Undercover High School: Episodes 11-12 (Final) » Dramabeans

Undercover High School: Episodes 11-12 (Final)

by quirkycase

We go heavy on the action in the final episodes as our scrappy gang goes all out to fight the increasingly deranged chairwoman with a gold obsession. Teamwork is the name of the game and proves to be the good side’s secret weapon. No matter what happens, they have each other’s backs, and that turns out to be worth more than gold.

 
EPISODES 11-12

Hae-sung is in full action hero mode these episodes in the final push to take down Myung-joo and those responsible for his father’s death. We get chases, fight scenes (ranging in seriousness), and danger with the stakes being life or death for everyone at this point. It’s an apt ending that gives us growth and closure with a good dose of hope.

Diving back in where we left off last week, Myung-joo makes her way into the secret room and throws a full-on tantrum complete with fainting at the lack of her precious gold. Still, she’s convinced the gold exists and thinks Hae-sung somehow smuggled it away before she got there. She readies herself for her trials and tribulations with affirmations about how she can accomplish her dreams. The woman is coming apart at the seams.

Meanwhile, Hae-sung holds his father’s funeral after 22 years, and all his classmates show up in a sweet show of support. But Hae-sung is by no means ready to let his father’s death go. The analysis he and Seok-ho have done independently shows his father was killed by a bullet from a gun only NIS team leaders and higher were allowed to possess at the time. Unsurprisingly, this points to shady NIS Director Kim as the culprit. Trying to cover his tracks, Director Kim fires Hae-sung, leaving Hae-sung to go rogue once again.

Soo-ah and the team are worried that Hae-sung is going to do something stupid, so they panic when they realize he’s gone to see Director Kim. They scrappily fight their way through NIS agents while Soo-ah launches herself past the fray to get to Hae-sung and bust him out. While he did hold a gun to Director Kim’s head, Hae-sung wasn’t planning to kill him – he just wanted to get close enough to his phone to install remote access.

Now that Director Kim’s phone is essentially bugged, Hae-sung gets his confirmation that Myung-joo is the one who killed his father. She didn’t believe his claims that the gold didn’t exist and shot him as he escaped into the underground lair only he knew about.

Knowing the truth, Hae-sung arranges to meet Director Kim for a chat … and falls right into Myung-joo’s trap. He’s knocked out and wakes up sitting beside Director Kim’s body, holding a bloody knife, as the police arrive. Hae-sung’s people rally around him – Soo-ah’s mom is ready to declare war on the police for her future son-in-law – but they’re past the point of brute force. Well, some of them are. Hae-sung manages to fight his way out of his police transport van, barely staying conscious enough to call Soo-ah from a payphone so she can come get him.

After Soo-ah nurses him back to (semi) health, Hae-sung enlists help from an NIS friend to retrieve the USB with the incriminating conversation between Myung-joo and Director Kim (saved courtesy of Mi-jung’s quick thinking). Then, he turns himself in. He not only captured the conversation about his father’s murder, but he caught Director Kim’s murder with clear audio of the principal calling Myung-joo to confirm the job was done.

Meanwhile, Soo-ah continues the fight from within the school. In her latest bout of evil, Myung-joo is raising tuition by 50% and stopping the scholarship program, ensuring the poor students will have to leave. Soo-ah takes a one-woman stand to protect her kids and agrees to Myung-joo’s proposition: if Soo-ah quits, Myung-joo will rescind the new policies. What Myung-joo doesn’t expect is the students’ undying love for their teacher. When Myung-joo gathers the kids to do some damage control over the rumored policies, Yoo-jung leads a coup; she overheard Myung-joo making Soo-ah quit, and the kids are not having it. They rally behind Soo-ah and all demand Myung-joo step down.

I love that the kids get to play a part in the takedown and are given character growth of their own. That’s been one of the strengths of this drama, the character arcs. At the start, kids like Ye-na, Yoo-jung, and Dong-min were afraid and held back, but by the end, they’re putting themselves out there to do what’s right. Soo-ah wanted to protect her kids but didn’t have the confidence, and now she’s putting her job and maybe even life on the line to confront the powers that be. Hae-sung, too, has grown by learning to lean on the people around him for help rather than isolating himself.

Myung-joo, at this point, has completely lost her marbles, so her answer to children protesting is to spray gasoline through the sprinklers and hold everyone hostage with a lighter. Hae-sung arrives like the concussed hero he is – he never got treated for all his injuries while on the run – and tries to talk Myung-joo down. It’s only when Ye-na arrives and begs her to stop that Myung-joo pauses.

With no way forward, Myung-joo points the gun she confiscated from Hae-sung at her own head, but Soo-ah dives and knocks the gun aside, which sends the lighter flying. Hae-sung does an action slide and catches the lighter before it hits the gasoline-soaked ground. He and Soo-ah save the day, and Myung-joo and the principal are arrested for their plethora of crimes. Everything taken care of, Hae-sung collapses and is finally taken to the hospital. (It’s amazing he’s still alive, really.)

At the trial, the principal’s instinct is to cover for Myung-joo (who he grew up with like a sibling), but Hae-sung convinces him to tell the truth for Myung-joo and Ye-na’s benefit – letting her escape and become even more of a monster isn’t doing them any favors. With his testimony, Myung-joo is put away for life. Ye-na affords her mom a lot of grace, visiting her to say she loves her even if she can’t understand her. She’s dropping out of school to start fresh and will continue coming to see her mom. It seems like Myung-joo might realize she doesn’t deserve the forgiving, kind daughter she has.

After a romantic Quiznos date, Hae-sung readies to move on with his life and packs up his old house full of memories. He finds one of those glow-in-the-dark stars marking a loose floorboard and recalls his dad telling him he hid a star for him to find one day. Hae-sung pries up the boards to find all the missing gold bars! (I guess Myung-joo wasn’t so far off to think Hae-sung had the gold.) After 22 years, the mission is finally complete, and this chapter of Hae-sung’s journey comes to a close.

We get a 5-year time jump to catch up with everyone. Soo-ah has achieved her dream of being a full-time, certified teacher. Dong-min is a writer with a novel called “Undercover High School” about an NIS agent named Hae-sung’s high school adventures. Yoo-jung is applying to be an NIS agent, and Ye-na is pursuing her passion for painting. (Yoo-jung is in Ye-na’s phone as “my love Yoo-jung,” which I’m hoping means they’re a couple!) Seok-ho became the new NIS director, and Mi-jung and Young-hoon finally got together and are having a baby. As for Hae-sung, he’s happy with his found family and Soo-ah by his side. In a fun twist, we end with Hae-sung introducing himself to his new class as their homeroom teacher.

And that’s a wrap! The drama was a good time up to the end, giving us a hopeful story about treasuring the people around you, and I’m happy with where we ended up. It was goofy and fun with a good balance of humor, action, and character development. Most of the humor worked for me, although I never could fully warm up to the overly goofy Young-hoon and Mi-jung duo (who were relegated to comedic relief and unfortunately didn’t get the same level of character development as the rest). But the characters were well-cast and had strong chemistry as a group; I grew particularly attached to Hae-sung, Soo-ah, and the kids. Soo-ah was a fun, lovable heroine with a lot of personality. Jin Ki-joo is so expressive, but she somehow manages to come off as endearing rather than overly animated in an annoying way. Seo Kang-joon made Hae-sung a likeable blend of suave, a bit dorky, and sincere. And Myung-joo was a great campy villain who was equal parts outlandish and threatening.

Although the romance was secondary to the main plot, I liked Soo-ah and Hae-sung as a couple. They had good chemistry, and their romance didn’t feel forced or rushed to me. Speaking of the main plot, the mystery/gold hunt wasn’t anything to write home about and I’d argue was the weakest aspect of the drama, but there was enough heart and fun antics that I didn’t really mind. Sometimes, you just want something silly and escapist with characters you can root for, and Undercover High School hit the spot.

 
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