Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area is fundamentally the same story as the original
Money Heist, but this time it’s set in Korea.
So there are some differences that are factoring into the narrative.
The North and the South were at war, but that ended.
The two countries established an economic union and developed a common currency.
The Joint Security Area, which had been a symbol of division, became known as the Joint
Economic Area.
A testing ground for economic cooperation.
Unfortunately, capitalism was not all it was made out to be.
The Joint Economic Area was run by thieves such as predatory lenders who preyed on immigrants,
allowing the rich to get richer.
The girl who would become known as Tokyo killed her loan shark and thought about killing herself
since she had nowhere to go, but the man who would become known as the Professor found
her and recruited her onto his team.
Rio was a hacker, Moscow was a digging expert, and his son Denver used to be a street fighter.
Nairobi was a forgery master, Helsinki and Oslo were fixers, and Berlin was the most
wanted man in the history of North Korea.
So that’s the team.
Nine people.
Their goal was to pull off the single largest heist in history.
Four trillion won.
And they intended on doing it without hurting or killing anyone.
After training for five months, the Money Heist team infiltrated the Unified Korea Mint.
Their goal was not to steel anything other than time.
They barricaded themselves inside of the Mint with a valuable hostage - Anne Kim, the daughter
of the U.S. Ambassador.
The authorities could not risk Anne Kim getting killed in crossfire, so they had to call off
their initial raid.
Meanwhile, the Team printed money and dug two tunnels.
Their hostages dug one tunnel, but that was just a distraction.
Moscow dug a second tunnel, which they plan on using to escape.
By the end of part one, Moscow had reached dirt.
So the crew is on their way to escaping with newly printed, untraceable money.
But the final episode ended with three cliffhangers.
The first cliffhanger relates to the Professor’s guilt.
The Professor began to date the Inspector two months prior to the heist.
Although it might have started off as just a strategic move, the Professor fell in love
with the Inspector.
And his love for her has caused guilt.
At the end of the final episode, the Professor told the Inspector that she should drop the
case.
A Tokyo voiceover said that if the Inspector really did quit the case, it would derail
their entire plan.
What does that mean?
Well, the Professor has an in with the Inspector.
So there’s that.
But Tokyo’s voiceover implies something much bigger, so let’s take a look at the
bigger picture.
When the Professor recruited Tokyo, he told her that their heist was going to change the
world.
That they could be heroes.
What did he mean by that?
As a reminder, a few years before the heist, the Professor was a real Professor.
His main topic of research was the economic impacts of reunification.
The Professor believed that reunification was bound to transpire immediately as long
as both countries could share the same dream.
So what should that dream be?
Wealth.
Kim Sangman recruited the Professor to develop an economic cooperation plan.
Kim introduced the Professor to Oh Jaeyun, and the Professor shook his hand.
When that happened, a Tokyo voiceover said that the moment he shook his hand the Professor
realized he was choosing to become Oppenheimer.
The scientist who developed the first atomic bomb.
In other words, the Professor was hired to develop an economic cooperation plan.
He may have designed it so that it could be blown up in some way, shape, or form.
We don’t yet know what that means.
But we do know that the Inspector is important.
So why is she important?
It might relate to her relationship to this guy.
Kim Sangman.
He is the man who hired the Professor to develop the economic cooperation plan.
Nowadays, he is a front-runner to be President of a Unified Korea.
He also happens to be the Inspector’s abusive ex-husband.
The man who she is having a custody battle with.
So, more to come on that.
The second of the three cliffhangers relates to Berlin.
In the final episode, the Inspector got drunk.
She told her mother that she would be coming home late that night.
So the Inspector had planned on spending more time with the Professor.
But then, she found something in her pocket.
The corner of a bill.
Who put it there?
And why?
In the final montage, Berlin lit up a stogie with a bill that was missing its corner.
It would be pretty cool if he snuck the corner of that bill in for some personal reason.
But the show implied that Anne did it.
Earlier, Tokyo caught Anne trying to sneak a full bill with a message on it into the
Inspectors pocket.
When Berlin ripped the bill out of Anne’s hand, Anne must have held on to the corner.
Later on, Anne rushed forward to the Inspector.
This is when she snuck the corner of the note into her pocket.
I need to throw out one caveat though.
In this shot here, the person placing the corner of the bill appears to have a gun on
her hip.
So there might be some sort of twist here.
Maybe that gun is Tokyo’s gun as Tokyo approaches from behind Anne.
Or maybe this is actually Tokyo placing the note.
If so, why?
I have no idea.
But I figured I’d mention this gun because it’s pretty strange.
The writing had been on the other side of the bill.
So it’s unclear what the Inspector now knows, but she cut off her date short and went back
to work, so she has an idea about something.
That leads us into cliffhanger number 3.
The third cliffhanger relates to Captain Cha.
The police had formed a Joint Task Force.
Captain Cha was the point man for North Korea, and Inspector Seon Woojin was the point woman
for South Korea.
So far, they failed at every turn.
Their final failure was the publicity stunt gone wrong.
The Task Force had wanted to paint the heist team as bad guys, but it turns out, Agent
Park was still alive.
So the heist team hadn’t killed a single person.
Berlin also told the public that the police had been about to storm the mint, which might
have resulted in hostage deaths.
So the heist team had flipped the script and made the police seem like the bad guys.
As a result, someone had to take the fall.
The higher ups decided to remove Captain Cha from the case.
The Inspector countered that she would resign if they fired Captain Cha.
So the Inspector and the Captain began as rivals of sorts.
For a time, the Captain thought that the Inspector might be a mole.
But now, they trust each other.
And the Captain has a new idea.
Captain Cha now wonders if the Inspector’s boyfriend is the mole.
So, he went there to have a chat with him.
“Hello there, sir.”