Racket Boys – K-Drama Episode 10 Recap & Review

Following Your Heart’s Desire

Episode 10 of Racket Boys begins with Coach Fang finding Hae-Kang in the closet. Hae-Kang saves Se-Yoon’s skin, keepign her hidden while he’s sent out to run laps. Only, he does so with newfound enthusiasm after his chat with Se-Yoon.

In the morning, Hae-Kang struggles to catch several apples thrown toward him by his Father. It turns out he’s suffering from hypema, which is a condition regarding blood in the eye. This occurred off the back of being hit with the shuttlecock at the tournament. After sporting an eye-patch, Hyeon-Jong is left with a lot to think about. After all, he’s never asked Hae-Kang about his hopes and dreams. Now that he’s wrapped up with badminton, he’s unsure whether this is really what Hae-Kang wants.

We then cut forward one week later. Hyeon-Jong informs the kids in private, away from Hae-Kang, that he won’t be competing in the preliminaries. Se-Yoon also sports an injured arm and she’s not happy when she notices Hae-Kang lounging about with his injury.

The rest of the Racket Boys discuss the White Wolf legend at the local store. There, they try their best to get some extra discounts but it amounts to nothing. While they’re out and under strict instructions not to ring Hae-Kang, our main protagonist mopes about at Grandma Ome’s and wonders what to do.

With money tight, Hyeon-Jong meets his old friend Yang-Su. He’s not the big-shot money man he thought and in fact the truth about his situation makes Hyeon-Jong show pity. It turns out Yang-Su had to spend a lot of money on his child’s medical bills. In fact, times were so hard he was actually on the bridge when he rang originally.

Back home, Hyeon-Jong speaks to the racket boys who admit they just want to hang out with Hae-Kang regardless of if he plays badminton or not. With this in mind, Hyeon-Jong speaks to Hae-Kang and questions just what he wants to do with his life. Well, he has a new goal now and he wants to focus on badminton. This also means Hyeon-Jong didn’t really need to worry all this time.

Later on in the day Hae-Kang meets up with Se-Yoon again but she’s not happy with him. She gives Hae-Kang an ultimatum and tells him he needs to make good on his promise and beat Park Chan. Right now he doesn’t look like he’s serious about it.

This is enough to snap Hae-Kang out of this rut and focus on badminton. Before that though, it’s time to celebrate Hyeon-Jong’s 47th birthday.

When he heads in and sees all the guys with a cake and decorations for Hyeon-Jong, who breaks down into tears. As part of the celebrations, the boys have got him an outfit but it’s way too tight. This leads to a pretty hilarious moment where he shows this off in the mirror.

Anyway, we then cut forward to the National Assembly Competition. Hae-Kang is there cheering the kids on, although the racket boys struggle to get past the second round without him. This only makes Hae-Kang more smug that evening as he giggles and teases them about it.

That evening, the villagers all gather together for dinner and a scary movie with Big Gran. At the end of the video, the kids all show off her hometown through a series of home clips – and even have some food from there too. It’s a touching sentiment and one that sees Woo-Chan encouraged to get up and sing. He’s really good as well, and the evening ends with success. For the most part anyway.

When the talk turns to children, the city couple take offence and head off. Ms Shin obviously says something but the husband is pretty stern and tells her to shut her mouth. It turns out this couple have been unable to conceive all this time which also explains why they were suicidal too.

As the episode closes out, the kids realize this White Wolf isn’t as saintly as he seems. In fact, he even assaulted a child in the past too. This cuts us back 10 years before where we see that Head Coach Bae is the white wolf.

The Episode Review

Racket Boys bows out with another good episode, full of strong slice of life action and some big revelations too. The White Wolf reveal with Coach Bae is a good one although if memory serves me right, didn’t we find out about that near the start of the season?

Meanwhile, the show manages to add more depth for each of our characters with the focus shifted across to Hyeon-Jong and Hae-Kang this time. Specifically around the latter’s options in life and what he really wants to do. I think it’s fair to say he’s made his choice and it’s definitely badminton!

There’s some good humour in this, with the various silly antics for the kids adding a nice light-hearted tone to prevent this falling into melodramatic waters. Overall though, Racket Boys has been an enjoyable series and the ending leaves the door wide open for next week’s follow-up.