The Escape of the Seven: War for Survival (2023) Episode 2

Episode 2 of The Escape of the Seven starts with Mo-ne under a bridge with the baby. Jin-mo arrives and is angry with her for having a baby at school. He tells her that someone called K wants nothing to do with her. Mo-ne is crying and worried about her baby, who is barely breathing. Jin-mo takes the baby and promises to call if something happens. 

Elsewhere, Da-mi arrives at her grandfather’s house, but he does not let her in. He instructs Ju-ran not to let her in. At the police station, Kang Ki-tak and Do-hyuk bump into each other in the hallways. Kang Ki-tak fakes a fight with him to get him alone in a  room and talk. He apologizes for not taking care of the boys and tells Do-hyuk that someone is behind Jin-mo and he wants Taebaek Entertainment’s land. He asks Do-hyuk to find out who that person is. He whispers something in Do-hyuk’s ear and asks for his help.

Mo-ne arrives home to his brothers harassing their mother. Kyung-soo is asking for money to make some settlement failure, for which he will go to prison. Mo-ne confronts him, and they get into a fight. Kyung-soo tells her she has a day to get him the money, or he will tell the world her secrets and destroy her dream of becoming an idol. Her mother, Yoon Ji-sook, is deaf.

Da-mi is still outside her grandfather’s house. La-hui watches from a distance as she struggles to breathe and faints. She remembers Lee Whee-so’s words about her heart condition and gets out of the car to press the doorbell. Ju-ran answers the doorbell, and when she notices Da-mi lying outside the gate. She hesitates, but a housekeeper also arrives at the gate, and she rushes to call for an ambulance. 

Ju-ran calls Da-mi’s adoptive parents to the hospital. She tells them that Da-mi was walking in the rain for a while, and that is why she passed out. They ask her why Da-mi was found unconscious outside her grandfather’s house, and she decides to use the opportunity to out La-hui. She says that La-hui is using Da-mi to extort money from the chairman. She went looking for Da-mi only to get an inheritance from the chairman. 

Nan-young narrates the story La-hui told them about losing Da-mi at a subway station and has been looking for her ever since. Ju-ran bursts out laughing.  Juran insists that La-hui is using Da-mi to get a 100 million dollar investment from the chairman to produce her drama. She is in financial difficulties; if the deal falls through, her company will go under. La-hui arrives at the hospital, and at first, she is indifferent towards Da-mi, but she puts on her acting face when she sees the chairman.

Kang Ki-tak helps Do-hyuk escape the police. At the hospital, La-hui continues to put a façade in front of the chairman, making him ask Da-mi never to contact her adoptive parents again. He uses the investment into La-hui’s drama as an excuse to make Da-mi not contact her adoptive parents. She agrees to his demands. 

Jin-mo calls Mo-ne to tell her that her baby died and asks that she no longer contact her again. At the same time, a famous idol arrives at the audition, making the chances of Mo-ne winning slim. She, however, has an ace up her sleeves. During the final audition, the lights go out, and Mo-ne uses the chance to outshine other contestants and wins the audition. Various entertainment houses fight to recruit her.

Chairman Bang Chil-sung arrives at an unknown location and reports to a mysterious man about following his orders and pressuring the bank to bankrupt Kang Ki-tak’s Taebaek Group. The man rewards him with a confidential document from Korea Land Corporation. Back at home, he gives La-hui 20 million dollars as an investment in her drama and 30 million dollars as a gift for Da-mi.

Do-hyuk goes looking for Jin-mo in a bar, where he comes across No Pyeong-hee. Elsewhere, La-hui approaches Mo-ne during her exercise at a yoga studio. La-hui tells Mo-ne that she knows she cut the lights during the audition, which is why she likes her and wants to bring her to fame. 

The director comes across a rumour about Mo-ne. She controls bullies behind the scenes at school and gave birth in the school’s art room. The director wants her to prove that the rumours are false, or he will defer her appearance until they are sure. Mo-ne thinks Da-mi might have spilled her secret. She tells Jin-mo about it and asks for his help. She plans to use the circumstantial evidence she has to create the rumours about Da-mi to change the name of the person who gave birth at school from Mo-ne to Da-mi. 

Jin-mo uses Joo Yong-joo and Hang Man-du to generate fake news about Bang Da-mi. The news spread all over social media, and Da-mi started receiving death threats. The school tries to get to the bottom of the story, but Myung-ji stops them, saying that she witnessed Da-mi giving birth and that the essential step is to hold a disciplinary committee and expel Da-mi. The school principal agrees with her suggestion. 

But why does Myung-ji hate Da-mi? On her first day at Myeongju Girls High School, she overhead Myung-ji’s conversation with the PE teacher, who also happens to be the school chairman’s son. They were talking about being in a relationship, but the PE teacher was married, and he had lied about getting divorced. Myung-ji had told him she was pregnant and wanted to meet the parents and get married, but the PE teacher ditched her and asked her to go to the hospital for an abortion. If his wife finds out, Myung-ji would be a home wrecker.

Da-mi attends the disciplinary committee, and they are convinced that she gave birth. She tells them to bring Mo-ne for questioning since she is the only one who can attest to her innocence. Mo-ne is at LH Media, signing a deal with La-hui. She lies about her family, saying her mother is in the United States and has had housekeepers taking care of her since she was little. About her age, she clarifies that she had to repeat middle school after returning to Korea from abroad. 

Do-hyuk taps Jan-min’s room at the club and overhears them discussing framing Da-mi. He confronts him at the restroom and knocks him out. Elsewhere, Da-mi confronts Mo-ne at the dance studio. She asks her to confess to giving birth, but Mo-ne does not intend to. She implores her pretending to be her friend and asks her for some more time. Da-mi gives her one more chance to come to school the next day and tell the truth. 

Do-hyuk gets Jin-mo to confess to hiring him and framing Kang Ki-tak, but his henchmen intervene before he can get him to talk about what Jin-mo did to Da-mi, and they have to escape. No Pyeong-hee lures the men away and re-unites Do-hyuk with his family. She asks him to take the recording to the police and clear Kang Ki-tak’s name. 

Da-mi’s grandfather takes her to Ju-ran so she can run tests to prove whether or not the rumours are true. As expected, Ju-ran lies about the results, and the grandfather believes it. It turns out Mo-ne had gone to the hospital using Da-mi’s name to ask for an abortion. Ju-ran announces that she is pregnant. 

Da-mi’s fake pregnancy news is getting out of control. Yoong-joo and Man-du break into Da-mi’s adoptive parents’ home during a live stream on their channel, intending to reveal Da-mi’s man. They had taken photos of Lee Whee-so hugging Da-mi outside the school and are now spreading the news that the father of the child she gave birth to is her adoptive father. They implore the police to investigate the matter. 

La-hui goes berserk and slaps Da-mi even though she knows the news is a lie. She tells her that without her grandfather’s money, Da-mi is nothing, and La-hui’s company and her life will also be nothing. Suddenly, Da-mi asks La-hui why she abandoned her. She knows that La-hui did not lose her at the subway, but she intentionally abandoned her there on the bridge. She vows to tell her grandfather the truth and ensure La-hui gets none of his money. 

La-hui chokes Da-mi and throws her against the fish tank. In the next scene, a group of people are running towards some place where the beanie that Mo-ne bought for Da-mi is seen on the ground surrounded by blood spurts. 

The Episode Review

The second episode of The Escape of the Seven proves that the series will be exceptionally dramatic to the extent that it becomes frustrating to watch.  For example, it is very easy to verify if a woman has recently given birth, yet the grown-ups around Da-mi can’t figure out the truth!

The episode brings so many absurd twists and turns that it leaves one insanely furious at the lack of logic in the drama. However, all this is expected from this kind of thriller series. Hence, The Escape of the Seven is able to elicit the feelings of anxiety, anticipation, suspense, surprise, and excitement the audience expects from the series. 

At this point, there is still suspicion and curiosity about who is running the show behind the veil and what power he holds even to control Da-mi’s grandfather, a wealthy older man.  By the end of this episode, there are no characters to like in the series, as they are either too terrible or too pathetic. The series is wild, and now we are left wondering, did someone die? Let us find out in the next episode.