Teach You a Lesson Episode 2 Recap

Gang-seok answers the protests

The video of the Daehan High bullies being disciplined is everywhere online, and commenters can't agree whether the Educational Rights Protection Bureau (ERPB) went too far. Outside, protesters chant for the bureau to be disbanded. Minister of Education Choi Gang-seok tells Inspector Na Hwa-jin they saw this coming and that it is better to take the beating early. He asks Hwa-jin to stay off camera next time, since video is the one thing he cannot shield him from. When Hwa-jin answers that he will simply do nothing, Gang-seok calls him worse than a teenager and leaves to face reporters.

At the press scrum, reporters ask what the bureau is for and whether he proposed it two years ago because of an incident at Jinwon High. They also ask how beatings square with students' rights. Gang-seok says the education system has failed its students. Children lean on private academies, and gambling, drugs and organized crime have reached the classroom while teachers fear their students. So that children without private tutors can learn in peace, he says, corporal punishment, even in its harshest forms, will be enforced from now on, and troublemakers have been warned.

Elsewhere, politician Hwang Gi-tae hears from an aide that Gang-seok did them a favor by bringing down Ryu Gwang-pil, Gi-tae's archrival. The bureau bill, the aide explains, passed two years ago as the other side's price for accepting their party's budget increase for prosecutors. One of them expects the bureau to vanish quickly. The talk turns instead to dealing with it early, since education cuts across party lines.

Geun-dae goes undercover at Guun High

On-screen cards introduce Guun High-Tech High School, a vocational school ranked among the top three thug schools and the one teachers most avoid. In the hallway chaos, a student notices that the newcomer's uniform is new and sells him protection. The transfer student pays up and asks for a receipt. In class he introduces himself as Bong Geun-dae. Nobody has a textbook, the teacher leaves to make copies, and the electrical and automobile departments start a brawl, filming it as they go. Geun-dae gets knocked around in the middle, and the boy he paid for protection only apologizes.

A classmate, Kim Hyeong-ju, explains that students fight to get scouted. The two department leaders are Park Seong-hwan of automobile, with the short hair, and Cho In-beom of electrical, with the long hair. Geun-dae asks who does the scouting.

At the school, staff show Hwa-jin a chart of the school's hierarchy. At the top is Jang Gwon-hyeok, leader of the third years, who comes to school when he likes, robs other students and fights every school nearby. Gangsters scouted him before graduation, and he already has the motorcycle, the designer clothes and the tattoos. The staff called the bureau because teachers can't cope, and they ask whether Hwa-jin really means to handle the students alone. A teacher warns him to prepare for war: the last gym teacher, a former national judo athlete, broke his collarbone breaking up a fight. Hwa-jin replies that a war gets people killed and promises the students will soon enjoy their classes. Back in the hallway, the brawl stops when a direct message from Gwon-hyeok arrives, inviting one of the leaders to an interview.

During an automobile practical test, Seong-hwan says Gwon-hyeok is a company of his own and fist fights are how they get graded. The boys order Geun-dae and Hyeong-ju to fight, and the loser becomes the punch meter, a target the others score their blows on. Hyeong-ju quietly tells Geun-dae to hit him, because otherwise both of them will be beaten. Afterwards Geun-dae carries the hurt Hyeong-ju's bag home and thanks him for helping.

Over ramyeon, Korean instant noodles, Geun-dae says he enrolled hoping to reach college through the specialized-school route. Hyeong-ju urges him to transfer while he still can. For himself it is too late, he says, and the GED, the high school equivalency exam, would mean academy fees. His mother, who works at a restaurant, comes home and offers to cook a proper meal. While she washes up, Hyeong-ju explains that stuffing newspaper into her shoes dries them, since they stay wet all day.

Hwa-jin's three options

Before class, Hwa-jin asks Hyeong-ju why he keeps coming when he is beaten every day. "'Cause it's still school," Hyeong-ju says. Hwa-jin introduces himself as an inspector who has done his research and promises Hyeong-ju he will get to study.

Inside, Geun-dae is mocked on the floor for asking a mugger for a receipt. When he meets Hwa-jin, he tries the code they agreed on, built on the title One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but Hwa-jin has forgotten it. Hwa-jin asks whether he is Deputy Director Bong Geun-dae and, looking over his résumé, says he picked the right man. He takes Geun-dae's photo and asks if he can run. Geun-dae shouts insults at the school's gangsters, a student offers 100,000 won to whoever catches him, and a crowd gives chase. The pursuers end up facing Hwa-jin instead.

Hwa-jin introduces himself, and the students recognize the bureau from Daehan High and warn him they don't hold back with adults. One student says he would happily be expelled if a fight got Gwon-hyeok's attention. Hwa-jin tells them nobody quits school today. Each of them has cost taxpayers at least 65 million won, so they have three choices. They can repay the money before leaving, knock him down and walk out, or finish their education. Both departments pick the second option and charge. Minutes later they are groaning on the floor, one asking whether he used to box, and Hwa-jin announces option three. Their new day starts at 6 a.m. and runs into the evening until they make up every class they skipped.

In a gym turned classroom, Hwa-jin presents the groaning boys to their teacher as zombies hungry for knowledge. Only Hyeong-ju seems to have a textbook, so Hwa-jin has them copy the board by hand, Joseon Dynasty style, against a timer. Those who can't keep up are called to the front for punishment. Seong-hwan explodes that the class is useless to their lives. Hwa-jin agrees to stick to useful classes and, after a lesson on diagnosing brakes, calls Seong-hwan and In-beom up to fix a car's. They say they can't. Soon the two are screaming in a moving car with Hwa-jin as the brakes fail, and he reminds them he told them to fix them. Back on the ground, he tells them they don't get to decide which classes matter.

Gwon-hyeok answers the call

Elsewhere, a man reports that the inspector's career record reads only classified and asks a former National Intelligence Service director to dig further. A Special Warfare Command military record follows. In the workshop, Hyeong-ju walks the class through changing brake fluid until a classmate mocks him. When Hwa-jin moves in, Hyeong-ju covers for them, then tells Geun-dae he did it because every second of lessons matters to him. He thanks Geun-dae for getting the inspector to step in, and Geun-dae calls it part of his job.

Seong-hwan and In-beom can't miss their interview with Gwon-hyeok. In the restroom they find a utility knife on Geun-dae, use it to free themselves, and drag him along so he can't snitch. At Gwon-hyeok's party they introduce themselves, and Gwon-hyeok notes he invited only one of them.

Back in the study hall, Hwa-jin calls the roll and finds the three boys there, smirking that he should start begging. Gwon-hyeok is waiting outside and makes his entrance to cheers. He tells Hwa-jin he isn't scary, and the clash that follows draws cheers for Gwon-hyeok as if he has won. He vows that no rival school and no old man like Hwa-jin will beat a Guun student, and tells them to use his name when in trouble. Hwa-jin chants the name back at him, mocks him as a child in a big body, and says he lured him there as a demonstration. He had told the principal the root has to be pulled, and that beaten boys would call their protector. When Gwon-hyeok swears at him, Hwa-jin flicks him, and Gwon-hyeok says his men are on the way.

Gi-tae announces that Hwa-jin is a former captain of the Special Forces Elite Mission Unit and compares the bureau to schools under military dictatorship. His party, he says, will put everything into disbanding the ERPB. The reply is that only a monster can take down the monsters who threaten students. As a storm breaks over Guun High, Gwon-hyeok's men arrive with chains. Hwa-jin checks that none of them is a student, so he need not go easy. A school, he tells them, is only for those who learn or teach, and one step forward means war. He beats the whole gang.

An apology and a new rulebook

Seong-hwan and In-beom beg Hwa-jin to spare them and offer to drop out. He asks who they really owe an apology, and they turn to Hyeong-ju, sobbing and pleading for forgiveness, while he tells them it is all right. Hwa-jin tells the students they can skip classes and give up studying if they want, but they must not get in anyone else's way. They should not assume, he says, that a minute of their lives weighs the same as someone else's. The students promise they understand, and sirens sound.

On TV, Gang-seok credits Hwa-jin with restoring the right to learn at Guun High. Tattoos are banned at every school, and motorcycles on school grounds. Students who start or join a gang will be tried as adults under organized-crime laws. The bureau will also work with other ministries to track gangs that recruit on social media. A tattoo-removal clinic and a no-smoking sign appear on screen, along with a note signed by "your friend, Geun-dae" that promises its reader a future as a great mechanic.

Hwa-jin teases Gang-seok about becoming a TV personality. Geun-dae interrupts to claim his expenses. He was shaken down three times, losing cash, coffee money, a new pair of Nike sneakers worth 125,000 won and a garlic sausage sandwich, about 167,000 won in all. Asked whether anything else was taken, he hides a sheet of medical bills and says no. Hwa-jin offers to buy him a sausage, and Gang-seok tells him to stop.

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