Seven Day Queen: Episode 20 (Final)

285 August 3, 2017October 19, 2017

by javabeans

Wow, that was perfect. I wasn’t sure what to expect of the finale, which felt predictable in a way but still ended up producing something surprisingly lovely and poignant. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that it ended beautifully given that it’s been so strong all the way through, but it’s such a rare thing to feel like a show got an ending pitch-perfect, and especially so when we’re dealing with a historical piece whose characters’ endings are well-known.

I cried buckets watching the finale but feel really good about it; they weren’t tears of sadness or misery, but the kind that hit you for being so emotionally resonant, so thoughtful and fitting while also honoring the trajectories of these characters. I’m not sure when we’ll get another show this good, but I feel really satisfied and fulfilled having lived with this one for the past couple months.

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FINAL EPISODE RECAP

After admitting to helping the former king and refusing to vow loyalty to the current one, Chae-kyung is led through the streets, tied up as a criminal, for public execution.

She thinks to Yeok that she now understands her father’s words about their unhappy fate. “But given that we met and loved, we must take responsibility for that,” she adds.

These are the words Yeok reads in the letter she left for him, heavy-hearted, until his eunuch bursts in frantically to alert him to news: Chae-kyung’s execution has been moved up.

Chae-kyung is brought to the gallows set up in the square, while Yeok tears out of the palace on horseback after hearing that it was his mother who pushed for this change, having argued that Chae-kyung couldn’t be trusted not to try something.

“In this life, I will protect that love with my death,” Chae-kyung narrates as she stands before the noose. She looks up at a bird flying overhead as a cloth bag is placed over her head. “If I am born again, I will not meet you then.”

The noose is placed around her neck. Yeok charges toward the scene with moments to spare, yelling for a halt to the proceedings. He removes Chae-kyung from the noose, and she slumps against him in shock. Untying her ropes, Yeok helps her off the gallows, ordering the guards to step aside.

In the pawnshop, Seok-hee and Gwang-oh discuss the search to find the fugitive Yeonsangun, noting where he was last seen and deciding to search the homes of his relatives. Myung-hye joins them to inform them that while Chae-kyung was saved from immediate execution, Yeok will find himself in trouble if they don’t do something quickly.

After they leave, Myung-hye thinks back to an earlier conversation with Yeok, where he’d told her that Seo-no’s grave was moved yesterday and she hadn’t been there to see it. She made the excuse that she was busy with other work, but he’d called her out on the lie—she was spotted near a posting station that Yeonsangun had used. He’d already guessed that she was involved in the attack on Yeonsangun, and had asked why she did it.

“Is this the world you wanted?” he’d asked. “How did we come to this?” He’d given her the chance to right her wrong, calling this the last time.

Yeok remains at Chae-kyung’s bedside, tending her while she sleeps. Seok-hee arrives to report that the true culprits behind Yeonsangun’s attack have been captured.

The three leaders in that attack, including Yeonsangun’s closest eunuch, have been rounded up and brought before the entire court. Deputy Commander (now Minister) Park looks particularly uneasy as Yeok demands an explanation, and the men admit to receiving orders to send Yeonsangun toward Minister Shin’s home. Yeok insists on the identity of their leader, and the eunuch names Park.

The court murmurs in surprise, and Park drops to his knees, declaring that he is being falsely accused—the eunuch had been loyal to Yeonsangun and is accusing him out of revenge. The other ministers argue that Yeok cannot believe the words of the perpetrators over the words of a hardworking minister like Park.

Yeok sees that he won’t win this way, and agrees to carry out a thorough investigation. The three criminals are carted off to prison, while Yeok shoots Park a hard look.

Park goes to Myung-hye and delivers a slap across the face, knowing she was the source, asking if she means to give up being queen to Chae-kyung. Myung-hye replies that she’s not giving it up when it was never hers to begin with (what is this, sense coming from Myung-hye?), but Park orders her to shut up and leave for China, saying that he has ways of fulfilling his goals without her.

Yeok confronts the queen dowager about having Chae-kyung killed, asking how he could live on if that happened. She asks if he and Chae-kyung could really live without doubts and resentments creeping in between them, pointing out that he’s already wracked with guilt over her parents’ deaths.

Yeok replies that she’s right—there was a time when he couldn’t look Chae-kyung in the eye. “However, through words, and touching hands, and embracing hearts, there would come a time when scratched hearts would melt. A time when things are better. In these times, being together and saying ‘I love you’ and holding each other is what spouses do. That is what Chae-kyung told me.”

He begs his mother to leave them be.

Myung-hye walks through the empty pawnshop thinking of the first time she met Seo-no here, and thinks, “I thought wrong. I thought that since you were not with me anyway, it did not matter how I lived.” She thinks of how Seo-no explained to her that love meant respecting the other person, and continues, “The moment I saw Shin Chae-kyung, I realized that to really love is to honor the other person’s wishes. Even if that means they may die.”

She remembers Seo-no’s execution, thinking, “And so, the Shin Chae-kyung you thought so dear—in saving her, I will repay my debt to you.” Myung-hye takes Seo-no’s head sash, which she has kept all this while, and ties it around her own head.

Yeok returns to Chae-kyung’s bedside, and when she wakes and registers what happened, she bolts up in alarm. She asks why he saved her, more worried about what it means for him than for her. He asks despairingly why she admitted guilt to a false charge when she should have insisted on her innocence through the end. “How could your first thought be to die?” he asks.

“What if there is something I fear more than death?” she asks. “What if there is something I can only protect by giving up my life? What must I do then?” She asks why she can’t be his person fully, saying that she hates herself for the first time, feeling pathetic for being who she is. Yeok gathers her to him as she sobs.

When Yeonsangun stirs awake, he’s shocked to find himself in the pawnshop with Myung-hye. He recalls collapsing in pain after fleeing Minister Shin’s home, and seeing her standing over him with her sword. He eyes her warily and asks after Chae-kyung, and Myung-hye informs him that she’s safe.

He asks her to let him go, and she asks coldly, “Is there a reason you must live any longer?” Yeonsangun grits out that he started this, and he must finish it.

Myung-hye brings over the old crutch, explaining that Yeok had used it for a long time: “Now it is your turn.”

Nanny nods off at Chae-kyung’s bedside clutching a spoon, and fumbles for it when it falls out of her hand. Chae-kyung hands it to her, and Nanny explains that it was Chae-kyung’s mother who’d instructed her to always be watchful over Chae-kyung’s food and to use a silver spoon, lest someone try to poison her. The mention brings both Nanny and Chae-kyung to tears, and Nanny holds her tight, saying mournfully, “This is not how to live. Even if you only live a day, you shouldn’t live like this.”

The three prisoners wind up dead in their cells of apparent suicide, although Gwang-oh supposes that it was Park’s work. How convenient that the people who could testify in Chae-kyung’s defense are all dead. Park presses again to depose Chae-kyung, saying it’s dangerous not to act while Yeonsangun may be plotting against them.

Yeok cuts him off, stating fiercely that the next one to accuse the queen without evidence will be punished for showing contempt of royalty. Park drops to the ground, and the others follow suit in appealing to the king. Yeok storms out of the room, and Park thinks to himself that he isn’t going to give up after working so hard.

That night, Minister Park convenes his Snail Bride army to say that their king has closed his ears to his advisers and the people, and that they must show him the will of the people and the heavens. He sends them on their task, and Myung-hye catches the tail end of that and looks upset.

She tries to reason with her uncle about not making an enemy of the king, but Park cuts her off, telling her she’s got a long way to go. He seems to have already written Myung-hye off, saying that she’s not his only niece. He calls in his adopted daughter, whom he intends to make the new queen rather than Myung-hye.

When Yeok visits Chae-kyung’s quarters, she greets him warmly and sits him down to ask if he fought with his ministers again, having heard that they’re arguing over her. Yeok is upset with the servants for telling her that, but she just tells him calmly that while she doesn’t know much about palace customs, there is one among ordinary households that she does know: that a woman cutting the ribbon from her outer jacket is a request to part ways.

Chae-kyung snips the ribbon on her top and places it in Yeok’s hand. He tries to refuse, but she holds his hand in hers and says, “If I do not cut ties first, you will never let me go. I wish for a divorce. Please allow it.”

Yeok looks stricken, and says that she knows his answer. “Reconciliation, recovery, courage, resolve, promises, consolation—there are so many things we can do together, for each other. Why, without even trying them all? Why ask to separate first?” He won’t do it.

Chae-kyung asks him to think back to when he pretended to be someone else and pushed her away with hurtful lies. She knows he was thinking of her safety then, and tells him that his safety is all she hopes for. She tells him that Seo-no, her parents, and countless citizens are on the path he will now walk as king: “After you have accomplished your goal, after that, you can come to me.”

“Why can we not take that path together?” Yeok asks. She says they are both under constant threat of death, and will continue to be so as long as they are together. She reminds him that he is the nation’s leader, and must now be afraid of death. She begs him to survive: “Perhaps the biggest consolation we can give one another is staying alive. Thus, for us to live in good health for a long time will become proof of how much we love each other.”

Oof, that’s powerful stuff. Chae-kyung keeps smiling through her tears, and though his face looks bleak, Yeok says that if he lives a hundred years, he will have loved her a hundred years. “Even if we are not together,” he adds, “if we just stay alive, that alone…” He breaks down, but finishes through his tears, “…means we loved.”

She agrees, telling him that it’s like leaving home to do important work, but “that house remains where it always was.” He asks if that home can’t be here, but she replies, “This is the queen’s home. I am just Shin Chae-kyung.” She wipes the tears from his face and kisses him sweetly, then holds him as he sobs in her arms. Ugh, my tears won’t stop.

In the city, people read flyers posted on walls, which seem to have something to do with Minister Park, judging from the side-eyes he gets as he travels past. Murmurs break out when he arrives at court.

Yeok arrives and addresses the disturbance that occurred overnight regarding Snail Bride activities, and asks Minister Park what he knows of it. Park declares righteously that on his way here, he witnessed citizens united in expressing their discontent about the king, and that the king cannot ignore the voice of the people.

He doesn’t seem entirely up to date, however, and Yeok tosses over a stack of flyers, telling him he must have seen wrong. Yeok reads aloud a list of Park’s corrupt activities, starting with profiting personally from the deaths of the three criminals (whose estates he claimed for dirt-cheap).

Aha, in flashback we see that the Snail Brides he’d sent out were diverted by Gwang-oh and Seok-hee, who burned the original flyers and replaced them with their own.

As Yeok reads off Park’s misdeeds, Park insists on his innocence. Yeok calls for the witness to be brought forth, and in walk several noblemen whom Park immediately disavows knowing. Except then, another figure enters the room: Myung-hye. Ohhh snap. Dammit, do I have to like you now?

Park glowers at his niece, and Yeok asks if he means to have all the witnesses killed again. This time, Park doesn’t say a peep, even when Yeok orders him stripped of his position and his ill-gotten gains reclaimed.

When Yeok sentences him to exile, Park insists again that he’s innocent, but Yeok says that he will leave the matter here if Park acknowledges his wrongs and repents—but if he digs his heels in and continues to deny it, Yeok will take it as an insult against the king and treat him as a traitor to be put to death.

Chae-kyung leaves the palace with only Nanny at her side, and pauses for a last look around. The queen dowager finds her here, and Chae-kyung drops to the ground in a formal bow and apologizes for causing her worry.

The queen dowager tells her not to be sorry, and her court lady hands over a gift. She tells Chae-kyung that protecting each other through separation is also a kind of fate. Chae-kyung accepts that advice with a bow, and walks out of the palace for good.

Yeok walks over to see Chae-kyung in a good mood, until he sees the doors shuttered. Racing inside, he finds the rooms emptied and Chae-kyung gone. Reeling, he falls to the floor.

Chae-kyung steps through the palace gates, which close behind her. She looks up at the sky, looking almost at peace.

Yeok sits alone, holding her cut ribbon, thinking, “From now on, each of my days will be spent loving and missing you. To love and miss you more, I will live on.”

Chae-kyung thinks, “And so, in order to protect each other, we find our own way.”

Yeonsangun staggers along in pain, clinging to Yeok’s old crutch, and collapses just shy of reaching a house in the mountains. Ah, he has returned to his exile house, and the soldiers stationed there rush to apprehend him.

Yeonsangun gasps, “I never ran away. And thus the queen did not help me flee.” He instructs them to be sure to convey those words.

Seok-hee delivers the message to Yeok, as well as the news that Yeonsangun surrendered himself. Yeok thinks to himself that his brother must have wanted to save Chae-kyung too.

In exile, Yeonsangun reaches for the chest he’d taken from the palace, pulling out a letter that he struggles to read through blurred vision. He reads Minister Shin’s letters, which are full of concern and urge him to take care of his health.

Yeonsangun takes a few feeble steps, then closes his eyes and falls…

It’s Yeok who catches him before he hits the ground, calling out, “Hyungnim!” When Yeonsangun makes out Yeok’s face, he recoils first, but then reaches out a hand as though to touch Yeok’s face. That aggravates his stab wound, though, and he doubles over with pain.

And so Yeok reaches out and takes his brother’s hand in his, raising it to his cheek. He says, “I have come. I am here to see you.”

Yeonsangun seems moved, but then wrenches his hand away and tells him to go, accusing Yeok of coming to mock him. But then he does collapse, and Yeok lurches forward to help him.

Yeok sits at his bedside until Yeonsangun wakes. Although he opens his eyes, he reaches out blindly, wheezing anxiously until he feels Yeok take his hand in his.

Yeonsangun says despairingly that everything was in vain—he’d wanted to prove their father wrong, only to turn into the tyrant his father predicted. He became like his mother, who had become blinded by jealousy and was the cause of her own ousting.

“Yeok-ah, I did not hate you,” he says. “I hated the me that was reflected in your eyes. And the eyes of Chae-kyung, whose eyes looked exactly like yours—I was ashamed to see those eyes, so I tried to kill you and ruin you. It was me I hated and resented.” He supposes that this is his punishment for trying to drive a wedge between them.

His breathing grows increasingly labored, and he wheezes out, “The punishment I did not fully receive in this life, I will receive the rest after death.” Yeonsangun’s breathing slows and his eyes grow slack, and he envisions his father motioning to him from the doorway.

“He has come,” Yeonsangun says. “At last, as a father, he holds a hand out to me.”

Yeonsangun extends a hand toward the vision of his father, a smile on his face, and Yeok looks toward the door quizzically. Then Yeonsangun’s head drops lifelessly onto Yeok’s shoulder. Yeok sobs over his body and wishes him a peaceful rest.

Chae-kyung joins her aunt, the former queen, in her home of exile, which is where both women hear the news of Yeonsangun’s death. The queen dowager receives word too, and actually looks saddened by it. She takes out a hairpin from her drawer and remembers how Yeonsangun gave it to her as a birthday gift years ago. She’d been pleased to receive it then, and now, with tears running down her face, she removes the pin from her hair and places Yeonsangun’s pin there instead.

“In the next life, be born as my daughter,” she cries, thinking of how Yeonsangun had suggested changing places with Yeok, offering to live as her son and Chae-kyung’s husband. “I will cherish you greatly then.”

On his way back from visiting Yeonsangun, Yeok stops to rest the horses, though that’s mostly an excuse to drop by to see Chae-kyung. But when his eunuch announces him, Chae-kyung merely offers horse feed, and Yeok is disappointed to hear that she didn’t ask after him.

Yeok wanders into the courtyard while she prepares the feed, and she ducks out of sight when she sees him. He notices the open door, though, and approaches knowing she’s there. She stops him before he opens the door, keeping him at arm’s length with the container of feed between them.

She offers him the container, and when he places his hand over hers, she drops the container in her agitation. He asks to see her face, begging her to just say the word: “Then I will open this door and run to you.”

Chae-kyung fights her own longing to remind him that they aren’t like others, and that they agreed to love each other without being together. She asks if he is already crumbling.

And so Yeok leaves without seeing her face. But as Chae-kyung replays his words in her mind—“Do you truly want me to leave like this?”— that sparks something in her, and she runs outside shouting, “Husband!”

He’s already gone, but Yeok hears her cry from the road and whirls around. Racing back toward her, he and Chae-kyung run into each other’s arms and he confesses, “I can’t do it, Chae-kyung. I can’t live without you.”

She says, “Don’t go. Let us be together.”

And then, it seems sometime later, we see them getting dressed and clearing their bedding together, and Yeok laughs over the too-short arms of the clothing she made him. Later still, he paces outside the house nervously until Nanny declares that a son has been born. Wait, is this real? This had better be real. If this is some La La Land bullshit there will be flipped tables.

Skipping ahead some more, the happy couple watches their children play—one son and one daughter. We see Yeok and Chae-kyung sleeping peacefully side by side, hands touching, and Yeok reaches out—but finds the space next to him empty.

And then, suddenly, Yeok wears a beard and wakes alone in the king’s bedchamber at the palace. “Chae-kyung-ah,” he says sadly into the empty room. (So that was a dream?! Arrrgaksdf;lajksdfljka. Hulksmash!)

Chae-kyung writes Yeok a letter, thanking him for wanting to reinstate her position but telling him that he already has a son, and even if she were made queen again, any son she might have would be caught up in succession politics. She reminds him of his tragic relationship with his brother, not wanting to relive that strife.

We see Chae-kyung lying down on a bolt of fabric while Nanny measures out a set of clothing for Yeok, based on Chae-kyung’s very hazy measurements of handsbreadths. Yeok receives those clothes, as Chae-kyung’s letter continues, “How painful must it have been? How afraid must you have been? We must not make more of that tragedy with our own hands.”

Yeok wears the clothing proudly that night, and as he looks up at the night sky, so does she. Her letter finishes, “That you live well, for our sake, is enough for me.”

Then, we’re 38 years later in the year 1544, Yeok’s 39th year of rule.

Yeok is an elderly king now, and he calls faithful Eunuch Song to his bedside. A palanquin is taken to the palace, and it’s an elderly women who sits inside—Chae-kyung, still wearing her wedding ring. With the king’s health weak, the order is given to open the gates and not restrict entries.

Yeok is assisted to his feet and dresses in that same piece of clothing Chae-kyung made for him years ago. He waits alone in his chamber, anticipating Chae-kyung’s arrival, and she makes her way through the palace corridor toward him.

When the doors open, it’s familiar adult Chae-kyung we see—and then we go younger still as the teenage Yeok beams at teenage Chae-kyung and pats the seat next to him.

He calls her Bird Poop like he used to, asking if she waited long. She pouts that she’s used to waiting, then smiles up at him.

They transition into the adult couple, and they gaze at each other for long, tender moments. “Am I too late?” she asks.

He shakes his head, saying, “You’re not the least bit late.”

She says he endured many struggles, and praises him for holding on through it all. “Because I knew you were waiting, I could hold on,” he tells her. “Because I knew you were there, in that place, I could protect my place.”

He lays his head in her lap, and she thinks, “Now I will be at your side. So, please rest now, at home.”

“Now I am finally home,” Yeok thinks, smiling with his eyes closed.

“I love you,” she says, using three different words that mean love. “I love you. I love you, Husband.”

“You could just say one,” he replies teasingly, just as he’d done all those years ago.

JAVABEANS’ COMMENTS

That has to be the most beautiful depiction of a death scene I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. I had a brief moment of anger at the fantasy dream sequence that could have been seen as teasing us with what could have been, and that really hurt. But I’m also recalling previous moments when I’d yelled at a withholding drama, “C’mon, throw me a bone here! Can’t I just get a crumb of satisfaction?” And I feel like that wistful what-we-could-have-had moment was something of a crumb, as well as a stark reminder of what Yeok’s life would have been like for the next forty years, and how long that time was for him to hold on.

Historically we know Jungjong (Yeok’s posthumous name) was not considered a strong king, but I find it touching that in this version, it didn’t matter so much that he wasn’t the best king ever—it was enough that he did his best with what he had. We know he never really wanted to be king but felt it was his duty to do so and rescue the people from a terrible tyrant, so he couldn’t abdicate his position and subject the country to more turmoil. Nor could he be an iron-willed dictator like his brother, which is both a strength and a flaw, because while he didn’t have his brother’s violent rages, he would always be beholden to the powerful politicians who put him on the throne. He was caught between a rock and a hard place for forty years and did his best to live with it. There’s a really bittersweet, realistic beauty in that, and I was surprised by my tears when Chae-kyung praised him not for being a good king or a powerful leader, but for enduring.

I did wonder whether Yeonsangun would be made too sympathetic, too late in the game—it’s not something I would have felt too comfortable with, after he’d been shown going on murder sprees and abdicating all his responsibility as ruler, if not the position outright. I think what feels appropriate is that he acknowledged himself that he hadn’t met his full punishment, and would take it on willingly in whatever came next. There’s something dissatisfying about delivering a punishment to an unrepentant evildoer (Minister Park can die in a hundred fires and it wouldn’t be enough), but once they feel true remorse, it changes things. It shifts from a matter of meting out punishment onto someone else to that person locking themselves up in their own prison of guilt, and that, at least, seems enough to me.

I found the queen dowager’s response to Yeonsangun’s death a fitting reaction, even if it doesn’t make me warm up to her all that much. It’s just that in her world, showing love is a weakness that could be exploited, so for her viewing Yeonsangun as an enemy was an act of self-defense. It’s only in his death that she allowed herself to feel that grief over him—and even so, I would bet that she wouldn’t have done anything differently toward him in this life.

The irony is that Yeok and Chae-kyung may have been the only two people who would not have wielded love as a weapon or seen it as a liability, but they didn’t get a chance to prove that through living the example—or maybe it’s not ironic at all, because they were the exceptions to the rule, and they couldn’t stop other people from using their love against them.

One of the things that make Seven Day Queen such a compelling love story is in the way that it isn’t a passionate, romance-wins-all story. It’s about love, certainly, but I found it particularly powerful that these two had a bond that transcended romance—in this love story, it’s the mundane, everyday touches that lent the relationship power, not the grand gestures. All they really ever wanted was a situation that allowed them to be in the same space at the same time, and the drama did a fantastic job in weaving its plot so as to make that feel impossible. Who knew that such a simple conflict could be such a driving force?

It’s like Chae-kyung said toward the end regarding the concept of home, that she isn’t the queen, she is just Chae-kyung. And you get the sense that the throne wasn’t what Yeok was, either—it was just his necessary work that took him away from home until he could return to it in the end. It makes the time spent apart feel both astonishingly long (39 years! More time apart than they spent knowing each other!) and also, in the long run, inconsequential. How cuttingly poignant to have created a scenario in which the cause of your pain—separation—also becomes the thing that proves your love. By their metric, the longer they’re apart, the longer they have spent loving each other, and then it all ends peacefully by returning “home.” I mean, I didn’t even know there was that much silver lining to be mined out of their miserable predicament, but it makes it all the more admirable that they found a way to love no matter the circumstance, rather than give up in despair. An example to aspire to!

GIRLFRIDAY’S COMMENTS

I think this drama may have been perfect. I didn’t even know there WAS such a thing! At some point during the hour I thought maybe I had cried all there was to cry, but then that fantasy sequence hit and I turned into a sobbing, wailing mess, screaming at my screen, “I know you’re a fantasy! Stop telling me lies!” That glimpse of a happy life that couldn’t be just broke me.

I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better finale, because I was worried that they’d mess with history too much to fake a happy ending that I would know in my heart was false. That would’ve ruined what this drama worked so hard to build. Instead we got the loveliest possible version of bittersweet love and lifelong devotion that will linger in my memory ten times longer than a simple happy ending would have. That final sequence with the three generations of actors portraying our couple was a thing of beauty, and I loved how the drama began with the queen leaving the palace, and ended with the perfect bookend of her return.

I was so impressed by the heroine of this story, and for the way that she was consistently written as a strong and dignified woman who chooses her own fate. While political machinations and enemies were directly responsible for tearing our lovers apart, it’s so important to me that at every step of the way, they weren’t torn apart by powers outside of their control or moved around like pawns in some larger game; in the telling of this story, they were individuals who chose to love and sacrifice and fight, in whatever way they could. That made me so appreciative of the writing, especially when it came to the heroine and the way she acted on her love. And I’m such a fan of the fact that in our story, Chae-kyung is the hero who saves Yeok and finds a way for them to live and love.

I’ve never really had this thought before after finishing a drama, but I wish this director, writer, and cast would stay together forever and just make show after show. They could do a modern rom-com next, and then an action thriller after that, and then a fantasy sageuk, and then a melo… Maybe they should wait a few years on the melodrama. I think I’ve spent all my tears for the next five years on this one.

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1 Miky

August 3, 2017 at 8:04 PM

Such a heartbreaking beautiful drama,from the beginning till it’s last minute…This was without a doubt a gem that will keep shining for years to come…A round of applause to Park Min Young,Yeon Woo Jin and Lee Dong Gun(who was terrific as Yongsan)…Yeok’s and Chae Kyun’s love was truly beautiful and strong,like a cliff that withstood the waves and time without budging…
Another round of applause to writer Choi Jin Young for delivering such a tight and amazing story,it’s rare to encounter a drama that keeps you glued from the first till the last episode without loosing it’s direction…
Not forgetting the V.A. OST that is truly beautiful and personal preference,Junggigo’s OST that is among the best ones this year…

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msbeatrice81

August 3, 2017 at 8:19 PM

The OST was so beautiful!! It added to the romance or joy or tragedy of each moment without distracting, which I think is the key to a great OST.

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Chandler

August 4, 2017 at 5:11 AM

I'm desperately waiting for the instrumentals (the humming song!). If anyone has found them yet, I'd love to know! Hopefully they'll be released soon.

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diniyuukie

August 4, 2017 at 6:53 AM

Is this the song you're searching for ? https://youtu.be/3Ey5S3DaEbs
They're releasing the full OST on music&new channel on Youtube.

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7dq

August 4, 2017 at 8:01 AM

The complete OST's are now available, CD format..... total of 56 tracks.... Love the lyrics of all the songs, it even mentioned on their dialogues... Im not sure which website can purchase it.... Maybe check amazon later..

PakalanaPikake

August 4, 2017 at 5:33 PM

@diniyuukie,

Thank you so much for that link!

For me, "Dream" is the distilled essence of SEVEN DAY QUEEN. ;-)

Napkiin

August 4, 2017 at 5:46 PM

do you guys know if we can download it somewhere??

daktorichick

August 10, 2017 at 5:02 PM

Just a quick update for @diniyuukie, @pakalanapikake, @napkiin, et al. In case you haven't heard, the full OST has been released on Spotify and k2nblog! I'm actually playing it on Spotify right now. :D Happy listening, everyone!

TM

August 6, 2017 at 11:32 PM

During this last episode the fact that I would miss this OST came to me too. I don't remember the last time I enjoyed one this much

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tsinita

August 3, 2017 at 8:51 PM

Glued from the first to last despite knowing its outcome it successfully wove a beautiful and breathtaking story. Genius story teller.

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light

August 3, 2017 at 9:13 PM

Yes! Amazing story telling!

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martha

August 4, 2017 at 6:26 AM

am crossing my fingers for the writer to receive some award it will be a collective win
i dont knw what is wrong with korean viewers to miss such a masterpiece

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FiyaShady

August 3, 2017 at 10:07 PM

The ending reminds me of Titanic and The Notebook film. Their ending was a bittersweet one, where both movies shown how the main actor/actress wants to be back at their lovely moment of their life. And die peacefully with those memories ???

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earthna

August 3, 2017 at 10:14 PM

That solemn ha ha ha soundtrack is my new "I Will Write Our Story Here" (by SG Wannabe). It makes me cry as soon as it plays.

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Chandler

August 4, 2017 at 5:23 AM

Comment was deleted

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kayedrama

August 4, 2017 at 8:42 AM

So. True! I have been waiting forever for that Ah~ah~ah~ song. So heartbreaking.Until now I skip CT soundtrack if I'm in public otherwise I'll be a wailing mess.

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bea

August 4, 2017 at 2:23 AM

I actually didn't watch the drama but intrigued by the recap so I watch bit and pieces. I thought at first CK talking about they're having son together but actually Yeok had son from another woman? When did this happen, can someone tell me which eps? I skimmed through the recap but didn't find anything about the son and another woman.

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Elle

August 4, 2017 at 2:56 AM

After their separation in the finale, Yeok remarried twice. Myung-hye became his second queen, and the son Chae-kyung was referring to in her letter was MH and Yeok's son, the future King Injong. The drama did not show this second marriage, only alluding to it briefly in this letter.

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bea

August 4, 2017 at 12:46 PM

OMG I just look at wikipedia and he actually had 13 wives (3queens 10 concubines) lol

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GL

August 6, 2017 at 1:06 AM

Yes, you lost one loving wife and replaced it with 13 lol. Actually in real life....King Jungjong attempted to re-instate Queen Dangyeong 4 times but failed due to strong political faction at that time. He must have really loved her Queen that much.

asdfg

August 6, 2017 at 2:08 AM

@GL
Where did you get the info about King Jungjong attempt to re-instate Queen Dangyeong 4 times? Cuz I wanted to read more about what really happend between Queen Dangyeong and King Jungjong but I can't really find much info on the internet.

baghag

August 8, 2017 at 7:37 PM

So funny right! I thought he would really remain loyal to Queen D but apparently not since he had several kids each with those concubines. But I believe he really loved her in his own way because aside from the attempts to reinstate, one of the orders his son, King Injong did was to move Queen D to a new place befitting her rank as consort/queen. Her life was made better by King Injong. I would like to believe this was one of the things King Jungjong asked his son to do. Since he can't do it himself during his reign due to all the political issues that will arise with it.

PakalanaPikake

August 4, 2017 at 5:40 PM

@Elle,

I have to admit that I felt a lot better about Yeok's marrying Myung-hye after she expressed remorse, patched up Yeonsangun enough that he could continue on his way to his place of exile, and ratted out her scheming uncle. It's deliciously subversive that Yeok's second queen had been one of the Snail Wives.

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cassie23

August 4, 2017 at 8:47 PM

i rewatch this episode last night and the aches is still lingering on my heart and soul ?
i realized that the osts are all played in several scene of the last minute ,,from dear cloud, junggigo, until fromm
that kind of detail really hit my heart,,,how beautiful this drama is ?
when i visit dramabeans home,fanwall post,and recent comment, it's so heartwrenching to see the headerphoto of this post that show the smile of chaegyung and yeok in his #whatcouldhavebeen Dream..
i wonder when will we have this kind of drama agaim with such a perfection from the start until the end

i still do my routine agenda ,,but my heart,my mind,and my brain are always think about seven day queen ?? there are several dramas in waiting list,,but haven't found any passion to watch,,,take a rest abit for healing my SDQ syndrome ???

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Medi

August 9, 2017 at 11:31 PM

Also the hanboks they wore the pretties I've ever seen. The color match to each characters. This drama such an art from characters, story, casts, till scenes.

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2 Junie Bug

August 3, 2017 at 8:09 PM

7DQ has ended. Wow. I can’t believe this. *cue hours of just staring at black ending screen* Okay, that took a while to set in and I don’t think I’m going to be able to move on. First off, thank you girlfriday and javabeans for all of the 7DQ recaps! You both wrote the recaps so fast each week so I thank you greatly for that. We all knew this was coming, but that still doesn’t mean our hearts are still in one piece. I knew that my heart was going to be torn and beaten and ripped from the moment I started this show, but I couldn’t stop.

Despite everything, I just wanted Chae-kyung and Yeok to just be happy. After seeing this ending, I’m satisfied. All of Yeok and Chae-kyung’s romantic and honest scenes were the cutest and I longed for them whenever the show had to get serious. When Chae-kyung asked for a divorce in this episode, I cried. They both have tried so hard to be together and the universe is just pulling them apart. Everything they both have done it was for the sake of the other.

This show took us on a ride each episode. We didn’t know where we were going, we didn’t know what was going to happen along the way, and we didn’t know how were were going to get there. Every episode was better than the last and it was an addiction. All of the characters had incredible depth and all of the actors were absolutely phenomenal.

The best actor in this show (in my opinion) had to be Lee Dong-gun. If I wasn’t already invested in this drama from the get go, he made me forget all of my responsibilities and just focus on 7DQ. He portrayed the king beautifully with all of the sorrow and hurt he faced. I felt extremely bad for him in one moment and the next I wanted to throw everything at him. His character is going to be really memorable for me for many years to come. Yeonsangun’s moments with Chae-kyung (mainly in the beginning) were the cutest and there were moments when I shipped them even though my heart was already given to Yeok.

Yeon Woo-jin did an amazing job with Yeok. All of his crying scenes made me cry. You could see the pain in his eyes when Chae-kyung was taking the fall for him and whenever he saw her in pain. He was strong, weak, in love, cute, and powerful throughout the course of this show. Yeok cared for Chae-kyung so freaking much he was willing to do anything and everything to make her happy (Side note: I need a man like Yeok LOL). Even though they disagreed with him multiple times, his friends stood by him through thick and thin and those are the people that also went through so much. Seo No, Kwang-ho, and Suk-hee were the best friends a person could ever ask for. I’m going to miss them as much as I miss the main characters.

Park Min-young. She portrayed Chae-kyung amazingly. The change in Chae-kyung’s character from start to end broke my heart. She was so carefree and just had fun, but after growing up that characteristic of hers faded away. Chae-kyung was so strong throughout the show and I admire her for her...

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Junie Bug

August 3, 2017 at 8:11 PM

Chae-kyung was so strong throughout the show and I admire her for her ability to give up everything for her family and Yeok. Several times she threw herself in harm’s way just to keep them safe. Even her nanny was a beautifully crafted character. She was the comic relief and her relationship with Chae-kyung was just perfect to watch. I’m going to miss that duo dearly.

Seven Day Queen, I love you I’m going to miss you so much.

(LOL I reached the character limit ? Sorry for the long block of text!)

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