The Midnight Romance in Hagwon Episode 9

romance is still cute while the plot finally moves onward

I genuinely enjoy the way this drama is shot, and of course I really like the script too. Jun Ho and Hye Jin's first night together was comedic and sweet, and shot so naturally that it really just felt like two people who love each other, rather than two people performing together? They're very cute, but I will admit that I'm relieved that the episode didn't lean too hard into the secret relationship at the workplace heehee, and instead pivoted back to Pyo Sang Seob, who's been part of the plot since the first episode but has been pretty much of a non-entity these past few eps.

The most interesting scene in this entire episode was actually between him and the temporary teacher. At first, I didn't quite understand the reason for her frustrations, but that's because of a lack of knowledge about the culture, rather than any fault of the script. Now that I've thought about it, I've realized that the temporary teacher was upset because Pyo Sang Seob's insistence on relying full stop on the textbook made it very easy for the students to pass the test, which makes her job harder when it comes to grading. You'd think that every school would be happy if all their students do well, but this is South Korea where ranking means more than anything in this society, which means there have to be students who do poorly so that the ones who do well shine all the brighter. That also means that the temporary teacher has to resort to the most banal deductions in order to preserve the ranking, and because of that, she also knows even more parents and students will complain. It's the kind of situation where no one wins: if you give every student a good grade, then the parents will say no one gets to be number one then, and if you don't, then the students who get penalized for the silliest of mistakes will get all the more frustrated that they're being punished, even though their answers are technically right. This is how I'm understanding it, at least.

I would feel more for Pyo Sang Seob if, on upon being asked not to "do anything", didn't immediately jump ship to the cram schools. It makes sense for his character, because he's already established himself as someone who is motivated mostly by his pride. If he really cared about being the last bulwark of education or whatever, then he'd probably have taken the teacher's advice and ran for superintendent, because he'd want to change the system. Except, he's just someone who wants to be taken seriously and respected, and doesn't actually care that much about the institution itself. He just uses it as an excuse to justify his actions. Which is why him becoming the vice-superintendent aka taking what would have been Hye Jin's job if she accepted -- makes so much sense for him.

And now he's probably going to pin the blame of the whole situation on Hye Jin. Very funny that as a teacher who apparently cared so much about education, he's now going to become someone obsessed with grades and satisfying parents first. It's pretty short-sighted of him, which is what we need in this drama, since the other characters are mostly good or intelligent.

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