Under Pressure
Bound by the pressures of her parents, episode 2 of Extracurricular begins with Gyuri trying to put on a brave face in the wake of her parents forcing her to become the new CEO of the company. After experiencing visions of killing her parents, she smiles and agrees to go with them to the meeting. At school, Gyuri takes Ji-Soo’s phone and tries to hack into it. As night turns to day, Gyuri encourages Ji-Soo to follow him outside where they discuss what happened at the coffee shop and she probes him over his work. Eventually he agrees to meet with her later that day and despite his initial elation at the offer, when he’s alone he realizes someone has taken his phone. That someone happens to be Gyuri who successfully hacks into Ji-Soo’s phone. Ji-Soo frantically looks through the classroom trying to find the mobile. He interrupts Ki-Tae’s romantic 100 day gesture with Min-Hee and this consequently causes him to beat Ji-Soo down until his Father arrives and saves him, taking him out for dinner and telling him he’ll be transferring to a different town. Ji-Soo realizes the signal for his phone is nearby and he abandons his estranged Father, rushing off down the busy street to try and find it. While he looks around the building, Gyuri receives a job request message from Min-Hee on Ji-Soo’s secret phone, which Gyuri accepts and consequently sees her head off to. Only, Min-Hee has a panic attack on the way to the client’s bedroom, as flashbacks to the past crop up and Mr Lee arrives to save her. When Mr Lee phones Uncle’s number, he gets through to Gyuri, who happens to be sitting in the cafeteria area with him. When she doesn’t pick up and instead phones hr Mum, Mr Lee suspects something is up. Back home, Ji-Soo phones Mr Lee on his old mobile and advises he won’t be doing any jobs in the future. Only, Gyuri already accepted one job for Min-Hee and this allows her to phone Ji-Soo soon after and antagonize him, now knowing what’s happening. Only, Mr Lee is en-route intending to hunt her down. When she spots his car, she bolts from the scene after telling Ji-Soo she’ll be in touch shortly. The next day Gyuri drops off coffee at Ji-Soo’s house and the two get talking. He clearly doesn’t know she has the phone and makes a private deal with him, phoning him from the bathroom and forcing him to bark down the phone. She gives him instructions to leave the house and while he does, Gyuri takes the opportunity to start searching through Ji-Soo’s things, seeing all the money he’s saved over the months. Only, Ji-Soo’s Father suddenly returns home while Gyuri hides. He finds Ji-Soon’s suitcase and immediately starts going through the bag, stealing all the money for himself. Gyuri chases after him in hot pursuit but not before dropping Ji-Soo’s phone in the process. Only, someone drops it off to her while Ji-Soo happens to be in the area looking for his Father and realizes that she’s the one who’s had the phone this whole time. As Ji-Soo’s father races away, Gyuri tackles him to the ground as he begins sobbing, realizing everything has gone wrong. At school, Ji–Soo returns and finds himself bullied at the hands of Ki-Tae. Only, Gyuri sees what’s going on and sticks up for him, calling Ji-Soo her boyfriend and forcing him to go and hang out at a baseball range, refusing to give him his phone back. However, Gyuri proposes she team up with him and together they can expand the operation, which is where the episode ends. With a longer episode closer to that usual K-drama run-time of 65 minutes, Extracurricular delivers another solid slice of drama here. With some decent plot development and some nice characterisation for our central cast of characters, Kim Dong-Hee does a great job capturing the complex array of emotions for Ji-Soo, something he also managed to pull off pretty well as Geun-Soo in Itaewon Class. Ji-Soo’s dad is quite the slimy character though and quite whether he’ll get his comeuppance or not remains to be seen. For now though, the episode does a great job moving things along and setting the scene for some dramatic episodes ahead.
