Queen of Divorce: Episodes 9-10

by Unit

Our penultimate week comes with tears, heartbreak, blackmail, and death. But on the flip side, we get a much-awaited reunion, a marriage, and new information about the cases our divorce partners are investigating.

 
EPISODES 9-10

We resume with Yool-seong’s remarriage proposal to Sara, but she turns him down — although she ever so slightly considers accepting the proposal because of her son. Yool-seong refuses to take no for an answer, so he sends — and keeps sending throughout these episodes — a bouquet of roses to her at the office. How romantic! Ki-joon is uncomfortable with the flower delivery, but Sara downplays the situation.

Chairwoman Cha is more vocal about her disapproval of the remarriage, until Yool-seong mentions that he’s not remarrying Sara just to get party representative Young-ah on his side. He’s also doing it to separate her from Ki-joon because they are digging into his mistress’s case. This news sets off warning bells in Cha’s head, and there’s an undertone in the conversation that suggests that she had something to do with the case — and Yool-seong knows about it.

Speaking of shady cases involving the Chayul family, Ki-joon sees a picture of Sara’s mom at Mom’s first memorial service. He finds her face familiar, and CCTV footage of Mom at the prosecution office confirms that she’s the informant he spoke with regarding the mistress’s case. From the footage, Ki-joon and Sara see that Mom followed an unidentified man out of the building, and seeing how the footage is from exactly a year ago, Sara is convinced that her mom didn’t commit suicide. And it’s sad how she has to grieve all over again.

As part of his attempts to woo Sara, Yool-seong also showed up at the memorial service, and he overheard a conversation between Sara and Ki-joon about looking for a witness in the mistress’s case. This witness is the part-timer who used to work for Sara’s mom. Yool-seong’s secretary goes after the part-timer — who also has a stalking ex-boyfriend, and Solution on her heels. Part-timer is initially reluctant to get involved with Solution, but Sara eventually persuades her into sharing what she saw on the day of the mistress’s death.

Part-timer gives a recap of what we already know — she has footage of Mistress’s attempt to blackmail Yool-seong, and Yool-seong’s “handle the situation” orders to his secretary. The new piece of information we get is that Part-timer went with Sara’s mom to the prosecution office. She stopped by the restroom for a minute and when she came out, she spotted Mom getting into Yool-seong’s secretary’s car — and there was someone else in the car, but she didn’t see his face.

Meanwhile, Yool-seong instigates Part-timer’s stalker and makes him believe that she’s cheating on him with Ki-joon. The delusional idiot then accosts Part-timer on her way to give her witness testimony to the police. Midway into a “You cheated on me” and “No, I’m not cheating” argument, Stalker throws Part-timer against a wall — and then strangles her when Ki-joon calls her phone. Sigh. This was just so abrupt! One minute, you’re a witness in a murder case, and the next, you’re a victim. At this point, this drama needs to come with a “A few characters were harmed in the making of this show” warning.

Sara is devastated by Part-timer’s death which sends them back to square one with her mom’s case. Ki-joon comes over to Sara’s for comforting duties, and he’s pleasantly surprised that the passcode to her house is his birthday. One thing leads to another, and they kiss, but I’m kinda meh about it because Sara is pretty vulnerable at the moment. The following morning, Sara puts away a memento of her relationship with Ki-joon, and says yes to Yool-seong’s remarriage proposal. Am I surprised? No. Sara is sorry to Ki-joon, but she claims that it’s the best way to trick Yool-seong, get dirt on him, and send him to prison. Really, sis?

As expected, Ki-joon is really upset at the turn of events, and everyone in Solution is equally against Sara’s remarriage. But who can talk her out of walking into the lion’s den in order to expose Chayul for the frauds they are? Not me, not Sara and Ki-joon’s rainy night angst, and definitely not Chairwoman Cha’s objection. Yool-seong finds Sara’s sudden acceptance of his proposal a bit suspicious, but she claims she’s doing it because of her son.

To get Yool-seong to trust her, Sara sets up a meeting with him and Young-ah to lobby for her influence in the Chayul law school project. And Young-ah goes along with this plan as a thank you for Sara’s help with her custody suit from last week. Now that Sara and Yool-seong are “on the same page,” she makes him sign a remarriage contract. Her terms: to officially register their marriage, to put her in charge of their son’s childcare, and to pay her alimony if they get divorced. Honestly, the only good thing about this charade, for me, is the chance of Sara getting back custody of her son.

Since he no longer needs her, Yool-seong tells Hee-jin to quit Solution, but she tells him she wants to be wife #3. He thinks she’s joking, until she introduces herself to Chairwoman Cha as his girlfriend. Cha doesn’t even blink or give Hee-jin the attention she so badly craves, and this made me so happy. I almost lost it when Yool-seong shook his head at how pathetic Hee-jin was acting. Pfft. I might dislike him, but Yool-seong makes the best facial expressions.

Over at Solution, Chairwoman Cha orchestrates the police to come through with a search and seizure warrant. Sara is charged for handling legal affairs at Solution despite not being a lawyer, and Cha also works behind the scenes to suspend Ki-joon’s lawyer’s license. But this police brouhaha doesn’t go anywhere because Sara tells Yool-seong to shut it down ASAP otherwise the remarriage is off. What this case does is expose Hee-jin for the spy that she is. It’s either she’s really dumb or she no longer cares about being caught — because why would she steal Solution’s CCTV board to cover her tracks of planting fake evidence in the office and then leave the board in her desk drawer?

Plot twist: Chairwoman Cha was the one who sent Hee-jin to Solution, and not Yool-seong. It would seem that Hee-jin is more interested in being Chairwoman Cha’s daughter-in-law than being Yool-seong’s wife. But my sister, you’re not that important in the grand scheme of things. Then again, the crazy Chayul family and the slightly unhinged Hee-jin do make a good match.

Sara refuses to change her mind about the remarriage, so Ki-joon quits Solution. With Ki-joon out and Sara on a two-month marital leave, Solution temporarily closes. So Bom and Dae-ki pack their things and move over to Ki-joon’s newly opened law firm to continue their investigation into the mistress and Sara’s mom’s case. In the meantime, Sara moves back to the Chayul mansion. The good news is: she’s no longer the docile daughter-in-law to Chairwoman Cha. The best news is: she finally reunites with her son!

Team Solution tracks the driver of the taxi Yool-seong’s mistress “jumped out” from, and they’re shocked to learn that he works for Chairwoman Cha. Because the drama made Driver wear the same pair of sneakers for an entire year, Sara also matches his sneakers to that of the unidentified man in her mom’s CCTV footage. Now Driver has been linked to both the mistress and her mom. The drama also gives Driver the brain of a goldfish, so he blackmails Chairwoman Cha and Yool-seong for 2 million dollars each to keep his silence about their respective murder orders. But nobody blackmails Yool-seong and gets away with it.

Yool-seong arranges for Driver to be disposed of at a junkyard, but Sara gets the information on the time and place for the “garbage disposal.” To save his life and get him on their side, the Solution team “kidnaps” Driver before his car is sent to the junkyard, and from a distance, they make him watch in horror as another car is dumped on his own from above! No cars were harmed in the making of this drama.

Driver’s near-death experience is enough reason to loosen his tongue, and he confesses to taking Sara’s mom out of the prosecution office under Yool-seong’s orders — but he claims that’s all he did. Sara is shaken up at the confirmation that Yool-seong was the other person in the car with Mom, and Driver uses this distraction to request for a cigarette break. Because Team Solution is so very nice and trusting, they allow Driver to go for a smoke. Next thing you know, he jumps into a nearby car and attempts to flee the junkyard. Before Team Solution can even react, Driver collides with an oncoming car at the exit, and bam! It’s lights out.

Who would have thought that being a side character in Queen of Divorce is among the top 100 ways to die? You know, with the bodies piling up, I’m morbidly impressed that the show has avoided the use of the dump truck. It’s the originality for me. We really went from a legal drama to a revenge makjang, then we dipped our toes in politics, now we’re in a thriller — and all the while, Chayul is still standing strong.

But with all the witnesses gone, it looks like the drama plans to destroy Chayul via internal strife. Chairwoman Cha has already been set up as a hard-to-please mother, and Yool-seong is practically done with the uphill task of trying to live up to her impossible expectations. As we head to the show’s finale, these two are likely to turn against each other, and maybe Sara can sit back and watch with some popcorn as the elephants’ fight pulls the Chayul tower down.

 
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