13 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.
Monk Jang Che-shin is pointing out how absurd it is that a 스님 (seunnim — Buddhist monk) would ever hit someone, using it as his defense. In Korean culture, monks are associated with nonviolence and deep spiritual discipline. The comedy here comes from the audience already having watched him kick and throw people around with practiced skill.
Larry Kang says he is a '둑방 쌥쌥이 출신' — meaning he came up doing 쌥쌥이 (a casual, improvisational hip-hop dance style) on 둑방, the embankment paths along rivers like the Han River. These riverside embankments are where youth gather to hang out, skateboard, and dance, so calling yourself 둑방 쌥쌥이 출신 signals a scrappy, street-level background rather than formal training.
Reporter Gi-seok compares Vincenzo to 체 게바라 (Che Guevara), the Argentine revolutionary who became a global icon of resistance against powerful oppressors. In Korean pop culture, calling someone 'Che Guevara' is shorthand for a heroic outsider who rallies ordinary people against corrupt authority — a compliment that also underscores how strange it is that the man doing it is a mafia lawyer.
Vincenzo secured the prosecutor-general's cooperation by arranging for his soccer-hopeless son to train at 'BC 밀라노' — a thinly disguised stand-in for AC Milan, one of Italy's most famous clubs with a prestigious global youth academy. Getting a talentless kid into such a program is an absurd, very expensive favour — the writers use it to satirise how Korean power brokers trade in status and overseas connections for their children.
Cha-young asks her colleague to do his impression of Lee Sun-kyun from 기생충 (Parasite, 2019), Bong Joon-ho's Oscar-winning film. Lee Sun-kyun played the wealthy Park family father, known for his smooth, slightly condescending voice. The line being imitated — about a test drive — is from a famous scene in that film, and it's a running gag that the colleague does celebrity impressions on demand.
Cha-young uses the French term '옴므 파탈' (homme fatal), the male equivalent of femme fatale — a dangerously attractive man who lures a target to their ruin. The plan is to use this role against the bank president, who has a very specific type. The phrase is borrowed directly into Korean pop-culture vocabulary and dramas often use it when a character seduces an opponent as part of a scheme.
Vincenzo impresses Hwang Min-seong by identifying that his horse 'Nearsen' likely descends from Nearco and belongs to the Northern Dancer line — one of the most dominant and prized bloodlines in thoroughbred racing worldwide. Knowing a horse's lineage this precisely signals serious equestrian knowledge, which is exactly the cultured, worldly image Vincenzo is performing to win Min-seong's trust.
Yeon-jin innocently compares Hong-sik's device to the wand-style metal detectors used at Korean airports and public buildings. Hong-sik insists it is a 안마기 (anma-gi — massage device), while Toto claims his is a 청소기 (special vacuum cleaner). All three residents have independently snuck into the basement with metal detectors to hunt for the hidden gold, and none of them will admit it.
Hong-sik teases Toto by asking whether he really served at a 'GOP' (General Outpost) along the DMZ — the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone dividing North and South Korea. GOP duty is considered one of the toughest postings in mandatory military service, involving round-the-clock border surveillance. Toto quickly backpedals, claiming he only meant a computer game called '지뢰 찾기' (Minesweeper), to everyone's amusement.
Vincenzo suggests Min-seong hold the investment signing ceremony at an opera house for 'dramatic' flair. In Korea, major corporate events are often staged in luxurious, high-profile venues to project power and attract media. By engineering a spectacular public setting, Vincenzo is actually ensuring that Min-seong's last-minute refusal — and the subsequent chaos — will happen in front of maximum press coverage.
Cha-young explains that the cruelest revenge is targeting what someone fears most. The Geumga Plaza tenants exploit Hwang Min-seong's severe zombie phobia — established in the amusement park scene — by staging a full zombie ambush using their acting practice as cover. In Korean revenge dramas, 'tailored' punishments that humiliate the villain in their specific weak spot are a beloved story beat.
Cha-young publicly names herself as the daughter of the late lawyer Hong Yu-chan in front of the assembled press. In Korea, identifying yourself by your father's name and reputation is a loaded act — it invokes family honour and makes the fight personal and visible. She is staking her entire professional identity on the fight against Babel, in a culture where such a public declaration carries significant social and legal weight.
Cha-young says she will expose Babel's corruption '조기의 뼈 바르듯' — literally 'like picking the bones clean from a 조기 (yellow croaker fish).' Yellow croaker is a staple of Korean home cooking and its many tiny bones must be picked out meticulously one by one. The idiom means to expose every detail with painstaking thoroughness, leaving nothing hidden.