The Midnight Romance in Hagwon Episode 6

romance development!

Good for Hye Jin and Jun Ho. I professed my disbelief last episode at the preview of Jun Ho kissing Hye Jin because I thought it was too soon for it, but my doubts have been cleared this episode. The plot progression and pacing was quite satisfactory in that I felt the kiss at the end was completely earned.

It was so refreshing to see Hye Jin actually yell at the Director during their confrontation. She had all the right in that situation to express her true feelings because we as the audience can feel how much she was hurt. She raised a very good point that the Director broke the trust between them and of course trust is something that is very difficult to get back. I was also frustrated at how the Director made that long speech without ever once truly apologizing to her. Hye Jin deserved to yell and curse and let out her feelings. Do I think this conflict between her and the Director is solved? Not really, even though the Director got on his knees later to apologize, mostly because he did that under influence of alcohol. Tell me why Korean mean always have to be drunk or utterly miserable before they let their pride down and admit their wrongdoing.

Otherwise, this was a Jun Ho and Hye Jin relationship-centered episode. The conflict where Jun Ho says that he doesn't want Hye Jin to keep sacrificing for him or keep seeing him as someone she needs to take care of felt very realistic even though it obviously hurt Hye Jin's feelings to hear it. He did the funny thing of trying to draw the line and then immediately doing a 180 by pulling her back to him. The part where he tells her that he wants her to go because if she stays then he'll want to keep her was a cleverly written piece of dialogue. Especially the part when he tells her that she can read between the lines aka understand that this is because he's attracted to her as a woman, which is a fun callback to how they're both Korean Lit professors, so they're both used to interpreting a passage and the author's voice.

Pyo Chang Sub is still being really hard-headed, and since we've had so little time with him since episode one, he comes off as quite frustrating in his endeavors. I imagine that the next episode will still be centered on Hye Jin and Jun Ho's relationship, judging by the preview.

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