It is revealed that Baek San and the military leader of North Korea are both part of the Iris organization. Hyun Jun learns more about the man who saved him from his accident. More people in the NSS become suspicious of Sa Woo's actions. After getting caught spying on the North Korean security team's warehouse, Seung Hee meets Hyun Jun face-to-face.
In this episode, everyone’s true colours seem to come out and viewers are pretty much able to identify who’s on which team. I also noticed a bit of gender alliance in this episode. Seung Hee’s coworkers Mi Jeong and Jung In are willing to defy company rules for her but Tae Sung sides with Sa Woo as he confides in him about Seung Hee’s request and chooses to send the list of warehouses to him first instead. Through this, we can see how Mi Jeong values relationships over work while Tae Sung believes in following company orders and whoever’s in charge, which as this drama shows are only men, thus enforcing the gender stereotype of men having the power. Because of this imbalance, the NSS women probably feel more comfortable with each other and are more likely to trust one another as they stand up for any injustices they see in the corrupt organization.
ReplyDeleteCorruption is when people of power abuse their authority for their personal gain and we see this in the NSS. Director Baek and Sa-woo are two individuals of the NSS who are corrupt. Director Baek uses his power as the head of the NSS to manipulate the government for the secretive group, Iris. One of this group’s objectives is to stop the possibility of reunifying Korea. Director Baek collaborates with the Iris member from the DPRK to orchestrate a terrorist attack on Seoul. As the head of the NSS, he can cover up this scheme by abusing his powers. He can mislead his agents to conceal his plan or attempt to manipulate the government with his position. On the other hand, Sa-woo has a different reason for his corruption. Knowing that Hyun-jun may still be alive and his love interest, Seung-hee, wants to find him, Sa-woo fabricates some files to show that Hyun-jun is dead. He uses his agent capability to change the files and create a story that was supposedly from the Hungarian Secret Services. In this episode, he is caught deleting some files to hide the fact that Hyun-jun is still alive. His motive for these actions is to get the attention of Seung-hee. He is trying to help her forget about Hyun-jun so he may have a chance with her in the future. Despite having different motives, both Director Baek and Sa-woo have shown glimpses of corruption during this episode and throughout the drama for their personal gain.
ReplyDeleteAfter some research online, I found that N. Korea has very strict rules in terms of outfits and having piercings. Especially at the border areas with china such as North Hamgyoung and Yanggang Provinces. Citizens there have easier access to information and trends from the outside, therefore the rules are much stricter. Any jeans or western style clothing are absolutely forbidden. The government in N. Korea forced their citizens to only wear “regime-approved hairstyles” which chose from a state-sanctioned list of drab cuts. The rules for dress code is for eliminating “capitalism” from society, anyone tend to dress otherwise would be sent to its notorious labor camps, and considered as guilty of “anti-socialist”. They target capitalist tendencies such as length of skirts, the shape of shoes, T-shirts, hairstyles and clothes, especially piercings are extremely forbidden. Rules include that unmarried women are not allowed to do business in marketplaces, and male’s hairstyles can not be longer than three of four inches. the party of North Korean Youth Union is told to hunt these people. Once teenagers reached the age of 15 and are sworn to prevent “the corruption of public morals” , they are able to join NKYU.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why no one ever doubted Sa Woo throughout the drama, but he is hated by the audience. In this episode, someone finally realizes that there might be something wrong with Sa Woo. I think that because of his seniority in NSS, nobody dares to question him, even if some of his actions do not make sense. Adding onto Melissa's point about gender stereotype, Sa Woo and Seung Hee are in the same rank as team leaders, but people tend to believe Sa Woo more. I mean Seung Hee does seem like she has post traumatic stress disorder, but she's the only one that is actually making sense. Except she is so into finding out about whether Hyun Joon is alive, she doesn't even realize that the person who is always by her side is the person who killed Hyun Joon. Tae Sung also trusts Sa Woo more by telling him about Seung Hee's plans, but eventually realized that Sa Woo is suspicious. It shows that people tend to believe people of their own gender, and that if anyone does something out of the blue, they would just be given a disorder to be disregarded.
ReplyDeleteAdding to Rachel’s comment, I think that Sa Woo’s intentions are suspicious. In the past few episodes, his reinforces the idea that he tried to kill Hyun Joon because he didn’t want Seung Hee to have to do it, yet contrary to Donny’s comment, at this point it seems the intentions behind Sa Woo’s desire for Hyun Joon to be dead has surpassed his love for Seung Hee. This is evident in the fact that Sa Woo is willing to get Seung Hee in trouble (by catching her looking at information above her clearance level and bringing her to Baek San) just so she won’t find more information about Hyun Joon. It seems that Sa Woo’s “corruption” to the current extent is due to his fear of being found suspicious, and his desire to gain more power. Seung Hee’s position as “team leader” is supposed to give her more authority than Sa Woo, but because Sa Woo is working with the corrupted Baek San, he manages to curve the rules and even make Tae Sung confide in him instead of Seung Hee.
ReplyDeleteProfessionalism and Gender
ReplyDeleteFinally. Seung Hee’s unauthorized snooping through the NSS system gets her and her reluctant colleagues in trouble. Unfortunately, she and her colleagues do not get the punishment they deserve… Especially the female colleagues. What does this have to say about professionality and gender? IRIS exhibits stereotypical gender roles in how Seung Hee’s female coworkers and close friends in the company (Mi Jeong and Jung In) behave towards each other. After Seung Hee asks to her friends for help, they are at first reluctant and remind her their lack of authorization for the things she wants them to do. However, they budge to Seung Hee’s pleas and do the bad deeds for her. On the other hand, the male colleagues that Seung Hee turns to (Tae Sung and Sa Woo) are strict to their roles and do not help her. After Seung Hee and colleagues are caught, she apologizes for bringing them into this mess, her colleagues relay that it wasn’t a problem and Mi Jeong wishes to help her again, whilst Tae Sun (for example) became even more adamant to not helping Seung Hee. The discrepancies in professionalism found in their actions suggests that the females are emotional and are more lenient on their instincts to help other women in need rather than their logic. The males are portrayed with the professionalism that makes them put their career before others, something that IRIS is not portraying equally for the women.
As Donny mentioned, we start to see the true identity of Baek San and his place in the organization called IRIS. With Hyun Joon Kim having access to Baek's storage files, the numerous jobs Baek did it in the past is uncovered including the truth behind the death of Kim's parents along with how he came to be following the incident. We then realize that Baek has been doing all sorts of other things for IRIS while protecting his identity by being in NSS as the director having full immunity and limitless access to government affairs and information. Corruption in Korea comes in many forms and here we can see a leader of one organization (IRIS) benefitting from another (NSS). We can see multiple attempts of Baek in eliminating people that jeopardize his personal interest, and using any means neeccessary to protect his identity and his history of corruption. This is similar to many examples in korean history where multiple assasinations and inside jobs had been done either to overthrow governments/presidents. Sa Woo is a good example of someone who feel in the hands of corruption rather than standing against it. His reasons may be rooted from jealousy towards Kim for snatching his dream girl, but once he was committed to working with Baek San in the IRIS side of things, everything else had a snowballing effect, and he got himself in a situation where he could not stop being corrupt. Which brings me to think that once youve been corrupt once, it is so easy to continue being corrupt, so just dont be corrupt in the first place.
ReplyDeleteLike Jeff has mentioned, we come to understand who and what Baek San is in this show. He is basically associated with all the terrible incidents that has happened to Hyun Jun. However, with every bad thing he does, we can see that it is through his high position in the NSS that he can get away with all of it. I find that very likely with South Korean culture because in many instances, there are people who lose jobs in lower positions when it is not their fault but since they are the scapegoat. Which is a more of a realistic event that happens now in South Korea. Also, I agree with a lot of what my group members are saying above about how the women are not treated as equals which we have seen in past episodes but I found that the women in the shows have gotten off the hook multiple times. Seung Hee has been doing something against her orders multiple times so far and all she has gotten is suspension but even this time, she ends up getting her co-worker suspended as well. I'm just finding this all so unrealistic as everyone has been pardoned for something that seems so serious.
ReplyDeleteDonny, nice job analyzing the difference in the corruption of the two main NSS IRIS agents.
ReplyDeleteShengjie, the rumor about the approved haircuts has been proven false. However, short and neat is def. required for men. Going to find out more about how the DPRK agents should dress (and how they can't dress or groom) was a good idea.
Karen, nice job pointing out the ridiculous women = emotional / men = professional stereotype this drama is perpetuating. Melissa also touched on this, but didn't go as far.
Jiyong, to upgrade this comment you could have mentioned at least once historical case of an assassination, which I'm sure you could have done without even looking anything up-- remember, not everyone knows what you do (or even what I hope most members of the class have learned).