The witnesses recount Ms. Noh’s and Min-joon’s involvement in leaking test answers to Ye-rin four years ago. Much of Yoon-soo’s information comes from Vice Principal Choi, though she keeps his name anonymous. Additionally, Mr. Han testifies against Hye-mi, admitting it was she who bribed him. When the police arrest Hye-mi, Ms. Noh and Min-joon plot to pin everything on her. Min-joon asks Hye-mi to accept the charges and take the fall for the sake of Ye-rin. Ye-rin continues to spiral as events become too much for her to handle. Seung-yoo tells her she can stop Ms. Noh from blaming everything on her mother, and she struggles with the thought of confessing her own guilt. Ms. Noh is remarkably calm about allegations against her. She overhears Seong-jae call off his engagement with Yeon-woo. She then tells Yeon-woo that she knows she illegally leaked important school documents via Ahseong’s former principal. Ms. Noh wants to be back in the running for the board position. So if Yeon-woo drops her allegations against her, Ms. Noh won’t say anything about her crimes. Although he’s ended his engagement, Seong-jae still has plans to take down Ms. Noh. He arranges for Min-joon, Minister Shin, Professor Cha, and Ms. Noh to be audited. Yeon-woo feels she no longer has a chance at the board position without Seong-jae, so she asks him to fake their engagement for a little longer. He refuses, but he informs her that she’ll get another chance at the position. He’s going to expose her sister’s corruption. Meanwhile, at the school, Si-an finds something suspicious in Ji-na’s bag. It’s a notebook from the clinic, but with what looks like test answers in it. Ji-na can thank her mother’s prestigious (and illegal) Global Talent Class for those answers. Si-an texts Ji-na to tell her she knows that she’s cheating. She texts pictures of the notebook to Yoon-soo too, just before Ji-na calls out to her. Moments later, students find Si-an lying on the floor of the art room, bleeding from her head. Seung-yoo goes with her to the hospital, where she undergoes surgery. Yoon-soo is meeting with the director of the Sammu Academy when this happens. She tells him that Ms. Noh’s corruption may soon come to light, and she warns him that so could his connection to Ahseong. When she hears of the incident, Yoon-soo rushes to the hospital. Both she and Seung-yoo suspect foul play. They tell the police what they know. Ms. Noh, meanwhile, learns that the board has voted her in. Her celebration doesn’t last long, however. Ji-na calls her in a panic, supposedly over having attacked Si-an. A teacher knows something about the incident and tells Seung-yoo. The episode ends with Seung-yoo and Yoon-soo entering Ms. Noh’s office, ready for a confrontation.
The Episode Review
This episode is reminiscent of the early episodes of Melancholia, where every second is jam-packed with action and new information. Sometimes believability is sacrificed, but the story does move along at a rapid pace. The episodes have started featuring fewer and fewer moments between Seung-yoo and Yoon-soo, which actually benefits the series. At some point, their “will-they-won’t-they” interactions became too repetitive. For me, their romance has fallen almost entirely flat. And the drama with Si-an and Ji-na feels overblown. It’s obvious though that the show is setting the scene for absolutely everything to blow up in Ms. Noh’s face at once. However, it’s somewhat clumsy to make viewers feel as though there’s absolutely no hope for the antagonist. I want it to be the other way around. This close to the finale, I want to feel that Seung-yoo and Yoon-soo are nearly hopeless. I want that hope to be strung out thin before me until the season finale. Instead, the show leaves me discontent with its too-consistent persecution of Ms. Noh. Hopefully, the next episode will create some more tension between the protagonists—because it’s nice to have something to hope for when the odds are stacked against you.
