The drama Penthouse is the epitome of a makjang, a term that refers to dramatic and overly exaggerated Korean dramas. With a unique and addictive storyline full of mind-boggling plot twists, it’s no wonder that Penthouse is one of the highest-rated dramas of all time.
While we wait for season 3, let’s recap the best #JusticeServed moments in the drama Penthouse, where characters got their sweet revenge against the corrupted and filthy rich residents of Hera Palace.
Table of Contents
Image adapted from: SBS
In the drama Penthouse, Shim Soo-ryeon is the wife of Joo Dan-tae, a filthy rich and ruthless businessman. The couple lives in Hera Palace with their twins, Joo Seok-hoon and Joo Seok-kyung. Soo-ryeon is the twins’ stepmother.
Soo-ryeon’s real daughter – or who she thinks is her biological daughter – is bedridden.
A university student, Anna Lee, works as the twins’ tutors, but she is constantly being bullied by the duo. However, she is actually an orphaned middle school student by the name of Min Seol-ah. Faced with financial difficulties, she disguises herself as a university student in order to earn money from tutoring.
Image adapted from: SBS
Seol-ah lives an extremely tough life. Even though she is a fantastic classical singer, she is belittled by others and is a victim of severe bullying because of her “commoner” status. After acing her high school entrance test, she was cornered by several classmates, who hit her and locked her up in a van.
Image adapted from: SBS
Soo-ryeon receives anonymous text messages telling her that her bedridden daughter isn’t her biological daughter. She also receives hints about her biological daughter, and eventually finds out that Seol-ah is her daughter by blood. But before she could do anything about it, she witnesses Seol-ah fall to her death at Hera Palace.
Soo-ryeon guesses that her husband, Joo Dan-tae, and the others living in Hera Palace are involved in Seol-ah’s death. But because she doesn’t have any evidence yet, she vows to reveal their crimes and avenge Seol-ah’s death.
It’s a relief that there’s at least 1 person who suspects foul play and seeks to avenge Seol-ah’s death. If Soo-ryeon didn’t find out about Seol-ah, her murder would have been perfectly covered up.
Image adapted from: SBS
After Seol-ah’s death, Bae Ro-na takes her place at Cheon-Ah Arts School, a prestigious arts high school attended by the rich kids of Hera Palace.
Similar to Seol-ah, Ro-na is a student who doesn’t have rich parents, so she gets bullied in school. Her mother is Oh Yoon-hee, one of the main characters in the drama.
She meets Goo Ho-dong when he saves her from a fall after a confrontation with her bullies in school.
Image adapted from: SBS
Goo Ho-dong is an eccentric Physical Education teacher who seems to be the only teacher who isn’t corrupted, biased, or fearful of the rich students.
After saving Ro-na from the fall, he punishes the bullies by making them run multiple laps around the track. Seok-kyung, one of the meanest girls, passes out while running.
There is a great feeling of satisfaction knowing that the bullies in the Penthouse drama are finally getting some form of punishment for their actions.
Image adapted from: SBS NOW / SBS 공식 채널
Joo Seok-hoon, whom viewers hated in the first few episodes because of how he bullied Seol-ah, redeems himself by protecting Ro-na in school.
Seok-hoon stands up for Ro-na on multiple occasions. Once, when Ro-na was accused of smoking, he confronts his twin sister, Seok-kyung, to ask if she was the one who sabotaged Ro-na. This is significant because the siblings have a very close relationship, and he used to always be on his sister’s side.
Later on, he also announces to the class that he is dating Ro-na, and anyone who dares to bully her will have to answer to him.
Image adapted from: SBS
If you breathed a sigh of relief when Ho-dong removed his disguise to reveal his identity as Logan Lee, a billionaire, you’re not alone. We finally have a rich and powerful person who isn’t corrupted like the rest.
It turns out that Seol-ah was his adoptive sister, and he was out of the country when she was killed. He returns to Korea to avenge her death.
Logan finds out that Soo-ryeon is Seol-ah’s biological mother and helps her exact revenge on the people behind Seol-ah’s death. Now that there is someone of comparable power up against Jo Dan-tae and his lackeys, it seems like there is greater hope of winning.
Image adapted from: SBS
With the help of Logan Lee, Soo-ryeon forces the residents of Hera Palace to reveal what really happened to Seol-ah.
She manages to get all of them locked up in a caged bus and threatens to blow them up if they don’t tell the truth. The residents begin to frantically accuse one another. A scuffle starts as they fight to clear their names in order to be let off the bus.
Image adapted from: SBS
Soo-ryeon stands in front of the bus and reveals her face. She tells them that Seol-ah is her biological daughter who was switched at birth.
After suffering in silence for such a long time, it’s great to see Soo-ryeon finally exposing the truth, though this is merely the start. There is more to unravel in season 2 of the drama Penthouse.
Image adapted from: SBS
The children of Hera Palace are gathered in a room and forced to watch a live stream of their parents getting tortured.
These children include Seok-hoon, Seok-kyung, Eun-byeol, Jenny and Min-hyuk.
Due to bad influence from their wicked parents, they have done their fair share of nasty things to Seol-ah. When they trapped Seol-ah in a van, the candles on the cake they brought to “celebrate” her achievement almost burnt her to death. However, when Seol-ah managed to escape unscathed and asked them how they could do that to her, they showed no remorse.
Through a speaker, someone orders them to write down everything they did to Seol-ah.
Tearfully, the children begin to confess to the bullying in writing. While they did feel some guilt after Seol-ah passed away, none of them admitted that they were wrong for bullying her till they were forced to confess.
Image adapted from: SBS
Seo-jin, one of the masterminds behind the cover-up of Seol-ah’s murder, kneels down to beg Soo-ryeon to stop going after them. Seo-jin is a prideful woman, so kneeling down is out of character for her.
Despite her desperation, she still refuses to give up her position as the director of Cheon-Ah Arts School, even after she tells Soo-ryeon that her daughter, Eun-byeol, is suffering.
Soo-ryeon is baffled by Seo-jin’s refusal to give up her position despite her daughter’s suicide attempt and gives her a satisfying slap. She tells Seo-jin that nothing will stop her from making sure everyone involved gets punished.
Image adapted from: SBS
In the last episode of season 1, Oh Yoon-hee was sentenced to life in prison for killing Soo-ryeon. On the way to prison, Logan hijacks the police car and kidnaps Yoon-hee. At the end of the episode, Yoon-hee stabs herself in the neck and is last seen bleeding out on the floor.
However, Yoon-hee reappears in the 2nd season, alive and well, and turns herself in to the police. This is a major problem for Dan-tae and Seo-jin, who thought that they were safe after Soo-ryeon’s death and Yoon-hee’s disappearance.
Yoon-hee insists that she did not kill Soo-ryeon, and this causes the police to reopen Soo-ryeon’s case.
Dan-tae manages to frame 1 of his housekeepers, Yang Mi-ok, as Soo-ryeon’s murderer. However, this means that Yoon-hee is now innocent and can continue to torment Dan-tae and Seo-jin. She serves as a reminder that their crimes can be exposed at any moment.
Image adapted from: SBS
To add salt to Dan-tae and Seo-jin’s wounds, Yoon-cheol – Seo-jin’s ex-husband – makes a grand entrance in a helicopter with his new wife, Yoon-hee.
Most of us will agree that this was one of the funniest scenes in the drama. The destruction of Dan-tae and Seo-jin’s engagement ceremony is a sight to behold.
Image adapted from: SBS
Seo-jin likes to scream when she’s angry, so viewers weren’t surprised when the doctor tells her that she has to undergo surgery to remove vocal cord nodules. This is bad news because she’s a famous classical singer. Seo-jin needs to cancel all her concerts and rest her throat, but she refuses.
She decides to continue to hold concerts by hiring another classical singer to sing backstage while she lip syncs. However, during the concert, she realises that the ghost singer sounds too good and too familiar.
Suspecting that something is amiss, she decides to check out the real identity of the ghost singer. To her horror, the singer is Yoon-hee.
When they were younger, Seo-jin slit Yoon-hee’s throat, and the latter has been unable to sing ever since. However, when Yoon-hee went missing after her arrest, she was actually with Logan in the US. Logan was overseeing her throat surgery there, and now she is able to sing again.
Seo-jin’s horrified expression was delightful to see – it’s about time she gets her comeuppance. Not only did Yoon-hee marry her ex-husband, but she also got her voice back.
Image adapted from: SBS
Before the singing competition for the Cheon-Ah Arts trophy, Seok-kyung reveals that she knows Seo-jin killed her own father. Seok-kyung demands that Seo-jin announce her as the winner of the competition, no matter whose name is on the results card.
With trembling hands, Seo-jin opens the envelope and looks at the name of the winner on the card. Instead of announcing Seok-kyung as the winner, she unexpectedly calls out the correct winner – Bae Ro-na.
However, Ro-na is not in the concert hall, and someone runs in screaming that a person has died.
Image adapted from: SBS
While the award ceremony was ongoing, Eun-byeol – Seo-jin’s daughter – and Ro-na got into a fight. Eun-byeol pushes Ro-na down the stairs outside of the concert hall.
Ro-na, bleeding profusely at the bottom of the stairs, sees Seol-ah’s spirit comforting her. Ro-na apologises to Seol-ah for taking her place at Cheon-Ah Arts School and asks her to forgive her mother, Yoon-hee.
Ro-na fights for her life at the hospital. She stops breathing for a moment but is resuscitated. However, someone pulls out Ro-na’s breathing tube. Yoon-hee, thinking that her daughter has died, tries to kill herself but Logan stops her in time.
Image adapted from: SBS
It turns out that Ro-na didn’t die after all. Soo-ryeon knew that the person who killed Ro-na will make sure that Ro-na dies so that she doesn’t reveal the truth. True enough, Dan-tae arrives to pull out Ro-na’s breathing tube. Dan-tae was the one who landed the final blow after Ro-na fell.
Soo-ryeon pays a doctor to save Ro-na after Dan-tae leaves and takes her away from the hospital.
Ro-na went through a lot of suffering so viewers were particularly upset when she “died”, especially since her death was similar to Seol-ah’s. Seeing Ro-na alive set viewers’ hearts at ease.
Image adapted from: SBS
In the previous season, Soo-ryeon was murdered by Dan-tae. With Soo-ryeon gone, Dan-tae is assured that no one can expose him anymore.
But is she really dead? Characters in this drama seem to love surprise re-appearances.
Image adapted from: SBS
Dan-tae returns home to find a woman waiting for him and she looks exactly like Soo-ryeon. To confirm his suspicion, he unzips her dress to check if she has a butterfly tattoo. Upon seeing the tattoo, he realises that the woman is Na Ae-gyo, the real mother of the twins. Ae-gyo bears an uncanny resemblance to Soo-ryeon.
Image adapted from: SBS
However, it is later revealed that Na Ae-gyo is Soo-ryeon after all. When Ae-gyo showers, the butterfly tattoo washes off.
This came as a pleasant surprise to viewers. With Soo-ryeon alive, she can continue to carry out her revenge and ensure that justice prevails.
Image adapted from: SBS
Soo-ryeon, Yoon-hee and Seo-jin – an unlikely trio – band together to take down Dan-tae despite distrusting each other. All 3 have their own vendetta against Dan-tae and will do anything to destroy his reputation, even if it means setting aside their differences.
The trio hatch a plan to frame Dan-tae for Ae-gyo’s murder and he ends up getting arrested.
Yoon-hee knows that Ae-gyo is actually Soo-ryeon, but Seo-jin doesn’t. Seo-jin is unknowingly helping Soo-ryeon in her plan to reveal the masterminds behind the deaths at Hera Palace, and she ends up getting apprehended for her crimes after Dan-tae’s arrest.
Image adapted from: SBS
Everyone involved in the cover-up of Seol-ah’s murder appears in court.
Image adapted from: SBS
Yoon-hee is ready to pay for her mistakes. She gives Soo-ryeon a note telling her to testify as a witness who saw the culprit pushing Seol-ah off the building.
Upon hearing that Yoon-hee was the one who pushed Seol-ah off the building, the others immediately try to distance themselves from the murder. At this point, it’s funny to see them scramble to save themselves when it’s obvious that they are all well and truly caught this time.
Image adapted from: SBS
Of course, they start to demand proof that they helped to cover up the crime. The video of them confessing to their involvement in the caged bus plays on the screen, shocking them into silence.
Image adapted from: SBS
As they try to defend themselves, Yoon-cheol stands up and starts to confess to everything that happened that night.
The scene where all of Dan-tae’s crimes are listed.
Image adapted from: SBS
Everyone is sentenced to jail for their crimes. This is the moment all viewers have been waiting for.
All of their crimes are listed, and their prison sentences are read out too. The most satisfying scene here was when Dan-tae’s crimes were read out – he committed 13 crimes in total and was sentenced to life in prison.
Image adapted from: SBS
Aside from Yoon-cheol and Yoon-hee, the others still insist that they are innocent and continue to blame one another for their downfall. Even though justice was served, it’s frustrating to see that they still refuse to admit their wrongdoings.
Season 2 of the drama Penthouse ended with an infuriating cliffhanger. Just as Logan was about to reunite with Soo-ryeon, a car next to him explodes. It seems likely that he died, but you don’t know anything for sure when it comes to the drama Penthouse.
Penthouse Season 3 will be airing in June, so we don’t have to wait too long for answers. Before we get frustrated with the injustice and schemes in the show, these 13 #JusticeServed moments in the drama Penthouse will serve as a reminder that justice will prevail in the end.
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Cover image adapted from: SBS DRAMA and @sbsdrama.official
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