Jelly Babies
With the CPR robot on her back, episode 3 of School Nurse Files begins with Eun-Young starting her first aid training for the students. As day turns to night, things suddenly descend into chaos in Wan-Su and Min-U’s class. 16 students start breaking down into tears while clutching the cushions. Eun-Young berates the students for going cushion hunting as blood starts seeping out one of their mouths. Eun-Young comes to the rescue with her sword though and manages to destroy one of the jellies. Snatching up the cushion, she heads outside and burns the notes inside about getting in university. Using this to her advantage, Eun-Young continues her plan to sever the bond between Min-U and Wan-Su. Using A-Ra, they bring the two kids inside the Nurse’s Office and get to work ridding them of their armpit hair. At least, that’s what we’re led to believe given the plan in place. In the morning, numerous jellies follow Eun-Young as she continues her first aid training in the different classrooms. As she does, the English teacher Mackenzie knows more than he’s letting on. He walks down the hallway and sucks up different jellies in a strange rock he holds. Ji-Hyeong is bullied by a group of students, forcing him to run incredibly fast on the treadmill. When he refuses to give up, a bag is put on his head and the boy falls to a heap on the floor. Mackenzie arrives and breaks up the fight while comforting Ji-Hyeong. He also gives him a way of getting revenge. Eun-Young patches up the boy’s face but remains suspicious around exactly what’s going on. As we soon find out, Mackenzie gave Ji-Hyeong four nuts to place in each of the bully’s belongings as his way of gaining revenge. That evening Eun-Young looks over the leaflet she received surrounding happiness. She decides against paying for the entry fee though and instead focuses her attention on Mackenzie. Specifically, she wants to know whether he can see In-Pyo’s forcefield or not. The next day Ji-Hyeom learns that the bullies on the basketball court all wound up injured following his nut incident. In their place, Gi-Hyeong plays and hits the winning shot. His fortunes instantly change but Mackenzie is not surprised by the last minute winner. On the back of this, Eun-Young tells In-Pyo that he needs to fire Mackenzie. She tells him not to touch anyone else and to keep an eye on Ji-Hyeong. After the basketball celebrations, Eun-Young confronts Mackenzie and tells him he knows who he is. She mentions the forcefield and he scoffs. It turns out he’s doing all this for money and is another who can see the jellies. He’s selling them to people and making a profit in doing so. As he drives away, he throws a jelly out the window which materializes into a big glob of goo. Thankfully Eun-Young is wise to what’s happening and shoots it down. As Mackenzie drives off, this fight is clearly far from over.
The Episode Review
The mini jellies in episode 3 are certainly cute and the narrative starts to deepen now with the introduction of Mackenzie. However, the lack of explanation surround what’s happening is a bit disappointing. The lack of answers is quite disconcerting and it hurts the overall integrity of the show. As we hit the halfway point of this first half, the series is really struggling to keep up a consistent momentum. Even worse, the lack of meaningful characterization and interactions between Eun-Young and In-Pyo feels so rushed and under-developed. This is partly thanks to there only being 6 episodes but right now this is slipping into Melting Me Softly territory.
