Our finale is full of tears and bravado as our now-grown-up hero enters the brutal chess game that is hagwon life. But while the witches work hard to lure more teachers into their lair, our OTP never falters — in strategical moves or in love.
EPISODES 15-16
We left off last week with our hero in the process of becoming a full-grown adult — interestingly, it happened as he cried “like a baby” (his words). Hye-jin walks into the pub just in time to witness his tears and wants to know what could make him behave so out of character. She sits down at the table with him but he doesn’t give a straight answer.
Since anger is her go-to emotion when she’s hiding vulnerability, she gets annoyed and starts talking about the logistics of the workday. Jun-ho wants to know how she really feels, though. How hard was it today with all the gossip and disloyalty? Can’t she just say it’s his fault?
When she finally lets it out, she says she was thinking about how it would be if they never met. If they were the same age. Or if she had a career where it wouldn’t matter if she dated someone at the office. She starts to crack as she’s speaking, and the pain comes out in small, shaken bursts until she’s crying but trying desperately to hold it in. It’s painful to watch, but Jung Ryeo-won is just so good in this drama.
After they leave the bar, they head to the office, where Jun-ho finally reveals his side of the upset. He sees now that he was delusional in thinking that he could do anything he wants. He wasn’t concerned with what would happen to Hye-jin in the process, and deceived himself by thinking that all he needed was her love. When she took the blame for the whole situation, he realized he hadn’t grown up at all from the kid he was when they met.
After the revelations of their underlying feelings, both go home to cry and ponder. And by the next day, Jun-ho shifts his actions to line up with his newfound awareness. His goal from here on out is to make sure the hagwon doesn’t shut down and that the teachers don’t lose their jobs. He doesn’t want Hye-jin to have to live with the guilt of any of that happening — but also, he wants to show her as the upright person she is. And so, he becomes a strategic player in the hagwon chess game that’s been slowing unfolding since the start.
He acts with a cool head — apologizing to gain favor, confronting when necessary, and then taking a meeting with Seung-hee to ask her not to proceed with her plan. However, their conversation takes a turn when he sees her smug attitude and he can’t hold back his sarcasm. Doesn’t she get the fact that she deceived people to get them to jump ship with her? How can she depend on people who are willing to do that? She’s going to fail a second time, just like when her first hagwon closed.
He’s the first person that’s really gotten under her skin and she’s visibly uncomfortable. When she tells him he needs to reflect on how he’s behaving, he yells at her, “Are you offended?! That’s how Hye-jin feels!” Even when she gets up to leave, he continues to insult her. It’s a high tension scene and we see this strategical woman finally begin to unravel little by little. He’s got her worried — and for good cause — because some of the teachers she convinced to leave Daechi Chase are now having second thoughts.
With her most fervent supporters now turning against her, Seung-hee doubles down on trying to lure people away. One of those people is Hye-jin’s TA who, in a really moving scene, tells Hye-jin and Jun-ho about Seung-hee’s offer. The TA wants to accept the position and become a spy for Hye-jin. But Hye-jin tells her no and apologizes that Seung-hee treated her like she could be bought off. The TA cries and admits that, for a second, she thought about what she would do with the money if she had it. Jun-ho tries to console her by saying she’s human and shouldn’t feel bad, but she and Hye-jin end up sobbing across the table from each other.
I really love how the drama is picking apart the alliances by focusing on subtle but realistic reasons for decision-making. Not everything can be boiled down to good or bad. People have needs and emotions and can be swayed by all kinds of things. Last week we saw the jealousy of Hye-jin’s co-worker when he found out she was dating Jun-ho. And now we’ve seen both Chung-mi and the TA struggle with their poor backgrounds and desire to do well against their loyalty and ethics. The drama’s take on social class is slight but notable in the way they feel belittled but also enticed.
Jun-ho deals a final blow when he realizes that the Gray Witch is using Seung-hee as a pawn more than partnering with her. While Seung-hee wants to take down Daechi Chase, the Gray Witch really wants Hye-jin to come work for her. So, Jun-ho starts planting seeds of doubt about how stable Seung-hee’s plan is until her right-hand man backs out on joining her. Seung-hee, who was already worried about trusting the Gray Witch, then gets super paranoid.
She goes to see the Gray Witch and Hye-jin and Jun-ho are also there (they’ve set this whole thing up to unfold the way it does). All of Seung-hee’s insecurity comes out as she demands to know why the Gray Witch is having a meeting with Hye-jin that she wasn’t aware of. The Gray Witch continues to act superior to her until Seung-hee slaps in her in the face and she’s on the ground. When they get into a hairpulling/screaming match in front of all the students, it’s pretty much over for them.
And yet, with the two witches out of the way, it doesn’t actually resolve any of the main problems. That happens almost by accident when Seung-kyu gets so serious about Chung-mi that he tells his mom he wants her to open a hagwon so Chung-mi can teach there. Huh? Yeah, this requires some explanation.
So, the manager at Daechi Chase (Gil Hae-yeon) is also Seung-kyu’s mom. She’s been talking about opening her own hagwon for the longest (and it’s been pretty clear that this might be how the drama ended, even before we knew what the major conflict would be). After talking to Seung-kyu, she decides to invest in Daechi Chase so that it can remain open, but with significant rebranding. Director Kim will continue to pay the teachers so they won’t lose their jobs, and she’ll take over the vice director position. The only catch? She wants Chung-mi to be the new face of Daechi Chase to replace Hye-jin.
Everyone is on board with this and it solves all the problems except for Hye-jin’s reputation. But in a moment of clarity, Hye-jin has already realized that this whole scandal has a silver lining. Her major regret in life is that she didn’t finish college and instead went to make big money as a teacher. Now is her chance to go back and fulfill her goal of getting her diploma. So, she’s done with hagwon life and will turn all this wreckage into an opportunity for herself.
In the final scene, Jun-ho is giving a practice lecture with Hye-jin as his test audience, pretending to be a student. He kneels down and pulls out a box with couple rings and she accepts as they make plans for the future.
So, the tables have turned. We end with Jun-ho as the teacher and Hye-jin as the student (symbolically, in this faux lecture, and also for real with her going back to school). They’ve flipped spots and both grown in the process. Jun-ho has gotten a little more serious and now understands that his actions have consequences. And Hye-jin has loosened up quite a bit and given love a chance. As she told her friend earlier, she was scared to let Jun-ho into her life, but now, she can’t imagine him not being there.
The ending felt a little anticlimactic, but it’s not out of line with the overall subdued style so it makes sense. And yet, for me, the drama was so restrained and the love story so simple, that I never really fell for our OTP the way I would have liked. While I was continually impressed with Jung Ryeo-won’s performance here, I still can’t decide if I think Wie Ha-joon was miscast or I just didn’t like Jun-ho as a character that much. Whatever it was, he never won me over completely. I could always see the mental connection between the leads but I really wanted more of a sustained spark.
My favorite part was the directorial style (minus the music) with its grounding in reality. From the way the actors are captured in awkwardness to lengthy real-time scenes, there’s something gripping about seeing life from this angle. Plus, the movie-quality city shots had me captivated even when nothing much was going on. I can’t say I was on the edge of my seat for this one each week since I came for the romance and got mostly office politics, but there were enough quiet, human moments to make it an affecting and memorable watch. And I’ll always adore the studious secondary couple (even if they never actually got to finish talking about his thesis).