Undercover High School: Episodes 7-8 » Dramabeans

KDramaHQ AdminMarch 18, 2025

Undercover High School: Episodes 7-8

by quirkycase

Our leads team up for some spying and mystery solving, and our intrepid temp teacher proves more of an asset than expected. But our duo discovers some crucial, unsettling information that makes the mission all the more dangerous. Add to that a couple of side quests, and it’s a busy week for everyone.

EPISODES 7-8

A lot happens this week compared to the more leisurely pace of last week’s episodes. We have about three missions going on at once, so this week is more action and less comedy focused. Soo-ah dives into the mission full force this week and gets her first chance to help behind the scenes by insisting on a vote for the male model student for the school (to prevent the vice principal from picking an affluent student)… then accidentally votes for the wrong kid. Hae-sung wins anyway by a single vote, so her chaos vote doesn’t tip the scales, and he’s now able to attend the schmoozing event.

The team has analyzed a recording of the clock playing a piano duet version of the school anthem – Hae-sung’s dad’s notes helped him unlock that clue – so they reason they’ll need to play that same song on the piano in Myung-joo’s office. Except none of them can play piano. Soo-ah assures them she can help Hae-sung learn it. Right up until Hae-sung warns her that if she gets caught, she’ll likely be fired. Soo-ah is immediately like, never mind I’m out. Ha. Soo-ah only agrees when Seok-ho calls her an “honorary agent” and agrees to sign a contract that she’ll have government support to become a full-time teacher if the mission is a success.

Hae-sung doesn’t want her to put herself at risk, but it’s a risk Soo-ah is willing to take. For her, becoming a full-time teacher means fulfilling her promise to her student who was framed for cheating and kicked out. She promised to become a full-time teacher and gain the power to help her students.

Honorary agent Soo-ah takes her new role seriously. She gets them a book with the principal’s (Myung-joo’s minion who does her dirty work) fingerprint, so they can lift it to use to open Myung-joo’s office. Soo-ah also teaches Hae-sung the song they’ll need to play on piano, and he in turn teaches her some self-defense moves. The closeness starts getting to Hae-sung, who finds himself noticing she’s purty.

In other news, the Quiznos office has run its course, so they begin convening at the NIS office again. They get permission to bring Soo-ah in as a guest to formulate their plan for infiltrating the school and breaking into Myung-joo’s office during the upcoming schmoozing event.

While Myung-joo and the richest parents have an exclusive party within the party to scheme for their kids to take over the world, the NIS team causes a blackout and distraction so Hae-sung and Soo-ah can sneak to the office. Hae-sung impressively takes out several guards while actively protecting Soo-ah, and she gets her own chance to use her self-defense moves and the sedative syringe Hae-sung gave her to take out a couple men herself.

They make it to the piano for a high-stakes duet… and nothing happens, likely because one of the keys doesn’t work. But Hae-sung finds something on Myung-joo’s computer while deleting the log: the entire mission plan, including his personnel record and their plan to break into her office. He realizes she’s been in control of this mission the whole time with the help of a mole in the NIS. Hae-sung is devastated that he can no longer trust his team. Only they and the director know about the mission.

While Hae-sung goes radio silent on his team and works on the mole angle, Soo-ah works on the piano clues and comes through again. She figures out that the notes played by the broken key spell out a secret message based on the lyrics of the song: “The bead shall shine like gold in the red sun.”

Soo-ah is certainly earning her keep as an honorary agent and as a friend. She’s the only one Hae-sung can trust now, and she comforts him and assures him he’s not alone; she’ll help him find that mole. Her enthusiasm may overshoot her ability there, but she does make him feel better. Hae-sung then shocks her by divulging that he’s her crush from elementary school and that they live right across from each other.

Adding to their workload, Soo-ah finds a business card one of the council kids dropped. It has a link to a site showing all the bought results for the rich kids: first place spots for contests that haven’t happened yet, future awards and school rankings, etc. Myung-joo, omniscient as ever, finds out Soo-ah found the card immediately and threatens her. Soo-ah won’t be cowed, though, and goes to Hae-sung for help. He already has his plate full, but he can’t stand watching Yoo-jung study full of hope for a contest she has no chance of winning despite her stellar grades.

Soo-ah may have gumption, but her techniques aren’t quite there yet. Myung-joo deletes the link, knowing it’s been discovered by the undesirables, and Soo-ah didn’t get screenshots. Hae-sung, on the other hand, put a tracker on Myung-joo’s car and a bug under the table for her meeting with a parent. He hears them talking about teaching Soo-ah a lesson to deter her. And based on the way she mercilessly smacked a rude student around, Myung-joo’s lessons are best avoided.

Her mothering techniques are no better. When Myung-joo learns Ye-na has a scar on her wrist from self-harm, she berates Ye-na for how embarrassing it’d be if someone found out. She then slashes herself with a steak knife at dinner and tells Ye-na that now they’re even and can move on since resistance is futile. Ye-na is horrified to learn her mom has been buying Ye-na’s grades while an unsuspecting Ye-na studied herself to death, which Myung-joo encouraged to sell the lie. Ye-na reaches her limit and finally challenges her mom. She goes to see Yoo-jung, despite their fight, and the kindness of Yoo-jung and her mom overwhelms her.

Meanwhile, Hae-sung brings what he has so far on Myung-joo buying her education city through falsifying kids’ grades to the NIS, but Seok-ho is avidly against him going further. Then the Director orders them to stop the mission altogether. Their reactions make Heae-sung suspect one of them is the mole, so of course, he’s not about to stop. Instead, he and Soo-ah go rogue, which may not have been the safest decision. We end the week with Soo-ah finding a masked intruder inside Hae-sung’s house. Hae-sung arrives home to find her unconscious and bleeding on the floor (which took brightening the screen to see because this scene is SO DARK).

Well, that escalated quickly! I can only assume Myung-joo is responsible because that woman wastes no time taking out her enemies. I appreciate how truly unhinged and evil Myung-joo is as a villain. She’s truly threatening without feeling like a caricature, and her visible efforts at restraint when she’s angry make her more chilling. It’s feeling more like a showdown between Hae-sung and her now, which raises the stakes. These episodes felt like they were pushing Seok-ho as the potential mole, and that makes me think it’s a red herring. The director would make sense since he was the one to pose this mission for Hae-sung in the first place. Unless there’s someone higher up than him pulling the strings, he seems like the most likely candidate.

I fully expect Soo-ah will pull through, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Hae-sung stops letting her in on the mission now. He was already worried about her safety, and a civilian almost dying due to assisting a mission has to be a red flag, even if you don’t have a crush on them. But now that Soo-ah is on Myung-joo’s radar, she (and everyone else) will probably be in danger going forward regardless.