The plot takes shape as our kids navigate youth with the added challenge of having superpowers they have to keep hidden. As a certain assassin continues wreaking havoc on the superpowered, our parents grow more worried and tensions run high. These episodes cover a lot of ground in the form of government conspiracies, assassinations, teen crushes, parental woes, and growing pains. It’s a mix of fun and thrills with a lot of heart.
Editor’s note: Weekly drama coverage will continue.
EPISODES 2-7
The first episode of Moving piqued my interest and had me expecting good things to come, and Episodes 2-7 did not disappoint! It’s a character-driven drama, but there’s a good balance of plot movement and character development. One thing I love about the episodes so far is how little exposition there is; everything is gleaned through context and natural conversations. While the story is interesting, it’s really the characters that make the drama. Bong-seok may be the central figure of the narrative, but all relevant characters are given depth. (With a cast like this, it’d be a shame if they weren’t!)
Take Mi-hyun, for example. Through flashbacks, we see her struggle to raise Bong-seok alone and cope with her fear that someone will find out about his abilities. She’s clever and resourceful, doing her best to quite literally be Bong-seok’s tether – and so far, she’s succeeded. Through her patient care, he finally learned to walk when his tiny body only wanted to float. But her overprotectiveness with little explanation has caused tension in their relationship now that Bong-seok is older. Understandably, he wants more freedom and to stop feeling like something is wrong with him.
Despite his odd and challenging childhood, Bong-seok grew up to be a sweet cinnamon roll of a human. Mi-hyun’s methods of protecting him might be questionable, but she did good in raising a kind and empathetic boy who can’t ignore suffering. She taught him young that real heroes are those who treat others with compassion. In short, Bong-seok is precious and deserves all good things.
You know what else is precious? Bong-seok and Hee-soo’s relationship. Their personalities contrast, but they get each other. Hee-soo is kind, yet tough and confrontational when need be. She’s the type of friend who will fight for you. Whereas she questions authority, Bong-seok is adorably rule-abiding. The decisive one in the relationship, she immediately claims him as her friend, and he’s thrilled. Mostly because he’s never had a friend (awww). As two outsiders who are raised by single parents who run restaurants, they find they have a lot in common.
Gang-hoon doesn’t find them so precious, though, and gets a stormy look whenever he sees them together (which is constantly). The more we see of Gang-hoon, the clearer it is that he’s not the nice, well-mannered student all the time. He doesn’t start fights, but he will finish them. When troublemaker Ki-soo comes at him, Gang-hoon gives him a thorough beating. So thorough, I’d say Gang-hoon might have some anger issues. The beating makes Ki-soo more determined to expose Gang-hoon’s true nature – they were both in the top-secret school program, but Ki-soo was rejected after getting injured by Gang-hoon.
While Gang-hoon broods and punches holes in trees (re: anger issues), Bong-seok is struggling to keep his crush under wraps. It’s causing him lots of floating mishaps at school, but he manages to hide it in front of others for a while. Then, Hee-soo takes him off-guard when she grabs his arm to fix his band aid, and up and away he goes as she stares in shock. Hee-soo is nothing if not proactive, so she launches herself at him and yanks him down to the ground. Then, she walks him home literally holding him down.
Mi-hyun is practically exploding with joy that Bong-seok has a friend and feeds Hee-soo heaps of food. She overhears the kids talking upstairs and about melts when Hee-soo tells Bong-seok that he’s not weird – he’s special. Hee-soo is the type to take everything in stride, but she also has some fun when she realizes she’s the cause of his floating. Hee-soo gets right in his face to ask if he likes her, and he shoots up to the ceiling. She seems pleased by his crush and might just reciprocate.
Hee-soo promises to keep his secret and tells him her own in return: she was kicked out of her previous school for fighting 17 kids and coming out of it without a scratch. Her father JANG JOO-WON (Ryu Seung-ryong) first discovered her regenerative abilities when she was little and survived the car crash that killed her mom. Ever since, he moved them around constantly like they were on the run.
They finally settled down so she could go to high school and prep for college, but that didn’t last. A girl at Hee-soo’s school was being badly bullied, and the teachers were no help, so Hee-soo took matters into her own hands. She challenged the bullies to a fight, the bullies going from confident to terrified when even a knife slash to Hee-soo’s neck healed like nothing. In the end, only Hee-soo was left standing. Her father lost everything to pay settlement fees, and the only school that would take her was Jungwon High School. (I bet Principal Jo was thrilled…)
Hee-soo isn’t the only one with regenerative abilities. Frank has them too, and they come in handy in his line of work. He continues knocking off the names on his deletion list, all of whom are superpowered, retired NIS agents with kids who attend or attended Jungwon High. Oooh, now we’re getting somewhere. Does that mean Mi-hyun is one too? It would explain her extremely good hearing. And then there’s Joo-won, who told Hee-soo (about her powers) that she takes after him. Now I’m thinking the powers are the result of some government experiment, and the test subjects’ kids inherited their abilities.
Back to Frank and his violent assassinations. I have to say, they are creative with the kills here. Each one is a totally different method. There’s the pen to the heart, a flying knee to the throat, and scissors to neck to name a few. We do get to see some nifty new abilities as he ticks names off his list, like the one ex-agent who has x-ray vision or another who can control electricity.
And lo and behold, bus driver Gye-do is the son of the electric man and inherited electric powers. He used his abilities to get role of Lightning Man, a popular kids’ superhero, until he was kicked out for being a little too good at it. Ever since, he’s felt useless, especially after losing his father. Leave it up to sweet Bong-seok to melt his heart his first day back after the funeral by greeting him with a big smile and saying he was worried when he was gone.
For some reason, when Gye-do takes electricity from an object, he can see memories from it. After touching a battery from the crime scene, he sees Frank killing his father. When he later coincidentally sees Frank driving his delivery truck, he gives chase. But Gye-do isn’t a trained agent like his father, and he’s no match for Frank.
Elsewhere, the NIS have been speculating that the assassin is someone sent by the U.S. to clean up agents from old top-secret missions. Once they have proof that Frank is American, Deputy Director Min sets up a tense confrontation meeting with a CIA agent. Both countries are aware that each other is “developing the next generation,” i.e., training the children as weapons. Principal Jo has been teaming up with the NIS for ten years working to test and bring out students’ latent abilities.
It feels like the drama is on two parallel tracks: a coming-of-age school story and a brutal government conspiracy thriller. Rather than feeling dissonant, it gives the drama an undercurrent of danger. Knowing these two trains are bound to collide ratchets up the tension.
And that’s exactly what happens when Mi-hyun (power: super senses) becomes Frank’s next target. She senses something up with Frank right when he sits down in her restaurant, but she keeps her cool. When Bong-seok walks in, she greets him as a customer, and he plays along despite his confusion. They’re saved by the ding of message on Frank’s phone: HOLD.
The CIA agent appeases Deputy Director Min by agreeing to pause the mission and take it to the higher-ups for review. Of course, that’s a big fat lie, and the handler immediately texts Frank to take out his next target. So he tracks Joo-won (power: regeneration and super strength) and runs him over multiple times with his truck. Except that only proves an annoyance for Joo-won who regenerates and then kills Frank long enough to check out his kill dossier. Then, Frank regenerates and they resume their fight. This goes on for a while until Joo-won manages to kill Frank truly dead with a glass shard through his throat, some face stomping, and fire. It’s brutal all around.
After her encounter with Frank, Mi-hyun goes into full overprotective mode and keeps Bong-seok on a short leash. Between Mi-hyun’s overprotectiveness and upcoming college exams, Bong-seok and Hee-soo don’t get to see much of each other. Not one to be passive, Hee-soo goes to Bong-seok’s house the night before exams to wish him luck. He sneaks out his window to chat with her, and I love how she weighs him down with a heavy rock before saying she’s missed him.
Once exams are over, next up is Hee-soo’s superpower test masquerading as a PE test, and something is fishy about the way Sung-wook keeps trying to wheedle info on the NTDP files from Il-hwan. I can’t tell if he’s just ambitious, a spy, or a saboteur. He’s at least part saboteur since, for unknown reasons, he loosens a screw on the hanging metal jump height board. When Hee-soo slaps the board, it comes crashing down. Bong-seok flies toward her (hindered by his leg weights), but it’s Gang-hoon who knocks her out of way by speed running over. All the students watch in awe, and Han-byul takes a video – his secret is officially out.
Bong-seok is mad at himself for not being able to help Hee-soo, so he starts practicing and trying to teach himself control. (I don’t get why Mi-hyun didn’t do that from the start…) Bong-seok truly flies for the first time, zooming through the night sky. He’s caught by Mi-hyun, but for once, Bong-seok stands up to her. He hates himself and is tired of being tied down. He’s hurt by the fact that all she’s ever done is tell him what not to do.
You can see Mi-hyun’s hurt for him and desire to protect him warring on her face, but she finally yells through tears, “Do you want to end up like your father?” And that’s when Bong-seok pieces together that those dreams he’s always had of a man flying towards him in the clouds is a memory of his father KIM DOO-SHIK (there you are, Jo In-sung!).
Meanwhile, the now viral video of Gang-hoon’s abilities has caught the attention of a new player. We jump to North Korea where a man watches the video and orders his subordinate soldier to make a trip to South Korea. I think things are about to get intense.
Now that Bong-seok is training himself to use his ability, it’s only a matter of time before he’s discovered too. Gang-hoon already saw him floating at school, but for some reason, has kept it to himself. Maybe he doesn’t want the competition. He’s already jealous of Bong-seok’s closeness with Hee-soo. It’s also possible that Principal Jo knows. In a flashback, we see him watching Bong-seok flying on a playground as a young child, although he might not have known Bong-seok’s identity. Then, there’s that security guard at school who seems to notice everything.
The governments may have been able to keep superpowered people a secret for a while, but in the era of the viral video, no secret lasts forever. With the threat level growing, I think it’s time for our superpowered civilians to make their own little squad. Because danger is around the corner, and I will not stand for anything happening to Bong-seok (or anyone, but especially Bong-seok).