The School Nurse Files (Ep 1)

What better to start the detailed recap and review train than The School Nurse Files (or directly translated to School Nurse Ahn Eun-young), a 6-episode Netflix Original K-drama based on the novel of the same name by Chung Serang, which brings to life our eccentric heroine, a school nurse with the ability to see supernatural energies in the form of slime-like beings referred to as "jellies", and our mysterious hero, a Chinese characters aka Hanja teacher with an unexplained mystical aura around him. I expected this drama to be a supernatural comedy and this first 50 minutes has delivered in those aspects but there's definitely a lot more to talk about here. 

RECAP (SPOILER ALERT: PLEASE STOP READING IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON WATCHING THIS DRAMA)

Flashback: A young girl who we'll come to know as as our female lead AHN EUN-YOUNG sits in a room while her present day-self monologues about seeing things that others can't. She stares out the room window, and sees a girl around her age wearing winter clothing and holding a bag of snacks waving at her. 

A female psychologist calls to Eun-young to attract her attention, asking her what she sees in a Rorschach painting (Rorschach paintings are used during psychological tests to assess a person's personality characteristics and emotional functioning). Eun-young remains silent as we see her Mother grasp her hand, concerned about her daughter's comfort level with the psychological assessment (take note of Mother's physical appearance because it becomes more relevant later on).

 

Despite Mother's pressing, Eun-young only responds with minimal physical reaction to some questions. Seemingly perturbed by this, the psychologist gazes outside the window where we see Eun-young's Father pacing about restlessly as well as the young girl from earlier. Mother asks if Eun-young is seeing her "jelly" again and this sparks a far stronger reaction from her. Present day Eun-young explains how Mother wanted her to never find out that all living beings create jelly. As Mother pulls her hand away, we get our first look at a jelly, albeit a very small one, between their palms. We find out that even after someone dies, their jelly is left behind but are usually destroyed before they can harm anyone, and that jellies are formed from one's desires (a plot point that becomes very relevant very quickly). By now, it's made quite clear to the audience that both Mother and the young girl outside the office are both dead and their jellies are still present.

 

Cut to Father hugging Eun-young while sobbing outside the office, with the psychologist comforting him and Mother looking on. It's made apparent that he plans on remarrying with the psychologist and Eun-young isn't too happy about that. She tries to separate them and we see thick jelly having formed between their hands, showing their desires to get married. Upon seeing this, Eun-young starts to cry and Mother tries to comfort her to no avail. What happens next in my opinion is potentially one of the worst "body horror" K-drama scenes and that's Mother melting into nothing. She was after all, just a jelly either formed by Eun-young's desire to see her again or vice versa. Traumatised, Eun-young runs away from the scene while we hear her present-self explaining that she was born with a destiny that is kept secret from everyone else (but of course the audience is privy to it).

       

Present day: A now adult Eun-young [Jung Yu-mi (Train to Busan, Live)], looking very similar to her late mother (decked out in black clothing and with a bobbed haircut), is shown running alongside students up the Monglyeon High School ramp in a desperate attempt to avoid being late. Upon reaching her office, she dons her school nurse lab-coat and unlocks a cupboard filled with all manner of talismans. Cut to a classroom, where we get our first look at HONG IN-PYO [Nam Joo-hyuk (The Bride of Habaek, The Light in Your Eyes)], an 11th-grade homeroom teacher. Together with students, he goes through a mantra-like morning routine led by the principal, which culminates in "forced" laughter. The school's morals are shown to us, "laughing will bring good fortune" while the laughter continues. From the start, we can tell something's very wrong with the school's atmosphere, and despite its happy and healthy students with good grades, there's no doubt something weird is going on here and it doesn't get better when a statue of the school's founder is shown pointing into the distance with a big creepy smile on his face (don't forget any of this because it gets important later). 

Cut to the school cafeteria, where we see Oh Seung-kwon, one of In-pyo's 11th-grade students, sit down with his lunch. He looks over at the school's basketball team, who are handling all manner of props, a bear costume, a guitar, some flowers, etc., as they leave the canteen in a ruckus. Fellow students Kang Min-woo, Heo Wan-soo and Lee Ji-hyung share with Seung-kwon that "Jellyfish" (a female student) is about to be asked out by "Hoop Squid" (the basketball team captain). Their attention is grabbed by Oh Gyeong-hwa, a female student who's heartbroken that her love Hoop Squid wants to ask out another girl. Seung-kwon is strangely agitated by this situation and angrily runs out of the cafeteria to look for Jellyfish (don't forget any of this, there's relevance here). While frantically searching for her, a blowdart-like sound is heard and Seung-kwon's neck is stung by something. 

 

Cut to the basketball team busy prepping for Hoop Squid's confession and making a heart out of candles, before ultimately being told to disperse by the principal. From the rooftop, we see a (irrelevant) male and female student staring at the proceedings. The female student's nametag is shown to us, "Sung A-ra" and as she climbs up the metal fence surrounding the rooftop to look at the basketball team's antics, seeming somewhat smitten by Hoop Squid's actions. After this, we finally see Eun-young again, as she extracts a heart-shaped jelly from Seung-kwon's wound. Obviously worried about the side effects of the jelly attack, Eun-young tries to send Seung-kwon home but he dashes out of her office to find Jellyfish. As he leaves, she sees another Seung-kwon standing silently outside the door. Upon investigation, she finds many more Seung-Kwons along the corridor. A voice-over from Eun-young reveals that jellies can be created by those bogged down by worries and multiple jelly Seung-kwons have spawned due to his desperate attempts to find Jellyfish. 

To get to the bottom of this jelly infestation, Eun-young takes out her jelly-killing arsenal from the talisman cupboard, namely a plastic gun with 22 BBs and a plastic sword that lights up for 15 minutes. We also see that her fingernails are dyed orange with balsam, exactly like her mother's (told you Mother's physical appearance would be important). Cut to a seemingly fatigued Seung-kwon climbing the stairs to reach Jellyfish on the school roof. Something's clearly not right with him, as he stumbles and uses the banister as support on his way up (the side effects that Eun-young spoke about are surfacing). 

Cut to the teachers' office, where we see In-pyo calling someone at his table. The camera pans down to his table, where an old logbook is open with the words "the basement must be disinfected every 6 months" written on it, along with a company name (Ilgwang Sterilisation) and number. We then see Eun-young walking up the stairs in pursuit of Seung-kwon and she chances upon a student couple flirting. They pull away from each other as she walks past and thick jelly has materialised between them. As Eun-young walks away and the couple resume flirting, the camera follows a trail of red jelly down the stairs and along a corridor until it leads to a dark and dank basement, with child-like laughter floating up from below. In-pyo fails to get through to Ilgwang after multiple attempts and closes the logbook, revealing it to be about "basement maintenance", with a warning on the cover that the disinfection company shouldn't be changed and only Ilgwang are allowed into the basement.

Eun-young enters the office and walks up to In-pyo. Through her eyes, we see that In-pyo is surrounded by a strange bubble-like aura and she stares in wonder at it. In the process of enlisting his help to find Seung-kwon, In-pyo's attention is directed to the plastic sword in Eun-young's pocket and her balsam-stained fingernails, while she points out that his left leg is injured (all that's shown is a metal band around his shoe heel but it's implied he's disabled). In-pyo self-consciously pulls down his pant cuff to hide the band as Eun-young remarks that it's odd seeing someone like him with an injury like that. While this happened, we saw a lady clad in a red-and-blue dress entering the office, she's probably a teacher (this might seem irrelevant now but trust me, there's a point to this). We later get a closer look at In-pyo's injury, as he's shown limping with his left foot angled weirdly.

Eun-young is shown walking towards a jelly Seung-kwon along a corridor and gazes out a window to see another jelly Seung-kwon at a grass patch on the round floor. As she asks the jelly if he's waiting for someone, the lights start flickering in the corridor. Eun-young finds the culprit and it's the lady in red-and-blue from earlier playing with the switch, who smiles at Eun-young. Despite the fact that she's probably a normal human, the students seem to not notice her flicking the switch, only seeing the flickering lights. Cut to Eun-young walking down the stairs where she came from and in place of the flirting couple from earlier, she reacts in disgust to two jellies engaging in seemingly sexual activity. Her attention is however drawn to the floor's red jelly trail and she follows it down to the basement. While this happens, the camera cuts to a portrait of the school's founder, who again bears the same creepy smile as his statue. 

Eun-young reaches the basement door only to find access is restricted with a lock and chain. Seeing jelly leaking from under the door, she seems uncertain about whether to enter but ultimately decides to leave, casting one last gaze at the basement before remarking that she doesn't have time for this, presumably leaving to find Seung-kwon. Cut to a another stairway infested with jelly Seung-kwons, while the real and increasingly fatigued Seung-kwon continues making his way to the roof, bumping into one of his jellies along the way. He and In-pyo just miss each other as Seung-kwon turns a corner while In-pyo walks past in another direction.

Cut to Eun-young asking the school's security guard for the basement key and he reveals that it's held by In-pyo, who is the grandson of the school's founder. She also finds out that after the founder's passing the previous year, Ilgwang Sterilisation never showed up to continue basement maintenance and thus, the basement has been off-limits. After hearing this, Eun-young smashes off the chain on the basement door with her plastic sword (that's either a very weak chain or a very strong sword) and she enters, seeing an Ilgwang advert stuck on the basement wall. She shines a torchlight into the darkness and is greeted by jellies plastered on the walls and floor. As she makes her way further in, a small blue leech-like jelly latches onto her shin and she flicks it off with her sword, leaving behind bleeding bite marks. The jelly dissolves into nothing much like her mother's jelly in the past and other jellies of the same species crowd around their fallen comrade. Going deeper into the basement, she discovers the extent of the school's disastrous jelly infestation, as the walls and floor are almost completely covered by jellies of various shapes and sizes.

Cut to Seung-kwon continuing to make his way to the roof and we see his forehead covered in sweat. Man's condition is clearly deteriorating and the jelly infestation is getting worse as he bumps into yet another jelly Seung-kwon. In-pyo is still on the hunt for his student and as he limps down a corridor, the camera pans and focuses on an old picture of female students doing the school's morning routine (no explanation for this yet but it'll probably be relevant in future). We again see the chairman's creepy portrait which In-pyo passes by after getting a lead on Seung-kwon's whereabouts and he hears yelling coming from the basement. Apprehensively making his way downstairs, he sees the broken chain on the door and heads down to investigate.

The yelling was indeed coming from Eun-young, who's been killing jellies using her sword. Every time she slices through them, they disintegrate into actual candy-like jelly, complete with a gross squelching sound. In-pyo navigates his way through the darkness and finds Eun-young aggressively waving her sword at nothing, all while screaming her head off. He can't see the wondrous world that she can and as such, the jellies she's slaying are invisible to him. Her strange antics being questioned, Eun-young sheepishly tries to pass it off as Zumba (nose exhale-inducing humour that we've seen in the trailers), and the ensuing awkwardness between In-pyo and Eun-young as she tries to deflect his queries is hilarious.

Cut to Seung-kwon finally reaching the rooftop, drenched in sweat and visibly far weaker than before. We see that Jellyfish was Sung A-ra (the female student on the rooftop, will be referred to as A-ra from now on), and Seung-kwon has come to get his earphones back from her (of course, we all know that that's not the primary reason for his hunt but more on that later). She questions his sickened appearance and he waves it off as physical exertion. At the same time, Eun-young explains that whatever's in the basement is causing Seung-kwon's sickness and In-pyo leads the way deeper into the basement, with Eun-young tagging along. Seung-kwon tries to tell A-ra that he likes her in a bid to prevent losing his love to Hoop Squid but before he can, he collapses to the floor in a daze. He's again interrupted by Ji-hyung, who has come to bring A-ra to Hoop Squid. Seung-kwon implores A-ra not to go and she seems undecided but ultimately leaves, placing the earphones into his outstretched hand and runs off with a smile on her face, leaving him alone and distraught on the rooftop. 

 

Cut back to the basement, where In-pyo reaches a locked door leading to another part of the basement. In front, he sees talisman strips, red beans and other charms used to ward off evil spirits, as well as another Ilgwang advert stuck on the door. He unlocks the door and shines his torchlight down some steps leading to an empty hallway. Eun-young redirects the light and we see a pink slug-like jelly crawling down. She brandishes her lit-up sword and we see the air teeming with jellyfish-like jellies, and Eun-young rushes in hacking and slashing at them. To In-pyo however, she's just waving her sword at nothing. As they venture further in, Eun-young realises that as a jelly floats directly into In-pyo's aura, it gets destroyed and she becomes increasingly fascinated with him, questioning him about his reasons to become a teacher. He reveals that it was his grandfather's wish for him to become a Monglyeon High teacher and Eun-young remarks that he (quite literally, although he doesn't know it yet) has a special aura. The mood changes very quickly when she stops in her tracks, starts laughing maniacally and turns around with her lit-up sword under her chin a la ghost story-telling, asking In-pyo if he's interested in the mystic arts. This is of course, a joke on her part and she continues down the hallway killing jellies. Looking around worriedly, In-pyo remarks that she's crazy but yet still follows her further in. 

They eventually reach their final locked door, this time with taboo ropes (to ward off malignant influences) hung on top and we get some exposition about the school's history (founded in 1976 and started as a girls' school before becoming co-ed when In-pyo was admitted as a student). This time they're met with resistance when they try to open the door and when it gives way, Eun-young is thrown backwards by some force while In-pyo is protected by his aura. When they shine the torchlight, all they see is an empty room with a stone in the middle and metal shutters at the far end. Cut to Seung-kwon back on the rooftop as he listens to music from his earphones in a daze as Hoop Squid confesses to A-ra on the ground floor. She casts her gaze upwards, looking for Seung-kwon as the crowd chants for the pair to go out. While all this is happening, we cut to Eun-young stepping on and spilling a bowl of red beans (again, another charm to ward off evil), while they continue to investigate. With this many talismans in the basement, something evil is definitely afoot. The camera adopts a top-down view as they move further into the room, juxtaposed with Seung-kwon moving towards the rooftop fence. He rests his head on the metal and gazes down at the confession and we see his lips moving silently, presumably telling A-ra not to accept Hoop Squid's confession. 

Cut back to the basement room, whereupon closer inspection of the stone, the Hanja for "Apji Stone" are carved into it. In-pyo realises that the Hanja for "ji" on the stone means "pond" and not "land", thinking to himself that this basement might have once been a pond and the dampness of the area might be adverse to one's health. Meanwhile, Eun-young's sword has lost its power after hitting its 15 minute lifespan, and sensing that something is seriously wrong with the final room and with minimal mystical protection, she urges In-pyo to leave the room. In-pyo instead flips over the stone, thinking that there are more carvings on the bottom and Eun-young tries to stop him. The warning comes too late as the stone is flipped over and a small hole is uncovered. We hear sinister laughter presumably emerging from the hole and even stronger force than earlier flings Eun-young out of the room, killing the torchlight and her sword. In-pyo on the other hand is unscathed, and in the darkness we see his aura glimmering and protecting him. 

A deadly insidious energy wave has just erupted from the basement and rumbles are felt throughout the school compound. Inside the building itself, the school bell suddenly sounds and students collapse without reason, while the rest stand there stunned. The security guard looks up to the sky and sees an obscene number of crows flocking overhead. Panic is rising in the school, as students run around trying to get help for the unconscious while at the same time a female student sprawled on the floor is shown with her fingers twitching slightly. While all this happens, the jelly Seung-kwons are still present in the compound. Cut back to the basement, where we see that somehow Eun-young's sword is back to full power, shining as brightly as before.

Cut to the doors to Monglyeon Gymnasium, where a pair of students stroll by leisurely. The peace is shattered when a horde of students burst out onto the road. Most are shown to be laughing maniacally and running like zombies with their hands firmly by their side (exactly like how they conducted their laughing exercise) while others in their right mind are distraught and trying their best to stop their now-insane schoolmates. They run towards where Hoop Squid was confessing and brush past a jelly Seung-kwon, who stands still facing in the opposite direction. Cut back to the basement, where Eun-young picks up her now-recharged sword and dashes out of the basement to fix the situation. As the students swarm towards Hoop Squid and A-ra, she casts her gaze up to the roof and to her horror, she sees Seung-kwon trying to climb up the fence. She runs off and joins the crowd in a bid to reach Seung-kwon, leaving Hoop Squid and his team in utter shock at the situation, before he and some others are stung in the neck by the same heart jelly that stung Seung-kwon. 

The students rush into the main building and over the intercom, the principal yells at the students to stay in their classrooms and do the laughing exercise in a bid to control the situation, to no avail. The crazed students fall over one another on the way up the stairs and the fallen just writhe there while laughing. Seung-kwon is still trying to climb the fence and we see that he is also laughing uncontrollably. Cut to In-pyo who's still in the basement room and he approaches the hole in the floor, seeing that it's a small puddle of water. As he inches closer, we hear distorted laughter in the background and the atmosphere is heavy with evil. Cut back to the crazed students, who have burst onto the rooftop and fling themselves at the fence, joining Seung-kwon in climbing the fence, while the sane students try and pull them back to safety. 

In-pyo reads the inscription on the bottom of the stone and it's revealed that the area was once a pond that young people who had lost their lovers drowned themselves in. It then goes on to state that the number of bodies found in the pond had increased over time and some of them had been thrown into the pond disguised as suicides when in actual fact, they died due to other reasons. As he's reading, the rumbling gets stronger throughout the school. This doesn't stop the insane students, who continue to climb up the fence and even grab barbed wire, not even affected by the numerous open wounds on their palms. In-pyo continues his reading, revealing that animals which ate the corpses grew bigger, resulting in the authorities ordering the pond to be filled. One of the crazed students climbing the fence is shown to be Gyeong-hwa, confirming the correlation between the stone's inscription and that those affected by the evil spirit are those who have lost their loves (for Seung-kwon it's A-ra and for Gyeong-hwa it's Hoop Squid). Interestingly enough, Hoop Squid has become one of the crazed students and as he attempts to climb right below Gyeong-hwa, she kicks him down (I guess this is her way of "rejecting" him after she lost him). 

As In-pyo limps out of the basement, the inscription reading ends by saying that those who grew fat while eating the flesh of men could be destroyed by torching their throats. Just then the rumbling reaches its peak and giant cracks form on the road directly below the rooftop, with the ground crumbling away to form a gaping hole. As the camera zooms into the hole, we hear roaring coming from inside with the crazed students (Seung-kwon in the lead) all trying to jump right in. As all hope seems lost, the episode's final shot is of Eun-young bursting onto the rooftop, lit-up sword in hand and rushing towards Seung-kwon, yelling at him to get down from the fence. Cut to black.

REVIEW AND COMMENTS

This drama had been on my watch-list for some time, partly due to Jung Yu-mi's and Nam Joo-hyuk's casting as the leads. At times funny, at times sentimental, and at times really really disconcerting and creepy, the first episode of The School Nurse Files has quite honestly gotten me thoroughly and utterly confused. However, this confusion isn't off-putting, rather I'm compelled to continue watching to delve to the bottom of this jelly mystery. 

The first episode ends with high stakes, with the reveal of the evil basement spirit (which I'm almost certain will end up being a giant monster just like the stone inscription reads), and somehow the jelly infestation and the school founder has to be involved in this. I mean, have you seen his creepy smile? Ugh. I also have so many unanswered questions. What is the aura around In-pyo? Who is the lady in red-and-blue? Why are there so many ducks? Yes, there are many scenes of ducks interspersed throughout the episode and they serve no purpose apart from what I assume is random comic relief. 

Character-wise, only two have stood out so far and of course, they're the leads. Veteran actress Jung Yu-mi is very entertaining to watch as Ahn Eun-young and her sword-waving antics are hilarious, especially when seen from an outsider's perspective. She's extremely eccentric and her humour hits the mark every time. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more of her in this drama. Nam Joo-hyuk hasn't given me a strong impression as Hong In-pyo yet due to what I find is the very disinterested and boring nature of his character. No doubt, his unexplained aura will make him much more interesting very quickly. However, In-pyo does strike me as the exasperated male lead who has to put up with the female lead's nonsense and this has been a funny drama trope a la Hotel del Luna and It's Okay to Not Be Okay, which usually adds a lot to the dynamic between the leads. The other characters, which are basically the Monglyeon High students are all fairly run-of-the-mill thus far and I haven't really connected with them yet. Maybe they'll work their way into my heart later on. 

Moving on to the meaning behind the jellies, before I started this drama, part of me thought that the jellies would end up being figments of Eun-young's imagination, created as part of her childhood trauma of seeing her mother die and her father trying to marry another woman. Of course, this notion was crushed quickly as chaos ensues in the school caused by the jellies. If the jellies are linked to tat sinister force below the school, they definitely have a far deeper origin than we think. We shall see. I will say that the jellies add to the creepiness element of the drama, something about seeing these weird slime creatures writhing around just grosses me out. Not to forget the extremely disturbing scene of Eun-young's jelly mother dissolving into nothing, that was just horrifying. I also find it interesting how jellies are formed, as we see the sexually active jellies being formed after the flirtatious couple leave and how other jellies are formed through others' desires. It's an interesting concept that I hope we get more explanation on.  

The episode also touched on a lot of little details and juxtaposed them to one another. We saw how the laughing exercise during the morning routine was compared with how the crazed students behaved, and then we saw how the ones trying to yeet themselves into the gaping hole in the ground were those who had been scorned by lovers (exactly like the Apji Stone inscription). Even small things like how Eun-young looks almost identical to her mother. These moments made me feel that the drama creators just paid a little bit more attention to detail and I appreciate that. 

Being only 6 episodes, all less than an hour on average in runtime, the drama could end up one of two ways. Being fast-paced is a given but I worry that it might end up glossing over certain events and miss out critical plot elements, leaving the drama with a lot of holes. Alternatively, the 6 episode frame could work very well in the drama's favour, where it doesn't become too draggy, a longstanding problem for many K-dramas. As of the first episode, I'm feeling positive about this drama. There might be many things I'm confused about but I'm sure in due time, they'll all be answered. I do want to also add that this drama is rated M18 on Netflix and in my personal opinion that might be because of certain strong language used so if y’all are adverse to that, yeah just keep a look out. Let's see where the rest of The School Nurse Files takes us.