Contains spoilers for this episode and earlier episodes.
Jun-ho follows the collection vehicles onto a ferry and secretly replaces a guard, using the uniform and mask to enter the island facility. He must imitate a worker whose duties he does not understand while avoiding the supervisors who control every movement. In the dormitory, 187 contestants have returned, and Gi-hun joins Sang-woo, Ali and the elderly Player 001 to improve their chances together.
Sae-byeok explores the ventilation shafts while Mi-nyeo distracts the guards in the bathroom. Her discovery of workers melting sugar gives Sang-woo a clue about the next round. When the contestants must choose a triangle, circle, star or umbrella, he suspects a dalgona challenge but keeps that suspicion to himself. Gi-hun takes the umbrella, then learns he must free its outline from brittle sugar without breaking it.
As unsuccessful contestants are shot around him, Gi-hun realizes that licking the back of the sweet can dissolve the thinner outline. Other players copy him, and he frees the umbrella before the deadline. Mi-nyeo uses a smuggled lighter and helps Deok-su, while Player 111 benefits from a secret message. One desperate loser seizes a guard's gun and forces the young man to unmask before killing himself. The Front Man shoots the exposed guard, and Jun-ho uses the disruption to change his disguise.