The Glory Season 1 Episodes 9-13 Recap – Was So-he Pregnant When She Died?

It has been a little while since The Glory Part 1, so let’s quickly get ourselves up to speed with what happened in Episode 8, since the Part 2 premiere (Episode 9) wastes no time in racing out of the blocks right where we left off.

So, Myeong-o is dead, and Yeon-jin is the likeliest suspect; Yeo-jeong has agreed to become Dong-eun’s avenging angel for reasons that will become increasingly clear in the unfurling of his own backstory; Do-yeong has figured out that his wife isn’t quite what he thought she was and is, to put things mildly, not taking it well; Sa-Ra is in withdrawal; Jae-jun is Ye-sol’s father and doesn’t know it yet; and Dong-eun is sitting on some pretty substantial kompromat that should allow the crux of her revenge mission to get well underway. Okay? Okay. Let’s get on with it. I’ve broken down Episodes 9-13.

The Glory Season 1 Episode 9 Recap

Episode 9 begins with Myeong-o, oddly enough, as we retrace some of his final steps while he was still alive and well. He tries to contact each of the gang’s members in turn, threatening most of them, stoking up a lot of worry around So-he, another of the gang’s victims who met an even grislier fate than Dong-eun – her death was officially ruled as a suicide thanks to some favors and threats here and there, but it’s not exactly a mystery that Yeon-jin was responsible for it.

Whatever Dong-eun may or may not be threatening, the re-opening of a decades-old cold case could nevertheless bring Yeon-jin down, which she’s well aware of – as is everyone else.

Why does Do-yeong take off his shoes at Dong-eun’s door?

One of those people is Yeon-jin’s husband, Do-yeong, who is quickly learning that his wife has kept many aspects of her life a secret, including her true nature and the parentage of their child. In Dong-eun’s house, which Yeon-jin has broken into, they bicker about why a woman would be so obsessed with Yeon-jin if, as she claims, she and Dong-eun simply “disliked” each other. It’s clear that Do-yeong knows there’s more to the story than his wife is letting on, but it’s equally clear that Yeon-jin isn’t going to show any remorse.

It’s clear to Dong-eun, too, who is watching the pair argue through a camera. She does notice, though, that Do-yeong took his shoes off and left them at the door; a gesture of respect she’s unfamiliar with. This is what later compels her to give Yeon-jin a chance to turn herself in. She respects that Do-yeong showed her a little compassion and is willing to return the favor since she’s so unused to compassion in any form.

Then again, with Yeo-jeong hanging around and making his affections very clear, she’s going to have to get used to it.

Was So-he pregnant when she died?

Yeon-jin and the gang are very much fraying at the edges here. Her power is waning. The police are looking into Myeong-o’s death and consider it a drugs matter. The name tag that restarted the investigation into So-he’s death might have been a fake, but Yeon-jin’s culpability in the crime is still a serious matter, and the fact that So-he was apparently pregnant when she died, and that it was Yeo-jeong’s late father who ordered her body kept on ice, is what unites a lot of different characters and subplots.

The highlight of Episode 9, though, is undoubtedly Dong-eun’s conversation with Yeon-jin, during which she offers her one final chance to turn herself in before she destroys her completely. You can tell both actors and The Glory itself are reveling in this, and predictably, Yeon-jin doesn’t take the offer.

The show must go on, after all, and the episode ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, with Yeon-jin confronting Hyeon-nam.

The Glory Season 1 Episode 10 Recap

How does Yeon-jin try to get back at Dong-eun?

So, just how Dong-eun’s mother apparently accepted a payout back in the day to convince Dong-eun to drop out of school, so too does she agree to force Dong-eun to resign in the present day when faced with Yeon-jin’s offer of financial recompense. Honestly, there’s no surprise Dong-eun is so annoyed.

The Glory Season 1 (Credit – Netflix)

This isn’t the only way that Yeon-jin throws her influence around. She also offers money and help to Hyeon-Nam, volunteering to get rid of her husband for her, if she simply agrees to betray Dong-eun. Nothing much has changed since her school days; Dong-eun still lacks the means to buy loyalty, and she will continue to be outbid. Luckily, that isn’t the only form of currency she can bargain with.

Hye-jeong, on Dong-eun’s instruction, lures Yeon-jin to Yeo-jeong’s clinic, where she deliberately taunts her about Do-yeong buying her an expensive bag and trying to sleep with her. Hyeon-Nam and Dong-eun laugh about Yeon-jin’s manipulations, and Dong-eun is able to help her with her daughter. The tide is turning, and that is strongly felt as we progress through Episode 10.

Who killed Myeong-o?

The late highlight is Yeon-jin agreeing to visit Yeo-Jeong’s clinic for some of her own work doing, perhaps inspired by her marriage falling apart around her ears, but as she slips into unconsciousness under the anesthesia, Yeo-jeong asks her what happened to Myeong-o.

So, she slips off into a restless sleep, which for us is a flashback sequence showing how she killed Myeong-o, hitting him over the head with a bottle when he tricked her into exposing her role in So-he’s death.

When she wakes up, she realizes immediately that she has probably given away much more than she should have. Of course, this isn’t exactly admissible evidence, but it’s enough for now, and with Dong-eun also meeting Do-yeong to show him the extent of his wife’s abuse, she’s beginning to turn everyone to her side of the aisle.

The Glory Season 1 Episode 11 Recap

The Glory Season 1 (Credit – Netflix)

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.

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.

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.

The Glory Season 1 Episode 12 Recap

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.

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.

The Glory Season 1 Episode 13 Recap

It’s always interesting in these kinds of stories to see how the leader being deposed affects the underlings. No sooner has Yeon-jin been asking Do-yeong if he’s finally ready to leave her after the latest embarrassment than Hye-jeong has taken the damning recording on Myeong-o’s tablet to Jae-jun.

The vultures are already circling. And both have a motive to want to secure the top spot — Hye-jeong for obvious reasons, since she has always aspired to status and has remained only fractionally better off in Yeon-jin’s company than Dong-eun did, and Jae-jun because he wants to raise Ye-sol as his own and evidently isn’t willing or able to do all the childrearing himself. These two fancy themselves as a bit of a power couple.

Hye-jeong is empowered by this new arrangement. She spends her days lounging around Jae-jun’s place, and when Yeon-jin confronts her, she finally stands up for herself. The implication is clear — Yeon-jin isn’t a queen bee anymore. And things only get worse for her throughout the episode.

What is Detective Shin’s retirement plan?

For instance, Yo-jeong’s purchase of the funeral home pushes Detective Shin to move Myeong-o’s corpse posthaste. Since he has nowhere else to put it, we quickly get a sense of what he meant when he said earlier that Myeong-o’s vacuum-sealed corpse was his retirement plan.

He blackmails Yeon-jin, demanding a retirement home in Hawaii and some spending money. Since Myeong-o’s body was never buried, he can have it turn up at any point. However, we see it has already been found, which one assumes will dissuade Yeon-jin from paying up and throw Detective Shin’s retirement into some jeopardy.

On a character level, Dong-eun and Yo-jeong really begin to take precedence here, with the latter’s backstory beginning to take some kind of shape. His lust for revenge is obviously informed by the actions of a remorseless killer, the irony being he’s not so far removed from becoming the same thing himself, but he’s similarly shaped by trauma in the same way Dong-eun is, and it’s interesting to see how their different plights have shaped them in distinct but similar ways.

They share a moment of closeness here that is tender but still doesn’t cross the transom into outright romance; I’m glad the show has been restrained in this regard.

How does Dong-eun’s apartment catch fire?

Besides, Dong-eun has other things on her mind for now, least among them her mother, who has been using her apartment as a kind of drug den, seeing a man she calls her “boyfriend” but who could just as easily be a stranger.

Dong-eun resigns from teaching, as per her mother’s wishes, and then tries to turf her out of the crib, but she’s absolutely loaded and upends a platter of frying meat on the carpet. The whole place goes up in flames.

But the depth of Dong-eun’s emotion really cuts through here, the pain of her own mother having betrayed her again, the razor-sharp invective she’s subjected to. One gets the sense that she could remain in that fire and let them both burn in it, perhaps believing they’d be better off, and at this point, I’m not entirely sure she’d be wrong.

What did you think of The Glory Season 1 Episodes 9-11? Comment below.

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