Teach You a Lesson Episode 1 Recap

A new outcast at Daehan High

During the morning commute, a student's voice describes his nightly prayer: to fall sick and skip school, the one place he fears more than death. At Daehan High School, students shout at Park Dae-seok to come down from a height. A flashback shows how he got there. In class, Ryu Jun-hyeong mocks a substitute teacher, and Dae-seok tells him to show some respect, calling him a boy who always needs his daddy. Jun-hyeong's friend Kim Gwang-su goes after Dae-seok, and the class stages the outcast stick ceremony. The former outcast, Kim Gyeong-min, is forced to hand Dae-seok the stick, and Dae-seok has to introduce himself as the school's new outcast.

In the staff room, teachers admit they have given up on the troublemakers. Since corporal punishment was banned, they say, any discipline invites a child-abuse complaint. At least, they add, none of them has been stabbed like the teacher two years ago. Outside, screams ring out as Dae-seok falls, and the police arrive. Gwang-su tells the class that nothing has changed.

Back in the classroom, the bullies welcome Gyeong-min back as the outcast. They force alcohol on him, calling it his first drink, while a teacher only asks the room to quiet down. Gyeong-min cries at his desk. Later, in a hallway, Gwang-su knocks him around and demands that he hit back, so no one can call it bullying. When Gwang-su closes his eyes and dares him, a stranger hits Gwang-su instead.

Inspector Na Hwa-jin takes charge

The stranger tells Gwang-su to watch his mouth. Each time Gwang-su charges, the man puts him down, reciting school rules against running in the halls and disorderly conduct. Jun-hyeong arrives, hears that the man is new and tells everyone to film him. He dares the man to hit him on camera, and the man hits Gwang-su again as the phones roll. When a teacher demands his name, he shows his ID: Na Hwa-jin, inspector of the Educational Rights Protection Bureau (ERPB), a body created only recently.

The bureau, Hwa-jin explains, helps schools that bribe the police to hide problems such as a student's death. The teacher denies anything happened. Bureau members can do as they please, Hwa-jin says: good students will be praised and rude ones beaten. The bureau is now in charge of the school, and he signs off with "Looking forward to teaching you a lesson."

In his office, Principal Kim insists there is no bullying at a school full of children from political and business families. Hwa-jin announces that he will be homeroom teacher of Class 5, Dae-seok's class. The principal warns him that one student's father is Congressman Ryu Gwang-pil, touted as a future presidential candidate. Hwa-jin replies that a world where adults fear children is close to its end.

In Class 5, the bullies doubt the bureau exists, and the students greet Hwa-jin with dread. Taking attendance, he stops at Dae-seok's name and asks why he killed himself. One student blames his grades. Hwa-jin says he heard the class bullied Dae-seok to death. When a boy jokes about the death, Hwa-jin roughs him up and orders the class into a plank on a count of three. Jun-hyeong tells everyone to sit, saying the teacher's job is their exam grades. Hwa-jin answers by seizing him and telling him he is a student and nothing more. On the next count, the class drops into position.

Lunch, a house call and a warning

In the cafeteria, under a banner for the school's 100th year, Jun-hyeong and Gwang-su push to the front of the line. Hwa-jin sends them to the back. When Jun-hyeong wastes his lunch, he ends up covered in sauce. Hwa-jin says waste annoys him and invites the students to film it as a Short, a brief video clip, then makes Jun-hyeong clean up. Afterward, Jun-hyeong turns on a classmate whose answer annoys him, and the classmate apologizes.

That night, Hwa-jin rings the bell at Congressman Ryu's home and helps himself to the fruit. He explains that Jun-hyeong left school without cleaning up. Quoting Gwang-pil's campaign slogan about people acting as people, he says the same goes for teachers and students. Jun-hyeong tells his father that Hwa-jin is trying to blame him for Dae-seok. Gwang-pil warns Hwa-jin he is making a mistake. Hwa-jin answers that the mistakes were in the son's upbringing, and he will correct them. He hauls Jun-hyeong away to clean, and later praises the bathroom the boy has scrubbed spotless.

Gwang-pil then confronts Hwa-jin. He has learned that Minister of Education Choi Gang-seok founded the ERPB and that Hwa-jin holds no teaching license. Hwa-jin says he carries the title of teacher until the inquiry ends. Asked about a bruise on Jun-hyeong's head, he suggests it looks staged. He compares a teacher who fears students to a doctor who fears patients. Hwa-jin warns that Gwang-pil would be picking a big fight with a national organization.

Gyeong-min learns to run

The bullies corner Gyeong-min and beat him for reporting them to the bureau, though he swears he did not. Soon after, Hwa-jin has hold of a sobbing Gyeong-min and asks whether he wants to go up or down. Gyeong-min begs to be pulled up, and Hwa-jin makes him say please first. Hwa-jin's advice is not to fight back but to run, and to talk to an adult, because good adults exist. On the sports field, he times Gyeong-min's sprints to the soccer goal and calls himself the wild dog chasing him.

Gyeong-min says Hwa-jin is no different from the bullies. Hwa-jin answers that they are bullies and he is a teacher who cares. Gyeong-min warns that Jun-hyeong's father can ruin a whole family for fun. Hwa-jin says he has powerful allies of his own, and he adds that students have someone to rely on too: their teachers. Over ramyeon, Korean instant noodles, Gyeong-min says he was not always the outcast. Asked why he never told his parents, he deflects.

Congressman Ryu confronts the Minister

At the Ministry of Education, Gwang-pil storms into Gang-seok's office, and the Minister admits the bureau is his. He built it, he says, after a teacher was murdered by her student two years ago. Gwang-pil complains that an inspector is harassing his son and asks to end the matter quietly. He hints that the Minister could be forced to retire.

At a Happy Hope Party campaign event, allegations against Gwang-pil reach his supporters by phone. They include using aides for personal errands, taking bribes for nominations, sexual harassment and misuse of government property. Reporters swarm him. Gang-seok appears, and Gwang-pil realizes the Minister leaked it all. Gang-seok says he spent two years setting up the bureau and learned a great deal in that time. Gwang-pil protests that they are on the same side, and Gang-seok replies that there are no sides in education. Asked why, he says, "Because you needed to fall for your son to learn his lesson."

A news report says the National Assembly has approved a motion to arrest Gwang-pil. Support for the motion grew after reports that his son drove a classmate to suicide. The report credits the ERPB, which answers directly to the Minister, with uncovering the case. Afterward, Hwa-jin and Gang-seok talk over the risk that the case turns political.

Jun-hyeong becomes the outcast

In Class 5, the students crown Jun-hyeong the new outcast and hand him the stick, and Gwang-su joins in. They tell him he is nothing without his father.

Elsewhere, Hwa-jin tells a weeping Gyeong-min that it was not his fault. Gyeong-min admits he felt relief when Dae-seok was picked. When Dae-seok died, he smiled, because he thought he might finally escape. Hwa-jin tells him he is nothing like the bullies: he is a victim the adults around him abandoned.

Jun-hyeong storms the classroom and turns on the classmates who mocked him, screaming that he will kill them all. Hwa-jin arrives and reminds him that real guilt is felt in the body. Jun-hyeong recognizes gasoline. Hwa-jin asks whether he is scared, and whether this is not what he planned. Jun-hyeong screams, begs to be saved and swears he has learned his lesson. Hwa-jin asks whether Dae-seok deserved what was done to him. Dae-seok was afraid to die too, he says, but went through with it because of Jun-hyeong.

Flashbacks fill in the rest. A principal suggests that a bullied boy transfer, and a father asks why the victim should be the one to leave. A family's suppliers cancel their orders, and Dae-seok begs Jun-hyeong to stop his father. Jun-hyeong throws Dae-seok's own insult back at him and tells him to die.

In voice-over, Hwa-jin says the bureau makes students live through what they did to others. Dae-seok will not come back, he tells Jun-hyeong, and the guilt will follow him for life. "This is the hell you created," Hwa-jin says.

Gyeong-min narrates the aftermath in voice-over. The police reopen Dae-seok's case and arrest Jun-hyeong and his friends. Principal Kim stops hiding and takes responsibility. The ERPB website posts the bullying for everyone to see, and the record can be removed only if the victims forgive. Gyeong-min says that was the last time they saw the inspector. A closing card honors the late Choi Ga-yun, July 25, 1995, to November 27, 2024.

Up next: Teach You a Lesson Episode 2 Recap. See every episode in the Teach You a Lesson episode guide.