The Recruit season 2 episode 5 recap: a new plan and an escape from Korea

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 5.

The penultimate episode opens on NIS Deputy Director Grace Cho instructing her agents to target Lester, Owen, and Janus. She also tasks them with finding Yoo Jin. During the briefing, she notices Jang is missing. Back at the motel, the team are discussing their mission and Owen reveals he was almost assassinated. This prompts Lester to say the same happened to him and then shows him the photo he took of the assassin after he killed him - Owen says it’s the same guy.

Jang recognizes the man too, revealing he was a former intelligence officer turned gun-for-hire. Lester says it must have been Dawn, which prompts Owen to explain Dawn has ghost assets and has been stealing money from the CIA, so she must think he told Lester. To this, Janus leaves saying he wants no further part in it all.

With no better plan, Owen thinks they should ask Nichka for help. Grace Cho calls Jang saying she’s in his apartment, which has clearly been searched. He lies and tells her that Janus must’ve drugged him when trying to get intel. She says that Owen was spotted in the motel district and so, after the call, Jang instructs them to leave immediately. Meanwhile, Owen and Lester escape by using the money from the failed Yamazaki deal to borrow a car to get out of the area, while Jang heads back to the NIS. Owen calls Nichka who says she’ll run recon for $300,000. When Owen tells Nichka where she must go, he offers her one million dollars and she accepts.

Meanwhile, Hannah wakes up and finds herself tied up, while Jae is on her laptop. Jae says he’s sorry, but he needs to know what Owen is doing in Korea. He tells her about the drugs and his arrest. She offers to help him if he lets her call Owen, saying he'll tell her wherever he is because he trusts her. When Owen answers, Hannah quickly reveals that she’s been kidnapped and tells him about Jae and where she is. He calls Amelia and tells her to go and save Hannah, or he’ll sell her out to CEG.

Elsewhere, Janus is walking the streets of Seoul when he's suddenly surrounded by police. He quickly calls Nyland’s office to tell them he’s being arrested, before they wrestle him to the ground. Amelia then goes to Nyland to tell him about Hannah’s kidnapping. He tells her to run the Angleton playbook, so he calls Alton and asks for four agents to help.

At the hotel, a desperate Jae tries to call Grace, but she puts him through to her voicemail. Hannah puts the pressure on him to run, saying it's his only choice, but as he goes to leave Amelia and the agents turn up and taser him. Back in Seoul, Owen and Lester are at the CIA station and they call Amelia to see how Hannah is doing. Owen insists he wants to talk to her, so Lester hacks into the camera system so he can. Owen tells Hannah that she has to forget the last 12 hours and act like Jae just left town. He tells her she can't ever say what really happened and she has to act like it didn't. He forces her to say she understands, and she does, but then she throws a chair at the screen, breaking the connection. Lester tells him it’s the nicest thing he could have done for her, to break their relationship forever.

Meanwhile, Grace questions Janus and threatens that if he doesn’t tell her what she wants to know, she’ll tell his boss he’s compromised because he accepted the $10,000 bribe from Jang, but he never took the money.

Elsewhere, Amelia questions Jae about his handler in the NIS. She threatens him with treason and he agrees to talk. Lester is handed a file that shows a photo taken of him, Owen, Jang, and Janus entering the motel - unveiling Jang’s cover. At the same time, Jang is heading back into the NIS where Grace has just been shown the same photo. She calls to lock the building down, but Owen calls Jang just in time to warn him. He manages to escape, but it was close.

Owen tells Lester they’ve tracked Jang’s location, but Lester reveals there's more pressing danger as Dawn and Dodge have landed in Seoul. They need to kill them before they do it first. Luckily, they find them easily, driving from the airport and run them off the road, arresting them.

Amelia walks with Hannah following the conversation with Owen. She tells Hannah again that she should keep Owen out of her life from now on and never contact her again either. Meanwhile, Lester has tied Dawn and Dodge up and walked them to the edge of a cliff. Dawn says he won’t kill them because Owen won’t let them, but Owen says he’s going to walk back to the car and leave them. Dawn tries to make a deal and just as Lester’s about to kill her, Jang turns up. He says that Dawn and Dodge could help them since they have operations expertise.

Meanwhile, the director of the NIS is speaking to the CIA director. West reveals Jang was graymailing them. He won’t reveal though what Jang wants them to do and the NIS director says West needs to bring in his agents and turn over Jang. He says if you do any more activity in Korea, we’ll cut all intelligence sharing and gives them six hours to get it done. The conversation ends when Owen calls West. He says they can’t stop because they need to protect two decades of agency secrets, but that he’s got a plan. He reveals he’s got Dawn helping him.

Owen wants to make a deal with West and Nyland as he says even a chance of this mission being successful is worth something to them. He then reveals he knows about the cryptocurrency. He asks them for a deal - if he’s successful, Lester is made Moscow Station chief and that he’s given his life back away from the CIA. But - if he fails - he’s to blame for everything. West agrees.

While he’s on the phone, a file is handed to West. He explains to Nyland that the dead man’s switch has been found - Jang makes rope art that is posted on social media and depicts a code that will neutralize it, once they work it out. Without the dead man’s switch, they can arrest Jang.

Owen asks Dawn to put together a team to help them in Vladivostok, Russia. She says she can call in help, but it won’t be free. Jang says in the meantime, they need to get out of Korea. They can’t go by plane, but Owen says he knows someone with a boat - Yoo Jin. He brings her a lot of money and asks to borrow the boat. He then says he’s sorry, he shouldn’t be asking her to do this for him, but she says she has free will to make her own choices. She says he can have a boat, but she wants to come.

As they're discussing the plan, the NIS and police show up and they jump onto Yoo Jin’s motorbike and race away. They’re pursued, but they manage to escape. They make it to the boat and meet Yang and Lester there. As she requested, Yoo Jin is coming, too. Owen approaches Yang and says, “Let’s go get your wife back.”

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