Breaking My Silence on Netflix's "The Glory"

I've given you enough time to watch the show, surely.

This post contains discussions on violence, sexual abuse and death. It also contains major spoilers!

Surprisingly, I don’t watch a lot of k-dramas. That has to do with me having a very short attention span and most k-drama episodes running for more than fifty minutes. Watching and reading subtitles isn’t a chore per-say but it can be a little jarring for me when I’m not wholeheartedly invested in the show. I need to be interested with a capital I to watch anything that runs for that long, for several episodes. So, when I say I watched Part 1 of this show in one sitting and all of Part 2 of this show on the day it dropped… that means something.

The show I’m talking about is Netflix’s The Glory (2023), a thriller following a bullied teenager who grows up into a young woman, obsessed with getting revenge. There’s a lot I want to say and I think the best way to go about it is to discuss the show through its main cast and all their individual character arcs. So… Here we go!

Moon Dong-eun (the main character)

I was rooting for my good sis, Dong-eun! How could you not? All those bullying scenes from Part 1 were so intense, so stomach-turning, that I had to look away from the screen. But, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t get bored of her as a character at some points during the show. The whole aloof, calculating, standing in the corner with her bob and briefcase thing was understandable but an unemotional performance can only hold my interest for so long, especially amongst a cast of characters with such large personalities, characters who are so dynamic even in their nastiness. It doesn’t help that we pretty much experience the bulk of Dong-eun’s character arc in the span of a single episode. We see her grow from an abused and bullied teenager into a vengeful adult, and it’s in that latter form that she remains for the large majority of the show. I mean… it is a revenge story at the end of the day. As a result, she remains unchanging in her wants and motivations for nearly every episode. The show does try to convince you that her “love” for Yeo-jeong aids in shifting her world-view but, in my opinion, that really didn’t stick.

As I said, she remains unchanging for nearly every episode in the show. Although I’m not too convinced by the impact of her romantic relationship, the friendship she develops with Hyeon-nam (and, consequently, her daughter) presents a very believable shift in her otherwise unphased facade. Dong-eun breaks her own rules and ends up getting involved in Hyeon-nam’s personal situation, not just financially but emotionally. This is an interesting layer to add to Dong-eun’s character development because she has her very own mummy issues. In fact, I’d go as far as to argue that Dong-eun’s mother is the antagonist that had the biggest impact on the overall outcome of Dong-eun’s life. Dong-eun even expresses the same sentiment when she says that the actions of her mother were the “biggest betrayal.” If her mother hadn’t changed her report or sold her apartment and instead offered support, would Dong-eun have grown up so obsessed with revenge? Would she have suffered so immensely in the pursuit of it? Could a loving, present parent have stopped any of this from happening? 

So, yes, I found Dong-eun boring but when her mother makes a reappearance… yeah… things got interesting again.

I’m a sucker for anything about mother/daughter dynamics, healthy or otherwise. This show definitely shows the otherwise. Dong-eun’s mother is a disgusting, foul, selfish woman and I wanted to punch my laptop screen whenever she showed up on the screen. In Part 1, she betrayed her daughter for money but it’s in Part 2 betrayal that really stung. This second decision was fuelled not just by greed but by envy, a genuine resentment for the fact that her daughter had the audacity to lead a successful life in separation from her. All Yeon-jin needs to do to get her on her side again is tell her that Dong-eun’s success does nothing to benefit her. Don’t even get me started on that excellent scene of Dong-eun cutting up all her mother’s new purchases only to have her mother cut her cheek in retaliation. The leather skin of a purse means more to her than the tender skin of her child… What great writing!

In summary, Dong-eun's best moments are moments where her mummy issues are agitated and we get to see how she chooses to react to that. We see it in how dedicated she is to helping Miss Kang and her daughter; in how she uses Yeon-jin’s dependence on her own mother and her love of her own daughter against her; in how she interacts with the landlord of that flat she’s never in, and finally how she reacts to Yeo-jeong’s mother begging her not to jump. I’m sure the show wants us to think that she didn’t jump because she just loves Yeo-jeong so much, but I think it’s more believable to interpret that decision as Dong-eun being stunned by the love Yeo-jeong’s mother shows her son through begging her to continue living for him. Yeo-jeong’s mum is pretty clearly saying, “I love my son and he apparently loves you, so stick around and stop him from spiraling? Please?” So there’s a part of Dong-eun that remains soft despite everything she’s been through, a part that longs to help out loving mothers who have space in their hearts for their kids.

Joo Yeo-jeong

From the moment he shows up, I think it’s pretty clear what purpose he’s meant to serve outside of being the love interest: he’s the bottomless purse, the needed upper-class influence used to exact Dong-eun’s revenge. But Part 2 of the season fleshes out his character a little more and offers up some interesting conversations surrounding morality, about what it truly means to be just and good and if it’s possible to always be both. One of my favourite conversations out of the season occurred between him and his mother, the two of them reminiscing about his late father, discussing whether it’s right to hail a person for being good when said goodness leads to foolish decisions.

Let me just rip the band-aid straight off with this one… the romance arc was easily the weakest part of the show. Not only did I think that it was unnecessary but it also felt very underdeveloped and forced at some points.

In my opinion, it would have been more interesting if the show leaned into how unhealthy the relationship between Yeo-jeong and Dong-eun was as opposed to trying to present it as something sweet and wholesome against the dark backdrop of death and revenge. If The Glory explored how instead of the two of them being in love, they were obsessed with each other as a result of their traumas and shared vendettas, I would have appreciated what they were doing with that subplot a lot more. Even then, I never once felt that Dong-eun even felt half as much for Yeo-jeong as he did for her, so even if they took the limerence approach they would still have had to develop their relationship a lot more. Yeo-jeong is cute and all but when the love-bombs started flying between the two, I was genuinely confused because how the hell did we get here?

With the way the season ended, it’s possible that we could be getting a new season centred around exacting Yeo-jeong’s revenge on his father’s murderer. I guess that could be a cool watch and I’m probably going to tune in if it does drop on Netflix. Still, I doubt it would ever amount to this first instalment because The Glory’s strengths lie in its large ensemble cast and the depth of the dark history all the main characters share. 

Kang Hyeon-nam (my main character)

THE STAR OF THE WHOLE SHOW! There’s really no debate about it and I have absolutely no negative notes on her as a character.

Whenever I thought she’d cave in to the pressures of her shit-stain husband or Park Yeon-jin, she proved me wrong and showed me that she’s always already four steps ahead of them. Her loyalty and her literal physical well-being are under constant threat throughout the entire show, but as long as her daughter’s safety is promised, Dong-eun (and the audience) doesn’t even have to question if she’d up and change sides. Hyeon-nam is a ride or die. Literally.

I also really appreciated the fact that she actually grieves her husband’s death, despite the fact that he was abusive and despite the fact that she played a hand in the orchestration of said death. I think it would’ve been really easy to have her laughing her head off at his funeral, but having her satisfied yet sobbing felt a lot more authentic, so real in the way that it’s not a straight-forward change in her life. Grief, in and of itself, is a very complex emotion and I’m sure only gets harder to navigate when it’s an abusive family member that’s passed away. The show explores this complexity not just through Heyon-nam crying at her husband's funeral, but also through her wearing the dress he said she looked beautiful in to the event. She could be wearing it for several reasons. It could be a final “fuck you” to the man who harmed her; it could be a way to reminisce all the happy (yet fleeting) moments they did get to share with each other, or it could be both.

Park Yeon-jin

I’ve already said that I found Dong-eun boring and I’ve already explained why, but the character of Park Yeon-jin is another major factor. This show suffers from the age-old curse of having a villain that is more interesting than its supposed hero. The actresses employed to play both past and present Yeon-jin did such amazing jobs at bringing her to life on the screen. There’s a quiet, almost playful evilness to her that constantly puts me on edge. Whenever Yeon-jin is set in a scene against Dong-eun to have one of their verbal sparring matches, I found that Dong-eun only ever wins on a script-level. On a scene level, Yeon-jin always comes out on top. From line delivery, to facial expressions, to that one smirk she does when she’s backed into a corner and is made to find her way out of it… Park Yeon-jin is a force to be reckoned with on screen. I enjoyed every second of hating her.

I’ve seen people complain about Yeon-jin’s punishment, saying that they didn’t like how it was “just a prison sentence.” I understand the want for a more personal act of revenge but one of Yeon-jin’s main superpowers is the fact that she has enough sway to make people do her dirty work for her, as seen in how quickly the facts of So-hee’s death were hidden. Since Part 1, Dong-eun’s goal has always been to isolate her from these sources of help through using her own lackeys against her. 

All in all, I think that her going to prison is fitting. Prison is a place where being pretty, being desirable, is honestly and truly dangerous. Teenage Yeon-jin seems to only ever pick on girls she feels threatened by because of their beauty. In one scene, she literally asks Jae-jun what he thinks about Dong-eun’s face, and in another scene she bullies Soo-hee because of their matching outfits. She also takes the curling iron to Dong-eun’s skin after complimenting how beautiful and smooth said skin is, she calls her legs pretty before ruining them. Yeon-jin’s oversized ego is rooted in deep-rooted insecurity and she’s obsessed with being the winner in her life-long competition against other women. One part of Yeon-jin’s dream is to be married and have kids and be comfortable, and she knows that her desirability is what will get her there. This fear of being set aside for another woman is made even clearer by her reaction to her husband playing Go with Dong-eun in the present day storyline. So, by placing Yeon-jin in prison, she’s placed into a position where her own beauty will be used against her over and over again. She will be in a position where she, too, will be abused and used for entertainment by those that surround her. When you look at it like that… it’s a very, very sinister fate.

I have very little to say about the remaining cast but I’ll put my opinions here just so I can round-out the discussion nicely.

Ha Do-yeong

Raise your hand if you wished that he was more involved in Park Yeon-jin’s downfall! [Raises hand].

This is my way of saying that I would’ve enjoyed seeing him have extramarital relations with Dong-eun. That would’ve been hot and juicy and drama-filled and I would’ve sunk my teeth right into some more of that emotional cheating that they were alluding to in Part 1. Still, I understand why that didn’t happen and I like to think that I’m mature enough to know that he played an important enough role in ruining Park Yeon-jin’s life even without getting into Dong-eun’s bed. At the end of the day he’s a father (not biologically but in ways that count) and the fact that he realigned his focus on his daughter, Ye-sol, immediately after finding out the truth was admirable. 

Also that one scene of him beating Jae-jun to a pulp? Cinema.

Jeon Jae-jun

Nasty bastard but very well crafted villain. The contrast between him wanting to be a father to Ye-sol and the fact that he raped and impregnated So-hee is so jarring that it works to make his character that much more terrifying. Everything he ends up doing in preparation for his daughter gets shrouded in the fact that he is an active danger to women with past actions that have been hidden. No one, not even his closest friends, knew that he raped let alone impregnated So-hee until close to the very end of the season and we, the watchers, spend most of the show believing that the sexual abuse stops and starts with Myeong-o. 

I was very satisfied with the way he died, not just because the final push was orchestrated by Do-yeong while he was wearing that amazing tie, but also because it’s the issue with contact lenses that set up that end. Although his colour-blindness is his main insecurity, it’s also the thread that links him to his daughter throughout the show. However those eyes that they share in common fail to pick Ye-sol out in a group of children, further suggesting that sharing genes doesn’t automatically lead to being someone’s true parent. It could also suggest that Jae-jun was never truly interested in getting to know his daughter, instead it was always about having power over another woman (Yeon-jin) by taking ownership of someone she cared about. 

Lee Sa-ra

If you need to know anything about me, it’s that I love a good biblical reference and that scene with the snake gave me life in abundance. I think the very interesting thing about Sa-ra’s downfall is that Dong-eun doesn’t explicitly do anything to her. True, that could be said about all the people Dong-eun exacts revenge on but with Sa-ra, Dong-eun doesn’t even need to employ a third party to deal with her. All she has to do is tempt Sa-ra and Sa-ra’s quick to do all the work herself. Hence, the snake imagery from the church.

Alluding to Adam and Eve does several things here. Firstly, it highlights how temptation and an addiction to pleasure (through drug consumption, through sex, through watching the bullying of others) is Sa-ra’s main weakness and how that all opposes her otherwise religious upbringing. Secondly, it highlights how Dong-eun wishes to shame Sa-ra as a form of punishment. As stated in the Hebrew Bible, prior to Eve eating from the tree, she and Adam walked the Earth innocent, naked and unembarrased. This is what Sa-ra presents herself as to begin with. To the public and to her church’s congregation, she is the innocent daughter of a preacher. To those she’s in relationships with, she’s sexually free and liberated. And to all those who admire her, she’s confident in not just herself but her art. Through her revenge, Dong-eun tears this all apart. Sa-ra is found and widely recorded while she’s high and masturbating in a church. This revenge cloaks her (and her family) in shame and forces her to hide away for the remainder of the show. I think that’s a great way to wrap up her character arc.

Choi Hye-jeong

In all honesty, Sa-ra and Yeon-jin took Hyeo-jeong’s voice years ago. The pencil in the throat just made it a little more permanent. Throughout the whole show, Hye-jeong appears to always be one step, one mere comment away from being treated just like Dong-eun and So-hee, and she was very aware of this. The whole friend group makes sure of that. Because she knows this, Hye-jeong willingly fills the role of a bystander, willing to benefit from her proximity to her friends’ riches but not so willing to speak out against the bullying that they do. Not unless it benefits her, anyway. 

All in all, her character arc was good and the punishment she received was fitting… also she has really nice boobs.

Son Myeong-o

Very satisfied with the fact that several women played a part in this bastard’s death and the use of his body after-the-fact. Yeon-jin threw the first blow, Kyung-ran finished it off, and Dong-eun used his corpse as an object to reach her own goals. Objectification of a human body? That sounds like something Myeong-o is familiar with, being a serial rapist and all. 

---

To conclude, this was a really good revenge thriller and gets a ★★★★☆ rating from me. Every episode was paced to perfection! If we do end up getting another season, I’ll be seated but I honestly don’t think the show needs it. We got 16 solid episodes and I think that the ending, though open, was enough to satisfy. If you haven’t watched it yet (idk why you read this lmao I spoiled a lot) I recommend you give it a watch. If you have watched it, join the chat or comment on this post! I would love to hear more about what you think. 

If you enjoyed this post and want to support me, here’s my PayPal!