Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Netflix
Less than six months after premiering on Netflix, Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area returns on December 9 with a batch of fresh episodes. As before, the series doesn’t radically alter the template set by Álex Pina’s Spanish original, whose narrative is largely followed to a T. Still, it remains a loopy pulp thriller whose dedication to amped-up action and melodrama is only equaled by its love of preposterous twists and turns.
A brief recap for those who haven’t yet caught up with the first season: In the near future, North and South Korea have agreed to a détente that will be finalized, economically speaking, at a forthcoming conference. Currency for the newly whole nation is being printed at the Unified Korea Mint. That makes it the prime target of the Professor (Yoo Ji-tae), a criminal mastermind who assembles a team of crooks with various specialty skills—and who are all code-named after international cities—to steal four trillion won from the heavily fortified locale.
This necessitates taking everyone inside hostage, and leads to a standoff with Inspector Seon Woo-jin (Lost’s Kim Yun-jin), whom the Professor is covertly dating on the outside as a means of gaining further intel on her operation, as well as manipulating her for his own devious purposes. The Professor is a man always five steps ahead of his adversaries, and also of his underlings, who wear red jumpsuits and smiley-faced masks during their mission.