Drama Review: Detectives of Seonam Girl High School Episodes 9-10

Aaannnddd we're back! Sorry about skipping last week, real world problems caught up with me. Since I was far too late for episode 9, I decided to review them together. Since the Rose bread case spanned both episodes, this will be easy and flow more.

As some of you may or may not know, episodes 9 and 10 deviated a bit from the book and the bread case was original. It may have seemed a bit slower than the other episodes, but I did enjoy the overall message behind it. I will get to that later though.

To be honest, I wasn't all that interested in the actual case. Someone placing laxatives in bread mix to get people sick, it wasn't too appealing to me, but I was dying to know the motive behind it. I already had my ideas about who the culprit was since they basically made it obvious, but attempted to throw us off. I knew it was Ah Ra, she always acted so strange whenever the girls seemed to get closer to the truth and she was very quick to defend every other suspect. Nothing wrong with that, but she always looked nervous and acted as if she didn't want them to be falsely accused of something she did. Almost like a child who knows they're guilty, but will let their parents go through an entire list of others and they'll defend them while not mentioning themselves. Ah Ra did just that for the entire investigation and as they got closer, she suddenly wanted to back out. It was obvious Chae Yool suspected her from the beginning and a friend on Ent|Asia noticed Ha Jae knew as well. The fact that multiple characters had their suspicions, but never acted on them until the very end was quite different and enjoyable from a viewer's standpoint.

One thing that was very different about this case was that they seemed to focus more on the motive and the healing process more so than the actual crime. It's a different approach and it was refreshing to see. We find out it's Ah Ra (of course), but the detectives set up a plan that forces her to admit it and give her father the reasons behind it. The way South Korean parents raise their kids is shown in almost every K-Drama and you can easily look up how much pressure is on them to succeed. However, very rarely are we given a drama that shows things from both perspectives and lets us see how it affects both parent and child. Ah Ra had the idea that her father didn't love her based on his incessant yelling and controlling nature however, it was the complete opposite as he did everything because of his love for her. He worked very hard for what they had and he just wanted her to live a life he didn't while she was the average teenager who thought her dad could care less about her dreams. It was also apparent with how he treated his employees. Both thought he was just mean and was trying to not pay them, but he was actually putting money away for both of them and looked at the m like they were his own children. This case showed us that even if you do care, you must show them so there are no misunderstandings. It hit home for Chae Yool, whose own mother is quite controlling, but the response was very different when she attempted to see things from another view. For this one, she will have to see things from her daughter's point of view and see she's not her brother. I can name all the things that went wrong with her parenting for Chae Joon, but that's another topic, but she's going to have to see that her daughter and son are not the same person.

These last two episodes also had us seeing less of Ye Hee, which was slightly disappointing since she's a part of the the main cast (Hyeri is also cast in Hyde, Jekyll, Me which may have something to do with her appearing less, but not too sure), but we also got to see Ha Jae and Sung Yoon shine a little bit more. Sung Yoon was able to show off her baking knowledge, we all knew she was good. Ye Hee's absence caused a sort of switch in personalities and habits in the club: Sung Yoon was more violent, Mi Do attempted to mess with everyone else's uniform tie, while Chae Yool actually looked as if she wanted to be there. Ha Jae was normal..in a sense. 

One thing that I have a complaint about is how the big reveal was handled, well how Chae Joon reacted was odd to me. Ye Hee and Mi Do finally told him the truth, but not before Ah Ra gave her a makeover to show him another side of her. Once he realizes that there is only one Yoon Mi Do and the person he previously mocked for her speech is the real one he's been texting, his first reaction is to scream and run. Yep, writers/directors you flubbed on that part.
I won't get into the whole Mr. Wise Old Owl and Ra On thing is getting old unless the more recent episode gives us new information. I'm at that point where I believe Ra On is imagining all of this because they're just throwing the Mr. Ha creep factor in our faces and Ra On is looking psycho himself.