Summary
An unlikely theme of hope emerges in Episode 11, despite big stretches of it being difficult to watch.
After Episode 10 of The Glory, we know that Myeong-o died because Yeon-jin smashed his head in with a liquor bottle. Episode 11 gives us all the gory details, including Myeong-o’s quite disturbing whimpers and gurgles in his death throes. It’s not fun for anyone, least of all Yeon-jin, who presumably didn’t mean to commit murder and seems fairly horrified by it. Still, she’s not above having the crime quickly covered up, which we see some details of before Yeon-jin wakes up in Yeo-jeong’s clinic, absolutely frantic.
The Glory Season 1 Episode 11 Recap
Meanwhile, Dong-eun, her scars still very much exposed as a telling reminder to the audience of what she has been through, is still speaking with Do-yeong, making her intentions around Yeon-jin very clear. She wants everyone to leave her — including him. He is, as she puts it, “Her glory” — cue that Leonardo DiCaprio pointing meme, someone said the title out loud — and she wants him to be a reminder of her ruin. However, Do-yeong says outright that he won’t leave her, although he didn’t realize it until that moment, and can’t explain why.
Dong-eun’s scars come up again in her conversations with Yeo-jeong, which are a little too steeped in metaphor for my tastes, but the implication is pretty clear. He offers to fix them for her, but she replies that there’s no need anymore, since she’s no longer in pain. In fact, there’s an argument that she’s doing quite well, finding purpose in helping Sun-a and finally managing to pull off at least the beginnings of her scheme. She still obviously has a depth of trauma that is difficult to even imagine, but what she’s doing is working, perhaps in a way she didn’t even necessarily intend.
Why can’t Hyeon-nam say goodbye to Sun-a?
But it’s not all good for Team Dong-eun in this episode, and Hyeon-nam has to withstand the brunt of Yeon-jin’s anger. While she’s preparing to bid farewell to Sun-a as she moves abroad, Yeon-jin arrives and threatens to uncover where Sun-a is unless Hyeon-nam agrees not to see her off. She also wants to know more about Dong-eun’s allies and who she’s meeting with (she’s surprised to learn there’s a man involved). As punishment, Yeon-jin hasn’t given Hyeon-nam’s husband any money to gamble with, so he returns home early and beats Hyeon-nam senseless in a scene that really goes on for an uncomfortable amount of time. Sun-a is forced to leave the country without saying goodbye to her mother, and Hyeon-nam’s husband discovers her phone and the text messages, leaving her in a terribly compromised position.
READ: Will there be a Part 3 of The Glory on Netflix?
What does Hye-jeong find on Myeong-o’s tablet?
And yet somehow this is, perversely, a symbol of hope — when Hyeon-nam looks at the reflection of her battered, swollen face in the window, she sees something in her visage that she never has before. Hope becomes a theme, manifesting in unlikely places. Hye-jeong, for instance, finds Myeong-o’s tablet and with it an incriminating recording of Yeon-jin. As the episode ends, she’s manically laughing at her good fortune.
There are also developing plotlines elsewhere, from why So-he’s body was frozen, where Myeong-o’s body is being stored, and Hyeon-nam’s husband texting Yeon-jin’s mother Yeong-ae telling her that he knows her daughter killed someone. But we’ll cross those bridges when we come to them in subsequent episodes, since the focus here is so undeniably on Hyeon-nam, and to a lesser extent Dong-eun and Yeo-jeong. Those two end the episode with the latter explaining how he will do whatever Dong-eun requires of him as her executioner, and he’s more than simply “sure” about it. Perhaps that surety will be tested as we go, but for now, he seems pretty certain.
You can stream Netflix K-drama The Glory Season 1 Episode 11 exclusively on Netflix.
