Episode 10 of tvN’s spy romance delivered the show’s biggest twist yet — not a confession, but a question. Hideo looked Ga-gyeong in the eye and asked for her real name, then whether she was a spy. The episode drew a series-high 10.7% nationwide rating, doubling its debut viewership and confirming that the show’s central deception is finally cracking open.
The Bombing That Did Not Go as Planned
The Gugukdan resistance group had one clear target: Inspector General Sato Shinichi, the second-highest-ranking Japanese official in colonial Korea. Their plan was layered. A timed bomb would be hidden near the stage at a banquet celebrating the opening of a railway line. A fire alarm would create chaos. So-ran, the group’s sniper, would ensure the device landed in the right place.
Everything fell apart in sequence. The Governor-General and Sato left the hall after news arrived that Japanese Prime Minister Inukai had been attacked in Tokyo. The bomb, now hidden inside a cake trolley, was left near the stage with only Hideo and foreign journalists in the blast zone. Ga-gyeong saw the timer counting down and made a choice that had nothing to do with the mission: she shoved the cake trolley away from Hideo before it exploded**.
The explosion still killed two senior officials and injured many others. Sato’s response was immediate and cold. He blamed the attack on Songjeon, the Gugukdan operative who had infiltrated the banquet kitchen, and framed him as a mentally ill Japanese man acting alone. When Songjeon attacked Sato in the elevator and was fatally stabbed, Sato ordered Hideo to finish the job with a pistol. Hideo froze. Sato pulled the trigger himself.
Ga-gyeong’s Train That Never Left
So-ran had given Ga-gyeong everything she needed to leave Korea: three months’ pay, an identity guarantee letter, and a ticket to America as a nanny for a missionary family. Ga-gyeong boarded the train at Gyeongseong Station. For a moment, the life she had been promised — safety, distance, a future — was within reach.
The train never departed. Japanese police stopped it to search for a woman with a gunshot wound to the shoulder and a missing pearl earring. So-ran had been shot by Police Chief Fukuda during the chaos at the Government-General, and she had dropped one of her pearl earrings at the scene. The police were tracing the earring back to the resistance.
Ga-gyeong got off the train. She stopped at a pawnshop, bought a matching pearl earring, and returned to Philip’s house just as Hideo arrived with policemen to search the premises. So-ran was hiding a wound and missing an earring. Ga-gyeong “found” the earring on the floor — after dropping it there herself — and deflected the search of So-ran’s shoulder. She later told So-ran she came back because she had been paid for three months but worked only one, and she did not want to owe anyone anything.
Hideo Connects the Clues
Hideo did not buy the explanation. The episode spent its final act showing him assembling the pieces in his mind. He remembered seeing So-ran wearing the pearl earrings at the Government-General. He remembered noticing one was missing. Most of all, he remembered Ga-gyeong pushing the cake trolley away from him seconds before the bomb detonated.
The Inspector General also began pulling threads. He learned that Hideo had not properly checked So-ran’s shoulder during the search, and he started gathering information on Ga-gyeong’s past. The police officers who accompanied Hideo reported back that he had prevented So-ran from being searched. Sato, already under pressure from the assassination attempt and an anonymous tip blaming Gugukdan, began to suspect that the threat was coming from inside his own household.
“He finally realizes that she’s a spy”.
The episode’s closing scene was short and direct. Ga-gyeong walked into the office. Hideo asked for her real name. Then he asked whether she was a spy. The question landed with the force of everything that had come before it: the bomb she stopped, the earring she planted, the train she abandoned.
What the Ratings Say About This Episode
Episode 10 recorded an average nationwide rating of 10.7% and a peak of 12.0%, according to Nielsen Korea. In the Seoul metropolitan area, the episode averaged 11.7% with a peak of 13.1%. It was the first time the series crossed the double-digit threshold and marked its highest viewership since the premiere on October 10, 2026.
The show’s debut episode had drawn 5.278% nationwide. By episode 10, the audience had more than doubled. The series airs on tvN in South Korea and streams on Netflix for global audiences.
The Spy at the Center of It All
Kim Yoo-jung plays Lee Ga-gyeong, a skilled pickpocket from Gyeongseong who is recruited by the Gugukdan independence group and placed undercover as an interpreter trainee inside the Japanese Government-General of Joseon. Park Jin-young of GOT7 plays Kim Tae-woong, also known as Sato Hideo, the adopted son of Inspector General Sato and a translator caught between his Japanese upbringing and his Korean origins. Kim Hyun-joo plays Yoo So-ran, the Gugukdan sniper whose personal vendetta against Sato drives the group’s assassination plot.
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The series is a period spy romance set across 100 days during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Its central engine is not the bombing or the chase, but the double life Ga-gyeong is living under Hideo’s nose — and the slow, painful process of Hideo seeing what has been in front of him the entire time.
Also Read: 100 Days of Deception Cast Earns Praise From Japanese Viewers for Fluent Japanese Acting
Episode 10 ends with Ga-gyeong standing in front of the one person she cannot afford to be honest with. For more breakdowns of the shows everyone is watching, keep reading on VvipTimes.
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