Iron Family

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Iron Family

다리미 패밀리 (Darimi Paemilli) · 2024 · South Korea

WriterSeo Sook Hyang

DirectorSung Joon Hae, Seo Yong Soo

Episodes36 eps · ~66 min each

AiredSep 28, 2024 – Jan 26, 2025

GenreRomantic Comedy · Family · Mystery

Content Rating15+

KBS2NetflixVikiKOCOWA+Apple TV+

ChaebolVisual ImpairmentFound MoneyLaundry BusinessBlack Comedy

One box. Everything you need to decide.

A laundry-shop family, a fortune that was never theirs, and the wealthy heir who wants it back.

Kim Jung-hyun

Seo Gang-Ju

Lead

Keum Sae-rok

Lee Da-rim

Lead

Choi Tae-joon

Cha Tae-woong

Supporting

Yang Hye-ji

Lee Cha-rim

Supporting

Lee Sung-yeol

Choi Hyung-cheol

Supporting

Shin Hyun-jun

Ji Seung-don

Supporting

Park Ji-young

Ko Bong-hee

Supporting

Kim Hye-eun

Baek Ji-yeon

Supporting

Kim Yeong-ok

An Gil-rye

Supporting

Park In-hwan

Lee Man-deuk

Supporting

Cho Jae-kyeong

Oh Na-eun

Supporting

Jeong Seo-ha

Special Appearance

Supporting

Spoiler-light recaps — enough to remember where you left off, nothing that ruins the ride.

EP 01

Misfortune and Reunion

Sep 28, 2024

Lee Da-rim is losing her eyesight for good unless her family can somehow afford a treatment they clearly can’t. In the middle of that crisis, she runs into Seo Gang-Ju — a wealthy acquaintance from college she hasn’t seen in years — and the reunion complicates rather than helps. Her mother Bong-hee is already scrambling for money before Gang-Ju even factors into the equation, which tells you exactly how desperate things already are.

EP 02

A Secret Past and Desperate Measures

Sep 29, 2024

Da-rim can’t bring herself to tell her family how expensive the surgery actually is, carrying the number alone. Gang-Ju, meanwhile, is pulled back toward her by something from their past he can’t quite let go of, which complicates a relationship that was already tangled before either of them said a word about money.

EP 03

Broken Cane and Unexpected Help

Oct 5, 2024

A fight between Da-rim and Gang-Ju ends with her cane broken and her stranded, forcing her to lean on the one person she’d rather not need. Cha Tae-woong — the laundry’s part-timer and Da-rim’s self-appointed protector — reacts to Gang-Ju’s presence with a jealousy that reads more like instinct than manners. The accident does what an actual conversation couldn’t: it makes Da-rim accept help she’d been refusing.

EP 04

The Discovery of Hidden Money

Oct 6, 2024

Da-rim’s grandparents Man-deuk and Gil-rye go hiking and stumble onto a stranger burying something in the ground — their first guess is a body, their second guess, once they dig it up, is a small fortune in cash. What they do with that money is the question the rest of the season is built around, and the answer starts here, in the moment neither of them says no to keeping it.

EP 05

Family Arguments and a Call for Help

Oct 12, 2024

The surgery bill finally detonates into a full family argument, and Da-rim absorbs the blame for a debt she never asked anyone to take on. She drinks it off badly enough that she can’t cover her own tab, and the person who ends up bailing her out is, inevitably, Gang-Ju — fate doing what fate does in this show, which is refuse to let these two stay separate.

EP 06

The Money’s Owner and a Return to the Mountain

Oct 13, 2024

At a funeral, Man-deuk and Gil-rye learn the money’s original owner has died, which should simplify their moral dilemma and instead complicates it further — dead men can’t claim cash, but someone still can. The grandparents start talking about going back to the mountain, less out of guilt than curiosity about what else might be up there.

EP 07

Growing Affection and Mounting Frustration

Oct 19, 2024

Gang-Ju keeps orbiting Da-rim, and the show finally explains why: she’s the only person who ever actually read his screenplay and meant it when she liked it. Tae-woong’s patience runs out faster than the show’s, providing most of the episode’s friction while the actual romance quietly firms up underneath it.

EP 08

Surgery Scheduled and Trouble at the Laundry

Oct 20, 2024

Da-rim’s mother pushes her into finally scheduling the surgery, and for one episode the family gets to feel like the crisis has a deadline instead of just a price tag. Gang-Ju’s own trouble shows up at the laundry itself, which is the first sign that his life and the Lee family’s are no longer running on separate tracks.

EP 09

Post-Surgery Confusion and Mistaken Identity

Oct 26, 2024

Bandaged and disoriented after surgery, Da-rim mistakes Gang-Ju for Tae-woong — an error that would be pure farce in any other show, and here doubles as an honest look at how thoroughly these two men occupy the same emotional space in her life without her fully admitting it.

EP 10

Regained Sight and Job Struggles

Oct 27, 2024

Da-rim gets her sight back and immediately runs into a much less dramatic problem: nobody wants to hire her with the resume she’s got. Gang-Ju, for his part, is still stuck on the moment she pretended not to recognize him, which tells you his feelings were never really about the money to begin with.

EP 11

Seung Don Tells Tae Woong the Truth

Nov 2, 2024

Tae-woong finds out Ji Seung-don — his mother’s old boss — is actually his biological father, and the confrontation that follows happens close enough for Gang-Ju to overhear every word of it by accident. Seung-don’s response is coldly practical: nothing changes. Tae-woong’s response is the opposite — he cuts contact and plants himself even more firmly with the Lee family, choosing the home that raised him over the one that abandoned him.

EP 12

Da Rim Rejects Gang Ju’s Confession

Nov 3, 2024

Warned off Gang-Ju by a newly destabilized Tae-woong, Da-rim takes the job at Gang-Ju’s company anyway. Gang-Ju, reeling from the discovery that Tae-woong is his half-brother in every way that matters, gets drunk enough to confess his feelings — and sober enough later to remember exactly how flatly she turned him down.

EP 13

Ji Yeon Tracks Her Stolen Money

Nov 9, 2024

Gang-Ju’s mother Ji-yeon narrows her search for her missing money down to Mu-rim’s wedding, putting her in the same room as Bong-hee without either of them realizing what that actually means. Da-rim, meanwhile, is furious at a leak about her and Gang-Ju’s shared history that she never actually caused — a misunderstanding that costs the relationship more trust than either of them can spare.

EP 14

Money for Mu-Rim and Professional Boundaries

Nov 10, 2024

Tae-woong quietly slips Mu-rim cash at her wedding while Bong-hee launders a much larger sum through her, the family’s gratitude and their crime blurring into the same gesture. At work, Da-rim draws a hard line with Gang-Ju about keeping things professional, less because she means it and more because she needs to believe she still can.

EP 15

Tae-Woong’s Secret and Gang-Ju’s Troubles

Nov 16, 2024

Cha-rim learns Tae-woong quietly owns half the neighborhood and is Seung-don’s actual son, which reframes a character the show had been treating as comic relief. An anonymous accusation that Gang-Ju embezzled money for film school lands the same episode, and the confrontation it triggers between Ji-yeon, Bong-hee, and Seung-don finally drags Tae-woong’s abandonment into the open.

EP 16

Gang-Ju’s Demotion and Da-Rim’s Support

Nov 17, 2024

Seung-don demotes Gang-Ju over the embezzlement accusation without waiting to hear him out, and Gang-Ju’s insistence on his own innocence gets him nowhere with the one person whose opinion he actually wants. Da-rim, guilty for staying quiet earlier, starts showing up just to sit with him in the hallway — comfort with no fix attached.

EP 17

Tracing the Post and Confronting the Family

Nov 23, 2024

Gang-Ju traces the anonymous post back to its source and doesn’t like what he finds. Separately, a man hired by Ji-yeon to hunt down her missing money starts working Da-rim’s neighborhood, and the show’s two mysteries — who leaked the embezzlement story, who’s sitting on the stolen cash — start braiding together fast.

EP 18

Gang-Ju’s Despair and Ji Yeon’s Grief

Nov 24, 2024

Losing his job sends Gang-Ju into a bad enough spiral that he ends up sleeping on the street, and what he witnesses there — Seung-don visiting Tae-woong, not him — breaks something further. Ji-yeon finds him at his lowest and finally understands how much of his self-worth was riding on a father figure who was never actually his to depend on.

EP 19

Ji Yeon’s Divorce and Gang-Ju’s Discovery

Nov 30, 2024

Ji-yeon decides to sell her house and finalize the divorce, spooked by police attention circling a safe she’d rather nobody find. Gang-Ju, done waiting for answers, breaks into Man-deuk’s room and finds bundles of cash marked with the same code his mother’s been chasing — confirmation, finally, of what he’d already suspected.

EP 20

Confrontation and Revelation

Dec 1, 2024

Gang-Ju confronts the Lee family directly about the money, and Da-rim’s instinct is to defend them anyway, even with the truth sitting right in front of her. It’s the first time the show lets the conflict be a real argument instead of a series of near-misses, and neither side comes out of it clean.

EP 21

The Truth About the Money Unveiled

Dec 7, 2024

Gang-Ju goes to retrieve his mother’s money from the empty house and gets mistaken for a burglar by Da-rim, who learns in the same breath that her family stole from the man she’s falling for. She begs him to hold off before her grandparents find out it’s gone, terrified of what that discovery would do to them. Elsewhere, Tae-woong buries his birth mother and crosses paths with Seung-don at the funeral, who receives a letter asking him to look after the son he never claimed.

EP 22

Da Rim’s Confession and Man Deuk’s Collapse

Dec 8, 2024

Guilt finally pushes Da-rim to apologize to Gang-Ju and try to return the money to Ji-yeon directly, only for Gang-Ju to intercept the confession and let his mother believe it’s a romantic one instead — anything to keep the theft itself buried a little longer. The lie buys them time it immediately spends: Man-deuk collapses after finding the cash gone from under his bed, and Da-rim is left afraid he won’t recover.

EP 23

Man-Deuk’s Collapse and Gang-Ju’s Guilt

Dec 14, 2024

Man-deuk’s collapse forces the family into a corner they can’t talk their way out of, and it’s Gang-Ju — not any of the Lees — who decides to quietly put the money back where he found it. The gesture isn’t really about the cash anymore; it’s the clearest sign yet of how far his feelings for Da-rim have outpaced his loyalty to his own mother’s case.

EP 24

Da-Rim’s Kiss and New Beginnings

Dec 15, 2024

Relieved and grateful in equal measure, Da-rim kisses Gang-Ju on the cheek — small, but the first time either of them acts on the feeling instead of just circling it. The two of them start reselling vintage pieces from the family’s dry-cleaning stock together, a fresh business that doubles as the relationship’s first real foundation.

EP 25

Tae-Woong’s Demand and Da-Rim’s Support

Dec 21, 2024

Tae-woong tries to push Gang-Ju out of his rooftop unit, and Da-rim steps in on Gang-Ju’s side without much hesitation, which tells its own story about where her loyalties have landed. Mi-ok, still working Ji-yeon’s case, overhears just enough about the dry-cleaning shop to start closing in on the truth herself.

EP 26

Ji Yeon’s Return and Da-Rim’s Confession

Dec 22, 2024

Ji-yeon comes home and finally confronts Seung-don about the money directly instead of investigating around him, while Da-rim answers her own feelings with another kiss instead of another deflection. The practical problem hasn’t gone anywhere, though — they still need to replace the spent cash before Ji-yeon decides to involve the police, and Da-rim quits her job to buy time to do it.

EP 27

Mu Rim’s Dilemma and Bong Hee’s Corner

Dec 28, 2024

Mu-rim, a police officer, finds out his own family is sitting on stolen money taken to pay for Da-rim’s surgery, and the discovery splits his loyalty right down the middle. Bong-hee gets cornered from another direction too, as his mother-in-law — a senior officer herself — starts noticing his strange behavior, and a button dropped near the burial site pushes suspicion close enough that Bong-hee burns the evidence rather than risk it.

EP 28

Bong Hee’s Arrest and Cha Rim’s Discovery

Dec 29, 2024

Mu-rim confronts Bong-hee directly, and the admission breaks her before he even has to say much. Cuffing his own aunt and driving her to the station is the moment the show stops treating the money as a farce and starts treating it as a real crime with real consequences. The same episode adds a new complication: Mi-yeon has quietly taken ten billion won from the stash, and the locker she hid it in turns up empty.

EP 29

Missing Money and Cha-Rim’s Sacrifice

Jan 4, 2025

Discovering the locker money gone knocks the wind out of Da-rim and Cha-rim both, just as they thought they had a plan. Cha-rim quits her own job to throw herself fully into recovering what’s missing, which is less a plot twist than confirmation of exactly how far this family will go for each other, crime included.

EP 30

Bong-Hee’s Arrest and Gang-Ju’s Plan

Jan 5, 2025

Bong-hee’s arrest finally catches up with her after a police officer clocks the same ‘AA’ serial codes on cash used to pay Gil-rye’s hospital bill — the money was never as untraceable as the family hoped. Gang-Ju responds by hiring her a lawyer and coming up with a new plan: rebury what’s left in its original mountain hiding spot before anyone else finds it.

EP 31

Ji Yeon’s Suspicions and Gang Ju’s Ultimatum

Jan 11, 2025

Ji-yeon’s suspicions about Bong-hee harden into certainty once she finds the marked cash and a message between Gang-Ju and Da-rim discussing what’s left of it. Furious enough to report it, she’s stopped only by Gang-Ju’s ultimatum: pursue this and he walks away from Da-rim’s family entirely. It’s the starkest choice the show has made him face — protect his mother’s case or protect the woman he loves.

EP 32

Bong Hee’s Release and Da Rim’s Confession

Jan 12, 2025

Released without charges, Bong-hee learns Gang-Ju secretly reburied the money specifically to save her, and the discovery does more to soften her toward him than anything he’s said outright. Tae-woong kneels and takes responsibility for her actions as his own, and Da-rim, done pretending otherwise, tells her family flatly that she can’t live without Gang-Ju.

EP 33

Bong-Hee’s Plea and Family’s Despair

Jan 18, 2025

Bong-hee goes to Ji-yeon to beg forgiveness and gets nothing back but a demand that she leave the city entirely. Preparing to shut the dry-cleaning shop down breaks something in Man-deuk and Gil-rye that no amount of found money ever could — losing the family’s actual home, not the stolen cash, turns out to be the real stakes.

EP 34

Grandparents’ Desperate Act and Ji Yeon’s Revelation

Jan 19, 2025

Man-deuk and Gil-rye’s grief curdles into an attempt to end their own lives so Bong-hee won’t have to carry them too, stopped only by a taxi driver who happens to notice something wrong. Ji-yeon’s housekeeper overhears the full truth of the theft and the reburial in the same breath, meaning the secret that’s survived thirty-plus episodes finally has nowhere left to hide.

EP 35

Legal Consequences and Lingering Love

Jan 25, 2025

The Lee family and Gang-Ju are brought in together, and Gang-Ju insists on being charged as an accomplice rather than let them take the full weight alone. Mu-rim loses his job over it, Da-rim and two others are cleared outright, and Man-deuk, Gil-rye, and Bong-hee each get a year in prison — the show finally putting a real price on the money it spent thirty episodes chasing.

EP 36

New Beginnings and Enduring Bonds

Jan 26, 2025

Sentences served, the family rebuilds something like normal life. Gang-Ju recovers fully from a head injury sustained protecting his mother’s money from burglars, and he and Tae-woong end up thriving under Seung-don’s company despite everything that came before. Da-rim, who’d broken things off and moved on to a new job, finds her way back to Gang-Ju anyway, and Cha-rim and Tae-woong’s engagement closes the season on the note it was always building toward: a family that survived its own worst decisions.

Full spoilers ahead — everything that happens in the finale and what it all means.

What actually happened The money finally runs out of places to hide: the whole Lee family plus Gang-Ju are brought in together, and Gang-Ju insists on being charged as an accomplice rather than let them absorb it alone. Mu-rim loses his job over his own involvement, Da-rim, Mi-yeon, and Gi-dung are cleared outright, and Man-deuk, Gil-rye, and Bong-hee each serve a year in prison. After their release, Gang-Ju — recovered from a head injury sustained protecting his mother’s money from burglars — and Tae-woong end up thriving under Seung-don’s company, Da-rim finds her way back to Gang-Ju after a breakup, and Cha-rim and Tae-woong get engaged.

What the money actually cost What the ending makes clear in hindsight is that the money never actually solved anything — Da-rim’s surgery happens, her family’s crisis is temporarily eased, but every subsequent episode is the show collecting interest on that one decision. By the finale, the family has paid for it in prison time, in Bong-hee’s near-exile, in Gang-Ju’s job and his mother’s marriage. The fortune bought them time, not a way out.

Why the show insists on real consequences Iron Family could have let the family off easy — comedies about accidental crime usually do — but it insists on the arrests and the sentences anyway, and that choice is what separates it from a straightforward feel-good watch. The show wants the audience rooting for people who did something genuinely wrong, and it trusts that the family’s love for Da-rim is reason enough to keep rooting for them even after the consequences land.

Tae-woong’s quieter resolution Tae-woong’s plot resolves on its own quieter note: rejected by his biological father Seung-don early on, he ends up thriving in Seung-don’s company anyway, on his own terms rather than as anyone’s acknowledged son. It’s less a reconciliation than a workaround — proof that the family that raised him mattered more than the one that didn’t.

The KDW verdict Iron Family ends by refusing to pretend its central crime was ever victimless, and that honesty is what makes its warmth toward the Lee family land instead of feeling like a cheat. A found-fortune comedy that’s willing to actually cash in the debt it opens with is rarer than it should be.