The Recruit season 2 episode 3 recap: facing the past and a shock revelation

The Recruit season 2 sees the return of Netflix's action-packed thriller, coming to the streamer in the same month as The Night Agent season 2.

Rookie CIA lawyer Owen Hendricks found himself embroiled in some seriously intense agency business in The Recruit season 1.

And while Owen must suffer the consequences of his actions in the Max Meladze operation, he’s quickly thrown right back into the deep end - this time in Seoul, South Korea. But, it’s far from a holiday as life-threatening affairs await him, alongside espionage, kidnapping, hostage negotiations, and more.

While Owen is joined by returning agents, he also meets a lot of new faces on his international travels - namely, Jang Kyun (Teo Yoo) and Grace Cho (Young-Ah Kim). Though their part to play in The Recruit season 2 is full of twists and turns.

Here's a recap of everything that happened in The Recruit season 2 episode 3.

The third episode opens in Doha, Qatar. Owen has arrived with Tom after catching his private jet. He tells Tom that his father spent time here after his first tour of duty, revealing he triggered an IED in Helmand Province when he was 12 and died. Tom is concerned that meeting with the Taliban will be upsetting for Owen and if he can’t control his feelings, he can’t come. He insists he can.

In Seoul, Jang misses his wife and has a flashback to two weeks prior. Nan Hee is packing for her trip and Jang asks her to stay. They kiss and he tells her that this trip is too risky, but she promises to be careful. Back in the present, he pulls out a bag of phones and keeps working.

In Doha, Tom and Owen arrive to meet Lord Oliver Bonner-Jones. Tom asks if Halifa is there and he explains that he is, but that ISIS-K attacked his convoy, so he’s not happy. As Owen follows them, Jang keeps trying to call him wanting an update and Owen tells him he’s getting it. But, as Tom begins his negotiations to free Americans, Owen steps out. As he tries to calm himself down, Oliver comes to speak with him about the hostage situation. He asks for Oliver’s help, but Oliver says he’s lost his connection in Moscow and even if he could help, it’d be very expensive.

Owen spots a guard wandering away from negotiations and calls Jang to ask whether it’s a bad sign that the bodyguard has stepped out. Owen then notices that the man is texting someone and then he puts earplugs in. Jang says that men with guns put in earplugs when they know it's about to get noisy. To this, Owen calls out to warn Tom and suddenly ISIS fighters appear everywhere and open fire on the meeting. As Oliver tries to escape, a guard is about to shoot him and Owen takes him out. They hide in a bathroom and while a guard enters searching the area, Owen hits him round the head with a pipe and kills him. Fortunately, Tom and his men find Oliver and Owen and rescue them.

Meanwhile, Hannah comes back to the old apartment to pick up some mail. Terence is there and he asks about her dating Jae and she admits she likes him. Back at the office, the CEG agents are waiting for Amelia in her office. They ask her about her relationship with Owen - personal and professional. They then ask about Hannah and her ex-boyfriend, Jeff Gilbert, who was recently fired from the White House for leaks. They ask if she helped Hannah turn up in Geneva and at the Ramstein Air Base. She avoids all their questions and they thank her for her time.

In Doha, Tom says that the meeting going wrong could add months to him getting the Americans home. But in better news, Oliver says in order to thank Owen for saving his life, he smoothed things over with his contact in Russia and that he revealed that it wasn’t the Russians that took Nan Hee. Unfortunately, he doesn't know who. He hands him his card, offering his help in the future, and leaves. Nichka calls Owen from Poland and he tells her that he already knows the Russians don’t have Nan Hee, but Nichka says she knows who does. She says if he wants to know, she needs to be paid.

Back at Lester’s office, Violet tells him about the Russian mobsters that got taken out at a club - the ones Nichka killed. Owen calls and asks him to send $200,000 to Nichka in exchange for intel. He threatens to get the CIA director to ask Lester himself, which he doesn’t want, so he agrees to get the money.

At the Port Louis Station, Dodge comes to visit Dawn. She reveals that she got a call from Owen, who she thought was dead, as they'd hired someone local to kill him in Seoul - the assassin at the airport. Lester calls and asks her to get him a good asset. To this, she thinks Owen has told him about her ghost assets and now instructs Dodge to go to DEFCON 2 - killing Lester.

Hannah goes to meet Jae in his hotel room with some forms to sign. He answers in his towel. Flustered, he throws on some clothes and Hannah says she can’t work with him anymore because she has a conflict of interest - she likes him. He says he feels the same way and they kiss.

As Owen tries to sleep on the plane back to Seoul, his inner demons won't let him, forcing him to think about everything that’s happened. So, he looks at Yoo Jin on his phone instead. Meanwhile, Jang is waiting in Janus’s hotel room as he arrives back. He hands him $10,000, but not BTS tickets. Janus makes sure to refuse the bribe, even if it is fake. He says he needs a better reason as to why he and Owen came to Korea to give to Grace. Janus says he wants NIS intel in exchange for finding Jang’s wife. Jang corrects him and say the way it works is that Jang won't reveal secrets and they find his wife, not the other way round.

Upon arriving back in Seoul, the guards retrieve Owen from the plane and take him to Grace. She wonders why he flew from Qatar, and why there’s no record of him arriving in Qatar in the first place. She says she wants to find out if he’s an undeclared intelligence officer, but he says he’s just a lawyer.

Owen calls Amelia, but it’s not Owen, it’s Nyland in his office. He warns her that the CEG are on the way to her house. She quickly tries to delete video footage of her talking to Owen about the Max Meladze case off her computer - videos she records from her house giving interviews. Amelia questions the CEG as to why they didn’t know Xander had been turned by Max. She turns the failings of Max’s operation onto the CEG and accuses them of taking this investigation so seriously because they need to fix what they did. She says she'll write up everything they've done wrong and give it to the director. On this threat, they leave.

In Seoul, Owen goes to see Yoo Jin again at the bar where she works. They share a beer and talk about life. Back at Jae’s hotel room, Hannah wakes up and catches him on her phone - though he says he was just trying to put it on silent. He’d seen a text message from Terence and asks why he’s calling her bae - she explains he’s a friend, but she wonders if she should be worried about him being jealous. She’s angry at him, but he promises it won’t happen again.

In Poland, Lester brings Nichka the money. She reveals that the people who have Nan Hee are the Yakuza - the Japanese mob. Lester calls Owen and tells him what he’s found out, but as Lester hangs up he’s being followed. As Owen goes to use the bathroom, Jang jumps out and grabs him. He tells Jang about the Yakuza. He looks shocked and says it’s his fault and runs off. Owen follows him to his car and they drive away.

Elsewhere, Lester notices he’s being followed by a man in a mask, who then pulls out a gun. The two men fight and the assassin pulls out a blade. In the brawl, Lester manages to pick up the assassin’s gun and kills him. He pulls off the man’s mask and takes a photo of his face.

Back in Seoul, Jang drives them somewhere and tells Owen to stay in the car - after running someone down who was stood outside. Inside, Jang grabs Ji Min and takes him up onto the roof, hanging him over the edge. He says that her wife paid him money to protect her and he sold her out. He admits it and says he sold her to the Yamazaki clan who have territory in Eastern Russia. To this, he throws him off the building.

Owen asks Jang how this is his fault. He explains he created a cryptocurrency that is code with a tracker hidden inside, so they could follow their own money and along with it, illegal activities. To get terrorists and organized crime to use it though, he put it through his wife’s bribes at her NGO. Owen says he thought that was off-limits, but he admits he did it without her knowledge. So, it appears the Yakuza found out and then found her. Owen’s angry that he trusted Jang and that it turns out he’d put his wife in danger, rather than risking it all to save her.

Jang says Owen still has to help him regardless because he has 20 years of secrets that he’ll release if he doesn’t - and Owen says he won’t need to when he tells the CIA the NIS made a traceable crypto. To which Jang tells him the CIA made it with them and that it’s not just for bad guys, but the CIA have been using it on civilians, too. Owen punches Jang in the face, locks him on the roof, steals his car and drives off.

All episodes of The Recruit are available to stream on Netflix now.