School 2017: Episode 12

by chocolatte

Just when I think this show can’t get any better, it somehow manages to find a way to surpass my expectations, even throwing in a few surprises here and there to keep me on my toes. I can’t express how much I loved everything about this hour, as it moved forward some of our major and minor conflicts in compelling ways, while still delivering on the humor and heart that I’ve come to expect from the show. So rather than try, let’s just dive into it, shall we?

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EPISODE 12 RECAP

Tae-woon looks at Eun-ho in shock as she tells him to stay away from her, and not to get involved in her life anymore. “This is my answer to your confession,” she says.

At home, Tae-woon looks at the selfie he took with Eun-ho, then throws his phone down in frustration. Meanwhile, Eun-ho grabs her phone eagerly when it dings, but sighs when she sees that it’s a spam message.

The next morning, Tae-woon confronts Eun-ho, telling her that she could have just accepted his gift coolly and not made things so complicated. “Why is your pride so twisted?” he asks.

Eun-ho apologizes sarcastically, brushing past him, but Tae-woon runs after her to place the gift bag in her hands. Bitterly, Eun-ho asks what he’s going to get her next: “A computer? Since I can’t ride the bus, are you going to buy me a car?” Ouch.

She gets harsher, throwing his gift onto the ground and accusing him of only thinking of his own feelings. She says that everything’s so easy for him—while she’s been struggling to figure out her feelings, she says his confession came so easily to him.

Picking up the bag, Tae-woon asks Eun-ho if it really looked that easy to her. He tells her that despite what she thinks, he’d actually hesitated about confessing countless times, wondering if it would make her uncomfortable, or if she was going to reject him.

Eun-ho protests that that’s not what she meant, saying that she was flustered by his sudden confession. Tae-woon says angrily that at the very least, he made the effort to understand his feelings, and to understand her feelings and concerns, and why she’s having such a hard time right now. “Have you even tried to understand me?” he asks shakily.

He adds that he’s angriest about her trivializing his confession: “It was so hard for me to confess my feelings. And yet, just like that, you turned it into something easy.”

Tae-woon spends the rest of the afternoon sprawled out on a bench outside, looking miserable. Eun-ho puts in a shift at the convenience store, putting on a smile for her customers but looking pained and just as unhappy as Tae-woon when she’s alone.

When they next run into each other at school, they stare at one another awkwardly, unsure of what to do. Eun-ho makes the first move toward him, but Tae-woon abruptly heads the other way.

Dejected, Eun-ho heads back to the classroom, where she opens her locker and finds Tae-woon’s gift bag inside. And just like that, she’s pissed again, so she heads to Tae-woon’s hideout to return the tablet, slamming the bag down on the table for good measure.

To Eun-ho’s shock, Tae-woon grabs the bag and throws it into the trash, telling her that he doesn’t need it either. When Eun-ho tries to walk away, Tae-woon explodes, asking her why she won’t ever give him an inch, and why she can’t just lose to him once.

He tells her she could apologize or give him the chance to apologize, and asks if she has to be like this until the end. “Did you have to hurt my pride and come in here and return that tablet in order to be satisfied? Does that make you feel good?” he asks.

Once Eun-ho leaves, Tae-woon slams himself into the wall, overwhelmed and upset. It certainly doesn’t help when his phone rings, reminding him that he’s on cleanup duty with Dae-hwi.

In the hall, Tae-woon takes his frustration out on his cleaning supplies, jabbing his mop violently into a water bucket. Dae-hwi notices Tae-woon’s foul mood and decides to pick a fight, asking if he got dumped by Eun-ho. When he adds that Tae-woon’s self-centeredness would be difficult for Eun-ho to put up with, Tae-woon throws down his mop in anger.

Dae-hwi keeps poking Tae-woon, asking him how long he’s going to be ruled by his temper. “You can’t stand being rejected, and you go crazy if you don’t get your way,” he says.

Seething with anger, Tae-woon grabs Dae-hwi’s shirt and says that he’s better than a coward like Dae-hwi. “Why, did you find a richer girl than Nam-joo?” he asks. “Is that why you dumped her?” Boy, these two know how to hit below the belt, don’t they?

At that, Dae-hwi can’t hold himself back and throws a punch at Tae-woon. Tae-woon returns the hit, and the two are soon engaged in an all-out brawl.

As they wrestle and exchange blows, Teacher Gu just stands outside of the hall, listening to the boys fight. When Officer Han walks by and overhears the scuffle, Teacher Gu stops her from intervening: “Even if we say it a hundred times, they won’t listen. There are times when a fistfight is the best solution.”

Soon, Tae-woon and Dae-hwi collapse on the floor, exhausted and out of breath, trading jabs about each other’s weak fists. When Dae-hwi wonders if Tae-woon will ever fix his temper problems, Tae-woon asks if he still harbors resentment for being beat up back then. Dae-whi answers that he didn’t even have time to be resentful.

We flash back to the day of Joon-ki’s funeral, when Tae-woon had punched Dae-hwi for missing the procession. In the present, Tae-woon quietly asks Dae-hwi why he insisted on taking the test that day. Dae-hwi wonders what he should have done instead—should he have cried like crazy, or punched Tae-woon’s dad for not allowing Joon-ki in the school?

In tears now, Tae-woon says that still, he shouldn’t have done it. Dae-hwi responds that he made up his mind that day “to study hard, so I can become powerful, and not ever lose what’s precious to me because of money ever again. That was the promise I made to Joon-ki.”

Tae-woon says Dae-hwi’s just justifying his decision to himself like a coward, but admits that he himself did the same thing because he couldn’t stand how powerless he was: “I blamed you when I should have blamed myself. Calling you worse than me.”

Dae-hwi agrees that he was worse, but Tae-woon calls himself the bad guy who made Joon-ki a delinquent while escaping from trouble himself. “But I didn’t want Song Dae-hwi to become a jerk and a coward like me.” Oh, my heart.

Dae-hwi smiles through his tears and flops back down to the ground, remarking that if Joon-ki saw the two of them, he’d give them a solid beating. Tae-woon joins him on the floor, pointing out that there’s no way Joon-ki would have stopped until they were both dead, and they share a good chuckle.

After a beat, Dae-hwi asks Tae-woon more seriously about Eun-ho, and Tae-woon asks about Nam-joo. Neither has an answer to this particular dilemma, and they heave big sighs in unison.

Later, Dae-hwi approaches Nam-joo in class, but she snubs him by wordlessly putting on her earphones. Resigned, he returns to his seat, but continues to watch her.

On her way home, Eun-ho finds her brother Tae-shik drinking outside a convenience store in a wrinkled suit. He explains that he had an interview, but it doesn’t sound like it went too well, as he laments about the difficulty of achieving his modest dream of having an office job and bringing canned gift sets from his company home for the holidays.

Looking frustrated by her brother’s woe-is-me demeanor, Eun-ho scolds Tae-shik for his worn-out shoes and tells him to straighten his shoulders, saying that the world’s not ending. As Tae-shik watches Eun-ho walk away, he comments that she must be having a tough time of it too.

No one’s happy in the Ra household that night, with Dad complaining about the meager side dishes and Mom blaming the men for getting scammed. Eun-ho watches helplessly as her family argues, then tosses and turns in her bed that night.

At school, Dae-hwi reluctantly meets with Hee-chan, but tells him they have nothing more to talk about. Hee-chan disagrees, saying they still have deals to negotiate—like Dae-hwi letting him take first place in the upcoming finals.

Though Dae-hwi turns away in disbelief, he turns back around when Hee-chan calls out that he has evidence proving that Tae-woon is X. Noting that this seems to be Dae-hwi’s weakness, he tells Dae-hwi that if he doesn’t take the deal, it will be the end of Tae-woon.

When Dae-hwi tells Hee-chan to do what he wants, Hee-chan mutters to himself, “It would have been better if you’d believed me.” Ugh, you are the literal worst.

Sa-rang tells her mom apologetically that she didn’t pass the civil service exam. Her mom’s okay with the news, and wonders if this is Sa-rang’s chance to start studying for college. She tells Sa-rang that she should be like other kids and go to college, study with friends, and meet new people.

Sa-rang says lightly that she can’t get into college, then promises to make lots of money instead. When she bends down to help pick up trash, her mom snaps at her to stop, wiping Sa-rang’s hands clean.

Mom tells Sa-rang to think about what she wants to do instead of worrying about useless things like money. Sa-rang’s cheerful façade crumbles as she asks tearfully how she can dream or think about the future. “I know it’s a luxury I can’t afford,” she says, “It will only give me false hope.”

Kyung-woo finds Sa-rang crying to herself in the student lounge and offers her a handkerchief and a listening ear. When Sa-rang explains that she was bratty to her mom, Kyung-woo wisely says Sa-rang must be upset too, since the person who causes a family member pain usually hurts more.

She says she is upset, but she’s also angry—she’s hurt that her mom keeps telling her to do something she can’t do, and she feels pathetic for feeling this way. Scooting closer to her, Kyung-woo counsels Sa-rang to be honest with her mom, just like she was with Eun-ho, then ruffles her hair lovingly. Adorable.

Tae-woon flails around in his hideout, unable to forget Dae-hwi’s words about his terrible temper. He decides to take action and somehow tracks down Eun-ho, who’s out distributing fliers. Taking the stack from her, Tae-woon says that he knows what she’s thinking—that he has no pride, coming back to her after all that she said to him.

He assures her that he has plenty of pride, but says that he’d rather protect her dream than his pride. He tells her he’s not sure exactly how he’s going to do that, but he proposes that they do it together, “the really hard way.”

Eun-ho’s anger melts away pretty quickly at that, and as Tae-woon gets to work handing out her fliers, she flashes a big smile at Tae-woon and reminds him to smile, too.

Tae-woon helps out at Eun-ho’s convenience store job next, and by this time, Eun-ho’s not shy at all about ordering Tae-woon around and making him to all the hard work to tease him. Though he grits his teeth in frustration at Eun-ho’s directives, he still pastes on a smile in front of her.

After their shift, Tae-woon buys them drinks and asks Eun-ho if her family situation’s gotten any better. Eun-ho says it hasn’t, but honestly tells him that her recent actions weren’t just about her family—rather, she says she used them as an excuse.

She tells Tae-woon that another webtoon on the same site as hers has 4,700 views, compared to her thirteen—and the author is two years younger. Eun-ho says she doesn’t even know why that one is doing well and hers isn’t.

Tae-woon sweetly defends Eun-ho’s webtoon, but Eun-ho says that it’s sadder that it makes more sense to admit that she has no talent. And she’s using that as an excuse to give up, which she knows is cowardly.

The next day, Tae-woon grabs Eun-ho first thing to ask her if she’s serious about not continuing her webtoon. He reminds her that she needs to update her series this week if she doesn’t want to get automatically kicked off that site, but Eun-ho says she just doesn’t have the confidence.

As Sa-rang sits dejected in the lounge, a group of students gossip about Issue being kicked out of his idol group. Issue walks in just as one of the students puts him down for being bland, but ignores them as he gets himself a soda.

Issue heads to the field to cool off, and Teacher Jung plops down next to him. Teacher Jung prods him, trying to get him to acknowledge that he’s feeing crappy about life, until Issue snaps at him in anger.

Teacher Jung tells him knowingly, “You’re suddenly terrified, not knowing what to do, wondering if your life is over, even thinking if you should just die.” He tells Issue that he’s been in his shoes, having had to quit baseball due to an injury. But he says that people aren’t limited to just one dream in life, and tells Issue to stop acting like he’s doing to die, since that’ll scare away his new dream.

Sa-rang’s mom is livid when she finds out Sa-rang didn’t sign up for a field study, and demands to know if it was because of money. Sa-rang admits that it was, telling her that if she were to go, her mom would have lived off of ramyun for days. Mom looks embarrassed, but orders Sa-rang to skip her prep classes tonight and have dinner with her.

Mother and daughter end up at a fancy restaurant, where despite Sa-rang’s protests, Mom orders them an expensive meal. Mom says that she’s still young and healthy, so she still has time to make more money to give Sa-rang the things that she wants.

She says it’s insulting for Sa-rang to worry so much about her, and tells her daughter to act like other kids, to only think about herself and not worry about her mother anymore. “Let me be a mom to my heart’s content, too,” she says. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Sa-rang nods.

Sa-rang stops by Eun-ho’s place after dinner, and Eun-ho asks if Sa-rang’s really switching gears to prep for the college exam. Sa-rang says she’ll take the mock exam to start, since she doesn’t know what she’s good at or what her dream is just yet.

Eun-ho passes her test prep books to Sa-rang, joking that all she did was carry the books around. Sa-rang brightly tells her that they’ll solve the test questions, along with their lives, and the two exchange a cute high-five.

Outside the school, Officer Han catches Young-gun and her cronies about to have a smoke and confiscates their cigarettes. Surprisingly, Young-gun trails after Officer Han and tries to cover for her friends, telling her that the cigarettes are all hers, and Officer Han notes that she’s really loyal.

Just then, someone calls out, “Pickpocket!” as a man runs in their direction. Officer Han moves swiftly, throwing the cigarettes at the perp’s face, then attacking him. After a brief tussle, the thief flings Officer Han away and runs in Young-gun’s direction.

Young-gun looks terrified, but just as the thief pushes past her, she grabs his arm and twists it around, just like she learned in Officer Han’s class. They tumble onto the ground, giving Officer Han enough time to rush over. As she pins the thief down, she glances at Young-gun and tells her, “Not bad.”

On their way out of the police station, Officer Han worries over a scrape on Young-gun’s arm, but Young-gun insists she’s fine. Sighing, Officer Han likens her own adolescence to Young-gun’s, saying that she too used to cause trouble, enough to be in and out of the police station on a regular basis, but always said she was fine.

As she treats Young-gun’s arm, Officer Han says that she eventually realized that she wasn’t fine, and that compared to her, Young-gun’s actually doing pretty well. She even says that Young-gun may be living the right away, since at least she’s honest about her feelings and her rage.

Officer Han casually asks if she’d be interested in a part-time job as her assistant. Young-gun rolls her eyes, calling the work lame, but Officer Han tells her to think about it.

Eun-ho giddily collects her paycheck from all that extra flier distribution and immediately puts in a call to Sa-rang, offering to buy ddukbokki. But as she looks down at her hard-earned cash, she seems to remember something, and quickly ends her conversation with Sa-rang.

Cut to: Eun-ho’s brother finding a new pair of dress shoes at home. The accompanying note from Eun-ho encourages him to keep going on interviews until the soles of the shoes wear out; she also reminds her brother not to be discouraged, and to walk with confidence. Awww.

While ex-Principal Yang and Vice Principal Park have a little snark-fest about who’s better suited to be principal (parodying Tae-woon and Dae-hwi’s numerous fights at that very spot), Director Hyun arrives on campus, where he catches a glimpse of Tae-woon and Eun-ho together, looking chummy. He remembers the ex-principal telling him about Eun-ho’s webtoon, and he watches the two disapprovingly.

In his temporary office, ex-Principal Yang struggles to leave a comment on Eun-ho’s webtoon that asks about her sources for the story. Haha, it looks like he’d called in Byung-gu for help in making his comment sound young, and Byung-gu had shared with him the trend of changing the last syllable at the end of phrases to sound cute.

So that’s what the ex-principal does, only he keeps adding the syllable to random words, hee. Before he can submit the comment, Director Hyun drops by, armed with good news (for him): Principal Yang’s to be reinstated tomorrow, and his sole task will be catching X.

Upon his triumphant return, Principal Yang delivers a video message to the student body. He promises to catch X within a week and reminds everyone that X will face criminal charges in addition to being punished by the school.

Soon after, Hee-chan tells Principal Yang that he knows where X’s hideout is located. As we see Tae-woon and Eun-ho enter said hideout, Hee-chan leads a group of administrators and security guards out of the building. Teacher Shim stops Officer Han on her way out to ask what’s going on, and looks stricken when she tells him about finding X’s hideout.

The group arrives at the warehouse, and as security guards struggle to bust open the door, a voice calls out, “There’s X! Stop right there!”

The adults whirl around to see X in front of them, and give chase when he runs away. Hee-chan pulls Principal Yang back from joining the chase, insistent on checking out the warehouse.

Just then, the door to the hideout opens slowly to reveal… Tae-woon. Wait, what? Principal Yang gasps in shock, then drags Tae-woon inside.

But alas, all Principal Yang finds in the space is Dae-hwi, Eun-ho, and Bo-ra sitting around a table, surrounded by books and notes—the hideout’s become a study room. As both Hee-chan and Principal Yang gape at the scene, Dae-hwi innocently explains that they needed a quiet place to study. Meekly, Bo-ra adds, “Are we not allowed to study here?”

Principal Yang leaves in a huff, and when Hee-chan just stands there in disbelief, Tae-woon cheekily asks, “Want to join?” Once Hee-chan storms out, the four burst into laughter. I love this so, so much.

On their chase, the teachers split into two groups while X catches his breath underneath the stairs, thinking he’s out of sight. Officer Han, however, catches on and approaches from behind.

X startles when he sees her and tries to make a run for it, but Officer Han stops him in his tracks by calling out, “Teacher Shim!” What? She tells him it’s no use running away, and pulls off his hood to reveal Teacher Shim’s face.

As Officer Han grapples with the revelation, she guesses that Teacher Shim must know X’s identity, and that he didn’t catch X on purpose. Teacher Shim shakes his head and says that he just wanted to protect the kids—he says X was reacting to what the school did wrong, and punishing him alone wouldn’t solve anything.

Officer Han doesn’t buy that reasoning, and Teacher Shim asks if she’s planning to lock all the students up like criminals. She confirms that she will, because it’s her job, and demands to know who X is. But Teacher Shim remains silent, shaking his head.

Hee-chan destroys his books in a rage, and he looks like he’s going off the deep end. As he wonders how Tae-woon and company knew about him, we check back in with our fab four at the hideout, where Eun-ho and Bo-ra ask the boys that same question.

We see in flashback that Tae-woon and Dae-hwi had hatched a plan. When Dae-hwi told Tae-woon that Hee-chan seemed to have something on him, Tae-woon guessed that Hee-chan probably found out about the hideout, noting that he’d been hanging around the warehouse recently.

After showing Dae-hwi CCTV footage of Hee-chan lurking outside the hideout, Tae-woon had suggested that they use this opportunity to mess with him, and Dae-hwi had grinned in approval.

In the present, Eun-ho and Bo-ra gape, and Eun-ho teases that Tae-woon should really use his brain to study more. Dae-hwi jumps in to make a crack about Tae-woon’s smarts, and Tae-woon chases after him, just like old times. Eun-ho looks around with a smile, noting that this is the end of X’s hideout.

After telling Eun-ho that they’ll probably still need to be careful, Bo-ra mentions how much she’s been enjoying the new installments of Eun-ho’s webtoon. Eun-ho looks back at her in confusion.

At home, Eun-ho pulls up her webtoon to see that it has indeed been updated. She recognizes the new content as drafts that she’d thrown away as she was working in the hideout—Tae-woon had picked up her crumpled papers and commented that they were good, but she had refused to believe him.

The next day, she asks Tae-woon about it. He says that he uploaded her drawings just as she drew them, and tells her that she’s talented. We see that he had slaved over the drawings on the tablet he’d bought for her.

He pulls out a box full of her crumpled-up drafts that he’d saved, telling her that she shouldn’t bury her efforts. Eun-ho looks completely moved, but tells him that effort doesn’t always mean success.

Tae-woon agrees that people may never know what Eun-ho drew, and what dreams she wanted to achieve. But he says that he knows: “I saw how hard you tried. I’ll stay by your side, so let’s not give up. Let’s go to the end.”

That night, Tae-woon’s giddy to see that Eun-ho has responded to one of his online comments, thanking him for giving her courage, with a heart emoticon at the end. Hee, Tae-woon’s reaction to the heart is priceless, as he freaks out and giggles like a big dork.

Eun-ho tries to avoid Tae-woon the next day, but he quickly shoves his phone in her face, showing her a zoomed-in view of the heart emoticon. He sing-songs at her: “I received a heart. There are so many other symbols—why do you suppose it was a heart? What do you think it means?”

Eun-ho stammers that it didn’t mean anything, but Tae-woon won’t let it go, and she runs out in embarrassment.

In her hurry to get away, she runs smack into Dae-hwi, who wonders if someone’s chasing after her. When he peers around the corner and sees Tae-woon nearby, Dae-hwi breaks out into a knowing grin… then calls out to Tae-woon immediately, HA.

Eun-ho escapes to the roof, but doesn’t get much alone time before Tae-woon appears. She crouches behind some old desks to hide (in plain sight), and Tae-woon humors her for a bit, pretending not to see her. Instead, he shouts out, “Ra Eun-ho, seriously. Why do I keep thinking of you? Why do I keep missing you?”

He then approaches Eun-ho, wondering out loud why she keeps avoiding him. Once she faces him, Tae-woon makes sure to repeat that he misses her, and tells her to stick by his side. He says he had a hard time finding her, and that’s why he wants her to stay close: “How can you only think of yourself, when I only think of you too?”

In voiceover, Tae-woon narrates: “Helen Keller said, ‘Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all.’ A true dream is just walking silently ahead. What we find at the end of the road won’t be a fancy destination, but the beautiful footsteps we created along the way.”

Teacher Shim hands out report cards to his students, and Dae-hwi smiles to see that he’s ranked first again. In front of him, Hee-chan glares down at his fifth-place ranking.

After school, Hee-chan’s mom rips the report card out of Hee-chan’s hand and yells about his grades, asking him how he could do worse when she took such pains to take care of his fight with Eun-ho.

Coldly, Hee-chan responds, “So? What do you want me to do about it?” His mom’s voice rises another octave as she asks him if he doesn’t feel at all sorry. Hee-chan tells her emptily that he’s not sorry at all.

With a scary, blank look in his eyes, he says, “You always said, ‘My son didn’t do anything wrong.'” Hee-chan’s mom recoils in horror.

Eun-ho visits the hideout, but walks away disappointed when she finds it locked. Ever the stalker, Tae-woon quickly comes up behind her and asks if she missed him. She automatically starts to respond with a denial, but then she slows to a stop, looking thoughtful.

With a slight smile, Eun-ho admits that she did miss him. She takes a step closer to him and says that she kept her feelings hidden, and that she felt fluttery when he confessed to her. She starts to tell him how she feels, but when she’s unable to say the words out loud, Tae-woon takes her hand.

He intertwines his fingers with hers and clarifies, “So what you’re saying is that you like me, right?”

“So what I’m saying is…” he starts to say. Then without letting go of her hand, he sweeps his arm around her shoulder, pulling her extra close and keeping a tight grip on her. “…Today is our Day 1.”

Eun-ho stares at Tae-woon, processing his words, but it doesn’t take long before she breaks out into a smile. Tae-woon returns her smile, and they enjoy the moment as a new couple, beaming happily at one another.

 
COMMENTS

Excuse me while I recover from the past two minutes, and really, this entire episode, which was so darn perfect that I nearly have no words. I’ll just start with two reactions to that ending: First, how is it possible for a high-schooler to be that smooth, and second, finally! Eun-ho’s admitted her feelings! *Throws confetti*

Up until those final moments, I thought my favorite part of this episode was going to be Dae-hwi and Tae-woon—their reconciliation and the resulting partnership to take down Hee-chan was everything I wanted for the two boys and more. The conversation after their cathartic fight was incredibly emotional and moving, and I particularly loved that those heavy moments of the two grappling with their pain and misunderstandings were interspersed with them just being teenage boys and ribbing each other.

I found it so funny, for example, that their girl troubles went from being ammunition to use against each other to something that they bonded over—it perfectly illustrated the kind of friendship they have, and why it was inevitable that they would make up sooner or later. They just know each other too well, and though that means that they can really do some damage to one another, it also means that there’s no one else who can be the kind of support that these two are for each other. It’s so great how easily they slipped back into their old rhythms after their big come-to-Jesus moment, and I can’t be any happier that we get to see Dae-hwi regain some of that joy and lightness we saw in him in the flashbacks.

I continue to be surprised at the way the X plotline twists and weaves throughout the series—it’s so impressive to me that the storyline remains intriguing long after the reveal of Suspect X. What I wasn’t expecting at all was seeing Teacher Shim jump in the mix—I gasped out loud when Tae-woon opened the door to the hideout, revealing that it wasn’t him in disguise, and again when Officer Han called out to X by Teacher Shim’s name. I’m not sure yet if Teacher Shim actually knows who X really is, but now that he’s basically made himself another accomplice to X, it will be interesting to see what comes next.

And finally, as for our adorable Eun-ho/Tae-woon couple—I was pleased to see that true to what we’ve seen thus far, the show didn’t drag out their fight for too long. That’s not to say that the show glossed over their very real conflict—in fact, I thought it was handled perfectly, showing us both sides of the issue. I did think Eun-ho was being a tad harsh with Tae-woon, but I totally understand why she was feeling so angry and hurt. Similarly, I couldn’t blame Tae-woon for thinking money will fix all woes—that’s all he’s ever known, considering his father’s mode of operation. What I loved was how Dae-hwi’s words helped Tae-woon realize that a tablet wasn’t what Eun-ho needed to deal with her problems—all she needed was him being there for her and sharing some of her burden.

As much as I’m down with the way our big storylines are moving forward (and trust me, I really, really, really love all the developments in this episode!), I find myself savoring the small, everyday moments our students have with each other more than anything else in the show. Whether it’s Eun-ho and Sa-rang exchanging high-fives to celebrate Sa-rang’s new direction in life, or Tae-woon calling out Bo-ra’s acting skills in awe after facing off with Principal Yang and Hee-chan—these are the moments that make me grin uncontrollably, and help me realize just how invested I am in the lives of these characters. I could watch these kids and teachers for a million more episodes—but I’ll gratefully take four more, as long as the rest of the series continues to have this much heart, laughter, and Tae-woon.

 
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