Breaking the end of Netflix’s ‘hierarchy’

Warning: This post contains spoilers Hierarchy

In the opening episode of Hierarchy, Netflix’s new K-drama about students at an elite private school in Korea, a former high-society teenage couple climb into separate sports cars and take off on a track. This is what separation is like for teenagers in the world of Hierarchy; No one just sends a text, they challenge their childhood sweetheart to a high-stakes game of speeding vehicles.

Well, in theory the risks are high. In the three and a half minute running scene, it never looks like Jung Jae-i (Our dear summer(Roh Jeong-eui) and Kim Ri-an (King of Earth(Kim Jae-won) are in real danger, despite the fact that, outside of this scene, we only see them being transported in private cars by faceless drivers. On the track and elsewhere, overprivileged characters are untouchable.

Jae-i and Ri-an are the two richest students at Jooshin Academy, a fictional school that educates 1% of the Korean population – and a few scholarship students. “Inspired” by the institution’s Latin motto, Noble obligation, the school’s leadership admits a handful of promising poor students every year. Kang Ha (Romance Crash Course(Lee Chae-min) is one of those kids. When we meet him in the first episode, Kang Ha is new to the school and seemingly oblivious to the institution’s not-so-subtle hierarchy, even when other students try to inform him, with words or their fists. But as we get to know him, it quickly becomes clear that Kang Ha is not as naive as he seems.

In fact, Kang Ha is at Jooshin Academy seeking revenge and justice for his fraternal twin brother, In-han. Months before, In-han was also a scholarship holder at the school. He was killed in a hit-and-run accident after a period of brutal intimidation. As Kang Ha finally admits to Jae-i, he came to Jooshin to find out what happened the night of In-han’s death and to hold any accomplices accountable.

In-han’s suspicious death isn’t the only thing shrouded in secrecy in Jooshin. Over the course of seven episodes, Kang Ha uncovers a network of surveillance, blackmail, and institutional corruption that began long before his brother arrived at the academy. As gossip Girl It is The inheritors before that, Hierarchy takes viewers into a world where teenage relationships are treated as extensions of their parents’ business, and a high school scandal can bring down not just a school, but an entire company.

Who killed Kang Ha’s brother?

Although we know from the first moments of Hierarchy that In-han was killed after being hit by a car in a dark alley in Seoul, it was only at the end of the season that we discovered who was behind the wheel: Ji-soo (Lee Jin-hong), one of the teachers at Jooshin Academy, who is sleeping with one of his teenage students, Woo-jin (Lee Won-jung). When an injured In-han stumbles upon the two kissing in a hallway while trying to escape his bullies, Ji-soo pursues him – first on foot and then in Woo-jin’s family car.

Ji-soo is desperate to talk to In-han, but In-han just wants to get away. Since starting at Jooshin Academy, he has been physically beaten by other students, targeted for daring to be friends with Jae-i when he was “just” a scholarship student. Now, a teacher whose duty it is to protect him is chasing him. Distraught, he calls his brother. As soon as the phone is connected, In-han trips in front of Ji-soo’s speeding car and she hits him. Instead of calling an ambulance, Ji-soo takes In-han’s phone and a photo pen that he recorded all night, including evidence from Ji-soo’s case and the car accident. She lets her student die.

Later, the photo pen and phone end up with Woo-jin, who found them in his car. Inspired by Jae-i’s efforts to take responsibility for the system that led to In-han’s death, Woo-jin hands In-ha’s pen and phone to Jae-i, who hands them over to Kang Ha, who hands them over. the police.

How is it Hierarchy end?

Does Kang Ha get his revenge? This is a complicated issue. After Kang Ha turns over the incriminating video evidence to the police, Ji-soo and the students who beat In-han the night he died are arrested. However, the series’ central theme, revenge, is undermined by its treatment of Jae-i and its depiction of systemic privilege. While Kang Ha understandably holds Ri-an a high level of responsibility for In-han’s death for being part of the violent system that led to his death (and even gets an apology from him), he doesn’t do the same for Jae-i. ; instead, he falls in love with her.

In general, the show treats Jae-i primarily as a victim of this world, rather than an active and powerful participant in it. Hierarchy wants us to believe that Jae-i and Ri-an learned to accept responsibility because of Kang Ha’s arrival at school. But if the death of a fellow student didn’t shake his view of the world, then it seems unlikely that Kang Ha’s presence would. Hierarchy ends with the message that systemic inequality is good, as long as those in power don’t get away with intimidation or overt murder.

See more information: The Netflix Korean Dramas to Watch in 2024

What happens to Kang Ha?

Hierarchy doesn’t waste much time telling us who Kang Ha really is and what his brother meant to him. We’re told he loved In-han, but we only get the occasional snippet of them together in flashback. Emotionally, we can’t understand what Kang Ha lost when he lost his brother.

Instead, many of the characters’ best moments in Hierarchy focus on the four main rich kids – Ri-an, Jae-i, He-ra, and Woo-jin. This prioritizes the world of the rich to the detriment of the world of scholarship holders. Because we receive so little from the world that Kang Ha, In-han, and these other fellows come from, In-han’s death feels even more undervalued. It becomes a morality lesson for these rich teenagers rather than a tragedy that actually resulted in the death of a human being. And ultimately, it’s a tragedy perpetrated by someone outside the rich kids’ social circle – a teacher who can only afford luxury handbags when the student she’s having an affair with decides to gift one to her.

Ultimately, Jooshin Academy is still thriving, albeit with a new director at its headquarters. Presumably the new director is also in Ri-an’s mother’s pocket, which lends a kind of futility to much of what happened in the first season. This futility is not treated as disturbing or unsettling, but rather full of possibilities. The show ends with He-ra and Kang Ha sharing Korean street toasts, implying that these two worlds – the world of the rich and the world of everyone else – have been reconciled. But they weren’t, not in a real way.

Who is recording the Jooshin Academy students?

It may seem convenient that Ji-soo’s crimes are recorded so well, but most of what happens around the students at Jooshin Academy is. Since Ri-an’s chaebol mother funds the school, Jooshin Main Park uses students’ own phones to keep an eye on everything that happens there and sends relevant information about Ri-an to this mother. It is implied that literally anything any student records on their personal device and then uploads to “the cloud” will be accessible to Principal Park. It is also accessible to Director Park’s teenage son, Ju-won, who regularly sneaks into his office to steal the digital files. A scholarship student himself, Ju-won prides himself on being invisible, watching other students from the shadows.

Who is blackmailing Jae-i?

In the first episode, Jae-i returns to Jooshin Academy after a mysterious three-month trip to the USA. She immediately breaks up with her longtime boyfriend Ri-an (via physics-defying car racing), and begins dating Kang Ha, apparently wanting to use her power to keep him safe from bullying.

Although all signs point to her being directly involved in In-han’s death, this is not the case. They were friends and she feels responsible for not doing more to keep him safe, but she didn’t kill him.

It is later revealed that Jae-i is being blackmailed. Her terrible younger brother recorded a video of her and Ri-an having sex at their family’s seaside villa, and Ju-won got it from his mother’s surveillance files. Ju-won, who hates what Jooshin Academy turned his mother into, uses it to make Jae-i squirm. It doesn’t even seem like he wants her to do anything; he just wants to make her suffer before ending her life. We later learn that Jae-i was pregnant with Ri-an’s child before going to the US to have an abortion. She didn’t go through with it, but then she had a miscarriage. She broke up with Ri-an partly because she didn’t want him to be sad too. He eventually finds out, however.

When Ri-an learns about the video, he puts his people on it, trying to make sure it doesn’t get out. Kang Ha, who develops feelings for Jae-i, also stops Ju-won from sharing this.

Eventually, Jae-i learns to live with the pain of her miscarriage and her role as a bystander to In-han’s bullying. In this way, she gains the courage to escape her abuse father’s claws. Although she is an extremely passive character for much of Hierarchy, the series leaves Jae-i on a higher note. She breaks up with Ri-an, but not before telling him the truth: more than anything, she wants to see him happy, work on their codependency, and that they are young and that there is a good chance they will find their way back together. . to each other once again.

She also admits to Kang Ha that she has feelings for him. Before Jae-i leaves town, Kang Ha rushes through town to see her one last time. He hugs her and says that although he came to Jooshin to get justice for his brother, he fell in love with her along the way.

“I just wanted to be with you,” says Kang Ha, but regrets that he couldn’t be with her while still achieving his goal. Although their relationship has never felt particularly earned, it’s a touching moment, even more so when Jae-i says, coldly, before getting in the car, “That day. Do you remember the last question you asked? [If I ever had feelings for you.] You were right about that. I was lying to you.

Ultimately, though, Jae-i’s happy ending is about her choice. She finds her biological mother, who was sent away by her father years ago. Since she was little, she has been afraid of “disappearing” like her mother, but has finally realized the promise of love and security in this, so different from the fear and shame exercised by her father in the name of the family. “Mom,” she says with a smile in the final moments of the show.

There will be a Hierarchy season 2?

Not long ago, it was practically unheard of for a K-drama to get a second season – the format was designed as a unique experience. However, especially with the influx of American streamers like Netflix into the Korean TV industry, this is becoming more common. Sweet Home, Hospital PlaylistIt is Yumi’s Cells are just a few examples of recent Korean dramas that have spanned multiple seasons. It is clear, squid game will return later this year with a second season.

Although there has been no official announcement, Hierarchy seems particularly well-poised for a second season. There’s a new director in Jooshin, which Ri-an, He-ra, Woo-jin, Kang Ha and many other familiar faces still attend. And, in a post-credits scene, there is an apparent murder in progress. A student is found dead and bleeding on the classroom floor in the middle of the school day. As the shocked and horrified students rush into the classroom, Ri-an receives an anonymous message: “You look shaken, Kim Ri-an.” Here we go again…