Ra Mi-Ran is on fire this year with the highly successful The Good Bad Mother, and now this show so soon after. The veteran actress proves again her versatility between her unique roles in these two largely different shows. Cold Blooded Intern, as the name suggests, is a workplace drama, with each episode lasting about 35 minutes, half of the usual run time for Korean dramas. The show also stars Uhm Ji-Won, another veteran actress who previously worked with Ra Mi-Ran back in 2013 on a movie titled “Hope.” The two actresses look fantastic, and the show is refreshing with its themes revolving around older women and motherhood in the workplace. 

Spoilers Ahead

What Happens In Episode 1?

Go Hae-Ra hasn’t worked in about 7 years, but the stress of a homemaker’s life has made her realize she wants to go back to being a working mom. Now, she has started to give interviews for new recruitments in large companies, but her age prevents her from getting hired. Most companies are looking for people in their early 30s, but Hae-Ra is well into her 40s. She answers all the interview questions honestly and knows she can be great as a merchandiser because she’s been keeping up with market trends as a mother. Hae-Ra doesn’t want to be just someone’s wife or someone’s mother anymore; she wants to go back to being herself.

After hearing only negative feedback from all the companies, she goes to her final interview. There she meets Ji-Won, a former colleague and rival of sorts. Ji-Won is now a general manager, and she sits across from Hae-Ra for an interview. Ji-Won asks the two interviewees if they would do anything in their power if the boss asked them to, even though it may be an illegal task. Hae-Ra responds with a yes, and this makes Ji-Won give her a call. Ji-Won gets straight to the point and tells Hae-Ra that she has an internship opening for her on her team.

Hae-Ra refuses the position and returns home all sad, but after returning to the stress of reality, she realizes she has no other choice but to take up the internship. We can see that Ji-Won is playing her own cards because her boss is a misogynist who doesn’t want to give his female employees pregnancy and childcare leave, which is a legal requirement for companies. Hae-Ra, on the other hand, tries to cozy up with her fellow mothers on the team to be able to quickly get accepted as an older intern (Robert De Niro style). Her manager previously worked under her and is very afraid, but Hae-Ra tries to make him understand that she’s just an intern now and he should treat her like one.

Ji-Won asks Hae-Ra out to dinner to welcome her to the team, but she has an ulterior motive for hiring Hae-Ra. A rival company has just been outed for making female employees sign no-pregnancy contracts. While their company doesn’t do such a thing, they’re hypocrites too because they pretend to accept it all, but actually Ji-Won tasks Hae-Ra with trying to convince the two mothers (the ones she got friendly with) to quit work rather than take their maternity leave because it will be a huge hassle for the company. If she can’t do that, she needs to make arrangements to get them fired, and in return, Hae-Ra would get to be a manager again.

At the beginning of the episode, we saw Hae-Ra looking like an assassin as she took aim at her colleagues in the workplace. She tells the story of how she got into that position, and the episode closes with her shooting at the pregnant mother. This is a metaphoric representation of what Hae-Ra has to do to get back to her high-profile job.

What Happens In Episode 2?

In Episode 1, we saw that Hae-Ra and Ji-Won had become managers at the same time, but Hae-Ra was the more enterprising of the two. The second episode opens with a flashback, and a woman stands at the edge of a rooftop with a no-pregnancy contract. She looks like she’s about to jump until Hae-Ra shows up. In the present day, Hae-Ra finds herself thinking hard about what Ji-Won told her. She heads to work, tries her hand at some menial tasks, and forces her superior to treat her like a junior. Her first target is Moon-Jung, who is heavily pregnant and will be taking maternity leave soon after giving birth. Hae-Ra notices Moon-Jung is extremely diligent in her work and feels terrible about what she needs to do. Moon-Jung is tasked with keeping in touch with the designer for the new products, but on the day of submission, he goes AWOL.

In a panic, Moon-Jung decides to head to his home to find him, and Hae-Ra drives her there. They don’t find him there, and just when they’re about to give up, the team calls them with the fact that the designer is running a marathon and has posted an image on social media. On the other hand, Hae-Ra’s husband gets fired from work, and he goes to the amusement park to feel better about himself. Their daughter catches him there, and because she’s bunking classes, they make a pact not to disclose their whereabouts to Hae-Ra.

What Happens To Moon-Jung?

Moon-Jung decides to run the marathon to find the designer, but Hae-Ra stops her. Moon-Jung is due in 2 months, and that could turn out disastrous. Hae-Ra runs hard to find the man. Later, she gets a bike so she can go further and faster. When she finally sees the guy running towards her, she remembers what Ji-Won wants from her and purposely lets him go. She returns to Moon-Jung and tells her that she can’t find the designer. Back at work, Ji-Won has already got the team to look for another guy in his place. In her stress, Moon-Jung starts to bleed, and Hae-Ra gets her to the hospital as soon as possible.

A devastated Hae-Ra returns to Ji-Won and tells her that she is the reason Moon-Jung ended up in that position. Ji-Won tells her that both mother and baby are fine, so there’s nothing to be worried about. Hae-Ra gets a call from Moon-Jung, and she tells her that she will quit work permanently and not take her maternity leave because she almost lost her baby in the process. Ji-Won is very happy with Hae-Ra’s work and congratulates her on her success. The episode ends with the scene on the rooftop where the woman stands with the contract. It was none other than Ji-Won at the edge, meaning that there were some deep-rooted issues there, and she pushed herself to reach the top of the ladder after Hae-Ra saved her.