King the Land (Season 1), Episodes 3 & 4 Recap & Ending Explained: ‘King the Land’ premiered on Netflix last week and introduced us to a blooming relationship between a concierge and a wealthy heir of a hotel. The K-drama stars Lee Jun-Ho as Gu-won and Im Yoon-ah as Sa-rang.
While Sa-rang begins her journey at The King Hotel with a strange coincidence, she quickly works her way up to be a concierge at the lounge. On the other hand, Gu Won’s older sister makes him leave the country to study abroad, hoping he would never return. But he eventually comes back to the hotel while still trying to revive memories of their mother.
Now the new episodes show Sa-rang and Gu Won spending a night together in a small town because of some unavoidable issues. It gives them a chance to bond and understand each other to the point Gu-won starts catching feelings for Sa-rang. Let’s find out what happens.
*Spoilers ahead*
King the Land (Season 1) Episodes 3 & 4 Recap
Episode 3
The third episode begins during the interview for the hotel’s publicity. Cheon Sa-rang (Im Yoon-ah) is supposed to interview Gu Won (Jun-Ho Lee) as King Hotel’s head manager. Gu Won’s assistant Sang-sik (Se-ha Ahn) prepared for Sa-rang, the questions she should ask. But, at the last moment, Hwa-ran changes the questions. Sa-rang cannot say ‘No’ to her senior’s orders. That is why, she ends up asking Gu Won about his mother.
Hwa-ran knew that it is a sensitive subject for him. That is why she added it to sabotage it and malign his image. Hearing that question, Gu Won suddenly walks out of the interview shoot. Sa-rang still professionally handles the matter until he returns. He throws away the question cards and then goes to watch the sunset with Sa-rang. Their photo together watching that sunset becomes a sensation on their social media.
Meanwhile, Sa-rang’s flight-attendant friend Pyeog-hwa (Won-Hee Go) suffers a grilling from her senior for slightly extra weight. Her colleague, Ro-un, tries to cheer her up. On the other hand, Da-eul (Kim Ga-Eun), who starts working as a manager at her retail shop, guides them to be on their best behaviour. She tries to balance strictness with freedom. While that happens, Gu Won joins Sa-rang for a photoshoot but poses and smiles awkwardly. He does not follow the photographer’s requests and behaves as he pleases.
After the shoot, the boat for their travel away from the island malfunctions. So they are forced to spend the night together at a cottage. Throughout the night, Sa-rang witnesses many things that Gu-won is scared of. She sees how he mostly just pretends as if everything is fine. Later, the two end up gulping down strong drinks and get intoxicated. Gu Won reveals that he hates smiling because he thinks people use it as a mask.
By the next morning, Gu Won slowly starts catching feelings for Sa-rang. While she goes out for a walk, he rides a bike to get her back to the cottage. They enjoy a drink together but he does not share his feelings for her yet. Later on, she realises that the lady at the cottage is trying to rip them off because Gu Won is wealthy. She makes the woman lower the price with some clever negotiation.
Back at home, Gu Il-hoon gets angry at Gu Won for storming off during the interview. Gu Won says only ‘publicity’ matters. Their argument soon gets heated when he directly asks Gu Il-hoon about his mother. The father says that love is not something for rich folks like them. He only worked to serve his father’s legacy. Since Gu-won is still persistent about knowing the ‘truth,’ Gu Il-hoon walks out of the room. Hwa-ran plans to use Gu Won’s words against him.
The next day, Gu Il-hoon and Hwa-ran suddenly decide to promote Sa-rang to work at King the Land. While she is delighted, her manager is not as happy. She thinks it is unfair that Sa-rang gets this chance despite her lack of education. Meanwhile, Gu Won gives an online test that says that he has developed a crush on Sa-rang. He goes out to find her and talks to her about it. But by the time he could greet her with a box of macaroons, she goes out and gets hugged by her boyfriend, Yu Nam.
Episode 4
Sa-rang’s hug with another man (Yu Nam) breaks Gu Won’s heart. It crushes his hopes of being with her. What he does not know is that Sa-rang is angry at her selfish boyfriend for constantly disrespecting her. Since he still shows no care, she breaks up with him. Meanwhile, a miserable Gu Won starts driving his car away. A cop asks him to pull over and ends up sharing his own sob story about his past lover. Gu Won shares a macaroon and then, parts ways.
On her bus ride back to the apartment, Sa-rang gets emotional. So, she calls her grandmother. Later, she helps her out with her shop’s work and reveals that she broke up with Yu Nam. The grandmother supports that decision, knowing all too well that her granddaughter would never do anything wrong. Meanwhile, Gu Won’s father gets angry at him for their low revenue figures as compared to other hotels. Hwa-ran says she will handle this, to keep Gu Won out of the equation.
The next day, Sa-rang meets her new manager at King the Land – Jeon Su-mi. She greets her better than her past manager and does not care for her qualifications. She shows her around the area where only the VVIPs stay and expect service. She advises Sa-rang to not pay heed to others, who may try to pull her down. Eventually, she gets introduced to Gu-won as a part of King the Land’s staff. He tries to carry forward their usual dynamic – showing how little he cares for her. He tells her senior to teach Sa-rang manners and etiquette.
Later on, Sa-rang’s new colleagues express their discontent at her hiring despite her lack of qualifications. Meanwhile, Hwa-ran shows up at Da-eul’s shop and summons Do Ra-hee as a supervisor to improve their sales. She walks around intimidating people by firing random employees. Hwa-ran also goes to meet Peyong-hwa’s team and intimidates her senior to double their sales. In general, she tries to portray that she does not take low revenue lightly.
When Sang-Sik tells Gu Won about this random firing and coercion, he looks back at what Sa-rang had said about jobs for people like her. While wealthy people like Gu Won need not care about it, those like her need to. So, he organises a meeting of King the Land staff members and offers to increase their incentives if they improve the revenue and reach the sales goals. He shows his discontent with the low incentives they generally get. While he tries to win brownie points with Sa-rang, it hardly works.
So, later on, Gu Won texts Sa-rang asking to meet him after her shift ends. But she does not come at all. The next day, he catches up to her and asks why she did not respond. He then shares his personal card and asks her to join him for dinner later. She rejects his request for a meal and for conversation. Dejected by that, he orders Sang-Sik to arrange a dinner for Sa-rang and make sure she comes.
Funnily enough, Sang-sik thinks Gu-won wants to throw a dinner party to invite Sa-rang to King the Land’s team. He gets surprised to see the entire team and realises it is not an intimate dinner as he wanted. He still walks in and joins them for a meal. But after noticing Sa-rang not even touching raw fish, he orders steak for her. He goes to extra lengths hoping to make her comfortable. But instead, it weirds her out. So, after dinner, she tells him to pretend like he does not know her, henceforth, to avoid any awkwardness.
On the other hand, Da-eul struggles to balance her personal and professional duties. Her husband seems nonexistent at home and leaves her almost like a servant to his parents. She is left with doing every chore including taking care of her daughter and living up to their unreasonable demands. While her husband bails out on her, Pyeong-haw gets teased by a perverted pilot. Later, Ro-un asks her out for dinner and uplifts her spirits. It seems like a beginning of a beautiful relationship.
King the Land (Season 1) Episode 4 Ending Explained:
After her awkward team dinner, Sa-rang walks back home. She gets greeted by Peyong-haw and Da-eul with a cake for her birthday. When they share birthday presents, she talks about her breakup. Meanwhile, Sang-Sik tells Gu Won that it is Sa-rang’s birthday. Before he can think about it, Hwa-ran taunts him with his pocket watch. She tells him not to end up like his mother since anyone hardly remembers her. It brings back painful memories from their past when Hwa-ran used to tease him the same way. His misery gave her pleasure.
The next day, Sa-rang walks into a VVIP meeting with her superior. He belittles her earlier by saying she should not intervene. But Gu Il-hoon and his business friends recognise her right away and also try to poach her to work for them instead. Unlike her superior, she suggests them a wine that will go well with their dinner. So, later, he scolds her for overriding his authority and also for selling cheaper products instead of whisky – even though he did not suggest whisky himself. In short, Sa-rang gets a taste of office politics, but it does not break her spirit.
After work hours, Sa-rang’s ex comes to meet her, hoping she would get over her anger. He still is as unaware of his selfishness as he was earlier. He even goes on to call her selfish. So, she gets angry and walks away. She goes to her ‘usual spot’ and stands there. While she goes on to soak herself in the rain, Gu Won walks up to her. He says it is his usual spot. When she tries to walk away, she falls down and he holds her. It gives a quintessential romantic moment for the couple.
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