Park Shin-Hye has been constantly coming back with banger after banger, and Undercover Miss Hong seems to be her latest superhit in the making. The actress, who recently had a child, has returned to our screens with a unique new vibe. I don’t know why people think she was typecast when she was younger, because her roles were always different. It’s not her fault; her crying is so convincing that all the scriptwriters want her to cry. Anyway, I love this new style for her, a strong, independent woman who can burn you with just her eyes. It’s totally her vibe. She’s been in the industry for so long, since she was a child, and I’m just so happy with how things have turned out for her. On the other hand, she’s reunited with Ko Kyoung-Pyo, whom I haven’t seen in a while, so I’m excited for this pairing. I’ve never seen Ha Yoon-Kyung in a leading role, but it turns out I’ve seen most of her shows. But what I’m really excited about is her bond with Park Shin-Hye, and I’m hoping this will be the feminist show we’ve been yearning for from Dramaland. With that said, though, let’s jump straight into episodes 1 and 2.
Spoiler Alert
How Does Keum-Bo Get a Promotion?
Episode 1 of Undercover Miss Hong begins with us learning that this show is set in the 90s. Immediately, Keum-Bo introduces herself as a trailblazer who wants to bring in the new millennium, stirring up waves. Keum-Bo works as an investigator for the Financial Supervisory Service. Keum-Bo is introduced when she visits a hostess bar with some men who seem to be giving her a bribe. She’s meant to be a witness in the investigation into them, and she makes them believe she’s going to side with them, but she’s not. The company is in trouble for having manipulated its stock price. But at court, Keum-Bo immediately tells the judge that what the company was doing was 100% manipulation. She even has video evidence (apart from the documents), making it easy for her to drive home her point. Now, it turns out the guy who was disloyal works for Keum-Bo’s boss, Yun Jae-Beom, and he immediately fires Hwang.
To understand how cool Keum-Bo really is, we see her being chivalrous to a woman on the street whose stockings are slightly torn (I really didn’t even notice). But this woman isn’t just any woman; she’s going to have a very important part to play in Keum-Bo’s near future. Anyway, the next thing we know, Keum-Bo has been promoted to team manager because Hwang has been fired, and this has led to all the men who are meant to be on her team resigning. Keum-Bo is, of course, unaffected by this manly rage. She rips up the papers and gives the employees two options: one is to grow their careers with her, and the other is to refuse to work for her (but that’s not really an option).
What Happens to Kang Myeong-Hwi?
Now, everyone shows up to the meeting room because they can’t just all leave their jobs like that. Keum-Bo explains how she’s going to launch a probe into the slush fund of Hanmin Investments and Securities. Now, it’s a bit clear already that she’s poking around the wrong haystack, but she’s eager to make a leap in her career after a decade as a career woman, so she’s ready to face anything. To make things more interesting, someone who calls themselves Yehppee emails Keum-Bo and tells her that they’ll give her the accounting ledger of Hanmin. She tells them that they should meet in person, but the guy who shows up to see her is the eldest son of Director Kang, Myeong-Hwi (love this “The Heirs” reunion!).
Myeong-Hwi tells Keum-Bo that he wanted to see if she was someone who could be trusted with a life. He’s talking about the company, Hanmin. His big reveal is that he and Yehppee are gathering ledgers to make sure that an insider at Keum-Bo’s company doesn’t siphon off money and bury the story completely. Finally, he ends the meeting by giving her some documents that she can use as evidence to make her probe happen. Remember the lady with the stocking issue? Well, it was Go Bok-Hee, Myeong-Hwi’s assistant. She happens to keep an eye on his every move, but he never told her that he was leaving when he met with Keum-Bo. But she mistakes a phone call between Keum-Bo and him as a romantic encounter, and tells Song Ju-Ran, chief of staff, because apparently she needs to keep track of these things.
However, when there’s an emergency meeting regarding a search and seizure of Hanmin’s assets, Myeong-Hwi doesn’t show up. When Albert, the grandson of Kang Pil-Beom, makes a call to find out where his uncle is, he learns that he’s died in a car accident! However, it becomes pretty obvious when Pil-Beom and Ju-Ran are alone that he sanctioned this killing because he found out that Myeong-Hwi was disloyal to his first child, Hanmin (the company).
Why Does Keum-Bo Go Undercover?
Suddenly, everything is a mess, and Nam Dong-Gi, one of Keum-Bo’s subordinates, ends up revealing to the higher-ups that she was working with Myeong-Hwi and got the information from him. This led to her demotion and the shutting down of the investigation. Even the police call the incident an accident, and that’s the end of that. In the meantime, Keum-Bo is nearly kidnapped by some goons because she tried to “mess with the wrong people,” which leads her to take a break from work for a while. Now, her boss, Jae-Beom, has always been good to her and sides with her always, so he decides to try to get her to go undercover to Hanmin, because they’re looking for young secretaries and assistants. As a career woman, Keum-Bo immediately refuses, but suddenly, Keum-Bo is motivated to make sure Hanmin doesn’t continue doing illegal things, and decides to take on the role of a 20-year-old assistant to find the slush fund ledger and Yehppee within 3 months.
Keum-Bo is 35 years old now, and she has to pretend to be 20. I mean, maybe 22-24 could’ve been okay too, no? Anyway, Keum-Bo takes the assistance of her younger sister, Jang-Mi, and transforms herself into a 20-year-old. The real test is when she goes to a movie rental shop hoping to get carded for picking a 19+ film, and she succeeds, but also meets Albert there, not knowing who he is. Finally, Keum-Bo gives the exam and is called to interview at Hanmin. The reason Keum-Bo gets the job is that she says she got one answer wrong because the question itself is wrong. Finally, she tells her boss that she thinks Yehppee could be one of 3 people: So Gyeong-Dong, Bang Jin-Mok, or Cha Jung-Il.
How Does Keum-Bo Get Into the Good Books of Bok-Hee?
Episode 2 begins with Keum-Bo joining her new roommates at a hostel. She’s chosen to stay there to interact with Bok-Hee. She introduces herself as 20-year-old Jang-Mi (taking on her sister’s identity). Immediately, Keum-Bo gets to work on trying to become close to Bok-Hee, but she’s initially met with a wall. We learn that Bok-Hee had a traumatic experience when she was 20, which has led her to dream about wanting to move to Santa Monica, but it seems her brother might be in prison, too. I’m not entirely sure about that part, though. Now, it turns out another one of Keum-Bo’s roommates is No-Ra, Pil-Beom’s granddaughter, but she calls herself Eun-Jo so that nobody recognizes her.
The first incident is when Keum-Bo and Eun-Jo defend Bok-Hee when some other assistants bully her, but this leads to an embarrassing moment for Eun-Jo, who stays lying on the floor, only to be told by Bok-Hee to mind her own business. On the other hand, while actually working, Keum-Bo makes friends with her team, a group of 3 men: Bang Jin-Mok, Lee Yong-Ki, and Albert, of course. They even go get drunk together, and she tries to sneak information out of them slowly. She’s also just quite a loveable junior.
Who Is Shin Jung-Woo?
Turns out the new guy who took on the role Myeong-Hwi had is Keum-Bo’s ex from over 10 years ago. She was successful right from the start of her career, and they even had a cute office romance, but we don’t really learn why they split. Now, Bok-Hee learns that she’s going to get fired, because with a new president, there should be a new assistant too; however, this role falls directly to Jang-Mi. And we all know she can’t assist Jung-Woo, considering they were exes, and he definitely knows she’s not 20. Anyway, she also wants to help Bok-Hee so that she can use her to get info about Yehppee.
Keum-Bo works hard on assisting Bok-Hee with her work so that she can stay on as Jung-Woo’s assistant. She knows personal information, like the man likes pizza or what kind of document will impress him, so she makes sure Bok-Hee plays all her cards right, and Jung-Woo finally makes the call to keep her on. On the other hand, Jung-Woo also wants all the financial documents of the company digitized, and it’s on the risk management team.
At the end of Undercover Miss Hong episode 2, Bok-Hee is seen returning to the office and finding a hidden ledger. At the same time, Jae-Beom tells Keum-Bo that she might have stolen money from her previous company, but it was the embezzled money to begin with, so she stole from a thief. Now it seems almost certain that Bok-Hee herself is Yehppee, the whistleblower who was working with Myeong-Hwi. Maybe his telling Keum-Bo that his assistant was calling was to deflect the idea that his assistant was only Yehppee. But we’ll know more later. Anyway, the episode ends with a shock of a lifetime for Keum-Bo, because when she secretly sneaks into the office to try to find some documents, she’s discovered by Jung-Woo, who immediately flips her around. Now, I don’t know about you, but I feel like she’s actually going to pretend to be his ex-girlfriend’s sister, which would explain the looks. But we’ll only find out next week.
