Based on the short film titled Bargain, directed by Lee Choong Hyun, Woo-Sung Jeon has successfully created the mini-series entitled Momgap, which translates to Bargain. The fascinating thing about this is that it is a one-take thriller, helped by some rather brilliant transitions and masterfully crafted performances from Jeon Jong-seo and Jin Seon-kyu. In the beginning, you will get Squid Game’s vibe, which will soon be transformed into a platform style. Anyway, let’s jump into an extensive recap of this fascinating show. Spoilers Ahead!
Bargain (2023) Paramount+ Limited Series Recap:
Episode 1: Bargain
The series opens up with a wide shot of a landscape that is far from Seoul. Park Joo Young is waiting for her customer, who is traveling from afar. She smokes, and a shadow of hesitance is filled up with the brooding confidence that she achieves through practice. She has done this many times. Yet something feels off on this day. Park Joo Young hears the knock on the door and enters Noh Hyung Soo, her customer.
They start with friendly chats to be more comfortable. Noh Hyung tries to confirm if it is true, whatever Park Joo told her about earlier. Noh is interested in one point only: she is a virgin, and he has agreed to pay $1000 for her. However, Noh wishes for something that is bizarre in such circumstances, but since he is paying a lot of money, he holds possession of power at that moment.
Noh wishes to see blood coming from Park Joo since she says she is a virgin. Park Joo’s discomfort is visible. However, she explains why Noh may not see any blood. She says while in high school, some teacher harassed her and penetrated her hymen. Noh, sympathetic toward the incident, now offers to pay $170 for Park Joo since he thinks he will not be the first person to touch her in such a manner.
After a little while, the telephone in the room rings twice, and Noh picks up the phone. No one answers, and now the price drops to $70 as Noh successfully figures out all the lies that Park Joo has been telling him. She is not in high school at all. However, Park Joo agrees with the price, and Noh goes to the bathroom. Park Joo receives another call on her phone, and she goes outside the room to talk to the guy, another customer to whom she tells all the lies about her virginity and high school and $1000.
Things start to get darker from this point as soon as we see Park Joo entering a room full of women like her. Later, we see thousands of dollars being taken care of by a couple of men. Then Park Joo enters into a room filled with common people holding their tickets for the auction. And now we see Noh lying there, his hands tied and mouth shut. Park Joo is about to bid on his organs.
The rules are simple and are improvised with time. We see a good son bidding for Noh’s kidneys to save his father. Park agrees to offer a loan since he doesn’t have the full amount. As a loan, one needs to submit one’s organs as collateral. When all of this was going smoothly, Park came to know from Noh’s ID card that he is a police detective. At that point, an earthquake takes place that shakes up the whole place.
Hee Sook, who is in charge of this whole institution, comes and lies to everyone that this is not an earthquake. Park tells him about Noh being a police officer, and he tells her to continue with the bidding. He will take care of everything as he can not let go of a police officer when he knows so much about their organ trafficking schemes. Right at that moment, a second wave of earthquake hits, and the whole place shatters to the ground.
Episode 2: The Detective and the Kidney
We see the whole floor is filled with injured people, and amidst all of this, the good son is still trying to figure out whether he will get his father’s kidneys. The madness of the situation precedes the chaos when Park Joo finds Hee Sook’s walkie-talkie. Director Kwak is on the other side, and Park Joo lies about Hee Sook’s death. She perhaps finds a chance to replace Hee Sook and climbs up the ladder.
However, later, Hee Sook learns her plans and throws her into a hole that is created due to the earthquake. Previously, Noh and the good son both went into the pit. Park finds herself in the water, and when she comes out, she is faced with two madmen, Min and Bu Gwan. They are tasked with taking care of the bodies that Director Kwak sends. They call Kwak – ‘Dad’ and Hee Sook – ‘Uncle.’
Park Joo finds a way out and tells the two guys that Hee Sook is planning to kill Director Kwak. They don’t believe that in the beginning, and soon, they find Noh’s body. He is still alive, and Park Joo rescues him from the mad guys. She asks him to help her go through the ventilator so that she can open the door. Meanwhile, Hee Sook calls on the boys and tells them that Director Kwak is dead.
The boys think that the police must have killed Kwak, and knowing that Noh is a cop, one of them tries to attack him. The good son hits him with an ax from the back, thus saving Noh from the attacker. At this moment, Park Joo opens the door, and all three of them are saved from the hands of those two mad boys. Since Noh’s eyes were covered during the bidding, he is getting to know a lot of stuff as time progresses.
The good son tells him about buying his kidneys, and Noh screams at him. He tells him that he is a cop and he will make sure that both the good son and Park Joo go to jail for organ trafficking. Anyway, the three finally open the door to somewhere, and now the good son confronts the detective. As the episode comes to an end, we see the desperate son has overtaken the detective’s strength, and Noh has no way out of his clutches.
Episode 3: 7 Million Dollars
Noh submits to the good son, and together, they start to find a way out of this mess. As of now, Park has already left them on their own. The good son suggests that they should try and get to the higher levels of the building. Noh hesitates for a bit as he sees some people throwing other people from the upper floors. But soon, he sees the two madmen, Min and Bu Gwan, coming after them. He then follows as the good son tells him. Subsequently, good son helps Noh reach the upper floor.
Later, the good son becomes very persistent about Noh giving his kidneys to him so that he can save his father. Noh tries to make him understand that before he takes his father’s responsibility, they must get out of the mess in the first place. Soon, Min and Bu Gwan arrive at the spot, and Noh finally finds Park hiding in one of the rooms in the lobby.
Noh and the good son have a confrontation. Accidentally, the good son falls through the hole. Then we see Park again trying to offer her help to Noh, and suddenly, one of Park’s colleagues is thrown from the upper floor. Here, they learn about what is happening on the top floor. Hee Sook has ordered his men to kill everyone, and they will be rewarded for bringing the ears of the persons they kill.
Later, we see Park showing Noh a hidden chute that will lead to the top floor. The chute is used to dump and burn the bodies after the auction. Just before this, Park tells Noh about her and Hee Sook’s original intention. Park reveals that they have planned to loot all the auction money from Director Kwak and run away. But the earthquake has sped things up. Now, she must have the auction money, which is around 7 Million dollars, and then leave the place.
Detective Noh enters into the deal and says that he will help Park get the money so he can have his share. Together, they climb in the chute and find themselves hostages on the third floor. On the third floor, some of the bidders have kept themselves hidden from the gangsters who are killing everyone and collecting ears for the prize money. They take Noh and Park under their command, binding their hands and legs. But suddenly, Park shouts at Noh, calling him ‘detective,’ and things start to get out of hand.
Episode 4: Panic Room
Suddenly, we see that Park has been working as an informant to Detective Noh. At least, that’s what he said in front of the bidders who held him captive at that moment. They start to confuse them by suggesting that Park and Noh have been working together to get to the bottom of organ trafficking. The bidders get confused, and Park hints to Noh that if they turn them against each other, they can escape.
They have almost managed to do so, and one of the bidders kills two other bidders and asks Noh to go to the ground floor and grab a phone for them. He tells him that if Noh doesn’t come back in 10 minutes, he will kill Park. Noh knows that Park is his best chance to get out of this mess, and he also hopes to be a millionaire, which requires Park anyway. So, Noh agrees to go to the ground floor and enters the chute again.
He meets the good son again, but this time, he saves him from a gangster. Later, he promises the good son that he will make sure that his father gets his kidney, only this time, his promise actually means something. The good son gives him a smartphone, and Noh makes himself ready to go to the third floor, the ‘panic room.’ Noh grabs a bag full of ears from the pocket of the dead gangster and gives it to the good son.
He tells him to go to the fourth floor, and if any of the gangsters try to kill him, he must give them the bag. Since the bag has ears, they will leave the good son in exchange. They start climbing inside the chute, and on reaching the fourth floor, the good son is pulled in by one of the gangsters.
Noh knows that there is nothing he can do right now to help the good son. He has already told him the way to save his life. The rest depends on him only. Noh enters the third floor, and he sees dead bodies everywhere. One of the women from the bidders, who seemed not harmful at all, is seen stabbing a man. She is the only survivor among the bidders in that panic room.
Park is not seen in this scene; perhaps she has managed to escape the room somehow. Also, on a previous occasion, the bidders had shown a man who was held hostage by them. Park behaved like she knew him very well. The bidders suspect him as one of the gangsters. However, the real identity of the person is not revealed yet. He is not seen either in the last scene of this episode. As we get closer to the penultimate episode, things are starting to get more mysterious than ever.
Episode 5: Gun, Money, and Lie
As we move on to the next episode, a lot of confusion is about to be cleared up in this episode. Let’s clear up one thing first. The man the bidders had kept in the bathroom earlier, we saw him in the very first episode. Remember Park Joo was playing with a man in the lobby, faking to shoot him? He is that old man only. The bidders confused him with the rest of the gangsters.
As Noh enters the panic room, he sees the woman stabbing a man rapidly. He asks about Park Joo, and she says that she is in the bathroom. Noh breaks open the bathroom door only to find out that Park is trying to get the old man out of the bathroom through the AC ventilation. Noh helps her, and the three of them start moving through the ventilation. Soon, they reach the old man’s room.
The old man dies, saying that he was only able to make six bullets. Park explains to Noh that she had planned almost three years ago that she would grab the money and run away with this old man for good. She tells Noh how she was sold to the owner of this house, director Kwak, as a kid. And now she plans to kill him, steal all the money, and leave forever.
One of the gangsters comes through the ventilation, and Noh helps Park tackle him. The gangsters say six of them are left, and the rest of the squad is dead, including Min and Bu Gwan. Noh and Park together enter their final destination, Director Kwak’s office, and shoot five of the gangsters, leaving Hee Sook alive. Noh finds out that the good son is still alive and holding a knife at Kwak. Everyone tries to cut a deal in that situation.
Hee Sook says that he has been stabbing and trying hard to know the exact location of the money from Kwak. But he hasn’t told him anything yet. Kwak suddenly smiles and tells Park that even if he dies, Park will always belong to him as he had bought her. This works as a trigger as Park has been hiding her pain from the past for a long time. She fires the last bullet at him. Well, we are not sure, though, where the bullets hit as the episode comes to an end right after Park fires the gun.
Episode 6: Zero Sum
Things go bizarre as Park Joo’s bullet kills Kwak, leaving the good son injured as well. Right after that, Noh stabs the knife into Hoo Seek, and soon, only three people (the good son is unconscious now) remain in the building. Noh and Park Joo try to look for money when Noh finds markings of a syringe in Kwak’s hand. Out of nowhere, Park cuts Kwak’s right hand into two and uses the thumb in one of the drawers.
The drawer opens, and there are numerous bottles of morphine stored in it. Park finds a jackpot while Noh is still looking for money. The good son suddenly regains consciousness and points his finger at a place where he has seen Kwak looking repeatedly. By using Kwak’s finger again, they finally find the location of the money. Dollars pour upon them while Noh and Park collect their prize. Noh is busy collecting the dollars only while Park packs all the morphine.
They leave the good son behind and jump through the hole only to reach the tank in the basement. Noh reminds Park about the huge reservoir at the foothills of the mountain where the hotel is situated. Together, they jump into the tank, and then Noh finally finds a lever that opens a door so that all the water from the tank gets drained into the reservoir. They do not know if this is really going to happen, but they take a leap of faith. Soon, they are swimming in the reservoir and reaching the banks.
Noh loses one of his bags, but both of them finally get out of the hotel. The good son also follows them and finds his way to the banks. Noh knows that this boy has no intention of dying. So, instead of leaving him behind, he tries to take care of him. When they reach the other side of the reservoir, they find out that it wasn’t just an earthquake that took place on a certain mountain, but it happened to the whole region. The whole mountain was destroyed, breathing fire at its surface.
Bargain (2023) Paramount+ Limited Series Ending Explained:
What do Noh, Park, and the Good Son find on the other side?
The trio starts to walk their way toward something hopeful. The world is shattered due to the natural disaster, but they have to find a way to get help. They have survived the hotel; now they need to get to their intended destination. Suddenly, they find a woman sobbing in the distance. She fires at them, but when Noh tells her that he is a police officer, she begs for his help. Noh removes a concrete wall to help her husband get out, and now the lady points her gun at Noh. She asks him to carry her husband on his back. At this point, Park intervenes, offering her a bottle of morphine in exchange for her rifle.
Park says that this is the last bottle of morphine, which is obviously a lie. However, she is good at bargaining, and it feels like she is successful in having possession of the rifle. This bargain at the end sets up the stage for a sequel; however, it will be a good ending if the series finishes here. Park has always said that the world is not good enough for living, and now she sees that she has been right all along. Be it a natural disaster or something else, the world is not good for living. As humans continue to survive, they will depend on the oldest business custom in the world…they will bargain with anything to survive.
![Arishadvarga [2019] ‘LIFF’ Review : A Whodunit Thriller About Its Characters More Than The Mystery](https://www.highonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Arishadvarga-e1557423045916-768x477.jpg)
