The Orphanage
Episode 8 of Penthouse Season 3 begins with Su-Ryeon worried after failing to hear from Seok-Kyung. She immediately speaks to Seok-Hoon and breaks the bombshell reveal to him about Seol-A and Seok-Kyung being siblings. Even worse, images have been manipulated to show Seok-Kyung at the airport and beyond. Only, there’s no shadow which Seok-Hoon failed to see originally. Now that he sees it, he suspects the worst. Seok-Kyung meanwhile, finds herself surrounded by women who look at her with murderous intent. They grab her and punch the girl to the ground. As we soon find out, she’s at an orphanage which has been completely cut off from the world, with no markings on a map. The doors are locked too and it seems there’s no way out. In fact, Seok-Kyung feigns a major injury at lunch, smashing her face repeatedly into a mirror. As she’s taken outside, she tries to run away but finds Dan-Tae waiting for her. Elsewhere, Logan awakens and calls out for Su-Ryeon. Yoon-Cheol confirms it’s been 7 months and also reveals to him that Dan-Tae is responsible for the bombing. With Su-Ryeon in danger, Logan passes out from being so weak, leaving lots for Yoon-Cheol to think about. With Dong-Pil made the CEO of Cheong-A, he finds himself worried about issues regarding the subcontractors. Unfortunately Dan-Tae doesn’t want to hear it and ushers him away. As he does, Je-Ni shows up and confronts her Father. After buying her expensive gifts, she rejects them completely, unwilling to have presents bought for her from this money. Seok-Hoon remains desperate to get his sister back and decides to succumb to Dan-Tae’s wishes. Reluctantly, he agrees to learn how the business works. This is all a ruse though, with Seok-Hoon doing this as a way of trying to find Seok-Kyung. Meanwhile, Su-Ryeon heads off to a private investigator to help with tracking her down, using this contact to check out the Hera Palace gang too. While there though, she also learns about the pills Eun-Byeol has been taking, including reference that they’re known to erase memories – and bring on early-onset dementia. At the theatre, Seo-Jin hosts the auditions with Eun-Byeol joined by Ro-Na. However, mid-performance the key goes up with both Eun-Byeol and Ro-Na singing their hearts out and trying to outperform the other. While Seo-Jin is unhappy with the key changes, Eun-Byeol is convinced this is a fix and confronts Ro-Na backstage. The kids are smart though. Backstage they confront Eun-Byeol about the shortcuts she’s ben taking, which include warming up to her audition song. All the kids turn on her, paving the way for Ro-Na to win the audition and receive flowers and a trophy for her efforts. After, Su-Ryeon sits with Ro-Na and shows her what she’s found regarding the pills. She, in turn, messages Eun-Byeol to meet. She shows the pills and reveals exactly what it does to her. Ro-Na tries to help the girl but Eun-Byeol is too far gone. Dan-Tae takes Seok-Kyung back inside and has her locked up again. With her behind bars, Dan-Tae breaks the news that she’s actually Seol-A’s sister. As he leaves, Seok-Kyung sneaks out the window and tries to escape. Su-Ryeon does eventually show up with her men, desperate to find out what’s happened to her daughter. After smacking Dan-Tae’s hand with a rock, she storms inside but finds Seok-Kyung gone. In fact, she’s donned a new disguise and is actually making good distance from the orphanage. Seo-Jin continues to sedate Logan, keeping him alive as collateral damage. She heads off to see Dan-Tae and offers to get rid of Su-Ryeon for him. In exchange, she’ll make sure proof of Logan being alive is erased. There’s more going on here though, especially as Seo-Jin wryly smiles. Well, with these pictures of Logan, the gang all gather together on the back of Joon-Ki’s pleas and ask him where Logan is. Seo-Jin’s pictures however, happen to have the bins from Hera Palace in the background. This causes Dan-Tae to believe Su-Ryeon is responsible. This was all Seo-Jin’s plans to get back to being a Director. Su-Ryeon is led to the basement at the same time as Dan-Tae arrives with all the board members, who see Logan go into cardiac arrest – and notice Su-Ryeon there too. Joon-Ki is also captured too. It turns out Seo-Jin has always tried to beat Su-Ryeon, jealous of her lifestyle and calm demeanour. As the episode closes out, Su-Ryeon is taken to a house where Logan wheels out and sees her. The pair kiss as the episode comes to a close.
The Episode Review
Penthouse returns this week with another dramatic episode. At this point though it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s not. Even the big reveal at the end with Logan seems suspect. Is this really Alex in disguise? Or is this actually our Logan? It’s tough to know and Penthouse’s numerous switch and bait tactics haven’t always served it well. However, Seo-Jin’s sudden 180 back to being the evil character is a really disappointing turn of events. I know she’s always been the evil half to this Dan-Tae situation but her turning into an antihero was one of the better parts of this season. Now that she’s gone full-on evil again, it feels like a step back for the series. Hopefully Eun-Byeol can stat to see sense too regarding the pills. Her story has ben pretty frustrating most of the way through this but with Seok-Hoon and Ro-Na both trying to help, it seems it’s only a matter of time before she snaps out of this. Then again, some of her shifty mannerisms seem to hint that she’s hiding something. Has she really lost her memories? Or is this all a ruse? With Seok-Kyung on the run, it seems like the perfect time to give her some character development and I do hope the show follows through with this. Either way, the preview for next week looks pretty promising and leaves the door wide open for where this one may go next.
