I can guarantee you haven’t seen a show like Chicken Nugget before, and I can say with similar confidence that you will not be able to predict some of the directions that Season 1 ultimately goes in. Luckily, I’ve compiled a handy recap of Episodes 1-10 so you can keep abreast of all the bizarre goings-on. We also rounded up everything we know about Chicken Nugget as a guide for curious viewers.
Chicken Nugget Season 1 Recap
Episode 1
After an existential opening in which a chicken nugget debates existence against the vast backdrop of space, we settle into an episode of introductions.
Meet Min-ah, soon-to-be-nugget. And here’s Sun-man, her father, who runs a machine-making shop with his intern Baek-joong, a musical eccentric who is wildly in love with Min-ah. They all laugh at their own jokes.
Min-ah brings Baekjung chicken nuggets to the office for lunch, and when she steps inside a mysterious machine which was delivered earlier that day in the mistaken belief that it’s a sleeping aid, she turns into one of those nuggets. Oops.
Min-ah is quickly mixed up with a bunch of other nuggets in the fridge, but a frantic Sun-man and Baek-joong get their first lead when they pull up the CCTV, and the latter recognizes the deliveryman who dropped off the machine.
Episode 2
The delivery guy is from Nobleman’s chicken nuggets, the owner of which was recently killed in a hit-and-run. That’s the end of that lead (for now).
Mr. Kim brings up a new one. He recognizes the machine from the Carbon Composite New Material Development Project – a bit of a mouthful – that he participated in. The project was headed by Professor Yoo, and the machine is 200 years old but made of material 200 years more advanced than present-day duralumin. It’s literally impossible for it to exist.
Yoo, by the way, is missing. Police followed him on CCTV until he climbed through the window of a locked building and never came out again. The machine he was working on has a different logo to the one in More Than Machines.
Similarly weirdly, Baekjung Nuggets have been operating longer than chicken and cooking oil were readily available, even for noblemen. Such an expert outfit should be able to identify which of the nuggets is Min-ah, but when Sun-man and Baek-joong try to get a meeting with the fourth-generation owner, they’re thrown out and Min-ah’s nugget is mixed with even more.
Suddenly, a random woman says, “That’s not your daughter.”
Episode 3
This new woman in Hong-cha, Baek-joong’s weirdly attractive food blogger ex. Flashbacks show how they met and ultimately separated over disagreements about food. Eventually, she’s able to use her expertise to identify which nugget is Min-ah, and then disappears from the show entirely.
While Sun-man builds a machine to keep Nugget Min-ah safe, Baek-joong looks into former members of Yoo’s project team. He learns that after his disappearances a contracted company took away materials and might have sold the unassuming-looking machine as second-hand office goods. Baek-joong records himself singing Nugget Min-ah songs.
Chicken Nugget | Image via Netflix
Episode 4
Episode 4 starts with Baek-joong collapsing then cuts to the day before.
Sun-man wades through scrap while Baek-joong looks for research books, and both end up worse off thanks to the usual slapstick nonsense. We also learn that someone is sending a surveillance drone disguised as a bug into the machine shop.
Professor Yoo’s former research assistant – who was only hired to fill a grant quota – dispenses a lot of exposition. He took a picture of a note that is verified as being 200 years old. The paper has the seal of Jeong Hyo-bong on it, a genius kid from Joseon history who suffered from being from a Catholic family (more on this later). Yoo had theorized that there was another machine like the one he was working on and started working on a tracker to find it.
We also learn that Yoo’s nephew Tae-man went crazy, and it’s him who was watching More Than Machines. Tae-man is adamant that he is much younger than looks, and he steals the machine from the shop. He also has Yoo’s. The episode ends with him getting into one, but as he does so the other activates. The camera cuts away and we hear him screaming.
Episode 5
At the end of the previous episode, Tae-man brought back his uncle Yoo. In flashbacks, we see how Tae-man grew up with an older brother, Tae-young. Yoo gave the latter some herbal medicine that he tricked Tae-man into drinking, which caused him to age significantly. This naturally ruined his childhood, while Tae-young went on to become a model.
When Tae-man’s father died, the note with machine diagrams was found in his dad’s stuff, supposedly a family heirloom. This was the genesis of Yoo’s obsession with the machine.
At the end of the episode, Baek-joong and Sun-man go to meet Professor Yoo and Tae-man in a barn in the middle of nowhere. Sun-man, who learned who Tae-man is earlier, confronts him and holds him at gunpoint. Tae-man rushes him and the episode ends.
Episode 6
After a scuffle, Tae-man does some explaining.
When it was proven that the note and the machine’s material were 200 years old, Tae-man and Yoo started to believe the family fable was real. Yoo made his machine tracker, followed it to a building, and then went missing. Tae-man couldn’t find him or the machine so picked up the other one after it had been scrapped when the project ceased, and built a tracker of his own.
Tae-man tracked the machine to Nobleman’s, but when he got there the owner had already delivered it to More Than Machines.
Yoo also explains how he tracked the machine to the building and got turned into a caterpillar for two years. He ended up living with Nobleman’s owner, Kim Bae-dal, who was run out of business by Baekjung Nuggets (whose staff, by the way, are all nuts. Remember this detail.) Baekjung has a picture on the wall that clearly depicts a chicken entering a machine and coming out as a nugget. Bae-dal tries this in the machine he has and the chicken turns into a zombie and attacks him. That’s why he took the machine to More Than Machines.
At the end of the episode, we see that the Baekjung Nuggets staff were following him when he did so.
Episode 7
One of the two machines turns the person who enters into the last thing they saw; the other machine returns them to their original state. But since Yoo returned from his caterpillar form, the machines are broken.
Yoo takes Sun-man and Baek-joong captive and we get a bit more backstory on Baek-joong while he’s in captivity. It turns out he started to dress like an idiot to rebel against his father. Tae-man’s bug drone, which is named Thunder, keeps an eye on them.
We learn it was the Baekjung crew who accidentally ran Bae-dal over. Their dialogue implies that they’re aliens, and at the end of the episode, through Baek-joong’s viral singing video, they find out where the machine is (or was, anyway).
Episode 8
While Baekjung and his employees look for the machine, Baek-joong and San-man remain captives. Tae-man tells them the story of Hyo-bong, who saw aliens arrive on Earth and use the machines to blend in. The picture passed down through the generations is what he drew to explain what he saw to his friends Wimp and Twerp.
Hyo-bong uses the machine to switch places with the King and has Wimp and Twerp killed. He lives a lavish life, but eventually, the aliens find him and ask him where the machine is. He says he dumped it in the river, and since the aliens aren’t allowed to harm humans, they leave him be, trapped on Earth with no way to return home.
A big fight breaks out between Yoo, Tae-man, Yoo’s robot dog, and Thunder, and Baek-joong and Sun-man break free just as Baekjung and the other aliens arrive.
At the end of the episode, we see that Hyo-bong was killed by Twerp, who had survived in hiding. Twerp, having got his revenge, then killed himself.
Episode 9
A large portion of this penultimate episode is a silly slapstick fight between everyone at the warehouse, but it does have some emotional components.
After the fight, Baekjung offers to take Min-ah back to their home planet. There, he can return her to her human form and bring her back. It’ll only take him a day. However, a day on his planet is the equivalent of 50 years on Earth, which means Baek-joong and Sun-man will have to wait to be reunited with her.
After hearing Baekjung describe the plight of the aliens, who all have their own families to get back to, he agrees for Min-ah to be taken.
Episode 10
The finale is quite complicated, and you’d be advised to read our in-depth Ending Explained for the full picture. But here are the highlights.
Fifty years into the future, Baek-joong is a global singing sensation, while Sun-man is 105 years old, living in the woods as a near-supernatural animal-trapping hermit. In the past, we see how both men said farewell to Min-ah as she was taken by Baekjung.
Tae-man has taken over More Than Machines and worked with Yoo and Mr. Kim to make it a major success.
When Baekjung returns to Baek-joong, Min-ah is still a nugget. He explains how travel to Earth was banned when humanity developed weapons of mass destruction, and that he needs another day to charge the machine that will change Min-ah back. Another day means another fifty years. Nobody who knows Min-ah will ever see her again.
Baek-joong is given the choice to either accept this fate or turn back time, which will wipe everyone’s memories but not change their destinies. After Sun-man dies on his way to be reunited with his daughter, this is the option Baek-joong chooses so that Min-ah can have the years with her father that she missed.
That was our recap of Chicken Nugget Season 1 (Episodes 1-10). What did you think of the show overall? We’re eager to hear your thoughts!
More on Chicken Nugget:
Chicken Nugget Season 1 Review | What could Chicken Nugget Season 2 be about? | K-Dramas Like Chicken Nugget
