10 timestamped notes explaining the Korean cultural context in this episode — customs, idioms, food, honorifics, and history, at the moment each appears on screen. These notes discuss events across the whole episode. To see them revealed scene-by-scene as you watch, use the episode page to find an airing.
108배 is a Buddhist prostration practice where a worshipper bows to the floor exactly 108 times without stopping. The number 108 represents the 108 earthly desires (번뇌) that Buddhism teaches must be overcome. It is a serious act of devotion and self-discipline — which is why Woo-young is being teased for sneaking a few bows.
대패 삼겹살 is pork belly shaved into paper-thin slices on a meat planer (대패 means 'wood plane'); it cooks in seconds on a tabletop grill. 파절임 is a quick-pickled green-onion salad — the classic partner for grilled pork. Woo-young is torturing himself by imagining a full BBQ spread while fasting on temple food.
Vincenzo deliberately mixes up two famous economists to test whether Jang Han-seo actually understands his own company's stated philosophy. Joseph Schumpeter (조지프 슘페터) coined 'creative destruction' — the idea that innovation dismantles old industries. George Soros (조지 소로스) is a currency speculator, not an innovation theorist. Han-seo agrees with both attributions, exposing that he has no idea what his own PR slogans mean.
지라시 literally means a cheap printed flyer, but in Korean business culture it refers to anonymous tip sheets that circulate by KakaoTalk among stock traders and finance insiders. They often contain rumours that never appear in official news — yet they have a reputation for being surprisingly accurate, which is exactly the barb Vincenzo is planting with Jang Han-seo.
기레기 blends 기자 (journalist) and 쓰레기 (garbage) — Korean internet slang for reporters who print corporate or government press releases without verification. Cha-young uses it to describe a newspaper editor who gives Babel Group only favourable coverage in exchange for advertising revenue.
산재 is short for 산업재해, Korea's workers' compensation system for job-related injuries and illnesses. When the monk's friend collapses on camera during Babel Chemical's press conference, it becomes explosive evidence that the company's dangerous BLSD chemical has been harming its own researchers — exactly the kind of incident that triggers a 산재 claim under Korean labour law.
극락왕생 is a Buddhist phrase wishing that a dying person's soul will be reborn in 극락 (Sukhavati, the Pure Land / paradise). Woo-young says it half-jokingly — telling Che-sin to pray hard for his peaceful passage to paradise if he dies. For a monk like Che-sin, hearing his irreverent friend casually invoke this term makes it hit harder than a straightforward expression of fear.
마구니 (from the Sanskrit Māra, 마군 in formal Korean Buddhism) is a Buddhist demon or any force that obstructs enlightenment and deceives the faithful. The monks hurling this word at lawyer So is a serious ritual insult in their vocabulary — equivalent to calling him a devil sent to corrupt the innocent — and far more cutting coming from actual Buddhist clergy than from a layperson.
When Vincenzo tastes the food Toto's mother made and says '나폴리!' (Naples!), he is not commenting on the recipe — he is recognising the regional home cooking of southern Italy. Naples is the heartland of classic Italian cucina povera and conjures an immediate emotional image of a grandmother's kitchen. The moment signals genuine feeling breaking through Vincenzo's usually guarded exterior.
Vincenzo speaks in Italian at the courthouse steps, quoting what becomes the show's central moral motto: 'Evil is punished by evil.' It echoes the Italian mafia concept that only someone willing to operate outside the law can truly defeat those who already do. The reporters assume he is speaking English, French, or referencing a video game — underlining how foreign his logic is to a conventional legal setting.