viola

on board with the pacing

That last scene killed me. It was both so funny and so cringe, which again, reminds me of older romcoms. I like that this show knows its theme and will stick to it. I was worried they'd go overboard with Segye chasing after Seori even after her repeated rejections, so I liked that instead he retreated from her because of his hurt pride because that makes more sense in terms of his character. Consort Kang's stubborn personality also finally gets some kickback at the set, which is far more interesting to see for her character. We also get a little bit more with Mun-do. You have to sympathize with a guy who's doing everything he can to take over a position only to find out that his uncle will always give it to the guy who doesn't even want it. But at the same time Mun-do is clearly also deranged, so....

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felt like there was so much but lim ji yeon really nailed it all together

Genuine chemistry continues. Se-gye and Dan-shim shine together in ways that are already making me root for them. I did feel like the pacing of this episode was very fast and also the editing a bit all over the place. They shoved in as much as possible in this single episode, but luckily Lim Ji-yeon ties it all together with that final scene. Her frustration at her new life being so similar to her old one helps ground the episode altogether.I am surprised at how quickly the romance is proceeding, but it's not technically a bad thing, and it makes sense when you think about how hard and fast Se-gye has fallen. Now it's up to him to prove to Dan-shim that he actually likes her, and that it's not just out of a sense of pity.I wish we could have seen Kang Dan-shim/Seo-ri's reaction to Mun-do telling her to get together with his brother. Did she simply leave without saying anything? Did she refuse? Or did she agree? There were a couple of scenes where I wish they extended it a little longer, like Dan-shim's reaction when Se-gye says to his grandfather that he only helped her out of pity, but overall, I feel like I have enough emotional stake in this relationship regardless.

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a sweet end to a sweet drama

Not much to say since it's the finale! I was interested to see how the main conflict would wrap up and luckily it didn't feel too predictable. Jun Ho proposing marriage when just hours ago they watched two women throw down with each other is also so funny but well it was very smooth too. I felt so proud of Hye Jin especially, for making the next decision in her life. It's too bad she can't stay and keep on working on shaping the dreams of the students there, but that had always been more Jun Ho's dream than hers, though she also approved of it.Happy for Nam Chung Mi too! Her relationship with Jun Ho's friend (Seung Gyu?) was also very sweet. I bet every guy who watched this show had his heart fluttery from hearing her words.I also liked how we didn't spend too much time on Instructor Yoon or the vice-director and director Choi. We didn't need to see them to know that they probably regret their decisions, and I liked that after we spent so much time with them in the prior episode.

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Probably my least favorite episode, but still good

I haven't had any issues with the pacing thus far in this drama, so this episode stood out to me in that it did feel a bit slow. Also, I wasn't sure how to feel about specific story choices taken in this ep, but now that I'm sitting on it, I think I understand why they were made. For example, this was a Jun Ho-centric episode, which makes sense considering how the last episode ended with Jun Ho finally breaking down. Jun Ho makes the decision to try and solve their biggest issue (aka the threat of people leaving the academy) on his own, and pretty much tells Hye Jin straight out that he's planning on doing it on his own. At first, I wondered exactly why he's choosing to leave Hye Jin in the dark, and then I realized that for Hye Jin, this is the best thing he can do. Why? It's because Hye Jin always does everything on her own. She's smart, strong and good at her job, and most importantly, has seen Jun Ho as someone who needs her guidance and care for most of their relationship. The only way Jun Ho can prove to himself and to her that he can stand on equal footing with her, is if he can take the burden of their situation off her hands. And it must feel so good for Hye Jin to be told by someone she loves that they'll handle it for her and that she doesn't have to do anything about it. It's so refreshing!! So I understand why Jun Ho did it, especially since Hye Jin also needs to see him in this independent light.Otherwise, seeing as this is the finale and this is the last conflict, a lot of other things were drawn out that I felt didn't have to be. We got a lot of time with the other instructors that we didn't have before, which is fine, though I think we didn't need to see all of them puzzle over their indecision as to whether or not to leave.Also, I liked Jun Ho and Vice Director Woo's confrontation, especially the aftermath when Jun Ho is clearly also rattled by how emotional and frightening it was for him, even though he was very solid in the moment. I liked that! instead of having him swoop in and say a few pithy words and teach the vice director a lesson - the story lets Jun Ho have actual emotions about it. He gets to be uncertain, frightened, afraid, and exhausted. I think a lot of romance dramas don't humanize their male leads this way, because the romance is first and foremost a fantasy for the viewers to enjoy. So I appreciate that the story made space for him to be a vulnerable human being as well.

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one of my favorite episodes so far

Whew! That was really good. Loved the tension throughout, loved how the show did not dive into the dramatic tropes of physical violence or slut shaming. We saw some really nasty behavior from certain characters on the show, but it felt believable and not in any way like a caricature. I loved how at the very end of this episode, it's Jun Ho who emotionally breaks down from the entire situation. Genuine gut punch to see, considering how confident and self-possessed he's been this entire show. We got to see his fears over not only whether he ruined Hye Jin's life, but also his habit of always doing things his own way and wondering if that way is what ruined Hye Jin and the academy. I loved seeing him be vulnerable, especially in front of someone who is not Hye Jin!! And with maybe the last person you'd expect him to let his guard down around.Nam Chung Mi is my second favorite character after Hye Jin. She has principles and by god she'll stick to them, but not just out of a wishy-washy "oh that's not right" kind of way. She's someone who will do what it takes to get ahead because that's exactly how far she's come. So it felt even more poignant for her to turn down the offer and decide to stay at the academy with Hye Jin. Her small scene with that one annoying teacher was really great. Minimal dialogue but you could tell just how exactly Nam Chung Mi thought of not only him, but everyone else who was planning to leave. Also her sweet moment with Jun Ho's friend was very cute. Her mentioning that she thought love was a waste of time until she saw how Hye Jin cheered up just from a few words from Jun Ho, which also led her to believe that love could also be a great source of strength in times of hardship.I have full faith that the show will stick the landing, considering that it hasn't disappointed me in any of the other previous episodes.

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gears up for the next arc of random side characters

but at least there's only ten episodes left so we're so close to being done. i wish tjr got to keep playing as ji ling because he is struggling so bad as chi wen. the problem with chi wen is that we as an audience keep seeing different motivations (which as gjm lacks subtlety like a brick, we can pretty much tell which ones are real) which makes him hard to connect with. i do wish wu yi wasn't being shafted into a corner in terms of character agency but yeah sure we need to devote time to chi wen crying at 0.25 speed for the sake of the plot and for egregious water sequence as yan an tries to act as well as he can in the water as he does normally (which is not at all).

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sticks the landing for the eternal conflict in noona romances

Once again, solid episode. The previous episodes did very well to build up the kind of culture and environment the hagwon life is, so while it's completely ridiculous that Hye Jin's career is being threatened by her relationship with Jun Ho, it also makes sense. We know how the culture works. Even as an audience, we learned about how two other instructors ruined their academy by getting romantically involved. The stakes are indeed high, and the show did a good job in establishing that.I was shocked that it was the White-Haired Witch who dropped the bomb that Hye Jin and Jun Ho were involved. I'm glad it was her and not the Vice Director. Also, liked how we got the Director back and how you can tell that he is in Hye Jin's corner, compared to how he tried to abandon her earlier in the drama. Him saying that he already knew they'd get together was the sole comedic point in this episode.What I really liked was that Hye Jin at no point says the words "we should break up". I think this is always the quintessential line that comes with age-gap, noona romances, when a partner either can't endure the gossip or doesn't want their loved one to have to put up with it. And that's why I really expected Hye Jin to say it at the end, but instead we get her confession of love to Jun Ho which was very sweetly done. I feel for Hye Jin so much. I feel less of that for Jun Ho, who as a character is very good, but he's basically the reason as to why everything is crumbling down now. And even though he's the reason, I didn't get the sense that he was truly suffering from what was going on. Yes, he was concerned for Hye Jin's sake, but you never get the sense that he's concerned for his own sake. Which is nice, but it makes him less complex compared to Hye Jin. Maybe the next episode will introduce more of his own struggles with this situation.

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Heading into the final stretch? Hopefully

I've been repeating myself over and over for every episode, but once again this was a good episode! The conflict between Hye Jin and Jun Ho was resolved in a realistic way, which is what happens when there are two adults in a relationship who are both good at communicating and expressing their feelings. I thought it was very funny that Pyo Sang Seob was forced to watch them argue, and the audience was meant to also think it was funny from the way it was directed. Nice to see Pyo Sang Seob feeling confused and put-off after the numerous times he made Hye Jin feel that way. But otherwise, this episode and the last did a lot to redeem Pyo Sang Seob as a character. In the end, you even start to root for him after watching his special lecture.Also loved how Hye Jin handled Vice-Director Woo having the audacity to not only steal all her material but use that to threaten Hye Jin into leaving with her. The way Vice-Director Woo is so obsessed with her because she knows firsthand how talented she is in the industry. Genuinely liked the way Hye Jin resolved it at the end because all her prior material means nothing to her now that she has the resolve to move forward in a different direction. And that is thanks to Jun Ho and to Pyo Sang Seob.

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first couple fight

Jun Ho and Hye Jin have fought before, but I think this is their first real confrontation after they became a couple. As always, it was a good episode. If the previous episodes were more about Hye Jin and her personality, this one did a good job at reminding the viewer about Jun Ho's. We know that he is a very confident character who has a lot of pride in his work ethic and ability to achieve the things he wants. We have never seen him fail in the context of the story. Everything he's taken on has worked out for him. So his anger at his parents and then later at Hye Jin makes sense. This is someone who doesn't understand why everyone around him can't believe in him and take his words at face value. He feels belittled by both which makes him even more stubborn about sticking to his guns. Not only that, but we've seen him wish for Hye Jin to confide in him more, so he's hurt by the way she shuts him out.The thing is, I can also understand the fight from Hye Jin's point of view. This came out of left field for her, and honestly, out of left field for the audience as well. I did not expect Jun Ho to throw out his study book and pivot his teaching strategy entirely, so I felt just as confused as Hye Jin was when she found out. Throwing out an entire reference book days before the new semester starts is a risk no one would ever take, which is why Hye Jin and Sang Mi were horrified. Not only that, but Jun Ho suddenly going off about how he'll teach students to really learn, rather than how the academies teach them to memorize and retain sounded very idealistic. Sang Mi and Hye Jin have been part of the academy scene for a while. They're weathered in their expectations and understand how things go. In contrast, Jun Ho is completely new to all of this, not only to the Academy but also to teaching in general. He wants to change things and doesn't understand why Hye Jin can't support him. I think he is also afraid that she still thinks of him as someone to support, rather than someone who can support her.I think Hye Jin loves Jun Ho, but she doesn't really think of him as an equal. Which, I can't blame her for, considering how he reacted last episode, and how she admitted that she thinks he represents the worst parts of herself. This is demonstrated when she speaks with Pyo Sang Seob, who is also someone who has butted heads with before. She sees him as an equal. Even though he's not an Academy instructor, he has years of teaching experience that Jun Ho doesn't have. So when Sang Seob says he'll handle things his way, she lets him do so. I felt like the most emotional scene in the episode was not the fight between Hye Jin and Jun Ho, but the scene with Sang Seob and his student, when she asks him to review her material. You could tell that he was moved by the fact that she listened, and also bitterly regretted that he can no longer move his students in that way. I felt for him as a character, and I respected him more when he told Hye Jin about how the vice director of her own academy had betrayed her. Ten years of teaching materials??? I would cause a scene if I were here.Maybe she will cause a scene in the next episode? We shall see.

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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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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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pure fluff

Now this is the episode that cements this drama as a romcom. We have Hye Jin and Jun Ho finally agree to be together, and with that, we also get to see how sweet they are with each other. I enjoyed the episode in a romantic aspect! They're very cute as a couple and they do have chemistry. I loved the scene with Hye Jin and her friend and how vulnerable she was in that moment admitting that Jun Ho was her guiding hope during what was the worst time of her life, and also admitting that he was always special to her, in that he was always more than a student. I just love Hye Jin as a character, and she's very cute in the romance too, but I think it's almost a disservice just to have her romance spotlighted, only because she's so interesting as a whole. She's capable of more than just this relationship, but I don't mind seeing them happy together.I would like for the drama to spin back into the workings of the hagwon environment, probably because that part is the most interesting to me. But we shall see! It looks like from the preview that Hye Jin and Jun Ho will see if keeping the relationship secret actually works, or if Jun Ho at some point will want them to go public.

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idyllic

That's the immediate word that comes to mind when I think about this episode. Actually, the whole time I was expecting a punch out of left field especially towards the end, but instead it ended on a very sweet and peaceful note. Once again, this episode was more about Hye Jin and Jun Ho's relationship, which pushed the politics and school plot to the background, but that's not something I actually minded. Instead I liked how we stayed with Hye Jin throughout again (and also a little bit with Jun Ho) as she tried to navigate the change in her relationship with Jun Ho and her decision to leave the academy.I thought her reaction was very human and very "her". She clearly has feelings for Jun Ho (she kissed him back!!), and I thought the way she eventually accepted them was quite realistic. It wasn't drawn out. It was a very realistic depiction between two adults, which was again - quite nice to see. It could have very easily been boring to watch, but instead the script and the directing held up. I wanted to see what Hye Jin would do, even though I knew them getting together is the foregone conclusion, and that curiosity stems from the fact that Hye Jin and Jun Ho are both interesting and likable characters.Jun Ho felt very realistic as well, as someone who wanted her to return his feelings but also had to balance preparing for his first big assignment of the year. I liked that he didn't throw all of his work to the wayside just to prioritize his feelings for her. It makes for more of an interesting character if he's motivated by more things than just love and dating. I'm curious to see how their relationship will progress now that they know for sure that this affection is requited.

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