‘The Penthouse 3’: Episode 4 Review, Recap & Reactions

Last week in The Penthouse, Baek Jun-ki has finally inserted himself in all the Hera Palace drama when he introduced himself to everyone as Joo Dan-tae’s friend from Japan. Little do they know that it could not be further from the truth! But Cheon Seo-jin snooped around his things and found the metaphorical bomb that Jun-ki had been keeping in his back pocket: a poster of Joo Dan-tae being a wanted criminal from Japan.

The Penthouse 3 episode 4 took us to the most action-filled episode of the season yet, thanks mostly to Oh Yoon-hee being a pain in Joo Dan-tae’s ass. What will Baek Jun-ki tell Cheon Seo-jin now that she knows his secret? Who is Kim Moo-sik and why is her dead body in the Hera Palace fountain? The burning questions get answered in our review, recap & reactions.

Feel free to leave your thoughts about this episode in the comments down below! And remember: if you missed our discussion of previous episodes of The Penthouse 3, you can always go back to them HERE.

Note: I am sorry that I was not able to do last week’s episode, but that’s what happens when real life gets in the way. The important thing is I am back to cover this very exciting part of The Penthouse 3.

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The Penthouse 3 Episode 4 Recap

As always, sooo many things happened in this week’s episode. The Jun-ki vs. Dan-tae storyline that dominated much of last week’s episode had taken a backseat to more pressing matters. But Dan-tae better act fast because his enemies are growing, and he has no one but himself to rely on this time.

Cheon Seo-jin tried to extract more information out of Jun-ki after seeing Dan-tae’s face on a wanted poster. But the bigger piece of the puzzle was why it said that his name was Baek Jun-ki. Despite the Fake Jun-ki threatening her to stop digging, the ever-so-smart songstress was able to put two and two together: they were not actually friends as they claimed, and Dan-tae was stealing his identity.

We also saw how Logan Lee helped Jun-ki escape the mental institution that he was locked in for years. He even lent him his credit card afterwards! Rich guys be richin’.

READ: ‘The Penthouse 3’: Episode 2 Review, Recap & Reactions

Speaking of Logan, everyone in town was talking about the $10 billion dollars of his that they (correctly) thought Oh Yoon-hee had. In The Penthouse 3 episode 4, we were finally let in on the reason why he was giving that money to her. Are you ready for this?

Shim Su-ryeon didn’t give birth to only one daughter in America… she actually had twins. And the other twin — Min Seol-a’s sister or brother — may or may not be alive! And of course the disappearing twin act was orchestrated by Joo Dan-tae himself.

So Logan asked Yoon-hee to use the money so that she could uncover the truth about the mysterious twin without Su-ryeon knowing. And there was sooo much more drama that involved Yoon-hee and other people’s children. Su-ryeon told her about Dan-tae forcing Seok-kyung to steal her legal seal so that he could transfer the ownership of the penthouse and Lot 27 under his and Joo Seok-hoon’s name.

It raised a red flag in Yoon-hee’s head: why would he place Seok-hoon’s name instead of Seok-kyung when she had been the one helping him all this time?

Soon, Oh Yoon-hee was stealing hair from the kids’ hairbrushes for a DNA test that revealed everything: (1) one of Joo Dan-tae’s children was not his, (2) Shim Su-ryeon’s biological daughter AKA Min Seol-a’s twin sister was alive, and (3) it was Joo Seok-kyung all along!

Mind. Blown.

But before Yoon-hee could tell the truth to Su-ryeon, she was preoccupied with a car chase against Joo Dan-tae whilst rescuing a kidnapped Ha Eun-byeol. Girl was buuuuusy in The Penthouse 3 episode 4!

So let’s rewind a bit to how we got to this situation, shall we?

Jin Bun-hong was getting extremely, psycopathically obsessed over Eun-byeol to the point where she would not allow the child to do anything out of her sight. But a chance encounter with Bae Ro-na in the restroom made it possible for Eun-byeol to escape her precarious situation… temporarily.

Ro-na was able to deduce that Eun-byeol was being abused by Ms. Jin, so she and Seok-hoon created a plan to rescue her rival-and-almost-murderer. She instigated a fight with Eun-byeol that led to the latter being able to take a cab to Ro-na’s place in Hera Palace.

It was going well until Little She-Devil Joo Seok-kyung got a whiff of what they were up to. To make her former schoolmates’ lives miserable, she told Ms. Jin about where the two lovebirds had been keeping her “daughter”. This allowed Jin Bun-hong to set up a trap for Eun-byeol and chloroform her to unconsciousness. But Oh Yoon-hee was able to see the kidnapping take place, and the car chase was on!

Ms. Jin would call Joo Dan-tae for help, who already seemed like he was very eager to drop her as an ally earlier. But when he learned that Yoon-hee was involved, he knew that it was his chance to destroy her. So he told Ms. Jin to lure her into his cottage in Gimpo.

Yoon-hee was able to arrive at Dan-tae’s Gimpo cottage with Ms. Jin and an unconscious Eun-byeol. She was smart enough to run towards Ms. Jin’s car immediately and attempted to drive away from the scene as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Joo Dan-tae followed her in the heart-stopping car chase of a lifetime!

Their long-winded adventure was cut short when they reached the end of a cliff. This only meant good things for the evil Dan-tae, who continuously rammed his car onto Yoon-hee’s several times in an attempt to push her (and Sleeping Beauty Eun-byeol) off to their death. She-Hulk Yoon-hee was only delaying the inevitable by getting behind the car so that she could stop it from falling off the cliff.

As police car sirens sounded off, Dan-tae made his exit. But to make sure that the girls would plunge into their death, he placed a huge rock on the gas pedal of his own car. And that’s where we ended her journey in The Penthouse 3 episode 4: with Yoon-hee hanging on the edge of a cliff, trying her damndest to rescue Ha Eun-byeol.

And if you didn’t get enough of She-Hulk Yoon-hee this week, then you’ll be happy to know that she has another thing to hold over Joo Dan-tae’s head if she survives. When she learned more about Joo Hye-in’s birth mother, Kim Mi-sook, she immediately confronted Yoo Dong-pil about her murder. Even if he just threatened her to back off, she already knew that he was covering for Mi-sook’s real murderer: Dan-tae.

So Dan-tae found out that she had been snooping around about the Mi-sook thing too, so add that to the long list of Why Oh Yoon-Hee Should Die.

But in a flashback in The Penthouse 3 episode 4, we finally learned more about what happened the night she was murdered. Kim Mi-sook was blackmailing Dan-tae because she found out that one of the twins was not really his own. And just to make it clear, that also meant that Na Ae-gyo never gave birth to twins!

The ballsy move by Mi-sook was enough for Dan-tae to murder her. As he tried to cover up the body, Dong-pil walked in on him and agreed to take the fall for the whole thing. As what had been hinted to us in the second season, he did it to ensure his family got compensated well and had a place in the penthouse.

We ended the episode with Dong-pil discovering Mi-sook’s dead body within Hera Palace. And of course, Dan-tae stood there laughing at him like the cockroach that he was.

That was mostly all the excitement we got this week. Elsewhere, the Cheong-a Arts Theater had finally been built and most Hera Club members are vying for the director position. And we finally got some insight into Secretary Cho and his undying loyalty towards his abusive boss! We confirmed that he was originally “Dong-pil’s guy”, but Joo Dan-tae had his family captive or something. There was also a scene where a scary maid drugged Seok-kyung in the Gimpo farm… wonder what that’s all about.

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The Penthouse 3 Episode 4 Review & Reactions

Are all episodes in this season just gonna have a lot happening all the time? If so, then sign me up!

I never realized how “average” the start of the season was until I watched this episode. It definitely made me realize that we had been missing something from the previous weeks. Plot twists, compelling character arcs, more Ha Eun-byeol… whatever it is, we’re back!

The Penthouse 3 episode 4 basically made me root for Oh Yoon-hee again. I’ve always been meh towards her since the very beginning, and felt especially betrayed by her when she turned to the dark side in season 1, but she has proven herself to be a great person recently. Even her sketchiness around Logan’s $10 billion dollars had a justifiable reason behind it.

If only she wasn’t stupid enough to keep Su-ryeon in the dark for sooo long.

I also loved how Joo Dan-tae recognized her (and all the other women in his life) as a pest that just won’t go away. How does she always manage to be an obstacle in his life? Unfortunately, I think that go-getter behavior of hers may have just landed her a spot in the afterlife.

I don’t think I’ve ever been scared for a character in the show since Shim Su-ryeon was allegedly killed back in the first season. But the car chase between Oh Yoon-hee and Joo Dan-tae was just excellent and had me at the edge of my seat! I was rooting so hard for her to hang on for dear life. The fact that she personally rescued her daughter’s almost-murderer spoke to her character.

This is one of those moments where I’m actually not sure about how a character will escape their death. With only a few episodes left in the show, anything is possible! If I were a betting man, I’d say that Yoon-hee will fake her deaths for some time and wait for her moment to strike against Dan-tae.

Regardless of what happens, I’m sure that act of bravery would almost be enough to make Cheon Seo-jin trust her… almost. While I always mention how frustrating it is that the Hera ladies can’t come together to take down Dan-tae, I totally understand the slow burn. Between murders, man-stealing, and multiple betrayals, they have many reasons to distrust each other.

In fact, if Yoon-hee actually does give up on trying to save Eun-byeol’s life to save her own, it might cause an even bigger rift among the ladies.

Anyone else got confused about the whole Shim Su-ryeon/Na Ae-gyo/birth mother/twins situation going on? For the past two episodes, I found myself gasping at all the revelations about the twin switches and birth mother drama, and after a few seconds, I’d be like: wait, what? The whole situation has become ridiculous and complicated — as if it wasn’t already after the second season — but a few rewinds and online searches later, I am finally caught up to speed.

Joo Seok-kyung being Su-ryeon’s real daughter is gonna shake up their rocky dynamic… for the better, I hope. After they find out the truth, the two of them could hopefully attend some family counseling because Seok-kyung has some issues. And hopefully, learning that she had been bullying her twin sister Min Seol-a would be enough to make her realize that she needs to change her ways.

But I wouldn’t put it past Seok-kyung to continue being the way she is.

I’m surprised with how abruptly the Kim Moo-sik murder played out. With the way the show has been building it up since the first episode, I thought that there’d be more to the story behind it. Instead, her appearance was just used as a way to confirm that Na Ae-gyo gave birth to only one child.

It was quite odd, but I guess she served her purpose? She was a vehicle to start the Yoo Dong-pil vs. Dan-tae storyline. While the scene where her dead body tumbled out of the wall definitely scared the living hell out of me, the whole Moo-sik thing definitely became less interesting to me because of how anti-climactic her death was.

On the other hand, I am interested in what Dan-tae has planned for Dong-pil now that he has been caught red-handed trying to dig up the past.

Joo Dan-tae better watch out with everyone figuring out all the skeletons in his closet. Baek Jun-ki is a ticking time bomb, and he’s just waiting for the right opportunity to play his cards. I hope that he’s not holding out on revealing the truth for so long though, because it sucks that Dan-tae has still been getting his way when: (A) Jun-ki can easily end his life with one call to a TV station, and (B) Cheon Seo-jin knows that he killed Logan Lee.

And speaking of, when will Seo-jin tell the girls that she knows?! Su-ryeon and Yoon-hee just risked their lives to save her daughter, so she better spill sooner or later.

Since we’re on the subject, how happy are we that Eun-byeol had more scenes in The Penthouse 3 episode 4? I was never a fan of Bae Ro-na because she started out a really spoiled brat in the first season and then slowly became a boring Mary Jane in the second season. Although her saving Eun-byeol from the psycho that is Ms. Jin just earned her some brownie points from me.

You bet your ass that I’m waiting eagerly for the next episode to learn what Eun-byeol’s fate is! If she dies, I’ll riot.

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 The Penthouse 3 Episode 4 Rating: 8.5/10 

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What were your thoughts watching the fourth episode of The Penthouse 3? Let me know in the comments below!

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