Breaking Down the Supernatural Ending of Dead-End Job
Time · Kayti Burt ·
In this Squid Game-like fantasy horror, Lee Jae-wook stars as a jobless 30-something who takes a strange and fearsome job out of desperation.
In Netflix’s latest Korean drama series, Dead-End Job, the economy is literally trying to kill 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. Buried in debt from a landlord scam and subsequent stock-chasing, Hyeok-jun is actively considering dying by 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.
The series has an anthology-like feel, as Hyeok-jun takes on a new, terrifying part-time job more or less in each 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. 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.
What is Spider Staffing Agency?