Beatrice

None of the promo materials that I saw indicated this was a treasure hunt, which makes it so much more interesting that the undercover highschooler teacher romance, which is as creepy as it sounds whenever the story dipped into that plot line that also grinds the pacing to a halt. It is the worst part of the show which unfortunately means more often than not the female lead who is the teacher in the equation is the worst part. She is a terrible teacher not noticing the actual bullying occurring in her classroom while being extremely violent with the male lead who she thinks is a teenager and violating boundaries by showing up at his house on short notice. Once she learns he's NIH undercover, both of their brains go out the window. They are always out drinking together or touching hands, they are just courting a student teacher scandal.

The treasure hunt however is quite interesting, I really enjoy the clues being hidden in tales of ghostly hauntings that also mirror the real life school bullying of Hae Jeong and his classmates. The villain of the treasure hunt storyline is amazing. She is both cunning and unsettling that other kdrama villains think they are. The way she picks apart her daughter's self esteem, what she does with a steak knife to her own wrist in front of her daughter who freaked out at the photoshoot refusing to expose her scarred wrists, what she quotes about a slavery era book. Her daughter being cruel to Hae Seong's sister who just accepts it in order to be kind to the girl she saw with the scarred wrists. Later when she beats up a kid in the rest room who badmouthed her daughter in front of her and she chastises him to watch his mouth around elders while banging her own head on the mirror is so unhinged.

The romance is so forced, the drama would have been stronger without it. The secondary romance was also terrible and never funny even though it was supposed to be comic relief moments. The spy versus mastermind dynamic between Hae Jeong and Myeong Ju is so much more electric to see . I don't know if it's because I just didn't catch it, but I didn't see any specific branding on the sandwich shop until ep 4, which is a funny mini background mystery until it's revealed to be Qiuznos. The end where Hae Jeong points a gun at Myeong Ju only to hand it over to the same woman clearly having a dangerous mental health episode where she's already threatening the entire class of kids with oil and fire, was ridiculous. He's otherwise smart enough most of the time. I like that he clocked the principal truly caring about Myeong Ju and Ye Na and urged him not to enable her anymore.

The treasure hunt ending in Hae Jeong getting closure in finding out what happened to his father is meaningful. It's lovely that the cute little star motif between him and his father leads him to the gold his dad hid. All of his classmates showing up at his father's funeral was sweet. He got to remake his high school experience that was so terrible he got a GED instead the first time. His adopted father and son relationship with his uncle is also really sweet. I loved the moment he supported his decision to quit high school and was the one suggesting the GED. His annoyance at the thought that his adopted sister Yu Jeong may become his colleague is funny because he was colleagues with his adopted dad. Though there were still elements that I enjoyed, the momentum of the mystery and the pacing of the story really fell apart towards the end. It might have been a tighter with a few episodes less.