Undercover High School: Episodes 3-4 » Dramabeans Kdrama

Undercover High School: Episodes 3-4

by quirkycase

For being a spy, our hero isn’t particularly good at laying low. His sneaking around has put him on the evil director’s radar, and his mission is put in jeopardy when he’s targeted in a school scandal that could cut his student life short. He’ll need help to get out of trouble and get back on track to find the gold before someone gets there first. Being a teenager is hard work.

 
EPISODES 3-4

The gold finding mission takes a backseat this week to all the drama Hae-sung has going on in his school life. He does get a lead from his and Dong-min’s excursion, though. First off, the skeleton they found is a fake planted by the original school founder and embezzler extraordinaire. Hae-sung realizes that the four school urban legends serve as a riddle to find the hidden gold. Luckily, Dong-min is a resident urban legend expert and shares the next school legend: when a student is alone and hears the old grandfather chime, red eyes will appear.

Myung-joo is content to sit back and let Hae-sung do the work of leading her to the gold. She keeps a close eye on him as he pokes around the school, trying to get access to the grandfather clock for another clue. I have to give it to Myung-joo; she is a true villain through and through. Even her daughter Ye-na is terrified of her and her obsession with perfection. Myung-joo goes so far as to force Ye-na to take Adderall so she can sleep less and study more. You know, for her own good.

Speaking of Ye-na, the school princess has started to take an interest in Hae-sung. She’s not a fan of Tae-soo and watches curiously as Hae-sung challenges him. But soon the situation spirals out of control after Tae-soo makes a bold move. To pay his gambling debts to a local crime boss who specializes in scams,
Tae-soo tricks Dong-min’s halmeoni into giving him her ID by telling her he’s Dong-min’s friend Hae-sung. When he says the school needs her ID for Dong-min’s scholarship, she happily hands it over.

Soo-ah buys the allegations at first – Dong-min’s halmeoni calls her to ask when she’ll get her ID back after that boy Hae-sung took it – but then she witnesses Tae-soo bullying Dong-min firsthand and sees him return the ID. She quickly realizes how little power she has when even her fellow teachers tell her to turn a blind eye to the misdeeds of the assemblyman’s son. But that’s not Soo-ah’s style. She apologizes to Hae-sung for falsely accusing him and then anonymously posts about Tae-soo on the school’s forum.

Not that it matters because Tae-soo threatens Dong-min into not only refuting the claims but naming Hae-sung as his bully instead. Now that his halmeoni has been arrested, Dong-min feels he has no choice but to placate Tae-soo. The fact that Hae-sung doesn’t blame him makes Dong-min feel even worse for betraying his only friend.

Of course, Dong-min thinks Hae-sung is a helpless kid, not an action-hero spy with a loyal team backing him. Said team has decided they need a field base to be closer to Hae-sung for mission support. In an absolutely incredible PPL move, the NIS team commandeers the local Quiznos as their temporary headquarters. So now they’re all walking Quiznos PPL in their branded work aprons while doing spy ops. The way I guffawed at the brazenness. Genius.

Thanks to his and his team’s spy skills and intel, Hae-sung presents both a USB with video evidence against Tae-soo and the actual criminal behind the scam at his school disciplinary hearing. His dramatic motorcycle entrance and getting Tae-soo expelled skyrockets Hae-sung’s popularity. Ye-na encourages him to run for Tae-soo’s newly open council seat which may be just what he needs. Remember the whole clock urban legend? Well, Hae-sung needs access to the clock in the student council room. All he has to do is collect 100 signatures and raise his test scores dramatically in a week. Easy.

One hurdle he doesn’t anticipate is his little cousin Yoo-jung. She’s horrified to hear he’s running for council and outright forbids him. She’s practically in tears as she threatens to reveal his identity if he joins. Yoo-jung is on the council, but she’s certainly not treated as an equal. She’s basically the other kids’ servant, only speaking when spoken to, getting their coffee, and carrying their bags. I have a feeling that’s why she’s so adamant Hae-sung stay away.

We also start to get movement on a new front. So far, we haven’t gotten any romance, but this week we get hints of what’s to come. Teaming up to take down Tae-soo and protect Dong-min (and his halmeoni) bring Soo-ah and Hae-sung closer. And Soo-ah finds herself getting a little lost in his eyes a time or two. Given how bad Hae-sung is at acting like a kid – everything about him screams adult from his demeanor to his unusual competency and tendency to treat Soo-ah as a peer – it’s not a huge surprise that she has to remind herself he’s (supposedly) a teen. Still, it rightly makes Soo-ah uncomfortable.

Oh, and it doesn’t help that Hae-sung reminds Soo-ah of her crush from elementary school. And wouldn’t you know it, he is her crush. It turns out they’ve both changed their names since then, so it’s no surprise they don’t recognize each other now. She affectionately refers to the boy as her nemesis, suggesting maybe they’ve always had a bit of a bickering dynamic.

We end the week with a series of unfortunate events that comes about thanks to government messiness and miscommunication. There’s a mix up where Hae-sung is called up for some kind of military reserve training despite being on a mission. It works out where he only needs to go for a day, but he has to call out of school sick. (Unbeknownst to Hae-sung, that’s the second major mix up so far: the NIS director covers up that the buddha statue Hae-sung is being punished for breaking was actually a knockoff. So that’s awkward.)

At the end of his “sick” day, Soo-ah calls to say she’s bringing Hae-sung porridge … at his fake apartment that isn’t set up yet. The team has just enough time to scavenge enough items to make it look lived in before stuffing themselves in the closet when Soo-ah arrives. Soo-ah ends up slipping thanks to the mess on Hae-sung’s floor, and she pulls Hae-sung down with her. And of course, he falls right on her lips for the tried-and-true accidental kiss. As if that weren’t enough to scramble Soo-ah’s brain, all three of his team members then come tumbling out of his closet. I can’t wait to hear the explanation they come up with for this.

I can’t imagine anything they say is going to make Soo-ah less suspicious at this point. I mean, how do you explain three grown adults popping out of a wardrobe? Honestly, it’s amazing Hae-sung’s cover hasn’t been blown yet. Soo-ah has enough clues that I have a feeling she’ll figure things out before too long – or at least, she’s going to figure out he’s faking his identity. Guessing the whole NIS gold hunting element would be truly impressive. It’s hard to say if she’ll be more of a help or chaotic hindrance once she knows the truth, but I think she’ll be joining the Quiznos gang soon enough.

 
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