The Midnight Romance in Hagwon Episode 10

hye jin's revelation

Hye Jin is such an interesting character to me because she's the kind you rarely see in dramas. That is, I feel like most dramas don't devote this much time to a character's internal struggles. Usually, there's some kind of external obstacle for our protagonists to encounter and react to, and eventually defeat. And while Pyo Sang Seob is an external force, a lot of the conflict Hye Jin encounters this episode is internal. You see it in the way Jun Ho responds to her shock. He's well-meaning, but ultimately puzzled by how distressed she is, because to him Pyo Sang Seob is just an obstacle. He has no emotional connection or moral obligation to him, and you can see that he believes that Hye Jin also doesn't owe anything to Pyo Sang Seob either. This conflicts with Hye Jin's belief, in that she feels guilt for what she thinks she's done to this man, and also guilty for being so "two-faced".

It's interesting because Hye Jin always says one thing while really meaning another. Time and time again she's emphasized profit above all else, but then her actions show that she in fact has more heart than she lets on. So it makes sense to me why she's so shattered by the accusation that she's a hypocrite, because she ultimately cares very much, whether for her students or for herself.

I liked how the director brought back the black and white flashbacks, with the flashback revealing more of the scene than we initially saw. In Hye Jin's case, she's clearly worried about it before, whether her actions are "right" or not, which means she's struggled with having principles and sticking to them in an environment that encourages the opposite.

Moving on to Jun Ho and Hye Jin's relationship, the idea that Jun Ho could represent the parts about herself that she dislikes the most is intriguing, and I wonder how the drama will address this. I know that it has to be resolved one way or another for the sake of our couple, but I want to see if Hye Jin comes around to what Jun Ho represents, or if he'll see things her way instead.

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