‘The Winning Try’ Episode 8 Recap – Several Serious Turns Keep Things Interesting

I’ll level with you, readers — I wasn’t expecting half of what happens in The Winning Try Episode 7. It’s a great hour of surprises, big and small, some charming and inconsequential, and others deeply moving and potentially very serious. What starts out as a team-building exercise morphs over time into a very profound character drama and then something resembling a bit of a thriller. And yet nothing feels out of place or surplus to requirements.

I’m boring even myself saying it all the time, but this is a truly great show. And episodes like this, which run the full gamut of emotion and experience, are a nice reminder of why. There isn’t a single neglected character or go-nowhere subplot. Everything and everyone matters, albeit in different ways and for different reasons, and so the pathos and conflict can come from anywhere. It really is an impressive feat of storytelling.

Consider Heung-nam, for instance. Until now, he has largely been a stooge for vice-principal Seong, a lackey antagonist in the same mould as Nak-gyun (more on him later). But his issues turn out to be a bit more deep-rooted than that. He has known Ga-ram a long time and despises him because he feels that everything in his life has come very easily to him. He was a star athlete, he’s endlessly charismatic, and no matter how many obstacles are erected in front of him, he always finds a way to overcome them. He’s the antithesis of Heung-nam, who is hardworking and diligent and still can’t get any respect.

This is exacerbated here in Episode 7 after Hanyang’s performance in the President’s Cup. They lose to Daesang, admittedly, but it’s a close-run thing and a victory overall, especially since Coach Song delivers a glowing scouting report. This immediately changes Seong’s attitude. Since the rugby players are now likely to get university places, he immediately reallocates the training schedule so that the team can use the gym. That means ousting Heung-nam’s aerobics team. Suddenly, he’s the one who’s surplus to requirements.

In many ways, this makes Heung-nam the most dangerous villain, and it’s telling that it’s him who is lurking in Ga-ram’s room when he returns to it at the end of the episode. It was also him, you’ll recall, who saw Ga-ram in the hospital and has been pushing that angle ever since. Now that Ga-ram’s gain is his loss, he’ll be more determined than ever to ruin him.

The Winning Try Episode 7 also finally explains Ung’s aversion to tackling. I assumed that he was worried about hurting people because he didn’t want to cause them a serious injury like the one his father suffered, which is technically true, but it has a more specific origin. When a post goes viral claiming that Ung was a bully before he dropped out of school, he’s forced to relive an old encounter with a particularly unpleasant student named Geon-chang, who tried to use Ung’s natural strength for ill. Ung stood up to him, tackled him, and almost killed him when Geon-chang’s head bounced off a pile of bricks. That’s the source of his trauma.

To address this, the entire team confronts Geon-chang and forces him to delete the post, but it isn’t enough to cure Ung’s anxiety around tackling, and it also incenses Ga-ram, since they put themselves in danger. He takes an uncharacteristic tough-love approach to the problem — there are plenty of other, more slapstick efforts throughout the episode — by essentially giving Ung an ultimatum. He either tackles him or he leaves the team. He even invites his father along to the session for a bit more emotional pull. It takes being confronted with the idea of returning to his old, unremarkable life, but Ung finally tackles Ga-ram.

But perhaps the most serious turn here doesn’t involve the rugby team at all. Nak-gyun was already despicable, but he reaches new levels after the President’s Cup when U-jin wins the gold medal at Seol-hyeon’s expense. Since there’s only one open slot for the early admission to her father’s first-choice school, Nak-gyun cons I-ji into writing a recommendation for U-jin, and then commits admission fraud by using it for Seol-hyeon. When U-jin finds out about this, she confronts Nak-gyun directly, and he responds by physically assaulting her, throwing her into a glass trophy cabinet.

I-ji arrives in the nick of time to intervene, holding Nak-gyun at pistol-point. And he’s still totally unrepentant, only taunting I-ji about having the yips and not being able to pull the trigger. Since the episode fades to black with the sound of a gunshot, that may not be entirely accurate.

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