In Netflix’s latest Korean drama series, Dead-End Job, the economy is literally trying to kill people.
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economy → try → people
Lee Jae-wook (Alchemy of Souls) stars as Byeon Hyeok-jun, a jobless 30-year-old living in contemporary Seoul in this Squid Game-esque fantasy horror.
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wook → star → horror
Buried in debt from a landlord scam and subsequent stock-chasing, Hyeok-jun is actively considering dying by suicide.
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jun → bury → suicide
But when a mysterious company called Spider Staffing Agency starts offering him part-time gigs at 50, 100, or even 200 times the minimum wage, he is desperate enough to take them—even when it becomes clear that these jobs are supernaturally deadly.
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jobs → call → them
The series has an anthology-like feel, as Hyeok-jun takes on a new, terrifying part-time job more or less in each episode.
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jun → have → episode
Over the course of the eight-episode series, Hyeok-jun’s interest in Spider Staffing Agency’s jobs turns from financial to familial when he realizes that his father, who disappeared 20 years prior after falling into massive debt, was also used the temp agency.
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who → turn → agency
With the help of his younger sister, Ji-yoon (Typhoon Family’s Kim Min-ha), and Yeon-joo (Tastefully Yours’ Go Min-si), a mysterious woman investigating the agency, he commits to discovering Spider Staffing’s supernatural secrets.
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he → investigate → secrets
By the end of Dead-End Job’s first season, many questions remain about the true purpose of Spider Staffing Agency.
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questions → remain → Agency
When Hyeok-jun first encounters the organization, it is managed by Mr. S. (Badland Hunters’ Lee Hee-joon), a charismatic middle man who sends part-timers to their probable death without so much as a heads up.
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who → encounter → heads
When pressed by Hyeok-jun, Mr. S explains that these worksites exist where the border between the world of humans and the world of supernatural beings is at its thinnest.
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border → press → thinnest
While humans live in the yang, explains Mr. S., these other beings stay in the yin.
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beings → live → yin
People like Hyeok-jun, who are desperate to make a living, emit especially strong yang energy when engaged in acts of paid labor.
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who → make → labor
Spider Staffing sends workers to these border sites as sacrificial lambs to maintain the division between the two worlds.
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Staffing → send → worlds
Surprisingly, Hyeok-jun has a knack for this work—while he may not always get the job done, he survives.
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he → have → work
But in the process, he watches many of his co-workers die.
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many → watch → workers
At first, Yeon-joo presents herself as an investigator trying to determine if Spider Staffing is facilitating unsafe labor practices.
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Staffing → present → practices
However, we find out in the series’ penultimate episode that Yeon-joo herself is a monster, tied to the other world.
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joo → find → world
She wasn’t born a monster; she was once a young woman trying to make a living as a factory girl in a rapidly modernizing South Korea, roughly 40 years prior to the main events of the series.
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she → bear → series
When Yeon-joo and her co-workers protested against their cruel labor conditions, they were met with violence.
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they → protest → violence
Yeon-joo was stuffed in a locker by her older co-worker to avoid the violence, not realizing that it was a doorway to the other world.
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it → stuff → world
When Yeon-joo comes out of the locker, it is modern-day Korea, and there is an amusement park where her factory once stood.
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factory → come → locker
It’s unclear at what point Yeon-joo turned from human to monster.
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joo → ’ → monster
The real history related to Go Min-si’s character
Yeon-joo’s backstory ties into the real history of feminist labor organizing in South Korea.
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history → relate → Korea
In 1970, activist Jeon Tae-il died by self-immolation to protest the treatment of women garment workers, who regularly dealt with sexual harassment, low wages, poor working conditions, and police brutality.
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who → die → harassment
The act sparked increased union activity, including the formation of the Garment Makers Union.
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act → spark → Union
In 1979, women of the YH Union organized a sit-in at the Seoul headquarters of the New Democratic Party in protest of the closure of the YH Company’s wig factory.
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women → organize → factory
Union member Kim Kyoung-sook was killed in the brutal police eviction, provoking widespread public opposition to President Park Chung-hee’s regime.
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sook → kill → regime
Yeon-joo is not a specific historic character, but rather a symbol of this period in Korean history and of the role female factory workers and union organizers played in the rapid, painful transformation of the country’s economy and society in the second half of the 20th century.
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workers → play → century
Hyeok-jun finds his dad, and starts the apocalypse
Hyeok-jun promises his sister that he will not return to Spider Staffing, but he is lured back by Yeon-joo, who tells him she knows how to find his long-lost father.
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she → find → father
She shows Hyeok-joon the door inside of NeoCity Amusement Park that she came through from the other world, and tells Hyeok-jun that he can find his father through that door.
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he → show → door
He just has to make it through a shift at the deadly amusement park first.
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He → have → park
When Ji-yoon realizes what her brother has done, she confronts Mr. S. about sending Hyeok-jun back on a job.
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she → realize → job
Mr. S. insists that it is not his fault, but rather a direct result of the machinations of Yeon-joo, who is using Hyeok-jun as a pawn to open the door between worlds.
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who → insist → worlds
When he does so, monsters from the other world will storm into our world, bringing about the apocalypse.
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monsters → do → apocalypse
From Yeon-joo’s perspective, it is what our world deserves after the way it has treated its most vulnerable workers.
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it → deserve → workers
It will fully reveal the truth of the bones and blood our cities are built from.
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cities → reveal → bones
In the end, Hyeok-jun decides to open the door, even after Mr. S. warns him not to.
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S. → decide → him
While Hyeok-jun doesn’t understand the magnitude of his decision, he knows that he does not trust Mr. S., who gleefully sends desperate people to their deaths by labor.
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who → understand → labor
He watches Mr. S. shoot Yeon-joo several times, and sees no sense in his violence.
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S. → watch → violence
The unleashed storm of dark energy pulls Yeon-joo and Mr. S. into its void, and tries to take Hyeok-jun too.
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storm → unleash → jun
…and 23 more, not listed.
The Aporia
