The Midnight Romance in Hagwon Episode 2

a good second episode

A good connecting episode. It built up a lot of what the first episode introduced and in a way that I felt made the characters a little more interesting, especially Jun Ho. He's clearly a very confident character, and his confidence does come across as arrogance, especially in the first episode, but with his interactions with Hye Jin and especially his parents, his determination really comes through? Like he's not someone who's just full of hot air or living with rose-colored glasses, he's also someone who is determined to make his way. He sets goals and makes promises that he's fully confident in carrying out. I think that makes him more impressive as a character, and it makes his potential journey much more interesting to watch because I absolutely would like to see how he fails and how he bounces back from that failure.

I also liked Hye Jin's conflict in this episode. She's someone who's made it clear that she's pretty much concerned with results, but then her own thoughts and actions come out to be contradictory, because she was so concerned with Jun Ho as a person. I really liked the juxtaposition between her and Pyo Chang Sub. Chang Sub who looks down on her for not being a "teacher", and yet he's the one making his students' lives harder because of his own pride, while Hye Jin swallows her pride in order to let Jun Ho go his own way. So technically, you could say that she is way more of a teacher than Chang Sub is.

I liked how we also got more from the hagwon Director, who has a strong relationship with Hye Jin. He cares about her as a person and as an instructor. He's also not from an educational background. I liked the small detail we learned that he used to make movies and he's only in academies because he pivoted from a previous failure. It makes his obsession with "star quality" make much more sense now.I enjoy the hagwon atmosphere because it feels familiar, but it's also different enough that it's not pulling me into terrible PTSD memories of after school studying.

I do think it's interesting that we don't have a main "student" character, and instead are relying on more minor characters to relay the students' perspectives. I wonder if that will change in the future. But overall, a good second episode.

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