Summary
The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 provides a turning point in the unputdownable series, providing the twist that will provide more discussion points for the remaining chapters.
We recap the Netflix K-Drama series The King: Eternal Monarch season 1, episode 13, which contains spoilers.
The King: Eternal Monarch recaps
How does The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 open?
Admit it, when you heard that Friday was not going to produce an episode you felt like a part of you was missing. Well, we are back and The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 was truly nerve-racking until that twist at the end. Let’s break this down. It begins with Lady Noh asking Tae-eul about the 1950 war. Tae-eul asks how she knows about the war; Lady Noh recalls a time a man asked her if she’d like to go to a world with no war — that man was His Majesty’s grandfather, King Haejong. Tae-eul explains how now the country is divided into North and South Korea caused by an armistice. After an intimate conversation between both women, Lady Noh asks Tae-eul to look after the King — what a revelation to start off episode 13.
Prime Minister Koo is now a problem
Lee Gon tells Prime Minister Koo that Tae-eul is the woman he loves and she will be Queen. Koo cruelly raises how Tae-eul has a criminal record and she’s prepared to be his opposition — Lee Gon warns her not to cross the line and then her neck lights up when the lightning hits. As she walks off, Lee Gon requests that the National Forensic Service retrieves the autopsy results for traitor Kim Gi-hwan. As Prime Minister Koo walks out she sees Tae-eul — there is a brief standoff between them both. Tae-eul tells Lee Gon that she saw the mark on the Prime Minister when the storm hit and that she briefly came across her in her world as well. The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 confirms a new enemy — Prime Minister Koo.
Prime Minister Koo and Lee Lim
And the plot thickens even more. Prime Minister Koo meets Lee Lim at the Eso Bookstore and asks who he is. She asks about the woman who looks exactly like her and questions “Donald Trump being President”. Lee Lim explains the parallel world. She wonders if Lee Lim is going to blackmail and replace her with the other woman. Lee Lim seems to have met his match with Prime Minister Koo asking the man to prove his abilities to cross worlds — that’s how the Prime Minister ended up in the other world and bought those shoes.
The spy
With so much going on, it’s easy to forget about the spy and The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 resurfaces this plot point. Lee Gon is asked about the marriage but he postpones it as his proposal has not been accepted yet — he states it’s more important to stop Prime Minister Koo. Lady Noh tells Lee Gon about the spy and that she wants to speak to the king person. Lee Gon meets the spy; it is Sin-jae’s mother. Lee Lim blackmailed her. She tells Lee Gon that she gambled and drank the poison to save him so she could talk to him about Sin-jae — she asks about the fate of her son and tells Lee Gon to protect him. Sin-jae clearly has an important role to play in all of this as the tension between both worlds intensifies.
Luna has successfully infiltrated
At the midway point of The King: Eternal Monarch season 1, episode 13, Luna has embedded herself in the Republic of Korea and has some soup with Tae-eul’s father. She seems fazed by the entire experience of having a healthy relationship with her father. She lays on the bed and soaks it all in before quickly getting up. Meanwhile, Tae-eul tells Lee Gon that she thinks she has found Lee Lim’s bamboo forest. Lee Gon tells Tae-eul that the more times the door opens, the longer time freezes, putting his men who stand by it in danger from Lee Lim. Tae-eul asks Lee Gon if they can fix this; the king hypothesises that this is happening because the Manpasikjeok is broken in half but he’s also worried if the magical object is fixed, the door is permanently closed.
Afterwards, Lee Gon and Tae-eul plant seeds in the halfway world to see what happens — noticeably there’s more balloons and Jo Yeong flicks a coin. The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 is still leaving more questions than answers regarding this halfway world. After her evening with Lee Gon, Tae-eul sees her father and learns Luna is in her world pretending to be her.
Jo Yeong confronts Sin-jae
Jo Yeong has a meal and drink with Sin-jae and asks who is Kang Hyeon-min is. Sin-jae tries changing subject but Jo Yeong asks Sin-jae if Kang Hyeon-min was his name in the Kingdom of Corea — he confirms it. Jo Yeong then tells Sin-jae that he knows he has feelings for Tae-eul and that the King and she cannot be together as the worlds are too far apart. Sin-jae walks away confirming it to be true and tells Jo Yeong to stay out of his business.
Sin-jae then confronts Luna believing it to be Tae-eul. Luna kisses him and Sin-jae is surprised. Tae-eul them approaches him from behind and he’s confused. She asks him if he saw her counterpart. Sin-jae is clearly emotionally frustrated and walks off. Tae-eul rings Luna and asks if they can meet but Luna is threatening, stating they will see each other soon. At this moment, you realise that Lee Lim has a plan in motion.
Undermining Prime Minister Koo
The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 sees Lee Gon playing his definitive chess move on Prime Minister Koo. Lee Gon meets Jo Yeong in the Kingdom of Corea and asks if he saw Prime Minister Koo; he raises his concerns about her. In a flashback, Lee Gon meets a lobbyist about Chairman Choe and his ex-wife Prime Minister Koo — he’s given a flash drive that reveals treason.
The voice note on the flash drive is played in the news and Koo is asking to find those who participated in treason 25 years ago — she doesn’t want rumours of her trying to catch the traitors a year before her term ends or she’ll be finished — she asks if the KU can find them. As soon as this is revealed in the media, the deputy Prime Minister tells Koo that her services as the Prime Minister are ceased. She realises they’ve all plotted against her and she leaves.
It’s evident why Prime Minister Koo is quickly forming into an enemy.
Meeting the father
Lee Gon joins Tae-eul and her father for a meal. Tae-eul admits she has a boyfriend and looks at Lee Gon — Lee Gon stands up and introduces himself to her father formally. Tae-eul gives Lee Gon a gift — a coat of some kind and he finds it oddly familiar. After her brief dinner with Lee Gon, Tae-eul asks Sin-jae for help and they head to Koo Eun-a’s apartment — she suspects Prime Minister Koo visited her. Koo Eun-a is declared missing and Tae-eul suspects she’s at the Yangsun Care Center.
How does The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 end?
The King: Eternal Monarch episode 13 provides the ultimate twist that will get everyone’s hairs running. Lee Gon rings Tae-eul’s so-called brother but he doesn’t answer. Lee Gon then puts the clothes on that Tae-eul bought him — it’s all black. Luna (pretending to be Tae-eul) heads over with some food and greets him. At the Yangsun Care Center Tae-eul and Sin-jae keep searching. Tae-eul finds a dead Koo Eun-a.
Meanwhile, Luna continues to pretend to be Tae-eul but he knows she is Luna. He looks outside the window and he suddenly realised that the person who saved him when he was a little boy… was himself. Lee Gon then starts to collapse and choke — Luna has poisoned him. Lee Lim seems to always be two steps ahead in a defining moment of the Netflix series. The King: Eternal Monarch season 1, episode 13 provides a turning point in the unputdownable series, providing the twist that will provide more discussion points for the remaining chapters.
Additional points
- Eun-sup is excited to see Na-ri and gives her a big hug.
- Eun-sup captures a man that tried to kill him in his sleep. Lee Gon realises Eun-sup gets no pain or mark from the scar and wonders why he and Tae-eul experience no pain.
- Lee Gon buys Eun-sup a car as a way of saying thank you for his service.
- When Lee Gon heads to forensics to look at Kim Gi-hwan’s autopsy, the scientist states she’s seen a few cases like this with the same mark.
- Ji-hun’s mother stops Ms Min (Sin-jae’s other mother) in the streets and asks if she’d like a meal together. Jo Yeong watches from a distance. Ji-hun’s mother looks taken back to learn that Sin-jae is doing well and is a cop and quickly departs. As she heads for the elevator, Jo Yeong joins her.
- Jo Yeong asks Lee Gon tentatively if he’d like a drink with him — he’s clearly missed him.
