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Queen of Tears: Episodes 15-16 (Final)

Ready or not, our teary tale comes to an end after eight weeks of breaking hearts and ratings. It’s a packed finale filled with twists at every turn, and the show goes out of its way to prove one thing: it’s not over until it is over.

 
EPISODES 15-16

Queen of Tears: Episodes 15-16

It feels like only yesterday when I jumped into this fangirl pit of Kim Soo-hyun and tears, and now it’s over. *Cries in denial* I stalled for a bit before drafting this because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye, but all good things, as they say, must come to an end. Thus, it’s time to dive into our final week with Queen of Tears.

The week opens with Hyun-woo’s arrest for Land Scammer’s murder, and in the process, Hae-in’s diary slips out of his hands. Eun-seong dumps the diary into the incinerator, but the diary miraculously survives since the first snow is on BaekHong’s side. After donating hush up money to the hospital to become Hae-in’s guardian, Eun-Shakespeare retells the story of last week’s Truck of Doom incident and paints himself as the hero to Hyun-woo’s villain. He even bandages his hand like Hyun-woo to properly sell the story of breaking through the glass to rescue Hae-in — and at this point, I think the hospital needs to admit him into their psych ward because this is clearly a mental illness.

One month of brainwashing later, Eun-seong and Hae-in return to Korea but she’s distant with her family members because he told her not to trust them. To be honest, the Hongs have no one else to blame for this development because they all sat on their hands in Korea while Eun-seong was busy rewriting history. And the worst part is that they knew Hae-in was all alone in Germany because Hyun-woo’s arrest made the news (in what is, once again, a Kim Soo-hyun character getting arrested for a murder he didn’t commit).

In Queensville, Hae-in stumbles on the MP3 in Hyun-woo’s room, and I wonder how it ended up there when we left it in Hyun-woo’s apartment. Anyway, Hae-in grows curious about her ex-husband, so she visits him in prison. She wonders why she would fall for a heinous criminal but then her eyes go soft when Hyun-woo enters the visiting area. That’s right, you fell for that face, silly! Lol.

Hyun-woo is relieved to see his wife as he has missed her, but Hae-in is not about to let his sweet-talk get to her. She says they’ll never see each other again, but Hyun-woo is confident that they will meet again because he won’t give up in his quest to stay by her side. Hyun-woo apologizes for not being by her side when she woke up, and he’s more worried about her health than about whether she remembers him or not. Hae-in cannot reconcile the concerned Hyun-woo in front of her to the stalking murderer Eun-seong painted him to be, and this prison visit also serves to highlight the difference between Hyun-woo and Eun-set-his-lying-pants-on-fire.

Hyun-woo is not in a panicked frenzy to make Hae-in believe in him, and you cannot get that brand of confidence in the market. Meanwhile the “free man” in Queensville cannot rest because he’s afraid of losing his crush to her ex — who’s behind bars. Pfft. Acting like the jealous husband he will never be, Eun-seong demands to know Hae-in’s whereabouts, and when she shuts him down, he bugs her car. Uh-oh.

Eun-shame-on-you has never succeeded in any of his previous attempts to frame our sexy-brained SNU lawyer, so I don’t know why he’s surprised when Hyun-woo is eventually absolved of the murder charge. In any case, Secretary Na drives Hae-in to the prison to witness Hyun-woo’s release — and that’s the least she can do considering the fact that Eun-seong made all the staff at Queens department store to sign NDAs that bar them from speaking about Hyun-woo’s relationship with Hae-in, and Eun-seong’s hostile takeover of Queens.

Secretary Na might not be able to break her NDA, but she can tell her boss this: “Your heart lies where your body goes.” And where does Hae-in go? Why, of course, to Yongdu-ri. But this is not stalking, according to Hae-in, it’s being “on my toes since my stalker has been released.” Lol.

Since denial is clearly a thing with the Hong women, aunty Beom-ja also returns to Yongdu-ri under the pretext of throwing a party for Hyun-woo’s release. But the cat leaps out of the bag when she confesses her feelings to her crush — while wearing a wireless microphone that’s connected to the speaker in the town hall! The rest of the scene goes as expected with Beom-ja running away in mortification, and me joining the Yongdu-ri folks to laugh my head off.

Queen of Tears: Episodes 15-16

Hyun-woo petitions to return to Queens since the murder charge has been dropped, and Eun-seong is faced with more woes when he learns that Ms. Girlfriend has rallied the shareholders to dismiss him in order to make room for her chairwoman ambitions. This is payback for Eun-seong’s threat to release the spy cam footage of Ms. Girlfriend poisoning Grandpa Hong if she makes any more attempts on Hae-in’s life — and you know that woman doesn’t take kindly to threats.

While the power tussle between mother and son is ongoing, Hyun-woo gets evidence of Eun-scam’s two-trillion investment fraud, courtesy: Da-hye and her USB. Vengeful Ms. Girlfriend orders Baby Daddy to get rid of Da-hye, but thanks to his bicycle riding and boxing lessons, Soo-cheol is able to chase after and fight off Baby Daddy and his thugs. I’m proud of Soo-cheol for protecting his family like he has always wanted to do, and it was nice to hear Da-hye address him as “Geon-woo’s dad,” before telling him that she loves him.

Back to BaekHong, they get invites from the aquarium, and it turns out that Hae-in arranged for this a month ago. Of course she had a private plan B to cope with her memory loss! Hyun-woo is surprised to hear from the staff that Hae-in also rented out the place four years ago — when he proposed — and now he knows that it wasn’t the universe that arranged everything back then, it was Hae-in.

Hyun-woo gets flowers and a card from pre-amnesia Hae-in expressing her desire to have another wedding after the surgery, and Hae-in wonders if she really did want to remarry the guy who cheated on her (according to Eun-seong). “You wouldn’t have done this had I really cheated on you,” Hyun-woo replies, and that’s a call for Hae-in to start doubting everything she’s been told post-surgery.

During the conversation, Hae-in spots the scar on Hyun-woo’s hand from the truck accident in Germany, but when she returns to Queensville, she doesn’t see a scar on the hand Eun-seong claimed to have injured while attempting to rescue her. What she sees is the footage of the spy camera in Grandpa Hong’s study on his tablet, and now she can tell who the liar is between both men.

Queen of Tears: Episodes 15-16

Hae-in gets a package from Germany, and it’s her rescued-from-the-fire diary. In the diary, Hae-in had reintroduced Hyun-woo to herself as the reason why she didn’t want to lose her memory and the reason why she wanted to live. “Baek Hyun-woo is the person I want to remember forever.” *Sniffs* An apologetic Hae-in calls Hyun-woo to meet up, and soon they’re standing on opposite sides of the road. Hae-in disappears from sight as soon as a bus passes, and as Hyun-woo darts across the road, he’s knocked down by a car! OMG! How much more does this show want to hurt BaekHong and its audience?

There’s 1001 ways to end a penultimate episode with a cliffhanger, but an accident solely for shock value is not one of them. Then we move on to the epilogue that is usually reserved to advance the plot or make us swoon/laugh at least. But what do we get? The insertion of cameos from Man From the Stars to tell us that Eun-skinship makes Hae-in uncomfortable. “Her heart still knows despite losing her memory that she’s not attracted to him.” Duh! We have eyes, Writer, we already noticed.

But the needless cameo wasn’t as bad as the reveal that Eun-satan himself was Hyun-woo’s hit-and-run driver. You mean Show couldn’t spare an extra minute in the main episode for that? Why waste an epilogue on Eun-seong’s antics after he spent the entire episode annoying us? Sigh.

Thankfully, Hyun-woo’s accident is non-fatal, and he leaves the hospital to look for his wife. To track Hae-in faster, Hyun-woo instructs Grace to inform Ms. Girlfriend that Eun-seong has kidnapped Hae-in, and mommy dearest is forced into action when she learns that her son has moved all the secret funds in preparation to leave the country. Like the good friend he has always been, Yang-gi drives — a struggling and very much in pain — Hyun-woo as they trail after Ms. Girlfriend, and their “don’t die on me” banter would have been funnier if I wasn’t so mad at the situation.

Eun-seong holds Hae-in hostage at the Hong family’s hunting grounds, and when Ms. Girlfriend arrives, they get into a confrontation which ultimately reveals that she was behind Hae-in’s brother’s death — which Hae-in overhears. Hyun-woo sneaks in to rescue Hae-in and they manage to leave the villa, but there’s only so much distance they can cover on foot before Eun-seong catches up with them. Hae-in refuses to go with Eun-seong, and when she says “over my dead body,” something in his eyes shifts. Next thing you know, Eun-seong cocks his rifle at her.

You’d think the SWAT team on ground would know better than to negotiate with a terrorist, but no. Eun-seong is left to shoot, and Hyun-woo dives to take the bullet, of course, since this writer is a sadist whose track record features dramas where one half of the OTP takes a bullet for the other. That’s when the police remember they also have guns, and Eun-straight-to-hell goes down like the wild boar that Hyun-woo killed in Episode 2. It’s a pathetic end to a pathetic life, and I spare no thoughts and prayers because he shall not be missed. But I’m slightly miffed that everything ended for Eun-seong in mere seconds after all the pain and suffering he inflicted on BaekHong for episodes on end.

Queen of Tears: Episodes 15-16

Hyun-woo is rushed to the hospital for the second time in one day, and it’s Hae-in’s turn to watch him go into surgery. This jogs her memories from before entering the OR in Germany, and she’s filled with regrets and guilt. Mommy Baek is the comforting anchor that holds the Baeks and Hongs together as they wait for Hyun-woo to pull through, and she’s very gracious about the discovery that Hyun-woo saved Hae-in from the drowning accident back then. Nah, this woman must be a saint, because I don’t think I can be as calm to hear that it’s not my son’s first time putting himself in danger to save the love of his life.

When Hyun-woo eventually wakes up, Hae-in apologizes for not recognizing him, and he apologizes for forgetting how much he loved her during their tumultuous days of marriage. A sprinkle of tears and “I love you” later, Hae-in embarks on the journey of falling in love with Hyun-woo all over again.

The more she learns about him and his many strengths, the more perfect he seems. And of course he’s perfect, because he’s fictional! Then he replies to her “Look here, Mr. Baek Hyun-woo,” with a “Yes, I’m looking at you” with the sweetest and flirtiest voice while looking straight into her eyes — and my heart skips several beats. I’d like to admit myself into this hospital since he’s also a patient, but you know, fictional world and all. *Laughs in isekai*

We finally see Mr. SNU lawyer making use of his degree in court when he files a business-related suit against Ms. Girlfriend. (I still can’t believe Hyun-woo’s first appearance in court was as a murder suspect. Smh.) Ms. Girlfriend tries to wriggle her way out by blaming the illegalities on her son. And since she has refused to allow him rest in peace, Eun-scorpion stings her from the grave with the spy camera footage on his tablet — which mommy dearest thought she had destroyed. Lool.

You see, Grace came in clutch for the Hongs by swapping out the tablet, and Ms. Girlfriend is promptly arrested and sent to jail after being exposed as a murdering psychopath. We’ve known for a while that Grace is a softie when it comes to Hyun-woo’s requests, and it turns out that she was also the one who dropped the MP3 at Queensville, and made sure that Hae-in received her diary from Germany. You’re amazing, Grace!

Da-hye is also on the path of honest living, and she convinces Grace to give witness statements against Ms. Girlfriend and to pay for their crimes against the Hongs. Both women get jail time — but they’re released and accepted back into the family after a time skip. For all their faults, their character growth was very visible, and their redemption arc didn’t feel forced. I especially liked that they didn’t do a complete 180° character-wise, and we could still see traces of the fun parts of their original characterization.

We still have no idea why Ms. Girlfriend targeted the Hongs in the first place, but we can just make stuff up in our heads. Anyway, the Hongs are reinstated back to Queens Group, and Beom-seok returns from exile to become chairman. The spy painting in Grandpa’s study is replaced with a joint family photo of the Hongs and Baek — and I liked the detail of Geon-woo sitting in Mommy Hong’s laps. Beom-ja and her crush eventually get together and she’ll be the one driving the ship because Mr. Rat is a relationship novice.

We circle back to Baby 1031 when Hae-in spots the glow-in-the-dark sticker on the ceiling in Hyun-woo’s room, and it jogs her memories of the miscarriage. She had assumed that Hyun-woo blamed her for their child loss, and he was too exhausted to convince her otherwise. As they reflect on the past, BaekHong comes to the understanding that confronting their problems is better than ignoring or avoiding said problems. And while they’re afraid that they’d end up disappointing each other over the most trivial of things, they’re still willing to give remarriage a try — but not now.

As much as I’d have liked to see BaekHong walk down the aisle again, I don’t mind their current resolution. They’re still in the beginning of their getting back together stage, and there’s no rush. Good things take time, and the most important thing is that they’re on solid ground and navigating their new reality as a team.

The drama draws to a close with a time skip montage featuring Hyun-woo’s wrap up monologue and Kim Soo-hyun’s OST in the background. BaekHong returns to Germany as a couple, then as parents to a cute baby girl — awwww — and finally, grandpa Hyun-woo comes to visit Hae-in’s grave after she passed away in the year 2074. LMAO! If doing the most was a drama, it’ll be Queen of Tears. It is insinuated that Hyun-woo dies afterwards, and as Hae-in promised, she comes to take him to the afterlife. Holding hands in the lavender field, Hyun-woo and Hae-in walk towards their eternity together, and with this, our drama comes to an end.

We got a happy ending, but at what cost? Our tear ducts are empty, our emotions are on life support, and — future or not — Show still went ahead to kill Hae-in. But hey, it could have been worse. After delivering a solid and fast-paced first half, the drama slowed in its second half and eventually swerved into makjang alley. And with the madness in Episodes 14, 15 and up until Eun-seong died in 16, I was worried about how everything was going to turn out in the end. While the show gets a pass, it definitely could have done better — and this hurts because actually we had a good thing going until we ran out of steam.

Queen of Tears: Episodes 15-16

Overall, Queen of Tears is a mixed bag for me, but I have more positive feelings than negative ones. BaekHong leads by a mile among the show’s positives, and without Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won anchoring the characters, they’d probably have gone off the rails like the rest of the show. Personally, I don’t think I’d have been invested in their complexities and highs and lows if they were played by other actors — or maybe it’s because they imbibed the characters so well that I can’t see anyone else as Hyun-woo or Hae-in. The ensemble supporting cast also pulled their weight, and they kept me invested in their stories to a certain level even though they were mostly used to stir the dramatic pot or serve as filler.

And this is where I had a problem with the drama. For a show with extra-long episodes, you’re telling me to be satisfied with montages because there was no time to show all the opening kiss scenes and the happily ever after scenes in full? But somehow, there was a chunk of time to major on the minor, and drum up irrelevancies that we could have done without in the plot. The most annoying of all was the case with the villainous duo who were like ketchup on fries. They started off adding flavor to the show until they became downright messy, winning at every turn and pulling stunts that made me wonder whether the drama was anti-BaekHong.

But to borrow from Hyun-woo’s words, even if I knew how things would turn out, I still would have invested my time and emotions in this drama. It was a beautiful experience for the most parts, and I regret nothing! If anything, I’m leaving the show a bigger fan of Kim Ji-won, praying that Park Sung-hoon does a rom-com next, and of course, coming off with a renewed appreciation for the embodiment of excellence that is Kim Soo-hyun. Oppa, see you in the next one!

 
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Thank you @unit for the recap!
I have to agree that as much as I like Baek Hong, the villains are very tiring. I wish Kim Ji Won more success and recognition foe her acting.
I feel bad for Park Sung Hoon for getting hate for his role here. I too hope he gets a romcom or non-villain role after rhis to wipe out Eun Snake from the audience memories.
Also I hope Kwak Dong Yeon get a great lead role after this, he deserve it.
Meanwhile for the drama itself, it is also a mixed bag for me. There are parts I love (Baek Hong, their parents friendship, Soo Cheol's chadacter growth, BeomJa and Yeong Seong) and there are parts that couldve been written better (the villains and their motovations, makjangy storylines and elements like the TOD/SOD, amnesia). I will remember the good parts fondly especailly because of KJW and KSH, their BaekHong was loveable.

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"I feel bad for Park Sung Hoon for getting hate for his role here."

You want a villain you can hate and he delivered. Give the actor praise not hate.

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That is true. He should be praised for being an effective villain. There are some knetizens that cant tell reel from real that posted hate comments in his social media.

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Exactly right. Good acting should be prized and people should always remember not to confuse the actor with the character.

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The old man Hae-in saw in the cemetery during their honeymoon was actually a foreshadow of old Hyun-woo visiting her grave in 2074. And I thought that was just early signs of her illness.😭 Also, can I flex the fact that me and Hae-in are both born on August 22nd?

Revealing her exact fate was unnecessary but I'm satisfied enough that BaekHong stayed together for 50 more years till the latter leaves first. And glad that everyone else got a happy ending as well (even Amazing Grace)

Although I’m not satisfied though with Eun-bullet going out without proper punishment but Mistress getting the Park Yeon-jin treatment in her cell is good enough, I guess.

QoT is definitely one of those generational dramas that I won’t be surprised is the reason that will get a lot of first timers to enter the dramaland lore. Quite a ride everyone😊

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My birthday is August 22nd as well!! that small detail made it feel even more personal. Such a good ending.

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Lemme also flex on the fact that she died on MY birthday. April 7th😭😭

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Well that sucks.

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When we talk about Eun-slime not getting punished I think we should remember that he missed his mum heart-wrenchingly for many years, and the motherlove she sent him was, unbeknownst to him, assassins who killed the grown-ups around him. "So don't say I didn't love you!".
It's hard to feel really bad for the boy considering what he became, but on the other hand, if you feel he deserves agony, it is good to remember that he received years of it while he was still innocent.

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Although the part when Mistress was hallucinating leaving younger Eun-dead in the car got me a bit, I'm pretty sure he already has psychotic tendencies even before she abandoned him. Hell, we never really even saw them having a lovingly flashback moment together. And the fact his actions against BaekHong was on his own accord, he deserves more than just a shoot to kill order for almost taking one of them with him.

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I don't really condone capital punishment, but in dramaland I can be as vengeful as my worst. Still, what I said was that in this world of injustices, he had suffered and been gaslighted for many years by his own crazy mum and obviously other abusive grown-ups, too.
I am sure he had psychotic tendencies ... it's inheritable, and he seems like his mother's son, there. But while it is not treatable, a person can be instilled with the wish to be a good person.
And there is a statistically larger number of psychopaths in top management, so if that in itself was punishable ... hmmm ... now that I say it, it doesn't sound so bad, maybe?

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Yes, the story is written to show precisely how he became the person he was. He was evil because his mother showed him no love of any kind. By abandoning him, she made him too insecure to love, she modeled murder as a legitimate way to solve problems, and she taught him how to seek revenge on people who had nothing to do with his suffering. Da-hye says what the script writer thinks--he died pathetically alone.

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While not everybody turn evil from having evil parents, the risk is larger, especially if the family has psychopathic genes.
I am saying that because of that brain scientist who
1) found a pattern in psychopathic brains,
2) discovered a brain with that pattern in the extreme,
3) found out it was his own!
4) found out his family had a history of insane murder and violence.
(And 5) found out from his family, upon asking, that he had always been a piece of work, prone to temper tantrums and to not listen to others. But not a murderer).

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Seeing Eun-song being gunned down was quite cathartic for me. Let his mom do the long term suffering for both of them.

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Seeing her get gangbanged by the cellmates puts a smile on my face.

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Awww so this cross-country makjang track of a show finally comes to an end and i am just relieved both leads survived in one loving piece. I didn’t love this final two episodes but the cast esp our leads did such a stellar job that i don’t mind the 14 episodes we spent in
tears. In fact, my conclusion is that QoT was best when it was wringing out tears from BaekHong and us. The rest of the plot was paper thin and nonsense. It’s funny that Show had such a long run-time but the ending felt rushed and crammed with every possible scenarios the writer could think of 😅
But my final word is that i love BaekHong, they are so beautiful and i hope to see them in another drama soon. KSH please don’t wait years to grace our screen again! ❤️

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Yes, I hope to see more of both actors sooner rather than later!!

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Me too.

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Waiting for recaps to load has an interesting side-effect, which is that it allows my first impressions to percolate and I end up feeling quite differently by the time I post...

I've been truly invested in the OTP in this show 💖 and that has got me through various other issues around plot holes, annoying side characters etc.

I felt pretty good about the last two eps (I always watch them back to back so the ridiculous Ep 15 cliffhanger wasn't too trying) in that it did give us a happy ending for our lead couple (and even a slide reiterating it was a 'happy ending'! 🤣.

But, a bit like a fast food meal, after a little digestion I felt more empty. The main thing that frustrated me was

I understand that they want us to know that both our leads led a long life together, but honestly I felt cheated by the lack of swoony romance beats.

For me, instead of endless shots of the back of some guys' head who is meant to be 80-something Hyun-woo, I would have given us a few beats of their remarriage, or even better - the day they finally move back into the same bedroom.

I feel like after the endless trauma and tears we suffered we deserved skinship rather than eventual death and 'heaven'... call me shallow! 😁

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Ha, I said something similar in my comment about lack of kisses.

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This upset a lot of viewers.

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Oh no you're not.

This people need to learn to give 'em viewers something to swoon over.

I can't imagine that for the whole run of 24 hours, not one proper swoony scene. Not even one.

So no. You ain't shallow.

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Glad to see I'm not alone, and thanks for the endorsement! 🙏 TBH I don't care if it is shallow, asking for intimacy beats in a romance seems fair- if I were doing it in a crime drama then maybe it would be out of line 😁

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a romance drama about a married couple, no less.

I'm NOT asking for raunchy as that's not really a thing in classic kdramas in the style of QoT, it's just a strange choice when as late as episode 10 or even 13, the drama had no problem making it clear that Hyun-woo and Hae-in are very much still physically attracted to each other even if they aren't acting on it.

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"For me, instead of endless shots of the back of some guys' head who is meant to be 80-something Hyun-woo"

This! That is the most pointless part of the wrap-up. I don't even need swoony kisses. Just happy scenes of our couple would have been nice too.

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From our lips to K-drama writers' ears @osmanthustea !!!

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I know right! Would it have killed them to give us some happy scenes of the couple instead of lingering shots of the photo frames and the stairs/field shots..

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You aren't alone in feeling cheated by the lack of swoony romance beats - this is a romance drama. About a married couple. Who are, previously in the drama, shown to be very much still physically attracted to each other. And are played by Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won, who absolutely have the chemistry to support it.

I understand that PJE keeps it chaste for a family audience so I wasn't expecting a bed scene but would it have been too much to have one proper kiss? Or at least some skinship?! These kids are married!! The montage is pretty and I understand the tone of the end but I'd still have liked seeing Hyun-woo and Hae-in actually express their attraction to each other, even if it was through humour like in episode 13 with the ring before the surgery/amnesia (one reason why I actually liked the scenes of Hae-in 'stalking' Hyun-woo lol).

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What a ride and a fabulous ride at that. This drama wasn't perfect and there were some few issues, but for it was worth every second. I enjoyed it so immensely. I cried, I laughed, I sighed, and I smhed. It embodied all the best parts of a kdrama and all that eye roll worthy aspects of a soap opera. I enjoyed all the actors immensely. My singular criticism is there were not enough kisses😜. Outside of that KSH will always have my heart. I have always liked KJW and fell for her in My liberation notes, but she continues her outstanding work here. I will echo everyone in PSH getting another lead role, he was excellent in Memorials, and I would love that for him again.So thank you QoT and I will see the actors and writers in the next drama.

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I honestly didn't have very high hopes for the finale given how incredibly makjang the recent episodes have been but that was a pretty good finale that wrapped up most plot points.

1) Wasn't expecting Eun-seong to die pretty early in the finale. I would have liked him to live the rest of his life in prison but it wasn't to be.

2) So Hae-in's mum discovers that it was Hyun-woo that saved Hae-in from drowning when they were kids but I don't think either Hyun-woo or Hae-in knew it was him that saved her. They certainly didn't talk about it. That's a shame.

3) I was not expecting Park Ji-eun to bring back the miscarriage story, I thought she had forgotten about it! So good that they talked about it. When Hae-in said ,"Maybe we can give it a try" is that referring to giving birth again?

4) I guess the main plot point I felt wasn't addressed was Seul-hee's identity and how the team realised she was living under another identity but did nothing about it.

5) The old Hyun-woo we see at the end is actually the same Hyun-woo that Hae-in saw while hallucinating in an earlier episode! For all the amnesia and truck of doom nonsense, Park Ji-eun is still more than capable of bringing magic 😂

https://twitter.com/heybaymax_/status/1784734003368710301?s=46&t=Kx4DKY9Byrg9zqqbNQoc9Q

6) This show had an alarming lack of kisses. There was only one kiss - at the end of ep 5 in Germany. And I for sure would have liked to have seen more skinship in the finale. But at least they got a child 👩‍🍼

7) Overall, despite some lazy writing at times, I still really enjoyed this show, largely in part to the terrific performances from our main couple. From what I've read from interviews, they filmed over 11 months, that's absolutely crazy. I thought kdramas filmed for around 6 months. Hope they all have a well deserved rest 😴

I hope this show will propel Kim Ji-won to be an A-lister in Korea now. She's been too underrated for her talent, stunning beauty and kind personality. She's made a huge challenge to claim the throne of my no.1 bias from IU but for now, she will have to settle for 2nd place 😂🥈

8) Hong Hae-in is my second favourite kdrama character after Jang Man-wol. I fall so damn hard for a beautiful tsundere who teases and banters with ML, shouts at him in a cute way, is incapable of expressing their love and being a softie... and they both dressed so darn well 💃

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I also would have liked to see their response to learning Hyun Woo had saved Hae In in the water. Left it to our imaginations, like the skinship scenes.

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I loved how delulu in the scenes where she stalked up, or grumbling that he's too perfect? "I get that you want to impress me, but you're pushing it. You're too perfect." Bahaha

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After Castaway Diva, it blows my mind that there weren't more (or any, lol) repercussions for the false identity

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I think I saw in the list of why she was being arrested, false identity was one of them. But they did rather ignore this fact throughout the story.

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Had the writer trusted the audience and focused on Hae-in and Hyun-woo, their relationship, and that relationship within the larger family dynamic, and removed the entire villain arc for Eun-seong altogether, I think it could have been a much better drama. Villains don't always need to be people and I wish more writers figured this out.

The writer seemed intent on cramming Seul-hee and Eun-seong in our face, but never fully utilized them. Seul-hee seemingly having zero motivation for everything she did really hurt that character to the point where she was only a plot device. Eun-seong was marginally better.

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I didn't mind Eun-snake's villainy arc as long as it gave Hyun-woo and Hae-in a mutual enemy to fight against (and get together doing it), the problem came when the show separated them YET AGAIN and gave the villainy centre stage.

I don't have a problem with the idea of Moh Seul-hee not originally entering the Hong household with some vendetta against the family and just being a scammer who lucked into a service role in a rich household and opportunistically took advantage of it in the delusion that she could get what they had. As the finale makes clear in the end, her only motivation is money and power, and that's enough for a sociopath.

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Wish Eun-Seong had survived to face prison. Dying even in a hail of bullets was too easy.

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this omg. killing him off wasn't satisfying he needed jail time

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Grace's mouth movements deserve a special mention.

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You’re amazing, Grace!

The most annoying of all was the case with the villainous duo who were like ketchup on fries. They started off adding flavor to the show until they became downright messy...

Classics quips of the recap genre, @unit. Utter classics!!!

Now, where did we put our "sexy-brained SNU lawyer??" He was just around here somewhere...😘

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A lot of peoples dont seem to understand the ending…u couldn’t asked for a better ending..,this is the most perfect one..a lot of dumbest still considered the party,wedding,and even kissing scenes as a good for happy ending..!this is the best ending .,heartwarming, sad and beautiful too…it perfect for such a rollercoaster ride kind of a drama ..thanks for such a beautiful journey..I wish there will be another drama like this…#masterpiece❤️

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Side-note: I want to commend the writer for the portrayal of Eun-Song as a toxic abuser. He is a classic example of someone who could seem charming, and romantic in his supposed long-term 'love' for Hae-in, but for me the man was a walking red flag from the outset.

Men like this confuse 'love' with possession and his increasing need for control and the way his sympathetic mask slipped at various points, like when Hae-in left without telling him where she was going, was very realistic and telling.

My only issue was in his final scene. This is exactly the kind of person who will rationalise 'if I can't have you, no one can' that leads to such tragic outcomes for their partners/exes. He would have decided to try and kill Hae-in anyway, but the way it was filmed made it seem as if the idea only occurred to him BECAUSE Hae-in said she would rather die.
Frustrating to make it seem like she was in any way 'responsible'.... but otherwise great job and happy to see him done and dusted. Don't want him in prison because he was truly OBSESSED and would have still come after Hae-in after 20 years or whatever....

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Agree. I also appreciated when Hyun Woo pointed out a red flag for abuse - Eun-Snake isolating Hae In from Hyun Woo and her family.

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Yes! It was great to see him highlighting that. It added to his already sterling work confronting the lecherous boss who was creeping over Hae-in at the work dinner :) K-drama-perfect man indeed 😁

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I loved him so much for that

fortunately he's not quite perfect - between his failure to put two and two together about 'bus man'+ Hae-in following his bus home in their intern days + the revelation this week that he really thought it was 'the universe' that emptied the aquarium on the day he proposed i.e. he didn't know that Hae-in had booked it out for them, I can only echo Hae-in - "how did you get into SNU?!"

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same, I appreciated that part too, the fact that Hyun-woo said out loud what every viewer was thinking!

This entire 'Hae-in under psychopath's control' segment is like a 'what if' in how an intelligent, strong-willed woman can end up in that situation. Horrifying but doesn't feel unbelievable even if she lost all her memories first.

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honestly, I can forgive every other fault in this drama for two things: the pairing of Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won and the choice to have the second lead's "love" be repeatedly and clearly shown as nothing but a toxic obsession and he as a walking red flag - most second male leads in kdramas are too good to be true, right? well, this one really seemed too good to be true and then we get to see what he's really like.

I really, really respect Park Ji-eun for giving absolutely no quarter on that front - childhood sob story? Show another orphan with questionable morals who still chooses to be a better person (Da-hye). Childhood 'connection'? Hong Hae-in's reaction is exactly true to her - "cool story bro. Should've told me." (I love that she doesn't care for the childhood/past connection trope unless it ties her to Hyun-woo). Mommy issues? Nope, no excuses.

I did notice how his mask was slipping as he perceived himself to have more and more control over her - it's a pattern that starts when he tries to blackmail her in episode 9 before she gives him an 'up yours' at the press conference, then in episode 11 when he realises she's mistaken him for Hyun-woo and traps her in the car (after a whole car chase in which he risked her life just to keep her from Hyun-woo - something Hyun-woo would NEVER do), then trapping her in the house to fulfil his creepy fantasy of eating dinner with her (she tells him the sight of her made her lose her appetite and leaves her plate untouched), and once it becomes clear Hae-in in her right mind will never, ever touch him with a ten foot pole, he decides to move in on her when she's lost all her memories actually isolating her from her family (as you said - a red flag Hyun-woo actually points out) and finally, trying to kill her.

From a different perspective, a stalker of 20 years ending with a murder attempt is legitimate horror movie material.

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His idea - that he said out loud - was that if she lost everything ... everything ... she would have to love him. And for starters, he just meant money, power, connections. But losing her memory was so welcome. Him creeping into the empty spaces in her mind was the worst nightmare and "better" than traditional horror.

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It's been the creeping pattern, hasn't it? He started - at least at the beginning of this part of the timeline - by offering her what she wants and assuming that in exchange he'll get her, she says no thanks, she doesn't actually want what he has to offer so he resorts to usurping/blackmail and she responds by publicly savaging him at the press conference, but it's when he realises her mind is vulnerable (mistaking him for Hyun-woo, the amnesia from treatment side effects) that he really starts trying to physically entrap her, starting with locking the car doors after she realised he wasn't actually "Hyun-woo" in episode 11. Vomitously scary in its implications, definitely 'better' than traditional horror for sure because ghosts might not exist but men like this certainly do.

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This has been my favorite show until now (Note that I have to qualify that simply and only because my wife and I finally started our watch of SHOGUN).

Yet I understand Unit's sense of disappointment because Park Ji-eun, the writer, has written dramatically better shows:

CRASH LANDING ON YOU
THE LEGEND OF THE BLUE SEA
MY LOVE FROM THE STAR

Perhaps not quite as dramatically excellent but very well regarded were THE PRODUCERS and MY HUSBAND GOT A FAMILY.

I think that Unit was well justified in her sense of disappointment because this writer has proven that she could have done better.

It was still a very good show, and I am glad that I watched it.

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I don't like the 2 last episode, so many plot hole and so many dragging
just like I said before, after ep 8, the pace turn slowing down and the story has many filler story that not necessery to the main plot.
and the video that Hyunwoo record for haein doesn't come out again until the last, so is haein know or watch that video or not ?
I need say again, If the main lead not Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Ji Won, I will drop this drama around ep 13/14.

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I agree with your sentiment. Also looking at the drama as a whole. So many plot points that have been thrown out in the story is never elaborated further? Not everything needs to be explain true but as a storyteller if u show/tell your audience something, it should serve as a future plot points OR should tell the background story of the characters. They show that BaekHong experienced miscarriage, is it elaborated further?no. They say that eun song is Hae in's ex, is it elaborated further? no. How can eun song manipulated people around him to do his bidding even to the justice system? Is he a powerful man? how powerful is he?

Also one of the biggest issue i have is with BaekHong themselves. By the end of the story, BaekHong stayed together just because they realized how much they loved one another. No past issues resolved, no misundertandings rectified, barely any changes to their characters and personality.

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note: Eun-sung is NOT Hae-in's ex.

That is the result of a wrongly translated English subtitle in episode 2 that refers to a "breakup" when the dialogue spoken by Kim Ji-won says nothing of the sort but is actually "let's just say we had a good relationship" (i.e. not necessarily a romantic relationship) and as context from her in the drama makes very clear, she never actually dated or liked Eun-seong, the subtitlers need to apologise or correct that line it is ridiculous how such a major drama has so many errors in translation of subtitles. Eun-snake does go around implying that they dated but nothing from Hae-in supports it (Hyun-woo is her first love) and his telling Hae-in they 'dated' in university was clearly another lie.

And the BaekHong miscarriage doesn't need to be elaborated or part of some nefarious plan - it really was just a miscarriage and it had devastating effects on their relationship.

Also "no past issues resolved, no misunderstandings rectified, barely any changes to their characters and personality" - are we even watching the same drama?

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Say it louder!! I was so annoyed with the idiotic mistranslations, it was extremely frustrating! Netflix seriously needs to do better.
BaekHong went from resenting each other to loving each other again. What can be a bigger development than that??
I think the best part about their relationship is how realistic their struggles and resolutions are. These two clearly care for each other, and their love blooming again is heartwarming to watch.

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There are plenty of smaller, mildly idiotic errors throughout - notably in Hae-in's conversation with Yang-gi in ep 16 - but the one in episode 2 about how ES and Hae-in "broke up" was the single most egregious because it amounts to misrepresenting the story by effectively creating a narrative that Park Ji-eun didn't.

And there's no excuse for it - Queen of Tears wasn't even live filmed, it was all filmed in advance with Netflix forking up for rights so it's not as if these had to be subtitles done overnight as the drama aired. I blame Netflix for cheaping out on proper subtitles, fansub groups or viki would never have let this stand.

Anyone who watches this drama and thinks that the BaekHong from weeks 1 and 2 are the same as BaekHong from even week 5 onwards, has not been paying attention to the drama at all or has been watching a totally different one.

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oh and don't get me started on errors that make it clear the subtitles are done with 0 attention to context.

I may have the benefit of having picked up a decent amount of (accurate) Korean through 15+ years of fansubs and viki, but most people don't and can't be blamed for believing Eun-snake and Hae-in are really "exes" or "broke up" when that's a fiction created by the English subtitle and not anything spoken in Korean by the actor in question.

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A daughter!!
Squeeeeee!!!

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I loved this drama. Not perfect, not my top favorite ever, but I loved it all the same.

Major kudos to Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Ji Won! I've always liked both actors and they truly shined in QoT. Very impressive.

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I loved they have a daughter. I was hoping they'd have more. 😅

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They might have, it didn't show much in their future

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The scene showing what was assumed to be their living room, showed a teenage daughter with them and no younger kids.

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honestly I like that they have one, but also that they don't have more - Hyun-woo says it outright in the wedding video that he'd be happy even with no kids, as long as he and Hae-in are together.

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Yes Hae In is the only person he wanted to spend the rest of their lives with. But I think Hae In wanted kids, or they both wanted one that is why they were so heartbroken with the miscarriage.

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They have one, which makes them parents and they seem to be happy with that - no need for more if it didn't happen for whatever reason (decided one was enough, couldn't have any more).

That shot of them on the steps of Sans Souci with their baby was sweet but I would have still traded the photo frame shots for another kiss scene.

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Yes to more kisses!!! To compensate for all the tears this couple experienced and for the audience tears shed for them.

I would have liked if the show ended there with their baby. But add more happy date scenes with Baek Hong.

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True. But when you see how thrilled he was at news of Hae In's (first) pregnancy, I think he would have been happy with more children. Or none. He was open to anything as long as she was there too.

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They had an interesting story to tell. I enjoyed the earlier episodes and was rooting for the couple as the episodes progressed. But as the episodes went by, it felt like we were going in circles. They kept adding plot to make their love look epic and fresh but I was exhausted. It almost felt like the writers didn’t believe the audience will be interested in a married couple who are already in love, so they kept making them fall in love again and again. Where was the intimacy? The kisses?
I would have rather seen the couple and the family come together and work as a team against the villains. And may be even see how the new family dynamics work.
The leads pulled a lot of weight. They were great. But I don’t want to see them both in a drama anytime soon, where they have to cry!!

KDY was fantastic in the role given to him. Please give him a lead role dramaland.

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"But as the episodes went by, it felt like we were going in circles. They kept adding plot to make their love look epic and fresh but I was exhausted. It almost felt like the writers didn’t believe the audience will be interested in a married couple who are already in love, so they kept making them fall in love again and again."

You worded it just right.
Personally, if I was in a marriage like theirs, I'd give up trying a long time ago. What I'll do is wait for you. And while waiting, I'll move on with my life to the fullest. But to fight? For us? In the manner QoT went about it? Hell no! I'm not doing that over and over again.
I liked BaekHongs story, only on my screen and from afar. But I'd never want it for myself. It'll be the death of me, and I don't mean it in the loving sense.

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You are right! I got tired of them confessing their feelings to each other over and over again more so the FL than the ML. I even skipped some of their scenes in the last two episodes!

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To be honest, I don't really like the last eps. The case is resolve too fast and quickly and feels like makjang to me.
But the last scene is stealer. Soo-hyun voce really beautiful.

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i’m honestly so disappointed. a fun concept, a running start, a stellar cast, and amazing chemistry—all written into the ground. baekhong didn’t even kiss in the last episode 😭😭

ive always disliked amnesia tropes but this drama had potential to use it well, the set up was laid out decently but the execution and timing was abysmal. if haein had gotten the surgery earlier (like say ep 11 or so), we could have had a “woo-ing my wife” plot thread which would have been very fun romcom material but instead we got some really weird pacing…. 😢 the whiplash between romcom and corporate thriller and insane stalker who's holding my wife hostage made the plot frustrating as hell. drama was so busy juggling all this bs; didn’t even give us a kiss.

the whole ending scene was like? lmao was that necessary? we could have spent that time watching baekhong make out. ugh. 😢

there was no point in making hyunwoo save haein from drowning—it’s only ever discussed between the moms and has no impact on baekhong. honestly it would have made more sense to have eunseong save her so that he felt entitled to her; which would’ve added to his character. btw have i mentioned how we didn’t get a kiss in the last ep???? 🙄

anyways, despite having a long long list of complaints (no kiss last ep r u serious??!!), baekhong is a couple that’ll still be dear to me. their chemistry and moments were really painful and tender and just lovely. chances are slim but i do hope that kim jiwon and kim soohyun will reunite for a better drama someday. 🙏

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@fannypackage I am just as devastated about the absolute lack of kisses in the final episode. I think this drama started out as "pretty perfect" for me and became "just alright." Which is fine, but the wasted potential is evident. BaekHong are juggernauts at acting, but the end result is a slightly mediocre drama. It could have been better. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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I feel like this drama was too prude lol even for kdrama level. but this is a common thing for this writer so....

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I loved the rollercoaster ride of a show with its plot twists and turns. I also liked the little vignettes of country life in comparison to city life except that even then politics can be influenced by money (Think free soup and food trucks) :D The acting was superb but I still can't get over the fact that a major surgery for brain cancer requires no shaving of hair and Haein has immense powers of recovery to have been on her feet and back at work by 1 month. Likewise Hyun-woo who was hit by a car cracked his ribs and ruptured a liver was able to rescue Haein. Truly Love Conquers All! :D :D :D

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👋🏾welcome to the comments.

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Ramblings:

I loved the ending. So beautiful. Scenery and voice-over. I had chills realizing Hae In's honeymoon vision was of elderly Hyun Woo visiting her grave. A reminder of her thought then, how wonderful to have been loved like that. A miracle of a life together.

Oh my gosh where do they find these incredibly adorable toddlers?? Geon Woo and the little girl are just so so cute!

Two impactful scenes were the jail visit and the aquarium. Hae In could see what genuine caring looks like on Hyun Woo's face. And doubt everything!! How sweet that she had planned this second proposal for him where he'd proposed to her. This was the place where their relationship began, both times. Also I had been waiting for her to notice his hand.

I do wish they could have given us viewers lots more time on our OTP dating and falling in love again!! There were some happy scenes in ep 15 that I enjoyed. But there could have been more sweet and squee worthy moments. These two fabulous actors can do passion well, show us some please!! Dates, hugs, kisses... More please. Finish the villains plot by ep 14 or earlier. Skip brother's rent due on the building and sister's divorce plans etc., sooo unnecessary. And spend some time in healing and rediscovering.

Loved the final relationship between the two families. The Hongs discovered who truly cared when they were in need. All of those relatives who came for the memorial rites never appeared again. And haha, in the hospital, mom Baek was strong while dad was falling apart, "He said ILY to Hae In, not you!!"

Glad the dog was still doing well in the end and helped Hyun Woo. Another severely injured hero out there trekking through snowy woods intent on rescuing his damsel in distress. Flashback to CLOY. Speaking of which our goofy investigators never returned, and no appearance by RiRi. Icing opportunity missed.

I was happy that a couple of my predictions/hopes from my posts last week came true. One, that eldest brother would become CEO, and Hae In's dad would take a much smaller role leaving plenty of time for visiting the Baeks. He was never very ambitious. And second was Hae In returning to her old position but with a better work life balance.

I'm glad Da Hye and two-faced Grace both served time as they ought. Inviting Grace back was a risk but at least they know how much to trust her. She did help in important ways in the end. It was nice to see that Day Hye actually had loved Soo Cheol.

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Eun Snake's last stand. Sigh. Hae In was smart to pick up on the crazy and pretend to go along with him at first. But the "if I can't have her no one can" confrontation in the road had me shaking my head. Just once I'd love a drama to show characters who get out of the way instead of the self-sacrificial taking the bullet!!! I kept thinking, look at all of those trees, edge over so you can leap behind one. Or get down. Or run. Or push Hae In down to the ground!! Eun-slimeball stood there and explained his plan to them, think ahead a bit! Also the police should have shot him in the leg rather than wait for him to shoot anyone. It would have been more satisfying to see him in prison too, he got off too easy. Maybe this is the difference for us Americans who live with daily violence - in the news, in active shooter drills, and frequently depicted on TV and film -  versus Koreans who rarely deal with any. We're more practiced in how to react. Or, just silly writing.

The big question that was never answered: why the long con?? Simple greed, and a family dumb enough to fall for it? Seemed excessive. Girlfriend's screaming exit from court brought to mind the evil spirits being dragged away in the 1990 movie Ghost. 
It would be fascinating to watch a Kdrama with this premise, what happens after the HEA, but given a treatment similar to Call It Love or My Mister.

Does someone have a link to the Eun-___ list?

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Thank you thank you @unit ! You're awesome ⭐ And thanks to fellow beanies who share thought provoking comments. Glad you​'re here!

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Overall, Queen of Tears is a mixed bag for me, but I have more positive feelings than negative ones.

Exactly this, @unit, and thank you so much for your stellar recaps! I fell so hard for BaekHong and loved every moment they had on the screen. They could be doing the most mundane things and I would have watched for hours. I loved Hae-in's bluntness - did it get even sharper after her memory loss? It was hilarious! - Hyun-woo's devotion to her, and the way they made it through their valley of despair to rise up again. The little moment with their daughter at Sans Souci was perfect. I also loved the photo montage at the very end - a lifetime of great memories and relationships captured, and the way the camera panned over it, sometimes lingering, sometimes hiding details was chef's kiss.

I appreciated the ways the two families developed and became good friends: the portrait of them all together was such a good way to capture how far they had come. I also appreciated the generosity that was shown by many of them in their new lives: Mrs Hong going camping with her husband, Grace being invited back into the fold after prison, Aunt Hong patiently waiting for Mr Rat to be ready and so on. They learned to love and forgive. (However, I have to admit I never felt great concern and affection for them as I did for the Ducklings or the NK Ladies - there was something missing in the writing there...)

The villains were annoying, and episodes 15 and 16 really did us no favours. Eun-seung and his mother outstayed their welcome far too long and robbed us of scenes we wanted to see. I needed to see BaekHong move back in together in the little apartment, and it is a travesty that KSH's kissing skills were not put to use: what were they thinking??!!

Not perfect, but thoroughly enjoyable and absolutely mesmerising when KSH and KJW were on screen. Loved reading all the Beanies had to say about it!

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Wonderful recap, @unit!

I think this is the type of drama that probably doesn't hold up very well to scrutiny, but in the end, I have only love for it. I've wanted an epic romantic drama centering on a married couple for a long time, and although it fell short on this front in the end (honestly, the lack of kisses at key intervals was a real problem, but more on that below) I had the same feeling from QoT as all of this writer's dramas: it wasn't perfect, but it was so distinctively her work, and thus, so very kdrama-y in all the best (and worst) ways that I have no regrets about watching it.

These last two episodes weren't the best of the series, but they had many standout moments and lines:

--Secretary Na had two of my favorite pieces of dialogue: "The heart will follow the body" line unit quoted in the recap, and her definition of falling in love as the moment you wonder "What's up with him?" The heart doesn't necessarily swoon first; it's the brain that wants to figure out the puzzle of this person getting under your skin. So true.

--The full circle aquarium meeting was lovely and bittersweet, and the expression on Hyung-woo's face when he finally realized why the space was empty the day he proposed was perfect and reminded me of Hae-in previously teasing him for missing the obvious by asking "How did you graduate from SNU?" Among his many talents, KSH does "smart guy being dense" very well.

--I actually loved the way they decided not to remarry right away. They had been through so much intense drama and strife and near-death experiences that it made perfect sense for them to take the time to get to a point where trivial disappointments and miscommunication won't immediately kill their relationship. To that end, the time skip was sweet.

--Just like in CLOY, I loved the visuals of the scenes shot in the snow. Hae-in and Hyung-woo running through the storm in their matching dark coats with their (perfect) dark hair was beautifully shot.

Disappointments:

--I haven't griped much about the villains because they seemed in-line with the type of antagonist the writer has always favored: simplistic, obsessed, and just on the verge of insanity. I didn't need any more development of either Ms. Moh or her controlling and abusive son. They served their purpose well up until the end, when they suddenly became the main source of (external) conflict for the Hongs, and we shifted away from the more engrossing internal conflict of their own clash of personalities and miscommunication.

--We really, really didn't need for Hyung-woo to get hit by that car AND shot in the back. One or the other would have been sufficient for the plot, and the poor actors playing his parents wouldn't have had to act out essentially the same grief-laden scenes back to back. They pulled it off, but the emotional impact was not what it should have been because of the repetition.

--Finally, I've said before that there's no need...

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at all for kdramas to feature graphic--or even not-so-graphic--sex. Part of their charm comes from the fact that because they don't rely on physical demonstrations of attraction they are forced to come up with fresh and innovative ways of showing passion through smaller gestures and quieter moments where everyone stays fully clothed. At the same time, part of what makes a romance work is that the viewer can recognize a certain level of realism amidst the fantasy. For example, real couples in love kiss hello and goodbye or after making/accepting a marriage proposal or when they work out their issues and reconcile after a long, lonely period of separation. In QoT, there were so many moments when the show could have easily slid in a short kissing scene that would have made the moment resonate more deeply. The most glaring is when Hyung-woo asked Hae-in what newlyweds do. Instead of immediately cutting to their intertwined hands in their shared bed the next morning, why not a quick 30 minutes of kissing? When moments like this continually failed to materialize, it started to distract me from being immersed in the story and their romance, precisely because it felt like a deliberate choice not to do something that made perfect sense in the moment. Just an odd omission.

That said, my final takeaway is that all the actors did amazing work which speaks to the skilled direction and the strength of the script. Even with its flaws, this drama pulled me in and kept me there for many, many hours, and I have no regrets.

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Hehehe did you mean 30 seconds of kissing? Not that I would mind 30 minutes of BaekHong skinship...

Agree: gorgeous cinematography; loved secretary Na; more kissing please; tooo much of villains and injuries; and overall love without regrets!

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LOL--Yes, I meant 30 seconds but clearly, that was a Freudian slip revealing how long I really wanted it to last.

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BaekHong definitely carried the drama. Kim Soo Hyun and Kim Ji Won sold their love story. All the tears and cute, swoony, humorous bits. I liked Kim Ji Won before fine, but I really fell for her here. I'm glad she nailed this role. I saw one of her recent video interviews and she was so different from this character - quiet and shy.

Grace's and Da Hye's endings were acceptable. The fact that they did pay for their crimes made them more forgiving to me. They weren't on the same level as Eun Sung and his mother lol. Hae In's mother's redemption arc was satisfying too.

The community hall celebration was nice. It was totally cute and funny when Beom Ja got caught with her live confession! The pacing of Beom Ja and Young Song's love story was ok since we didn't see much progress during most of the drama. I didn't need to see a drastic change between them in the last hour.

First half was better than the second half. The second half became more dramatic without anything refreshing or special. I was very glad I watched EP 15 and 16 back to back despite groaning at the almost 2 hour length of EP 16! Hyun Woo getting that TOD didn't faze me. That's the thing about using the same ol' moves over and over again. I was indifferent and the camera lingered a little too long on that crosswalk, etc. Same goes with the shooting scene. They took too long - it was unbelievable that Eun Sung had time to get a shot in and the cops didn't react fast enough to shoot him before he took it.

Anyway, the OST was great. I'm a sucker for emotional ballads. Swept me up in all the heartbreaking feels.

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Big round of applause for Unit for recapping this behemoth 3 1/2 hour beast and the 3 hour run time every week always filled with fantastic phrases and catchy names. I think you have outdone yourself with QOT's.
 Am I sad to see the end? No, it got a little too cray, cray for me towards the later part but I will miss the fabulous cast of actors. 
The leads were the saving grace of the show but I also want to highlight Kwak Dong Yeon who really stood out for me, hilarious in the comedic scenes and heartbreaking in the emotional scenes.
 I find myself unsatisfied with the ending as I don't feel the writer earned the "happily ever after" written across the screen and pulled the rug out from under our feet.
Too much of these extended episodes were spent on filler.
I still feel like I'm missing part of an episode that explains the motivation of why Ms Girlfriend devoted 20 years of her life to bring down the Hongs and desert her only son. 
We were never allowed to forget about Hae-in terminal illness and it was milked continuously to bring on the floods of tears yet in the end there was no pay off as we never saw her fully regain her memory. Yes, we were told that they had 50 years together (scene at the grave) but there is a big difference between telling and showing. I don't find that anywhere near as rewarding as showing an emotional scene or two with our leads and maybe upping the notch of the display of affection from PG13 to a mature audience level. 
I have loved listening to the OST because it is so beautiful with a lot of amazing artists. Does anyone know when it will be available on itunes? I keep looking but can't find the album, only the individual single tracks.
I will remember the show more so for the fabulous actors and characters they bought to life. 
Hwaiting Beanies.

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Thanks for the recap @unit this really was a mixed bag with too much time given to the baddies, whilst still not explaining why this family was targeted. When the drama was good it really was a joy to watch so I am also in the glad I watched camp.

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My issue with QoT is not with the drama but with the screenwriter. I didn't know I'd send another open letter to her worded: "Ma'am, it is not funny", in episode 16. Time in prison, an accident and bullet to the shoulder is way too much.
I know he's a knight in shining armor but he's not gonna do that dead.

My major joy in this was a certain dude who had a trip to the morgue but didn't return.
I do wonder the delusion in his plan to leave the country. Is he going to seize her passport so she can't return? Or he'll bar her from having a personal cellphone so her family can't contact her and vice versa? He should have just left the country alone.

I believe the reveal that he's the one who sank the boat that killed Su-wan had been known to us viewers aeons of episodes ago. There was no shock reveal for me, except to see the shock on the faces of the Queen family.

As the screen showed the date of death on Hae-in's slab, West Life's I Wanna Grow Old With You played in my head. And they did grow old together.

One other tiny quip...I didn't like how they wrapped Beom-ja and Yong-seong's arc. You can't tell me he had absolutely no ideas at all. I understand that he's shy. But I don't intend understand what the writer was trying show cause you can't tell me he's both shy and dumb. He's got married friends for crying out loud. And I'm sure TMI is a thing. So he must have picked a thing or two. That peck was patronizing.

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In the end, there were more negatives than positives when it came to QoT. This show and its ratings highlighted the worst elements of kdramas. Aesthetics over any substance whatsoever. Just give the audience pretty things to look at, and that'll do.

Until the end, I expected a convincing explanation as to why Seul-hee embarked on a multi-decade-long con to sabotage the Queen's family, to the extent where she abandoned her only child to dedicate herself to this con. There was no answer.

I'm not sure why PJE felt the need to squash in the death montage at the very end of show. It felt like another ham-fisted attempt to garner emotion out of the viewers. All romances end up with one person pre-deceasing the other, so what was the point of the ending?

I'm interested to see whether QoT actually becomes a classic, once the initial feel-good hysteria of live-watching wears off. I feel like hindsight might be more critical of this drama.

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Re: your third paragraph, that totally reminded me of Nicholas Sparks. I hate stuff like that, it feels emotionally manipulative

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100% agree

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A great summary of a great show! I liked the ending. It was a repetition of the idea that the person who loves you most will wait for you when you are dying, to make it less scary.

After a relatively long life together(--I mean, she's in her 30s, right? She's supposed to die 50 years from now? And she survived a brain tumor? It's not too bad!) She will wait for him when he dies, so that he will meet the young version of her in a romantic field of lavender. Their families will stay together and love each other. Everyone, even the villains, has someone who loves them to wait for them in death. I just found it very sweet.

I hear how disappointed you were that there was no Baek Hong kiss in the finale. I didn't really notice its absence! They figured out a lot of good ways to show "chemistry" through the whole show. I think my favorite bit in this last episode was Hyun-woo telling Hae-in that he wasn't afraid to take a bullet for her a second time, but he was afraid, as she was, that they would have conflict over small things.

Really the whole thing had symmetry and was put together very nicely.

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Thank you again for your astute and funny observations through these recaps, @unit- they were what made me finally sign up on DB and join in the fun!
Everything has mostly all been said in reviews and comments, so I won't add more. I started the show for Kim Soo Hyun, and that hasn't changed- I will blindly sign up to watch anything he's in. I loved his dynamic with Kim Ji Won in this show too.

I just want to see them together again in a softer, more contemplative show, where they can just let their chemistry do all the talking- in the vein of One Spring Night or Tell Me That You Love Me.
I want to see them in something just *really quiet*, no revenge, no supervillains, no greedy people, no trucks o' doom- just a simple tale of a couple who've gone through trauma and the resultant miscommunication and lost their way, finding their path back together... How do you show them finding the ways they've each changed and falling back in love with the new version, learning to hold hands again, discovering each other physically again? How do you tell that person you thought you hated, that you actually still do love them, that you're willing to work through whatever drove you apart?
Just to take the small but charged beats that QoT did too little with, and gave the teenage aegyo treatment- the forearms, the petty jealousies, the accidentally-on-purpose shower scenes- and turn them into mature, consensual couple moments... My god, the swoon that would bring!!

I agree, it's not a plot that would rake in stratospheric ratings or more dollars in the bank, but I really think Kim Soo Hyun needs a show like this at this point in his career to show he's actually the King of Tears- he would absolutely knock it out of the park- he's done enough of the other type IMO.

Anyway... it was quite a ride, and this woman will dream, and listen on loop to KSHs beautiful singing (what can he not do?!) at the end of this show, while producing her own imaginary drama.

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A love that transcends life is the message which was quite consistent throughout a drama that calls Hyun Woo and Hae In’s love a miracle. It was foreshadowed very early on in episode 6 too when Hae-in told Hyun-woo that very many years later she would be the one to welcome him in the afterlife as someone who loves him the most in the world. And her tombstone's "spending life with you was the only miracle in my life" particularly hits home after everything these two have been through.

I think Park Ji-eun writes the best endings for KSH's characters. I hated CLOY's ending, and LOTBS was very so-so, but both YFAS and The Producers had such great endings. In particular, I love the meaning behind these endings because they tell a story. YFAS’s message was that we should value every moment of our lives with the person we love because we never know if we will get another chance. For QOT, the message is that despite the many challenges you may face, living a happy and long life with the person you love most is the biggest miracle in life.

Tbh, I may sound like it, but I am not actually a hugely sentimental person. I ofc cry and laugh while watching something, but I am able to move on after that rather quickly. But I think KSH's beautiful voice singing one of the most beautiful and unforgettable OSTs I've ever heard really did me in. They wrote this song for that specific scene and it really shows because the impact of the lyrics was tremendous. I hope for those who watch via Netflix and dont engage online that this is translated. It gives this scene all the meaning it wouldnt have had. And when the final credits rolled and the written message saying "We hope you take the time to look back on the precious people around you and love them once more" - I felt quite the lump in my throat. Its the sort of ending that made me think of life for a moment and that feeling of poignancy just lingered for a long time.

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I know there were plot holes and things unexplained, but I remember kdramas not specifically for the plot but rather how it made me feel. And this drama did that in spades. The growth in these characters, the warmth they developed for each other, and the bond we know they kept throughout their lives is the sort of thing that will remain with me when I think of QOT.

I've always maintained that Park Ji-eun is my favourite writer and that is basically solidified even more. There are writers who write better and more intelligent plots, sure, but I am a romantic at heart and her romances are exactly what I look for in a kdramas and what i feel we have lost in the recent past. So thank you PJE for reminding me why I love kdramas in the first place.

And lastly to all the actors who elevated this drama to what it is. PSH - particularly in the scene where he begs Hae-in to pick him - was outstanding. He made me care for Eun-sung throughout this drama and even if the character never did map out to be the complicated villain i was hoping to see, PSH made it work anyway. And KJW who really showed how much she can do with the right role. I've always liked her, but never quite loved her until Hong Hae-in. She was amazing both in the haughty moments and when she was trying to hide her vulnerability and failing to. She was the best Hae-in we could have wished for and her chemistry with KSH completely off the charts. Here's to some great roles for her in the future!

And lastly to KSH - Hyun-woo was honestly the backbone of the drama for me. I watched QOT from begging till the end from his perspective. The complexity of this character, how morally abigious he was, and the depth and range with which KSH played him was outstanding. I skipped last week's recap thread, but the whole of episode 14 from the cathedral to the accident to the eventual breakdown at the hospital. Its been a rather powerful and unforgettable performance. I am admittedly a KSH fan, but there is genuinely no bias-ness when I say I believe he is the best actor of his generation. I'm just very happy he took this drama on because I cant imagine a world where he doesnt play Hyun-woo.

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I rather like a lot of aspects of the ending - like you, I was never really here for the plot but for the leads and while the makjang got tiring, Hyun-woo and Hae-in kept me watching. And yeah the ending is true to their relationship and for that alone, I'm good even if I wish we got more than just a montage and a shot of photos of them after they reconciled. Mainly I can't help contrasting the incredible pacing and writing of episodes 1 through 10 when everything about this drama - story, actors, pacing - felt like it was firing on all cylinders, right up to the press conference and I'd argue even as far as 11 and 12, contrasted to the throw-it-all-at-the-wall of episodes 14 to 16. But I still love it far, far more than my nitpicks suggest and I've had a blast watching (especially since this pairing of leads is one I've been hoping for since 2017 lol). By the end it was a 6/10 for plot and story, but KSH and KJW together makes it a 9/10 for me, they were both already great actors but together it's like they enhance each other's powers somehow - no one else could have pulled it off like they did. Also I don't really watch kdramas for the plot but for the characters, and Hyun-woo and Hae-in deserve instant GOAT status.

Queen of Tears is going in the pantheon of Hallyu classics for sure, it's been years since we had one that felt truly, properly classic and done well, the kind where you actually remember character names years and years after the drama ends - not since Crash Landing on You in fact. You brought up a point in a past recap about how Netflix funding has resulted in kdramas that don't feel like kdramas any more and I think it's actually true, to an extent - Netflix originals sometimes feel not only borderline American in attitude (violent) but also rather homogeneously Netflix-ised, if you get my drift - that certain look and shooting style, the soundtracks, frankly even the attempt to force kdramas to follow the American-style seasons format. But the dramas they license from Korean networks tends to not have that issue because, thank goodness, Korea still comes first as a market for those. QoT is one of those - Netflix may have forked over some cash but it looks and feels, with all its flaws and triumphs, like a kdrama. Which is why I really hope the Korean terrestrial and cable channels don't keep cutting their drama slots, successful ones like QoT show there's still demand for the OG style!

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I find Netflix has changed kdramas fundamentally which is something I will never be able to quite accept. The thing is, kdramas have been popular outside Korea for a very very long time. The first Hallyu drama was in fact almost 25 years ago. But before Netflix, the Hallyu factor never changed the "fundamentals" of kdramas (if that is the correct word for it). The best Kdramas have always been romantic, magical, full of memorable characters, sometimes absurd storylines but so full of heart. Throughout the years, if we think about all the popular dramas - Winter Sonata, Full House, Coffee Prince, Sam Soon, Boys over Flowers, You're Beautiful, SeGa, YFAS, IHYV, DOTS, Goblin, CLOY to name a few - these span two whole decades. They all have a huge fanbase in SK and abroad but they follow a specific formula which differentiates kdramas from anything else.

With Netflix entering the scene, that formula has been fully abandoned for years now. And its not just Netflix, even terrestrial channels who once produced huge hits like YFAS, DOTS and SeGa are now producing dramas with multiple seasons like Taxi, FXC etc. I dont have an issue with it being produced, however, due to the lack of funding, it seems like thats pushing out the quintessential kdramas I am wanting to see...

All this to stay, Queen of Tears to me is a return to the kdramas I love. Maybe some viewers find it frustrating, or trope-y or makjang-y, etc, etc. But thats what kdramas have always been to me. Maybe the reason we dont get it anymore is because there is a lack of belief that the new generation of fans (whether it be new kdrama fans or Gen Z onward) will like an OG style drama. I am not claiming Queen of Tears alone can bring back whats gone missing, but I think it has the power to start that change which I am thankful for.

With Kim Eun-sook coming back to her fantasy roots, and even with Lovely Runner doing well in terms of buzz, along with Queen of Tears making such a huge statement, maybe this year is the year things can start looking up again. I really hope so because while I started a lot of kdramas this decade, I cant seem to finish most of them out of sheer boredom. And... the ones I did finish recently left an even bitter taste in my mouth (Samdal-ri, Wedding Impossible, I'm looking at you). Like I've said previously too, if I want gory, horror, zombies and thrillers, it doesnt exclusively need to be korean. However, if I want romance done right, then it definitely needs to be a kdrama!

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Short ver: this drama is Welcome to Sam Dal 2.0.

Both shows are dramas that wasted their runtime on literally nothing, had the most annoying SLs ever, decided to make the entire show about the romance but gave the couple zero real development, the ML had no personality other than being there for the FL, and the FL didn't get to develop any other aspect of her life because the drama would drag her around for the sake of romance.

The only difference is that most characters in QoT were likeable, and the show recognized the SL was the worst.

I didn't hate this drama, but I will probably forget about it fast. Maybe it'll become a classic like DOTS or Heirs. I saw it once, forgot about it, and that's fine.

Long ver
THE GOOD.

1. Beom Ja.
Idk, I just love her. She seemed to be one of the characters in the show that felt like... A real person?

She had a complicated relationship with her father, she loved her family deeply, she would protect herself and her people, she wouldn't give up on finding love.
But what I really like about her is that she didn't feel forced. She didn't have to do much to prove the type of person she is. She didn't need to lose her memory, fight gangsters or almost get killed four times.

There where multiple things happening with her, she had some kind of development, but it didn't feel in my face. She was just living her life.

I hope the best for her.

2. The OST was always on point.

THE ALMOST GOOD?

1. Soo Cheol and Da Hye.
At the beginning I was rooting for them so hard, and I was so invested in their family. But in the second half it seemed like the writer didn't know well what to do with them, and especially, the writer had no idea how to make Da Hye part of the family again.

Her comeback was weird.
Except for the mom, the family seemed to accept her, but we didn't really see her be part of any decision/plan they made as a family. Most of the time, I kept forgetting she had come back.

We didn't see more of her and mom bonding and building a relationship as mother-daughter in law even after we saw the mom "accepting" her again into the family.

And we didn't get to see all the things Soo Cheol was planning to do as an independent man, and the head of his family.

But I did like those characters. Especially Soo Cheol. Imo, he was way cooler than the "perfect" Hyun Woo.
If you ask me, the best husband/father in this entire drama is Soo Cheol.

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2. Hae In!
Most of the show is from Hyun Woo's POV, and he's literally EVERYWHERE, doing EVERYTHING, so I always felt like Kim Ji Won had less to work with. But despite all that, she always caught my attention.

And I like how in the last few episodes we got to know her better.
The whole show is "Hyun Woo is perfect. He would die for his wife" yada yada yada. But there's no real campaign for Hae In. That's why they gave her the amnesia to prove her love for Hyun Woo.

But maybe it's because she wasn't trying to prove that she was perfect, and she actually seemed like an individual, that I liked her a lot.

I like her messy relationship with her mom, and I like that she was such a scary noona to Soo Cheol. And I liked watching her become a more considerate CEO.

I loved watching her become more and more direct and honest about what she wanted for her relationship with Hyun Woo. And I liked that when she found out about the side effects of the surgery, she thought of herself first to make a decision.

Now, the problem is that even though Hae In had so much going on, the show would always focus on the romance.

She was there just to prove the power of romantic love and nothing else. We didn't get to see her properly as a CEO. Her relationship with her family? What family?

You would think one of those "awful memories that she needed to remember to feel less scared" would be her oppa dying and her mom blaming her for it for the rest of her life, but nope. Oppa who?

If it isn't about Hyun Woo it isn't worth it, right?

THE BAD

1. Eun-mommy issues and his mom.
Basic little villains. Meh.

2. The little family dynamics.
I know this show isn't a weekender, but for a show that seemed to care about family, and for a show written by the creator of "My Husband Got a Family", it's disappointing how most of the relationships between the family members fell flat.

If we had spent less time with miss mistress and her annoying son repeating the same damn conversation about their "sad past" or wtv, maybe we would've seen more development of other characters and family dynamics.

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3. Hyun Woo.
Hyun Woo had nothing going on besides being the perfect husband... So why was he so bad at it?

Let's say it's fine he lies about the divorce. Let's say it's understandable he lies about the surgery. Let's say it's okay he let Hae In got kidnap once. And let's say he didn't have time to think about the fact that someone tried to kill her (them)...

But you're telling me, that when his wife THAT CAN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING, told him that she was going to leave the psycho that almost killed him MULTIPLE TIMES and kidnapped her TWICE, he's answer was "yeah, get the hell out of there. That won't put us in danger, at all"???

Even Hae In later realized that she should be careful with that psycho, and that it was better to pretend that she was on his side. So why wouldn't Hyun Woo think the same?
He really thought it was going to be fine for Hae In, to just escape like that? That Eun-psycho wasn't going to send some gangsters or go himself to stop her and probably kill him?

And then he escapes from a hospital, as if him suddenly fainting or dying in the middle of the street was going to help Hae In escape?

He's lucky Eun-delulu didn't shoot him sooner. I thought he wasn't even going to get to enter the house and die shouting her name at the gate, Devdas style.

For such a smart guy, for such a perfect guy, for such an invincible guy, he should've seen coming at least half of Eun-snake's bs.

And, to be honest, I don't care about him taking bullets for Hae In or not. I would've had more fun to see him actually built a new relationship with Hae In and his in laws like any other FL in kdramaland. I liked him better when he was filming his on daily drama in the first few episodes, acting like the typical frustrated daughter in law.

THE WEIRD
Did they sleep in separate bedrooms even after their child was born, or what? 😂😂
And that final kiss for uri Beom Ja??? WTF was that?

When I saw people talking about how this writer hates intimacy in their dramas, I thought it was probably an exaggeration, but damn. Doing that to the character that's been married three times, feels more like a statement.

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Interesting that people would say that when this writer has dramas with two of the most legendary intimate kiss scenes I've seen in drama land. Jun Ji Hyun with Kim Soo Hyun in My Love From the Star and Jun Ji Hyun with Lee Min Ho in Legend of the Blue Sea.

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Oh, interesting! I haven't watched those shows so I didn't know.
Then I wonder why would they do that to Beom Ja (and the leads). 🤔 And why people say that about the writer.

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I totally forgot about those two scenes but you're right. i think maybe the writer got less enthusiastic about kissing scenes as time went on because, if I remember correctly, crash landing doesnt have a lot of more intimate scenes either.

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I think there are laws in Dramaland to make sure that leads who know that an insane murderer is out to get them are legally prohibited from taking sensible actions to protect themselves.
If I hadn't already made the elaborate gifs I did and who took a lot of time to make, I could make one with another verse of "Dum Ways To Die".

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LOL. Yeah, that's kdramaland.
It's funny how Hae In was the one with a terminal illness, but the one that always was about to die was Hyun Woo.

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I don't actually see Hyun-woo's "get the hell away from him" as bad advice given exactly the fact that Eun-snake has in fact made multiple kidnap attempts on Hae-in.

I mean, what if the next step was to have her declared legally incompetent and carted off abroad to be married by force?! (which was basically hinted at). Getting Hae-in physically out of there was far more logical than leaving her in the hands of the psychopath especially now that she's twigged to what he really is.

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But that wasn't his thought process or anything. Hae In called him after figuring out Eun-snake lied to her. She was the one that asked for a meeting.

She had been staying with Snake for days and Hyun Woo didn't do much about.
He told her to not believe in snake, but he never told her how psycho he was or anything. Which is very dangerous, since the girl with amnesia that doesn't know anything could make something that wakes up the psycho out of the snake (literally what happened in the show).

He didn't even call her parents (that were staying in the same house), to keep an eye on snake or something.

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Snake had already brainwashed Hae-in by telling her 'everyone will tell you I'm a psycho but they're lying' - Hyun-woo understood that and appealed to Hae-in's own instincts instead, which was less likely to put her back up and get her to actually listen. The Hong parents were keeping an eye on the situation through their private investigators but they couldn't do much as long as Hae-in was alienated and brainwashed against them.

And yes, she'd been staying with Snake in the same house but Hyun-woo couldn't do much while she was still brainwashed except encourage her to come to her senses (and notably, at that point of time Snake had never yet tried to physically harm Hae-in - Hyun-woo had no way to expect that). The minute Hyun-woo sees that Hae-in's recovered her memory of him, the obvious thing to do was get the hell away from Snake while she can (she's still free to go and come from her own house) so trigger or no trigger, she was at least physically safe from him. We don't realise he's at the point of kidnapping until then.

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But he already kidnapped her two times in the past, even if he used manipulation instead of physical force. And he also tried to kill Hyun Woo multiple times.

So making her go to him in the middle of the night would definitely make HW get killed, and HI would also be in a more difficult situation (especially, since the only person that could help her would be dead and she has nowhere to go).

It was weird to see how the family was sleeping while all of these was happening, and Hyun Woo was trying to do some superhero show to save her. But Hae In, with amnesia and all, seemed to be the only one with a better understanding of the situation.

I guess they all really had their hands tied, because no one tried to do much about anything.

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I loved Soo Cheol and felt he was ripped off at the end as he disappeared from our screens. One second he was beating up thugs (fantastic character development to now be able to ride a bike and box) to protect Da Hye and then gone, nothing for ages. Yet we got all these unnecessary filler scenes that led to nothing.
This show reminded me of My Dearest, fantastic skilled actors, great characters, beautifully shot, fabulous ost, squee inducing first half and then slowly dragging us viewers through unnecessary repeated pain, angst and keeping the leads apart. We'd get a few happy moments and then bam, away we go again until the end with the amnesia plot line and a "happily ever after" but we didn't get to see those small moments of happily ever after. 

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I feel you. There was so much build up for their stories, but at the end we didn't see them do the things they told us they were going to do.

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Omg had the same thoughts. I was let down by both endings (even more so for Qot). All that build up and chemistry with no pay off was the most frustrating bec I kept thinking about what could have been!

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Wow, I was trying to figure out why this drama disappointed me and left me feeling empty, and I think you nailed it. Hyun-woo felt not only too perfect, but wildly inconsistent from how he was shown in eps 1-2. I think I would have preferred a drama about Soo-cheol or Beom-ja, lol.

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Hyun Woo from episode 1-2 feels like such a distant memory. I really was interested in him as the refreshing version of the "overworked daughter in law" trope. It made him look more like a real person, than just a "perfect" and "invincible" husband.
And he definitely wasn't dumb back then. 😆

Omo, yes! A drama about Beom Ja or Soo Cheol would've been way more interesting.

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once we learned that he was also a boxer prodigy, I was done lol

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I wouldn't be surprised if he suddenly could fly.

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Thanks for the fast recap, unit!

I guess QoT did a reasonably okay job with how they wrapped most things up. Although the final montages had me go - HUH.

Starting with the positives
* Glad Eun-snake got fired upon so many times right at his most godawful point in life. Betrayed by his own mom haha. I might have liked it slightly better if he hadn't died and we got to see him and MSH tear each other apart in court. But okay, this is acceptable.
* Totally did not need yet-another-hospital scene for Hyun-Woo. It was a bit unnecessary imo though not a deal-breaker.
* Happy to see Soo-cheol come to Da-hye's rescue. I think the fight scenes were done realistically cuz it was unlikely that he could have levelled up significantly to take everyone down immediately. But he really did his best to take the punches, get the baddies to lower their guard, before knocking out the Jo asshole properly.
* Grace indeed redeemed herself after all . She clearly struggled when Da-hye brought it up, but went through with it in the end. And also got the team that crucial piece of evidence against evil MSH. To be included in the family reunion meal after she and Da-hye got out was actually quite heart-warming for me.
* Loved seeing MSH lose her composure in court, and get abandoned by her sycophant lawyer.
* Beom-ja's confession was mortifying but made sense for them haha. But I presumed that things were 'settled' after he finally chased after her. Did not need the subsequent scenes (at the restaurant or the kiss). I feel like those scenes were weak and ended up disappointing me.
* Hong daddy retiring made sense. And a nice throw-back to one of the early episodes where he told Hyun-woo that his old subordinate? lawyer? leaving him was betrayal. Guess Hong daddy was very much putting up the bravado. And the fact that Hong mama's main complaint was about the absence of kimchi - instead of complaining about camper life lacking luxuries - was another satisfying growth in her character.
* Hyun-woo's lawyer friends were awesome. I loved how none of them specialised in criminal cases but rallied behind him so well. Thankful the murder thing got wrapped up quickly.
* I appreciate that Hae-in didn't miraculously remember everything, but was somewhat jogged along to reassess Eun-snake's lies and her own impression of Hyun-woo by the diary. It feels realistic, and also gives room for character growth. When she started to recall the miscarriage and their fallout, I was worried she would be overwhelmed by her own pain, but the way she re-framed it this time was mature and touching. I thought it was a good way to address one of the root causes behind their failed marriage and give everyone closure to move on.

Things I'm annoyed about
* I don't get it. No one asked for any footage of "will Hyun-woo still visit Hae-in's grave when she dies peacefully in old age?" So that was just bizarre and pointless. I mean, proposal or wedding would be nice,...

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I loved the future scene. It was a way to show us that Hae In lived a long life, and that she and Hyun Woo stayed together and happy, rather than wondering if they did indeed work through their relationship issues or if the cancer returned and took her early. The scenes at the cemetery and in the lavender field were the same ones as in her earlier hallucinations, I thought that was a neat detail. While a second wedding would have been fun, three was a proposal scene when they were walking together and making future plans.

I definitely agree with you that I would have preferred a lot less of the side stories like Beom Ja at the restaurant, Hyun Woo's sister's marriage issues, etc., and a lot more of our OTP's second romance.

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I loved it. Gave it 10⭐ which is very rare for me but it kept me entertained and I got up at the crack of dawn (7:00 am) every Saturday/Sunday so that I could watch the moment it released on Netflix. They promised a roller-coaster and delivered. They promised a "fairy-tale" and it wasn't until the drama was complete that I realized that this was a crazy mish-mash of fairy-tale, comic book (Hyun-woo as Batman) and a sprinkling of faith and prayer sprinkled throughout

Regarding the ending - another fairy-tale ending of "happily ever after". 50+ years they stayed together and the hints are very strong that they lived them in Germany (Hae-in said she loved the cemetery because it meant you were "resting near your home." At the winter of his life, Hae-in was waiting for her beloved - just as she promised as well.
This was a love story for Koreans and Koreans loved it in return. I'm so glad it was written/produced/acted such that this non-Korean could love it just as much.

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I'm glad you enjoyed it! I loved it too and looked forward to Sat and Sun mornings. There were a few parts I wished had been done differently, but overall it was a fun journey with Hae In and Hyun Woo.

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One major disappointment for me was the Hong's being reduced to spectators throughout the drama and taking pretty much no proactive action on their own behalf.

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Huh, I thought I’ve seen through the end. But I missed the 2070s projection. I guess that shows how the plot may have lost me from ep 13 or thereabouts. A brain surgery with hair fully in place?! That’s among other things, eg car of doom survival. I fully applaud the acting though, BaekHoon and the villain. Unit, love your last line. KSH, we are in your hands. Take good care of us fans.

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It was an ultrasound sound surgery, requiring placement precision.

There was absolutely no need to shave the hair on her head.

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I never cared about the villains. I don't know why she had to wait for 20 years to take action, why she killed Hae-In's brother, etc. Her son was just crazy.

I watched this drama for the couple. And I really liked them. It was interesting to see them so apart at the beginning and to see how they met and fell in love in the flashbacks, what separated them and how they got back together. The illness was weird but their emotions about it felt real. I loved every scenes of their scenes. It was quite poignant Hae-In saw Hyun-Woo laying flowers on her grave before it happens and then the final scene with KSH's OST was beautiful. Both actors were great in their role!

Now, I still have the same issue, why the only kiss we really got was in the episode 5?!? And nothing after that? I mean what the point to write a romance between 2 married adults, if you treat this romance like a teenager one. They were good at flirting, what a waste of their acting!

The 2 families were weird, between Hyun-Woo's brother and sister who never spend time with their own family, Hae-In's mum who was awful with her daughter, Hae-In's brother who was a fool (but KDY was great in this role), etc. but I liked how they bonded and became a real family. Even amazing Grace 🎵 wasn't abandonned!

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Yes! These characters were married, and these actors know how to portray passion well, why did they not kiss?! Not even in the "honeymoon" apartment scenes. It's a common complaint about this show.

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There was a little peck in episode 13 after she moves into his officetel lol.

Still, deeply frustrating to see this drama choose to be so weirdly chaste with Hyun-woo and Hae-in at the last minute after spending weeks and weeks, all the way until episode 13? with both script and actors making it unambiguously clear that these are married characters who are very much still physically attracted to each other. I'm not asking for a bed scene but a little skinship? Some cuddling? A kiss? Anything!

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Yeah, I'm kinda disapointed they went in full emotional mode with a lot of crying scenes and kept the physical part at the surface.

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So… Psycho Mistress plotted to take over the Queens and torment Hong for few decades for NO obvious reason whatsoever???!!! Like no grudge or revenge? They didn’t do anything to her in the past?

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I don't have any problem believing that her inbuilt scammer ways+ the opportunity to insert herself in a rich family through a service role (she was the housekeeper) and eventually as grandpa's mistress, fed some pretty heavy delusions - as we see, she's just greedy and coarse underneath her genteel veneer and I have 0 trouble believing she really just left her kid in an orphanage to ingratiate herself with the Hongs because she thought she'd insert herself into the family and make off with the jackpot for her own offspring after murdering the grandchildren.
Thank goodness for Beom-ja stopping her idiot father from marrying her, tbqh. And I appreciate that the drama makes Hae-in an active agent in taking her down too, some aspects of this drama might have ended unsatisfyingly but seeing Moh Seul-hee getting publicly taken down in court, outed before the whole world as a murderer (I really felt for the elder Hong siblings though, especially Beom-ja) and getting her head kicked in in prison for hopefully the rest of her worm life, was not one of them.

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@unit 10/10 stars for your writing. Absolutely brilliant and wish you had given advice to the drama writer for the last quarter of the drama.

Yes, the story limped to the ending with too many tropes, but the heart of the drama was Hae In and Hyun Woo's relationship which never wavered and stayed consistently strong. I loved all the tie-ups for the good people and little details like the family photo replacing the napolean photo, have the plot of Hyun Woo's sister hammer in the "communication problems" message than having our HongBaek give life advices etc.,

To me, Kim Ji Won turned out to be the star of the show and her panache characterisation was truely that of a queen. Of course, without Kim Soo Hyun, the chemistry wouldn't be possible, but he is already a star and he wouldn't fail to deliver his talents.

I loved all the full circles like Hae In's aquarium date and how Hyun Woo realized that he fell out of love with Hae In despite his promise to sail in the same ship.

The only con with the show is not with giving screen time to extras, but meandering with tye antagonists plot. Their backstory made 0 sense and their schemes were something from the 2000s drama. I also wanted then to spend a minimum of 15 minutes on talking about the point of their misunderstandings i.e., the miscarriage, but the show wanted "bygones be bygones" 🙄🙄🙄 That was a crucial plot brushed aside for other stupid subplots.

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The first half was definitely stronger but the hard left into makjang hurts because there was so much more potential for better storytelling.

And am I crazy did we never see the scene where Hae-in tells Hyun-woo that she is a chaebol? They built it up with all the initial epilogues where he doesn't know but where was the pay-off? Did I just miss it?

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No we never saw it and I also wanted to know why she turns up in a helicopter at Hyun woos family farm?

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because he ghosted her after learning she was a chaebol lol.

Of course, they were already engaged by then and she wasn't letting him get away that easily (and also helpfully knew where he lived since he'd brought her to Yongdu-ri when they were dating).

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QoT Significantly derailed in story telling after Ep 12. The ensemble supporting actors could have been utilised better and their characters except Beom Ja did not really hold one's attention. All the extra long episodes meant lots of fast forwarding. Surprised that it got such high rating and that's only because the leads held our attention.

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still trying to organise my disjointed thoughts (both thrilled and on some specific aspects, slightly disappointed) so here goes part 1:

First off - AAAAGH IT'S SO FRUSTRATING watching the first 30 minutes but Hyun-woo being 'stalked' by a Hae-in who's irersistibly drawn to him despite everything, was easily my favourite part. Not so much the Hyun-woo in jail and Hae-in turned against him part though! This is why I hate amnesia plots, even if the seeds are sown for her natural suspicion and scepticism to start kicking in, quite fast. And to that end I'm SO PROUD of my queen Hong Hae-in, both before and after the amnesia, of course memories-intact Hae-in wasn't going to sit passively by and let Hyun-woo do all the work of keeping her memories! @ceciliedk mentioned last week that Queen of Tears from Hae-in's pov is a horror movie, and episodes 15 and early 16 really show it as exactly that - as if isolating her from her family and lying to her about literally everything isn't bad enough, he resorts to Stalker Tactic Textbook chapter 1 - she doesn't owe you answers about where she's been, slimy bastard! going to go into more detail about this when I'm not screaming and seething, but rest assured, i have a LOT to say.

(for all this drama's other faults, it has never wavered on the front of making it very, very clear that Eun-slimy-bastard is a toxic abuser whose so-called "love" is just obsession without care or respect for the feelings of the object of his obsession, despite her multiple, crystal clear and brutal refusals to give him what he felt entitled to)

while I have my frustrations with these final two episodes (too much makjang, some ridiculousness, too much time spent on side characters I don't care that much about and oh yeah, getting leads like Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won and not giving us anywhere near the level of swoony romantic onscreen stuff that Hyun-woo and Hae-in deserved - which was a LOT, KSH/KJW and their Hyun-woo/Hae-in deserve to go down in dramaland lore among the OG great couples), I have to give it to Park Ji-eun, she's written another classic even if the only real change I'd want to the finale is delivering on the promise of some of that swoon - and bedroom swoon - that was hinted at in episode 10.

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re: the lack of swoony romantic moments - don't get me wrong, I think the older Hyun-woo at Hae-in's grave (she made it to 84! Turns out that patient info card saying she was a 1990 baby was correct), the photographs showing Hyun-woo and Hae-in's life together and then ending with her coming to take him at the end of his life was beautiful (and somehow feels even more so because of Kim Soo-hyun's OST, I actually like it in its own right it fit the moment) - like the happy version of the ending of Titanic and true to what Hyun-woo and Hae-in themselves discussed in Germany, pre-divorce.

BUT this drama, early on, had no trouble making it really clear - and neither did the actors have any issues with portraying - that Hyun-woo and Hae-in are very much still physically attracted to each other and affected by each other (every single time they're in Yongdu-ri, before that at the hunting ground, and at home), both pre and post-divorce.... so the amnesia plot just throwing that by the wayside too does bother me a bit. I mean, it was a huge deal that they weren't sharing a bed! Is it too much to ask for to see them kiss properly just once?! That was not enough of an epilogue /sob (for epilogues, episodes 5, 6 and 10 are

Netflix English subtitle messup of the week: Hae-in's conversation with Yang-gi in ep 16 being translated as her asking him about himself because 'Hyun-woo wrote about him as one of the people around him' - NOPE, that was Hae-in herself writing in her diary about Hyun-woo's friends! First they messed up and made Eun-scammer an 'ex' to her when nothing onscreen or in dialogue supports them ever having dated or 'broken up' in the romantic sense, now they made Hyun-woo write about Yang-gi when Hae-in's the one doing all the writing for her memory's sake!

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PS: I have a LOT to say about Hae-in and Eun-snake but I'm going to be writing these comments across three countries so I will only say this much: I'm really, really proud that our heroine isn't a cowering wallflower wailing 'ottokke?!' all the time even with amnesia, and also that she got to deliver the final blow to Eun-delulu by flat-out telling him that even with no memories she found him hateful and repulsive! Love her so much for that. For all the other frustrating bits of this drama, I love that Hae-in's courage and presence of mind match Hyun-woo's, even if she's rather hobbled by not knowing her own memories.

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Something I really, really appreciate about the writing here is that Hae-in's reaction when she had her memories was always indifference to Eun-snake's sob stories and anger at his audacity because she knew she was ruthless and clever enough to outwit him if called on to do so but without them - the way Kim Ji-won plays that situation where she has to return to that slimy bastard and pretend that she 'just wanted to check the diary' with Hyun-woo, is incredible - what's behind her eyes is barely suppressed fear but she still has the presence of mind to lie and cover for herself, bide her time, and be the one to gather the crucial intel that Mistress Snake poisoned Grandpa and killed her brother - and to ultimately deliver what, imo, is the real killing blow to Eun-snake's psyche i.e. she finds him utterly repulsive (even more explicit than episode 10's "bitch, you thought??!" move at the press conference).

It's legitimately disturbing - as it's meant to be - just how much Hae-in's situation and reactions this episode and in every scene with Eun-snake after her natural instincts return, feel like a woman trying to get out of an abusive relationship (or in this case, an abusive fake 'relationship'), from the control and surveillance over her movements to her having to make excuses about meeting Hyun-woo to avoid 'setting him off', to the full-on actual murder attempt, and the way he's tried to trap and control her at every turn only to be thwarted by not only Hyun-woo, but - while she was still in her right mind - Hae-in herself, until she lost her memories.

I don't care if Moh-snake turned out not to have originally entered the Hong household with the intent of targeting them for some imagined offence against her, or if she turned out to have killed "only" Grandpa (ultimately responsible for his suicide) and Hae-in's oppa, two members of a family is still a lot! And she's an established opportunist who'd already been to prison, who entered that household not in a social capacity but a service one - not hard to see how she'd operate. I'm not here for villain schemes and plots anyway, I'm here for our leads (there are only two reasons why I didn't just drop the drama in frustration after episode 14 and they are named Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won - what an epic pairing, I know we just got done with this drama but now I'm greedy to see them reunite like Jang Hyuk and Jang Nara lol)

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and now I present, pogo's special project, part 1- the directory of names our dead and not-lamented second lead has been called by @Unit and beanies in recaps and comments:

Eun-snake
Eun-spider
Eun-s.o.b.
Eun-squid
Eun-slimy bastard
Eun-slime
Eun-snitch
Eun-sociopath
Eun-psychopath
Eun-sicko
Eun-spy
Eun-shark
Eun-sleaze
Eun-suspicious
Eun-sentimental

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Eun-substitute (attempted, in place of Hyun-woo, but Hae-in was NOT having it lol)
Eun-shocked
Eun-silly
Eun-stylish
Eun-sabotage
Eun-shady
Eun-son
Eun-schifo (pronounced ‘skee-fo’, means ‘yuckiness’ in Italian, thank you to Annie for that one)
Eun-spiteful
Eun-slug
Eun-Snape (named after a certain other character famous for an unhealthy obsession with a young woman who dgaf and married someone else, only for him to try to destroy her family too)
Eun-fire-ant (invasive species, destructive)
Eun-creep
Eun-bastard

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