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Crash Course in Romance Season 1 Episode 4 Recap – what gets Hae-e blacklisted?
January 23, 2023 (Last updated: 2 days ago)
Nathan Sartain 0
Netflix, Streaming Service, Weekly TV
A fun episode with plenty of talking points.
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We recap the Netflix K-Drama series Crash Course in Romance Season 1 Episode 4, "Revolt of the Arithmetic Sequence," which contains spoilers.
There's plenty to talk about coming out of Crash Course in Romance episode four. For one, Chi-yeol (Jung Kyung-ho) is going to offer Hae-e the chance at private tutoring, presumably in exchange for meals from Haeng-seon's restaurants. But most notably, the identity of the hooded killer continues to remain a secret, as do his intentions. Is he working on behalf of Chi-yeol's best interests? Or does he just seek to undercut anyone in his way on his own personal mission to harm the star tutor.
Crash Course in Romance Season 1 Episode 4 recap
As Chi-yeol gets giddy about the events of the night before, Haeng-seon rues her drunken display, to the point she avoids the star tutor when he enters her shop. When the two do eventually talk, it's light-heartedly clumsy, with the former handball player claiming she doesn't remember what she did, and the academy instructor seeing right through her act.
At a meeting with fellow mothers, Haeng-seon begins to endear herself, subtly disappointing Su-hui. Then, when lawyer Seo-jin belatedly arrives, a tense air falls on the group, particularly when she appears especially keen to consume the beer offered to her. Elsewhere, Su-a becomes panicked by two answers being accepted as correct for a question in an exam, desperate to maintain her top rank.
When Su-hui tries to warn Seo-jin away from "going overboard" with her child's studies, given it could cause resentment, the lawyer bites back by accusing the academic influencer of being "ignorant." What follows is an extremely biting back-and-forth, one concluded by Sun-jae's mother leaving the gathering, not denying she looks down on the other parents because of her own status and firmly believing she won't be seeing Su-hui again.
After Haeng-seon feeds back what she saw to Yeong-ju, stunned by the immaturity of the All Care Programme mothers, Hae-e arrives back home with the positive news of her maths final success. The youngster isn't resting on her laurels either, proclaiming she plans to "study hard and become the top student in the country for the CSAT." However, part of this grand scheme doesn't fill Haeng-seon with joy, given her niece wants to appear on the news too, in the hopes of her birth mother seeing her there.
While the stroppy Su-a blames Hae-e for her dropping down to level two in English, Su-hui meets with Young-min's mother. Here, the academic influencer feels she's found an opportunity to have someone relegated from the All Care Programme so the lower-achieving student can enter. Concurrently, Haeng-seon invites Chi-yeol to Hae-e's celebration meal.
Once Su-hui patches things up with Seo-jin, she instantly tries to get the lawyer's endorsement in putting Young-min into the All Care Programme as opposed to Hae-e. initially, Sun-jae's mother wants nothing to do with the scheme, but when she spots her son hanging around with his close friend, she changes her mind, suddenly open to the idea of such drastic action.
With the news circulating that Hae-e has been "disqualified" from the All Care Programme, everyone seeks answers. Haeng-seon is notably furious, specifying the absurdity of the academy's apparent rule that eligible students have to have attended every star tutor lesson. Later, Hae-e puts on a tough act in front of her family, assuring them she didn't need to attend a "tacky" programme to get good grades but breaks down when alone.
Furious over the "shady" actions of the Director, Chi-yeol decides he'll refuse to teach in the All Care Programme, unbothered by tenuous threats of legal action. As we see in his explanation to Dong-hui, the maths tutor has decided to stand firm to see if the academy changes their stance, surmising that if things remain the same it'll show their "corruption."
In a game of dodgeball, the bitter Su-a goes too far, giving the dejected Hae-e a nosebleed with her fierce throw. Meanwhile, Su-hui gets Haeng-seon to leave the All Care group chat, sparking the shop owner into marching out of her business, looking determined. It turns out the former handball player has decided to take drastic measures, using a megaphone to publicly request a meeting with Pride's director.
Despite the Director's hospitalization — he bumped into a cart in his attempts to avoid Haeng-seon — the aunt of Hae-e remains determined to meet with him upon his discharge. However, Pride's figurehead is prepared to respond severely, asking his assistant to blacklist Hae-e and report her aunt for obstruction of business, hoping that'll get public sentiment on his side.
Fortunately, Chi-yeol gets involved before the police do, leading Haeng-seon away from trouble. Here, the star tutor reveals Hae-e is now blacklisted, frustrated that the side dish shop owner threw "straws against the wind." Evidently though, Chi-yeol wishes he could do more to help, even in the face of Haeng-seon's protestations that she won't "concern" him any longer.
After Haeng-seon rejects a large order from Pride Academy, she decides to personally blacklist anyone affiliated with the institute from her shop. Elsewhere, Chi-yeol appears to waver when Su-a and co. plead with him to rethink his stance on dropping out of the All Care Programme.
Unsurprisingly, Chi-yeol finds himself affected by the ban from Nation's Best Banchan. He gets moody with his co-workers, goes through the motions in his lessons, and admits to his counselor that he's now "lethargic, sensitive, and seeing things." The tutor is told this may all stem from his guilt, however, as he is unable to let the students on the All Care Programme down, yet is equally wanting to fix the "injustice" around Hae-e's blacklisting.
When thrown out of the classroom for tardiness, Gun-hu receives important advice from Jong-ryeol, centered around how the 18-year-old should "seriously consider" what he wants to do going forward, given he may need to retire from hockey. Concurrently, Chi-yeol reflects on his counselor's words when getting ready for the start of the All Care Programme, and Haeng-seon solemnly ponders both her ban on Pride Academy customers, as well as her niece's potential academic woes.
Following on from Gun-hu's request to have Hae-e teach him how to study, we move forward to the beginning of the All Care Programme. Chi-yeol surprisingly struggles here, having to re-complete one of his own questions. Though the tutor does stand up for himself when mocked by Young-min, by kicking the smug youngster out of his lesson. In due time, it gives the academy instructor an opportunity too, as he realizes Hae-e should be there in place of her "aggressive" fellow student.
Continuing, Young-min complains to a friend about his experiences, content to post his views on studyhard.com in the hopes of it picking up traction. The smug youngster continues by saying he'd quit the programme altogether if it wasn't for his mother, who pulled so many strings someone else got kicked out. This, Young-min also believes, is the blueprint for how he wants to be in the future, "cutting down" others. Ominously here, a hooded man listens intently in the background.
As Young-min finds himself targeted by silver bullets, unable to escape the danger of the hooded man, we see he has likely fallen to his death from a balcony. Meanwhile, Chi-yeol turns up to state he'll teach Hae-e privately, and the episode ends with the star tutor getting ready to tell Haeng-seon his "one condition" for such a privilege.
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