren’t enemies, they could have been friends. Yong states that they’re not enemies as Ki-seok is just a leech sucking his father-in-law’s blood (I love this scene). Yong hires the Attorney General to be his lawyer, but when he shows up to meet Yong, Ki-seok notifies him that Yong has already been transferred to the prison.

At the prison Yong walks in while Myung and his goons mean-mug him through the fence. Later on, a guard brings Yong into a workshop and locks him in while Myung’s men attack Yong. Yong is able to fight them off until he is restrained by a couple of the thugs. One prisoner, about to stab Yong, instead stabs one of the other prisoners, killing him – and pinning the murder on Yong.

Taking Yong’s team by storm, each of them does what they can to try to save Yong. Tae-choon meets with Ki-seok’s wife MYUNG SE-HEE (Sohn Eun-so), who wants to strike a deal. She says she knows the accusation pinned on Yong is false and asks for the thumb drive that Jun-kyung holds; she wants it before Assemblyman Baek gets his hands on it.

Refusing to working with someone on the opposing side, Jun-kyung attempts to figure out her own way to help Yong — despite Tae-choon and Han-na’s support of striking a deal with Se-hee for leverage. Tae-choon finds Jun-kyung in the rain and drunkenly begs her for help to save his uncle.

Jun-kyung, while driving to meet Assemblyman Baek for his press conference, is attacked bumper-car-style by Myung’s men in an attempt to find the flash drive. After evading well for the majority of the time, the thugs are able to stop her, one of them being Jin-ho. Not willing to go down without a fight, Jun-kyung beats a few down with a wooden pole until she is hit from behind and stabbed in the shoulder by Jin-ho who then searches her for the thumb drive. Unable to find it before the cops come, they flee, while Jin-ho’s mask is left at the scene.

Hearing of the news while meeting with Assemblyman Baek after making the decision to give him the thumb drive, Tae-choon rushes over to the hospital where Jun-kyung is receiving treatment.

After receiving the thumb drive from Tae-choon, Baek, the snake he is, turns right around and drops it in Myung’s hands, ridding Yong’s team of the leverage they had. At the prison, Yong loses his cool head and attacks one of Myung’s men beating him senseless and earning himself a long spell in solitary confinement.

One month later, Jun-kyung is still unconscious while Yong has finally been let out of the cement block. He reads on a newspaper that Ki-seok has started investigation of the top three firms in Korea (pretending to care about justice). Later on, the man Yong beat into the ground attempts to come after him with a shank. Before he can reach him, though, Yong’s men step up and guard him. It seems Yong has amassed a bit of power within those walls.

Phew! I knew this was shaping up to be a race to the death, but this week’s episodes kept setting the stakes higher and higher with every play. It seems like every time our protagonists pull ahead, Myung and Ki-seok are right there to foil the plans, as good villains always do. I didn’t think pinning murder on Yong was out of the question, but I wasn’t expecting it to be within the prison walls — this whole plot arc changes the scope of the battle so much! 

Yong is intelligent, but Myung has had him up against the ropes a few times now. I’m interested to see the big plan he’s got cookin’ up in his brain to punch back at Myung. We’ve hit the halfway mark in the drama, but the battle is still neck and neck. Neither side seems willing to budge, but how far are they willing to go to win?