Having reached the last episode of The School Nurse Files and with the previous episode dropping a massive bombshell on us with our heroine losing her supernatural powers, the final showdown in this drama between opposing supernatural forces draws to a close with some unexpected results. Let's get to it.
RECAP (SPOILER ALERT)
The episode opens with Hye-min on the operating table, her stomach removal procedure underway. While initially having trouble due to her lack of a navel, the surgery is a success and the doctor passes Eun-young a glass jar containing a strange alien-like creature which was in place of Hye-min's stomach. The Hanja for "Gu-je" are engraved on the creature's body, meaning "saving others in trouble", much like how Hye-min consumed mites to protect those around her. Cut to Hye-min in her hospital ward and as she packs her belongings, she leaves the antacids out, no longer needing them to supplement her mite eating. In-pyo and Eun-young have come to pick her up and an emotional Hye-min enjoys her first taste of normalcy, as she asks In-pyo to drive to the edge of her 5.38km radius. Understandably scared of passing the limit, she buckles up and grips the seatbelt before In-pyo drives past the 5.38km mark, shutting her eyes tight. Of course, nothing happens and she turns around in disbelief, finally accepting that she's left her supernatural duties behind.
Cut to Eun-young back home as she stares at the glass jar with Hye-min's extracted stomach creature. Having lost her powers, all she sees is an empty jar and for the first time in her life, she wonders out loud about what it could possibly be as the camera focuses on the red spot at the back of her neck. Cut to Monglyeon High, with the exterior starting to become overgrown by Mackenzie's grass-like jellies. Wan-soo finds Min-woo acting strangely at the top of the stairs leading to the basement and he looks at her with an awkward smile plastered on his face as he draws her attention to what's below. A confused Wan-soo joins him and she stares down, she becomes enraptured and a smile creeps onto her face as well. As this happens, the jelly tether on the backs of their heads reappears, this time turning green. They walk downstairs and pick open In-pyo's lock, chuckling menacingly as they walk in. We next see the two troublemakers in a class, with sweat dripping down their heads while they stare into space, with their creepy smiles still on their faces. Something's definitely not right here and the evil energy under the school is definitely spreading.
Cut to Eun-young glaring intensely at the founder's portrait at the main stairwell and the camera zooms in on his finger, where we see HSP's golden ring. This is interspersed by a conversation between In-pyo and Hye-min in the car, where she reveals how in the past the locals were worried about the ground where Monglyeon would be built because of the "breathing hole" and the pond that people kept throwing themselves into that were there (which we now know was covered by the Apji Stone). We find out that In-pyo's grandfather wanted to channel the powerful energy (which is drawn to children's laughter) under the school and change the world with HSP, just like what was written in the texts he studied (refer to episode 4). That completely explains Monglyeon's morning routine of laughing their lungs out, it was all to harness energy. Hye-min explains that the energy under the school draws in those with weak auras (hence why we saw Min-woo and Wan-soo get drawn to the basement) and those with more powerful auras aren't affected (we'll see a lot more of this later), which is why many people kept jumping into the pond. We briefly see Eun-young at home writing out her resignation letter after many failed attempts and then cut back to her staring at the founder's portrait, absently scratching the red spot at her nape.
A crazy number of jellies are starting to leak out of the basement and a viscous water-like jelly wave flows out and up towards the school compound itself, absorbing any jelly that comes into contact with it. We next see Eun-young passing her resignation letter to In-pyo, leaving him in disbelief as he wonders who will protect the school. There's a little bit of tension here, as our heroine gets angry at how In-pyo isn't apologetic about what his grandfather did but as he apologises half-heartedly, she storms off, leaving him staring at his grandfather's portrait. As Eun-young leave, the jelly wave starts to rapidly flow towards her and presumably envelops her. The wave continues to spread throughout the school, flooding the corridors (enveloping ducks and jellies along the way, yes the ducks are still a thing) and heading towards the rooftop.
Cut to the cafeteria, where we see the return of Hoop Squid and the bullies, with a mark on Hoop Squid's forehead from where the jelly in his headband attacked him and with one of the bullies using crutches. As Ji-hyung walks past them, Hoop Squid tries to intimidate him but he pays him little heed, quickly heading to his seat with his squad, leaving the bullies behind. Something's clearly not right, as we see Seung-kwon, Gyeong-hwa and A-ra looking as drenched as Min-woo and Wan-soo were earlier. Ji-hyung, Radi and Hye-min are seemingly unaffected by the jellies. As a group of students (Min-woo and Wan-soo included) are shown laughing at the squad of six (much to the ire of A-ra), Radi theorises that they're laughing at her and Hye-min, since the two of them have started dating. This sparks strong negative reactions from Seung-kwon, A-ra and Gyeong-hwa, with a fight eventually breaking out between Radi and A-ra after the latter makes an insensitive comment. This proves what Hye-min said earlier about how those with stronger auras aren't "drawn in" by the jellies, since Hye-min is of supernatural background while Radi is probably unaffected because of her connection to her now girlfriend. Ji-hyung on the other hand, is wearing a HSP ring and presumably comes under their protection now, becoming immune to the jellies' pull (we'll see more of this later). Interestingly enough, Hoop Squid's gang also seem unaffected, probably because they were attacked by Mackenzie's jellies in the past.
Cut to a late-for-work A-reum running up the school ramp and as she enters the teachers' office, we see that even the adults weren't spared by the jelly wave, with only A-reum, Mackenzie and In-pyo unaffected (the first two being under HSP's protection while In-pyo's forcefield aura protects him). As the rest of the teachers laugh maniacally about Radi and Hye-min's lesbian relationship, as well as about a new 11th-grade student with an injured leg, In-pyo's gaze darts around the office as he picks up that something is really really wrong with the school now. In-pyo goes to check out the basement and as he suspected, the door is wide open. He quickly locks up and goes off in search of Eun-young but her office is locked and his calls to her unable to go through. In-pyo ends up driving to the fishing site in Busan where he caught his first fish, leaving a voicemail for Eun-young dictating the school's dire circumstances and stressing the increasing need to get in touch with Ilgwang Sterilisation. Unfortunately, that voicemail gets deleted before he sends it. As he walks past the entrance to the site, he passes a strange rock formation wrapped with taboo ropes.
Cut to Eun-young soaking in her bathtub, completely unaware of everything going on. As she picks up her phone, we see that In-pyo had read her text message regarding the loss of her powers, without a reply. We next see her emptying out her bathtub and sitting on the floor, trying not to fall asleep. She's clearly bored out of her mind from not being privy to the jelly shenanigans in the school. The next day, she sees a news report on Monglyeon High students and teachers falling into comas and having seizures, becoming even more adversely affected by the jelly wave. Eun-young attempts to make a call to In-pyo and is directed to voicemail but she stays silent, with the message being deleted. She's then shown lying on her floor staring up at the ceiling aimlessly when she finally gets a message from In-pyo, with a photo of the completely abandoned and lifeless fishing site. Cut to a distraught In-pyo staring at the remnants of the fishing site, with rotting fish lying all around. We find out through a phone conversation between Eun-young and her healer friend that the fishing site's aura has been completely drained, with her friend stating that HSP is attempting to buy Monglyeon High to harness the energy there. Eun-young checks the maps she stole from Mackenzie's house and confirms that HSP were indeed the ones who drained the fishing site's aura. What confuses her though, is how the supernaturally-powered Mackenzie was unable to enter the basement and she heads to Ilgwang Sterilisation's office to investigate.
As Eun-young checks the stack of letters sent to Ilgwang's abandoned office, she finds out that their president is Hwa-soo, her healer friend. She realises that Hwa-soo recommended her to the school and used her as an unknowing pawn in Ilgwang's war with HSP to take control of the basement and use the jellies inside for their best interests, while she maintained it for them. Someone suddenly calls her name, and she turns around to find Ga-young and A-reum, who are in the building as HSP members. Ga-young tries to psycho Eun-young into returning to HSP, where they can restore her powers but our heroine leaves, warning her to stay away from In-pyo. It seems that In-pyo's grandfather had united Ilgwang and HSP to channel the school's energy but was eliminated by HSP, resulting in Ilgwang being removed from the school and HSP taking full control. Eun-young figures out that both organisations want to harness In-pyo's mystical aura and the fight will only end when either organisation gets destroyed. As she stands outside Ilgwang's office, she calls Hwa-soo, betrayed that the person who she thought was her closest friend would use her for her own gain. Back at her clinic, Hwa-soo realises the game is up and hangs up, and we see a photo of the Busan fishing site rock formation in the clinic. We also see another photo of Hwa-soo and some of her TCM patients in front of Monglyeon High, revealing that they're all part of Ilgwang Sterilisation and the taboo ropes in the basement were their doing.
A furious Eun-young storms into the TCM clinic and we see taboo ropes also hanging above the door, where she confronts a smug Hwa-soo, her sisterly demeanour completely gone. Hwa-soo attempts to manipulate her to stay at Monglyeon longer to combat HSP, using Eun-young's need for a real family and her insecurity since young about seeing jellies against her. Thankfully, our heroine doesn't fall prey to this tactic, leaving the clinic after this massive betrayal. Cut to In-pyo driving into the school that night and we see the eyes of his grandfather's creepy statue following the car as well as hear his voice. In-pyo takes a torchlight and heads towards the nurse's office, where he meets up with Eun-young. Our powerless heroine tells him that since she can't protect the students anymore from the dark forces, they should just destroy the whole school while the students are absent by disturbing the Apji Stone again, this time leaving the breathing hole open. In-pyo grasps her hand and seeing that her cheeks aren't turning their usual rosy shade, he realises that she's truly lost her powers, with him being unable to recharge her. They eventually decide to head down to the basement and leave the breathing hole open, revealing to everyone how unsuitable the ground is to build a school and releasing all the evil energy. Eun-young leads the way into the basement, wielding only a torchlight while leaving her now useless sword behind.
As they head further in, Eun-young laments to In-pyo about the loss of her good friend and shares with him how much she loves being normal, whereas he prefers being weird, which is why he liked being with his grandfather so much. Seeing how disappointed In-pyo is at his grandfather's bad deeds, Eun-young holds his hand, "recharging" him in spirit and offering her support, and upon reaching the Apji Stone, she promises a worried In-pyo that she won't run off and leave him in the basement all alone like the first time. As she swiftly removes the Apji Stone from the breathing hole, a clearly unprepared In-pyo frantically stops her but not before some energy leaks out, with the red spot on Eun-young's neck vanishing. He lifts the Stone again after some preparation and this time she desperately tries to stop him but it's too late, with all the energy being released. As she laments about their doom, she looks up to see jellies floating around, her powers having returned to her and rumbling starts throughout the school. A distressed Eun-young dashes out of the basement, completely breaking her promise and leaving a frustrated In-pyo to limp out himself. Our heroine runs to her office and grabs her sword, breaking down into tears upon seeing it light up again, absolutely broken by her brief shot at normalcy being robbed from her while In-pyo stumbles out of the basement, the tremors getting stronger the whole time. When he finally makes it to the main stairwell, he meets Eun-young again, who runs towards him and he grabs her hand, with his energy flowing to her once more.
Amidst all the chaos, with the soccer field crumbling away in front of the school, we hear Eun-young describing her short time as a "normal" person as "peaceful and relaxing", with everything just working out for her and she in a twist of irony, laments about why such a beautiful world was hidden from her. As this happens, a giant red heart-shaped jelly compounding all the evil energy under the school bursts out from underground and into the sky, eventually crashing back down and completely dissipating. The next morning, the pair are standing in front of the destroyed school compound holding hands, with In-pyo's aura visible around him and Eun-young once again accepting that she has no choice but to live the supernatural life she's always had, just like what Kang-sun told her. As they walk away into a new dawn, they discuss the future of the school and HSP, with In-pyo stating that they'll ban the laughing exercises first. We see his grandfather's statue lying on the ground and we hear his voice calling for In-pyo. Eventually, the school gets restored and all the teachers are replaced, with the students returning as healthy as before. Eun-young has kept her job as the school nurse, this time taking care of students the normal way. She gets visited by Radi, who requests for a house visit from Eun-young to take a look at her mother, who can apparently see ghosts. The episode ends with a close up on Eun-young's face, as she plasters an exasperated and fake smile on her face, as she prepares herself to deal with the supernatural again. Cut to black.
REVIEW AND COMMENTS
The heck kind of ending was this? Out of all the open endings from a Netflix drama, this might be the most frustrating one and that's saying something too (especially when we have Vagabond, Hospital Playlist and others). Did I expect a rushed ending? Yes because like I've mentioned many times before, this is only 6 episodes so I was expecting it to get wrapped up way too quickly. The problem is that we're left with way too many unanswered questions and dangling plot points. With the presumed destruction of the energy under the school as well as with how the replacement of the teachers (including moles like Mackenzie and A-reum), it's safe to assume that HSP and Ilgwang Sterilisation have lost interest in the area since their main target is gone but that doesn't give us a conclusive answer to what's going to happen to those two organisations. I also assume that In-pyo has left the school but he still possesses his aura and since the two groups wanted him so bad, will they still go after him? In fact, we don't even know what happened to In-pyo in the end. For all we know, these two groups are going to continue their war in other locations with strong energy. Ji-hyung's also shown to be part of HSP now but nothing comes out of that, we don't even know what's going to happen with him.
Not only that, they didn't even explain what's up with In-pyo's grandfather. Is his statue in the school actually the founder himself and he's been spying on them, what with the moving eyes and voice and everything? I don't even understand the fight between Ilgwang and HSP, everything I wrote on top about his grandfather's motives are my speculations. Also, at what point was there anything more than friendship between Hye-min and Radi? All of a sudden they just ended up in a relationship and I'm like huh? That's so confusing to me. When we ended with Eun-young potentially going back to her supernatural ways by going to see Radi's mother, I personally feel that they really dropped the ball with this ending. Granted, there could totally be a season 2 in the works so this cliffhanger might be a straight segue into that but as of this review, there's no plans for a series renewal.
Character-wise, our heroine Eun-young of course stole the show, she was undoubtedly the star and really pulled her weight. She was interesting, fun, quirky and like I said, I was invested in her journey. I've mentioned this before as well but Mackenzie was a really great villain and I wish we got more of him. In the end, I guess he was just a pawn in the grand scheme of things so the drama had to move on to touch on other points. Although brief, Kang-sun's character was also really intriguing and he really played his symbolic role well in Eun-young's character development. The last one I will say I was pleasantly surprised by was Hwa-soo, whose name I finally can write rather than "healer friend". Her total character change from sisterly and understanding to a manipulative and menacing antagonist totally pulled the rug out from under me but I felt it was one of the best performances in this series. I think y'all can tell that who's missing from this "good characters" list is In-pyo. Regrettably, he's not that interesting of a lead and even though they had some cute moments, his chemistry with Eun-young just wasn't cutting it.
I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty disappointed with how this drama ended. The sad thing is, there were really engaging and thought-provoking moments, especially episodes 3 and 5, the former being Mackenzie's introduction, and the latter focusing on Eun-young's emotional journey and character development. Unfortunately, that's just not enough to redeem this drama, where I felt the cons just outweighed the pros. Overall, I really think The School Nurse Files would've benefitted from having a longer season, even if there's no second season, 8 to 12 episodes could've been way better for them to spin their story, instead of cramming and rushing it into 6 episodes. If you're looking for a drama that'll give you some good laughs for its raunchiness and some other aspects, you can check this out but personally, I feel that the rushed nature of this drama plus all the dangling plot elements and the frustrating open ending are really off-putting, which is a shame because there're some good performances here. The School Nurse Files is definitely not one of the higher ranking ones on my drama list and I hope a season 2 comes, if only so we get a proper wrap-up for this series.
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