Summary
Dong-eun goes two for two in an episode that raises the stakes considerably, bringing her closer and closer to her final target.
You’ll recall that The Glory Episode 11 ended with Dong-eun and Yeo-jeong walking up the steps of the supposedly abandoned funeral home where we know that Myeong-o’s corpse is being kept vacuum-sealed in a locker. Episode 12 opens by cycling back a little through time so we can see Hyeon-nam drawing Dong-eun’s attention to the place in the first place. The mortuary is still using more power than most homes, which doesn’t make sense if the place has really been abandoned for three years. They figure Detective Shin has paid the owner off to hide the body there, and with that piece in the puzzle discovered, they gain some ground.
The Glory Season 1 Episode 12 Recap
Yeon-jin isn’t going down without a fight, however. When Hyeon-nam tells her, as instructed, who Dong-eun has been meeting up with, she reveals it’s Yeo-jeong, whose name Yeon-jin obviously recognizes after her “treatment” experience (we also get a bit of context about how that came to be, too.) But it seems like too little too late (even though it’s at the start of the episode) in an hour that revolves primarily around Dong-eun sowing enormous amounts of discord among her camp.
How does Dong-eun set up Jae-jun?
Her first target is Jae-jun, whom she easily manipulates by sending photos taken by a fellow teacher, Mr. Chu, that are implied to be somewhat perverted in nature. Chu seems like a giant scumbag whether he has a camera or not, so his punishment seems fair enough because naturally Jae-jun leaps to the defense of Ye-sol, turns up on the campus, and viciously assaults him.
This has a knock-on effect, obviously. Jae-jun is facing potential legal ramifications, and his justification that Mr. Chu was a pervert doesn’t count for much since that’s not how the justice system works. And it also enormously aggravates Do-yeong, who isn’t exactly keen on the idea of Jae-jun turning up at his daughter’s school, claiming to be her father. When Yeon-jin tries to bicker with him later, he even points out that her lover publicly claiming to be the father of her child doesn’t give her much in the way of grounds to complain.
What happens to Sa-Ra?
Then comes the ruination of Sa-ra, involving a very public relapse and being caught in let’s say quite a compromising position. That’s two for two, which isn’t bad going for the span of a single episode.
All of this matters less in terms of details and specifics and more in terms of presentation. It’s hard to watch the episode’s crescendo, and the ensuing little face-to-face between Dong-eun and Yeon-jin, without being stirred by how the whole thing comes together — it manages to weave a trippy, hallucinatory episode into a flashback into the present day from multiple angles, without losing clarity or a dramatic focus (Dong-eun’s face in close-up is very often deployed, usually with a smirk.) There’s a clear sense of tensions escalating and Yeon-jin being on the back foot, more and more as we go.
I’m still not hugely keen on how The Glory sometimes moves between time periods without much clarity — there’s a sequence here explaining how and why So-he’s body was frozen in the first place that I’m not sure completely fit into the overall flow of the episode, but that’s a minor quibble at this point. We’re rapidly approaching the endgame now, and the show is definitely living up to its promises.
You can stream Netflix K-drama The Glory Season 1 Episode 12 exclusively on Netflix.
