Summary
The lines between friends and foes gets a little blurred here, as does the difference between right and wrong.
This recap of Netflix K-Drama Queenmaker Season 1 Episode 8 contains spoilers.
You’ll recall that Episode 7 of Queenmaker ended on a pretty major cliffhanger, with Jae-min being stabbed while out on the campaign trail.
Who’s a man to call, his mistress or his wife? It’s Ji-yeon who gets there first, which doesn’t go unnoticed, but of more primary importance, at least to Yoon, is figuring out how to frame this attack in a way that damages Kyung-sook.
Queenmaker Season 1 Episode 8 Recap
Who stabbed Jae-min?
This is pretty easy since the attacker turns out to be fanatically obsessed with Kyung-sook, so it doesn’t take much to play up the relationship between the two.
The press, never letting the truth get in the way of a good story, latch onto the idea that Kyung-sook was responsible for the attack. As she points out, the timing is a little suspect, but Jae-min only cares about his own ego and publicity. If this is something he can use to his advantage, he certainly will.
This whole thing is right out of Jae-min’s playbook. Much like with I-seul, the matter reeks of being staged for his own benefit, a way to make himself the victim to better emphasize his “second coming”.
How do Do-hee and Kyung-sook plan to take down Jae-min?
As mentioned above, the key to taking down Jae-min is his womanizing, but getting his various victims to speak out is easier said than done.
Jae-min and Yoon, with the backing of the Eunsung Group, have virtually limitless resources to play with. Their influence extends everywhere. They can amass enough funding and support to be virtually unstoppable while commanding enough fear that anyone who might be able to speak out against them doesn’t dare to.
And then there’s the clash in principles between Do-hee and Kyung-sook. While both have become much closer and begun to respect one another, they still disagree on methodology. Do-hee wants to play dirty, understandably, but Kyung-sook won’t compromise her values. Even taking money from a conglomerate, whether it’s all above board or not, is a matter of consternation and debate.
The chink in Jae-min’s armor is Ji-yeon, both because she is pregnant and because of her complicity in covering up what happened to I-seul. The CCTV footage was conveniently deleted. I-seul’s possessions were suspiciously swept up by Ji-yeon. While she obviously isn’t blameless, though, she also qualifies as a potential victim. If the Eunsung Group find out about her being pregnant, she’s at risk, and Do-hee and Kyung-sook need to tread carefully to ensure that they don’t put her in harm’s way while trying to achieve their goal.
Queenmaker Season 1 Episode 8 Ending Explained
It all comes back to I-seul. That’s the angle that seems the most promising and is the one that Yoon is most worried about when his spy in Kyung-sook’s camp informs him that’s what is being looked into.
At the end of the episode, as Yoon plans to take even more personal steps against Kyung-sook, we learn that Ji-yeon is still in possession of I-seul’s phone.
You can stream Queenmaker Season 1 Episode 8 exclusively on Netflix.
