Recap Korean Drama "Cheer Up" Episode 9

As we enter Episode 9 we find our favorite cheer team in festival mode. They’ve been practicing their new routine for a month and excitement is in the air. Unfortunately, on the day of their debut, the team learns the show can’t go on. Their dance song can’t be played at the event due to a drunk driving scandal by the song’s creator. Though it’s a disappointment, the Freshman Five find a backup song and modify their moves. With new lyrics and renewed verve, they aim to perform as planned.

As they get everything prepared, Sun-ja puts on Jung-woo’s captain uniform, just to mess around, and rips a huge hole under the arm. When she learns the uniform is worth $5,000 — or the cost of 5,000 cream buns, as Hae-yi notes — she freaks out and tries to repair it before Jung-woo finds out. With her shoddy sewing job, however, the jacket rips again later while Jung-woo is wearing it on stage. In a rockstar move, he takes off the torn coat and tosses it in the crowd, leaving the newbies nothing to worry about.

As the freshman are gearing up for the show, Yoo-min is on the mystery case. She learns that the culprit of both the falling stage light and the threatening messages is likely a member of the cheer squad. The person texts her, telling her to meet at 4PM at the university’s observatory. Jung-woo says he’ll be on the lookout for anyone leaving at 4 but, in the end, he decides to join Yoo-min in case there’s any trouble.

As Yoo-min and Jung-woo wait in front of the observatory, a guy walks up and delivers a letter — supposedly on behalf of the texter — that reads: “What could Do Hae-yi be doing now?” Jung-woo and Yoo-min realize that rather than a meeting, they’ve been led away from the team. They both run to find Hae-yi.

In that moment, Hae-yi is with her ex, who’s in the band, asking him to rearrange the performance song so the team can dance to it. When Jung-woo finally locates her she can’t tell him what she’s doing since the freshman haven’t told the captains yet of their save-the-day plan. Jung-woo, instead of saying he’s worried, says he’s disappointed in Hae-yi’s lack of responsibility for the team. Why does she go off alone and not answer her phone? Hae-yi doesn’t say anything, even though taking responsibility is exactly what she’s trying to do.

When the newbies’ plan gets approved, all five of them get to perform in their stage uniforms together for the first time. The new routine is fun and high-energy and we finally get to see it in full. The festival is an all-day event but by night, Jung-woo takes the mic in front of the packed stadium and tells the person who is sending the texts to stop acting like a coward and come forward. It doesn’t lead to immediate results, but at least they’ve finally gone public with the problem.

In the middle of all the cheering and mystery solving, we still have our love lines. Episode 8 ended with Hae-yi and Sun-ho hugging on stage as Sun-ho cried. In this episode we learn that someone took a photo of that moment and posted it online, making everyone in school think the two are dating.

When the team finishes their performance, they bask in the glow of their success and stand with the crowd in the stadium. Min-jae looks at Sun-ja with a clear crush and Sun-ho officially confesses to Hae-yi. It’s his first time telling someone he likes them, rather than just asking them out. He says it’s scary, but he’s ready to accept his first unrequited loved.

We later learn in the epilogue that Jung-woo also “confessed” to Hae-yi earlier in the day — but it was while she was sleeping in the practice room. As he’s walking away, she wakes up, pretends she wasn’t sleeping, and tells Jung-woo not to be weird around her. She did have feelings for him, but she understands he doesn’t feel that way, so he should just act normal. Jung-woo seems a little upset, and I wonder how long this miscommunication can go on.

We finally meet Jung-woo’s mom in this episode but it still doesn’t shed a ton of light on his backstory yet. His mom shows up at the university and is angry to learn that he’s on the cheer squad — and captain no less. She says she’s leaving but we later see that she actually stuck around to see Jung-woo perform. She murmurs to herself that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, hinting at why she’s so angry about him cheering. (Man, I really hope there is no crazy reason having to do with cheerleading accidents to explain why his dad’s not around.)

On the mom front, we get very little from Chun-yang and Jin-hee here, but what we do get is precious. Chun-yang and Jae-yi go to Yonhee to support Hae-yi’s big day, and mom and bro are exuberant fans (even if Jae-yi is yawning by the time the thing drags into night). Jin-hee arrives alone to see Sun-ho perform and is just as proud. Both moms tear up at the sight of their kids on stage.

When the festival is finally over, Jung-woo finds a message in the dressing room to come to the observatory — no date or time listed but he runs off anyway. In the dark. Alone. When he arrives he doesn’t see anyone there. We see, standing on the observatory above Jung-woo’s head, the guy who delivered the letter to Yoo-min earlier — and he’s holding a knife.

We then see a montage of him executing all the misdeeds up to this point — the texting, the light falling, the spying, etc. He’s one of the cheer team sunbaes from the prior year who attends all the team events, but we’ve only seen him as part of a larger group. Since this isn’t a character we’ve met yet, we’ll have to wait for the coming episodes to understand his motives.

It’s been a while since we actually got to see the cheerleaders cheering so that was definitely the highlight of this episode. It’s so nice to watch the team finally working together. Now that they’re a small group, we get to see how individual personalities play out in the group dynamic, allowing everyone to have their own role rather than feeling like side characters.

The other highlight for me, even though it was small, was the moms being in the stands to support their kids. They looked totally out of place and so totally proud. With only one episode this week it feels like a lot of information is missing, but that’s also all the more reason to tune in next week to see how things play out.