Karma- Episodes 3-4

“The Unrighteous”

Things are getting dark—and Karma isn’t pulling any punches.

Episode 3 kicks off with Eyewitness back at it, blackmailing Dr. Sang-hun for more cash—this time, 30 million won. And just like that, the guy who helped bury a body is now stuck funding his own extortionist.

Meanwhile, back at the precinct, Jae-yeong is in the bathroom rehearsing his fake grief before identifying his father’s body. He’s really putting in the work—until a toilet flush betrays him. Officer Baek, in the next stall, overhears everything.

Baek confronts him, suspicious, and starts checking Jae-yeong’s alibis. To his surprise, everyone remembers Jae-yeong way too well—which is weird. Too perfect.

As Jae-yeong scrambles for his insurance payout, he ends up waiting three hours at the company. When someone finally meets with him—it’s the same guy who hit Dong-sik with his car in Episode 1. Turns out, the payout’s on hold until Dong-sik’s death is officially ruled an accident.

Jae-yeong tries to play nice. The supervisor hints he only helps people who treat him well. Jae-yeong awkwardly apologizes for the previous blackmail, but all he gets is a polite brush-off. Clock’s ticking: 16 days until the loan shark collects.

Speaking of ghosts from the past—Gil-ryong shows up at Dong-sik’s funeral.

Jae-yeong loses it, furious at the botched murder. Gil-ryong calmly explains: Dong-sik didn’t die right away and saw his face. So yeah, things had to get messy. But a deal’s a deal—he wants his money.

Jae-yeong snaps and lunges, but Gil-ryong floors him and reminds him about the incriminating recording. From a distance, Officer Baek watches them. He trails Gil-ryong back to his junkyard, sneaks into his trailer, and steals the recording. But Gil-ryong catches him, thinks Jae-yeong sent him, and kills him on the spot. Then he realizes—Baek’s a cop. Worse, the junkyard CCTV caught it all.

Gil-ryong tells Jae-yeong: pay up by tomorrow or die. Jae-yeong makes his choice—he’s going to kill Gil-ryong.

Back to Sang-hun’s nightmare—Eyewitness is now hanging around his clinic, flirting with the nurse and acting way too comfortable. Sang-hun promises the 30 million, but needs a week. While picking up his repaired car, the mechanic points out something odd: the windshield is damaged, not the bumper. Like the “deer” fell from above.

Alarm bells go off. Sang-hun rushes home, checks his black box footage—and boom. There it is. Dong-sik’s body falls from a footbridge. And guess who’s up there, watching and laughing? Eyewitness.

Sang-hun finally pieces it together: Eyewitness set the whole thing up.

He calls Yu-jeong and tells her he’s going to report everything and flip the story—blame Eyewitness as the real mastermind. They meet in her car since she’s still traumatized by his. He shows her the footage. She nods, then suddenly asks, “How did Eyewitness know exactly when to target you?”

Sang-hun is confused. Yu-jeong explodes, yelling about how annoying he is, how she can date whoever she wants—and bam, Eyewitness appears and knocks Sang-hun out.

Plot twist: Yu-jeong and Eyewitness are a scammer couple.

They head to the countryside to lay low, dreaming up how they’ll get rid of Sang-hun for good. Their destination? The same abandoned building where Jae-yeong was burned in Episode 1. Yu-jeong smiles like it’s a nostalgic vacation. Eyewitness thinks she’s a little too into this.

They start digging Sang-hun’s grave. But—he wakes up.

He sees Yu-jeong laughing. Something in him snaps. He floors the gas and runs her over, killing her. Then he starts laughing like a man unhinged. Eyewitness attacks him. Sang-hun begs for his life, says he just has a temper. But he’s out of money, out of lies, and out of time.

Eyewitness kills him. And the mechanic couple? They film everything.

But Karma’s not done yet.

The episode ends with a flashback. Young Yu-jeong, in school, watches a classmate, Lee Ju-yeon—the pretty, popular girl who pretends to be innocent but flirts behind the scenes. When Ju-yeon unintentionally steals a magazine cover gig from Yu-jeong, something snaps.

Yu-jeong sets her up. A fake blind date. She lures Ju-yeon to the same abandoned building and leaves her with three boys. What happens next is only suggested—but it’s enough to know it was evil.

In the present, an adult Ju-yeon wakes up from the nightmare. And that’s where Episode 3 ends.

“The Woman Trapped in the Past”

Twists, trauma, and the truth catching up—Episode 4 of Karma hits hard.

We open with flames lighting up the abandoned building in Guhoe. Cops swarm the scene, and Chief Park is on-site. A man is pulled from the fire, badly burned but alive. Everyone assumes it's Park Jae-yeong—the runaway debtor. But when his bandages come off, surprise: it’s Eyewitness—the shady guy with the gold watch who’s been manipulating everyone from the shadows.

Cut to: Ju-yeon. Calm, composed, and treating patients like nothing’s wrong… even while nursing a visible injury. PI Hwang watches from afar, intrigued. He offers his services if she ever needs help. She shrugs it off—for now.

Then comes the bombshell: she’s called in to check on the burn victim. When he says his name is Park Jae-yeong, Ju-yeon freezes. Even her boyfriend, Dr. Yoon Jeong-min, notices her distress. She brushes it off, but later—alone—she pops a pill and smashes a mirror, spiraling into a panic attack.

Jeong-min catches her trying to print out Jae-yeong’s file. He’s worried. She brushes him off again but secretly hires PI Hwang. She wants information—specifically on three men. No questions asked. She pays him 5 million won upfront.

Turns out, Hwang used to be a cop. His old assistants? The nosy mechanic couple who’s been tailing people since Episode 2. Hwang enlists help from his former protégé, Detective Kang—the lead on the arson case. As they catch up, Kang shares that multiple unidentified bodies were found in the fire. One was the real Jae-yeong.

Then comes a deeper revelation. Kang hands Hwang the files on the three men Ju-yeon is tracking. They were involved in a brutal high school gang rape case. The victim? Lee Ju-yeon.

Flashback time.
Ju-yeon, in high school, gets asked out by Jae-yeong through mutual friend Yu-jeong. It's sweet and innocent… until masked men jump them. Later at the police station, all three boys are unmasked. Ju-yeon is devastated to learn that Jae-yeong wasn’t a victim—he orchestrated the whole thing.

Back in the present, Ju-yeon sits by Eyewitness—burned, broken, and now calling himself Jae-yeong. Hwang calls with updates: two of the rapists—Tae-jun and Yong-seon—are dead. Grisly ends. Karma, he says. But Jae-yeong? He's been quietly hiding out in Paju.

Ju-yeon breathes deeply and tells the nurse to give the burn victim morphine. She finally accepts—he’s not the same Park Jae-yeong who destroyed her.

Except… he might be.

Detective Kang updates Hwang: the real Jae-yeong is the sole survivor of the fire. Ju-yeon is mid-lunch with Jeong-min when she gets the call—and everything spins again.

Meanwhile, the Eyewitness-turned-“Jae-yeong” is in bed, grinning. He's not just alive—he’s gotten away clean.

The cops try to verify his identity, but he conveniently can’t give fingerprints—his fingers are too badly burned.When they tell him his aunt wants to visit, he looks annoyed. After they leave, he calls for a doctor with fake politeness.

Ju-yeon, on the other hand, is unraveling. She imagines suffocating him in his hospital bed. In reality, he’s already talking his way out of discharge papers. He struts out in stolen clothes while a woman shouts about her missing husband’s outfit.

In the elevator, Ju-yeon confronts him. “Don’t you recognize me?” she demands.

He plays it coy: “You don’t know me.”

She pushes harder. He leans in: “The Park Jae-yeong you know doesn’t exist anymore.”

Cue emotional whiplash. She’s shaken—thinks he’s mocking her. Outside, she stops him again as he climbs into a taxi. She blames him for years of nightmares.

He grins and laughs. “You still don’t get it,” he says, and the taxi drives off.

Final scene? Ju-yeon stands still, breath shaking, eyes hard.

She’s made her choice.

She’s going to kill him.

DramaZen's Opinion

“Karma’s Not Just a Drama—It’s a Full-Blown Crime Opera”

Okay. Okay. I don’t know what kind of writers’ room ritual summoned this level of storytelling, but Episodes 3 and 4kicked it into high gear and then lit the gas on fire.

Sang-hun’s descent into madness? Top-tier. Eyewitness being a total snake in the grass the whole time? Not shocked—but somehow still SCREAMING. The big reveal that Ju-yeon was the victim of a horrific past AND that Eyewitness was behind it all? Give this show an award, please.

And let’s talk about Ju-yeon—my queen. The layers!! One minute she’s saving lives, the next she’s plotting murder with a scalpel in her pocket and PTSD in her soul. Her scenes with Eyewitness are SO tense I forgot to blink. And when she says she’s going to kill him at the end of Episode 4? I felt that in my bones.

Also, shoutout to Detective Kang and PI Hwang for being the only people with functional brains. They’re out here trying to solve murders while everyone else is out here committing them.

This drama is smart, twisted, and totally addicting. I love suffering. I love Karma.