There’s a new set of villains in town, and they mean business. It’s an intense week for our superpowered protagonists who aren’t all prepared to fight for their lives. If they’re going to make it, they’ll need all the skill, determination, and teamwork they can muster. The war has officially begun.
EPISODES 16-17
Let’s jump back in where we left off with Gye-do driving like a maniac, trying to find a way to protect the passengers from the clearly dangerous North Korean operative JUNG JOON-HWA (Yang Dong-geun) occupying his bus. He does manage to quickly come up with a plan and somehow gets the bus to the police station without crashing it. But once they arrive, Joon-hwa disappears and Gye-do has to explain what the hell he was doing. Not willing to risk their parents’ wrath, Hee-soo and Bong-seok book it before the police can question them with the rest of the passengers.
At the school, Il-hwan reminisces about the start to his teaching career in 2004, which basically amounts to him doing everything he could to become a Black Agent after being saved by Joo-won on that battlefield years ago. When Deputy Director Min assigned him to identify “talent” (a.k.a. kids with abilities), Il-hwan steps into his role as a teacher without complaint.
However, it’s not long before he starts to butt heads with Principal Jo who is all about bringing out the kids’ powers by any means necessary. It turns out Ki-soo wasn’t the first kid injured during the tests. If a student doesn’t show their abilities quickly enough, Principal Jo orders them to be beat up to force their powers to manifest. In about every way, it’s a flawed plan. Because the first kid ruled out is Gye-do, so oops. A few other kids slip through the cracks, like a kid who can stop time! (Maybe this means Ki-soo has abilities, too.)
The mission is already weighing on Il-hwan who ends up being a surprisingly good teacher, but the devastating blow is when one of his students (x-ray vision woman’s daughter) collapses and dies while doing the tests. He didn’t realize she had cancer. The fact that Il-hwan has the audacity to care about his students and their welfare irks Principal Jo. So in 2015, he brings in Sung-wook as Il-hwan’s assistant (i.e., Principal Jo’s spy). And when Bong-seok enters the school, Il-hwan is ordered to pay special attention to Doo-shik’s son.
In the present, Il-hwan is realizing their hand has been tipped, first with Mi-hyun and then Joo-won. When Joo-won bursts into the meeting room, he and Mi-hyun lock eyes. Their surprise registers for a second, but they quickly recover and say nothing. As she leaves, Mi-hyun does warn him of the room’s hidden CCTV.
And this is when all hell breaks loose. The battle is officially on, and the first in the line of fire is unexpected. Sung-wook is still in Principal Jo’s office secretly watching the ex-agents on the CCTV. He panics and then grows annoyed when the janitor (Yoon Sa-bong) insistently knocks on the door. He lets her in to clean, and she calmly knifes him in the throat. It turns out there’s been a North Korean plant all along. Well played.
The janitor calls in reinforcements, which Mi-hyun overhears from the hallway. She’s not fooled by the janitor’s act, and you know it’s about to go down when Mi-hyun shuts the door behind her after entering Principal jo’s office. A fight ensues, and they’re pretty evenly matched, although Mi-hyun seems a tad better. When the reinforcements arrive, Mi-hyun escapes out the window.
Outside, she has a one-sided snowball fight with the CCTV cameras – her aim is immaculate – and then shuts off the school’s power. She lures the janitor down into the basement, and then kills her with a perfectly aimed bullet to the head. Everyone talks about how amazing of an agent Doo-shik was, which I’m sure is true, but everyone seems to be sleeping on Mi-hyun who is efficient and deadly.
Joo-won and Il-hwan face off with a couple of those reinforcements and refuse to hand over the files. Screams issue from the hallway where more North Korean operatives begin “testing” Ki-soo and Gang-hoon who are unlucky enough to still be in the building. Thankfully, Gang-hoon is on the phone with his mom when he’s attacked. The moment he hears Gang-hoon is in trouble, Jae-man flies (not literally) to the school. In the meantime, Il-hwan rushes to protect Ki-soo, but he’s no match for a superpowered agent. All he can do is cover Ki-soo with his body and beg for him to be spared.
Meanwhile, Bong-seok and Hee-soo are at the gym, blissfully unaware of the danger. Bong-seok adorably cheers her on per usual and then runs over to the convenience store to buy beverages while Hee-soo trains. That’s when Joon-hwa makes his move, slipping into the gym and locking the door. Ack! Joon-hwa finds Hee-soo running laps on the balcony level and casually throws her off (!) to test her abilities. Like her father, she jumps up without a scratch and keeps swinging, which clues him into her regenerative power.
Bong-seok really levels up this week. First, he hears the fighting from outside the door (proof he inherited both parents’ abilities) and runs to the roof. He recalls the advice Mi-hyun passed along to him from Doo-shik: flying is all about not being afraid to fall. Bong-seok sheds his weights and takes off, crashing through the window and catching Hee-soo mid-air after she’s dropped by Joon-hwa. Bong-seok is truly flying and even manages to stick the landing! Our baby is all grown up. Too bad Joon-hwa is there to witness Bong-seok emerging from his cocoon because now he knows there’s another flyer.
Once they land and briefly celebrate Bong-seok’s new skill, Hee-soo’s temper flares. She yells at Joon-hwa to come down and face them. More instinct than strategy, Hee-soo’s isn’t exactly a planner. Her “plan” is basically just for them to charge him and hope for the best. Of course, they’re no match for a trained superpowered operative who swats them away like flies. Hee-soo can take a battering (not that I want her to), but Bong-seok is too breakable for this!
Back at the school, Joo-won fights a massive operative who is crazy strong, and it’s not going well. While Joo-won is beat senseless, his attacker’s unruffled superior KIM DEOK-YOON (Park Hee-soon) helpfully shares that North Korea has an entire division for trained superpowered agents. Interestingly, he blames Doo-shik for everything that’s happening. Outside, Mi-hyun’s ears perk up at that. Signally it’s really on now, she loads her gun and takes off her glasses for the fight ahead.
With that, we head into the finale week. Deputy Director Min was bad enough, but now they’ve got North Korea as an enemy. Right now, I’m worried for the kids who have little to no training – Bong-seok only just figured out how to fly! Thank goodness all their parents are badasses. With Jae-man headed over, all the parents are about to be in the same place for the first time. We’ve seen how they get when their babies are threatened, so I have no doubt the concluding week is going to be intense. Fingers crossed we’ll get some more sweet moments to balance out the tension.