'Itaewon Class' Episode 15: Park Sae-ro-yi is safe, kneels in front of Dae-hee for Yi-seo and he has no regrets
Spoilers for 'Itaewon Class' Episode 15
We pick right from where we left off in 'Itaewon Class' Episode 15, as Park Sae-ro-yi (Park Seo-joon) gets hit by a car. We watch him tumble down as bleeds profusely and Jang Geun-soo (Kim Dong-hee) tries to help Sae-ro-yi and places a call to the cops, but is unable to do anything else.
When he realizes that the thugs working with Jang Geun-won (Ahn Bo-hyun) would overpower him, he places a call to Sae-ro-yi's partner Seung-kwon (Ryoo Kyung-soo) who was a former thug himself and got a chance for rehabilitation and a better life through Sae-ro-yi.
The entire sequence is intense because we see Sae-ro-yi finally make it to the hospital but he isn't responding. Jo Yi-seo (Park Da-mi) and Geun-soo's kidnapping is also not something that people are aware of as Seung-kwon is for now keeping it under wraps.
What became interesting at this point is how the show manages to untangle the mess that it had placed its lead characters in.
The episode ends on a shocking note as we see Sae-ro-yi do the one thing that he had promised himself he would never do, and that is to kneel in front of Jang Dae-hee (Yoo Jae-myung).
We first see Geun-won and Geun-soo's confrontation, which is laden with hatred — Geun-won's for Sae-ro-yi, Geun-soo's for his father and his half brother and Yi-seo's for Geun-won. This particular scene is also interlaced with love and that also comes through in this confrontation. Geun-soo's for Yi-seo, Yi-seo's for Sae-ro-yi, and Geun-won's for his father Dae-hee.
Their feelings drive their actions and that is how we find Yi-seo find the courage within herself to be smart and manipulate Geun-won. It also pushes Geun-won to reveal his plans truthfully to his father in the hopes that for once he would do what is best for his son, and stop him.
Geun-soo, despite understanding that he will never end up with Yi-seo tries to ensure her safety when the two are held as hostages together.
We also see Seung-kwon get the attention he deserved on the show. After all, it is his former thug boss who has kidnapped both Yi-seo and Geun-soo in partnership with Geun-won. So he tries to get both Yi-seo and Geun-soo out of trouble without causing them harm. On the other hand, Geun-soo's father doesn't seem least concerned with the fact that Geun-soo is in danger. When Seung-kwon tries to come to an understanding with Dae-hee with the proof that he had collected so far, it doesn't work. You see, until the very end, there is no redemption for Jang Dae-hee and that is actually as it should be. The one character that did have a potential redemption arc for Geun-won, but with this episode, we see how his father has managed to turn his son into a monster as well.
Speaking of father and son, the episode also draws parallels between two kinds of a relationship between father and son. One father (Dae-hee) has turned his son into a monster, and the other (Sae-ro-yi's father) who frees his son from everything that had chained him so far in life. This includes carrying the burden of hatred and the guilt of not having saved his father.
After the accident, we see how Sae-ro-yi's subconscious allows him to let go of his father, with love and get closure finally. This sequence has a nuance that helps us imagine what kind of dynamics that this father and son would have shared, had they been given more time together. It is bound by love, trust, and pride.
Then we have Geun-won, who was abandoned by his father for the well-being of his company. Geun-won now gives his father one last chance to save him, but Dae-hee is still the monster that he was in the past.
He has no qualms about the things he had done in the past and even in the present, his only concern remains the wellbeing of his company. He tries to cover it all up, as he did in the past with Sae-ro-yi's father's accident by Soo-ah (Kwon Na-ra) surprisingly holds a card that stops Dae-hee from orchestrating his plans.
She resigns from the company and tells Dae-hee that if he so much as thought of repeating what he did a decade ago, she would release information that she had collected over the same period of time at Jang Corporation which includes records of irregularities, embezzlement, bribes among other things.
No, she did not do this for Sae-ro-yi though. It was her payback for Sae-ro-yi's father who had treated her like his own daughter in the past. She had made a promise to Sae-ro-yi's father and after all this time, she has found a way to keep it.
At the end, when Sae-ro-yi learns from Geun-won that his father knows where he has held Yi-seo, Sae-ro-yi approaches Dae-hee. Despite the danger that Yi-seo is in; all Dae-hee wants to do is to see Sae-ro-yi kneel in front of him and apologize. All this while, Sae-ro-yi managed to hold it in and not give in to Dae-hee's demands that stemmed from power. This time around, with Yi-seo's life in danger, Sae-ro-yi kneels because life is more important than his pride. And that is where the episode came to an end.
The final episode of the show will air on Saturday and can be streamed on Netflix.