Cold Blooded Intern: Episode 1 (First Impressions)

by missvictrix

The premiere episode of Cold Blooded Intern gives us an interesting mix of playfulness, humor, and pretty darn serious social issues in the workplace. It’s not the smoothest of mixes, but we leave Episode 1 with the sense that the drama knows what it’s doing, and has a moral that we’ll get to in the end.

Editor’s note: This is an Episode 1 review only. For a place to chat about the entire drama, visit the Drama Hangout.
 
EPISODE 1

The opening sequence was by far my favorite bit from the episode — we meet our heroine GO HAE-RA (Ra Mi-ran) first as her animated counterpart, much like we met Ahn Hyo-seop’s hero in Business Proposal. There’s really no grand point to this that I can tell, but it’s cool, and it sets the hyperbolic and fun tone that Cold Blooded Intern is going for. Because when we see Go Hae-ra head up to a skyscraper roof and aim her sniper rifle at her colleagues the building over — yeah, the drama needs the proper tone to make this metaphorical moment work.

After that intro we back up to Hae-ra, pre-job. She’s been home raising her daughter for the last seven years, and now she’s anxious to get back to the workplace she once so eagerly left. We see a quick montage of her life as “Yi-young’s mom” or “Soo-pyo’s wife” and learn she wants to go back to living for herself. I’m already confused on what the drama is trying to say here — it seems as though she’s discounting the value of her time spent as a wife and mother, but later on when the episode ends, we’re told Hae-ra is back in the concrete jungle to protect her family. Hopefully, this is something the drama will dig into more deeply, and all signs point in that direction.

As expected for a woman returning to the workplace after a long gap who is also — GASP — in her 40s, she struggles to make it through even first-round interviews. Her seemingly unsupportive (and possibly cheating) husband GONG SOO-PYO (Lee Jong-hyuk) is super skeptical that she’ll land something. This only makes her more determined to succeed, and Hae-ra’s gumption and can-do attitude is definitely a part of her charm.

The uncomfortable interviews and failures start to stack up, but finally, one interview is unique. On the interview panel is the company’s general manager CHOI JI-WON (Eom Ji-won) — and Hae-ra is aghast. Turns out these two worked together previously, and were on parallel career trajectories.

In the interview, Ji-won breaks the awkwardness with a wild card question, asking the two interviewees if they would do ~anything~ their boss requested, with the implication of it being an illegal action. The youngster says no, but our Hae-ra gives a hearty, “Yes!” She’ll obey any order from her boss — and if it’s illegal? Heck, she’s sure they’d have a good reason.

Presumably, this is what Ji-won wanted to hear, and she later offers Hae-ra an intern position on her team. This is a low blow for our heroine’s ego, but she eventually accepts, knowing how hard it will be for her to get anything else.

While Hae-ra buys a new suit and arrives at the workplace ogling “sexy desks” and the enjoying “delicious” office instant coffee, it’s less flowery for Ji-won. Concurrent to Hae-ra’s employment predicament, we see Ji-won’s as well, and that’s basically that she’s a high-ranking female in a discriminatory workplace, where she seems the far more competent worker (dare I say goddess?) compared to her unscrupulous boss (played by the ever-enjoyable Kim Won-hae).

As the drama progresses, it becomes clear that its strength is in the interplay between Hae-ra and Ji-won. The story first paints a clear picture for us of how different they are. Hae-ra might be working an entry-level position now, but she has a loving family around her (theoretically). Ji-won, on the other hand, rejects the thought of a family and her career is how she defines herself.

Though the women are very different, both appear to have a similar savage dog-eat-dog vibe, and that seems to be the angle the drama will play with as the plot progresses. Hae-ra is desperate to be successful as an intern, so she immediately plays up to the two women on her team. When she learns they’re both young mothers, she immediately thinks to herself that she’ll use this as a way to make them her allies and advance herself.

Similarly self-serving, as the episode closes out, we learn that Ji-won hired Hae-ra as her intern for a reason. She tells Hae-ra that she wants her to do something (calling back the fateful job interview question). Both of the women Hae-ra expected to befriend are planning some sort of maternal leave in the near future. Ji-won tells Hae-ra her job as intern is to make both women resign instead of take their leave. And if she can’t do that, set it up so the company has reason to fire them. If she is successful, Hae-ra will get her management position back.

Hmm, this is definitely not the core story I was expecting with Cold Blooded Intern, but it operates on so many different levels that I think the drama has a lot to work with. On one hand, we have our heroine who’s desperate to be successful again, but she’s faced with the moral dilemma of causing harm to other women like her in order to gain that success.

On the other hand, we have our anti-heroine Ji-won — who’s so poised she’s impossible to dislike — she sees only the hit companies take when covering leave for their female employees. It’s interesting, too, that in Ji-won’s case, the reasoning is both personal (the leave policy is unfair to single women) and professional (this is a major issue not only for her company, but its competitors, whose discriminatory policies against female employees have recently blown up in the news).

A ruthless battle of wits between two women with history in the workplace is one thing, but it’s another entirely when working moms are pitted against working moms for their own gain (how does that work exactly?) in the way the drama has constructed. Of course, I’m confident it’s all for a reason, and I suspect in the midst of the “cold blooded” moves to come, we’ll also find a good deal of humor, hijinks, and solidarity.

 
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