Summary
Queen of Tears already suffers from some pacing and focus issues in Episode 2, but hopefully the show will pick up as it goes along.
It should probably be a point of some concern that even as early as Episode 2, Queen of Tears feels a little bogged down and drawn out. The cliffhanger ending of Episode 1, which revealed Hae-in had a terminal illness and only had three months to live, was very rich in dramatic potential, but this outing is slow to capitalize on it. Hopefully, things pick up as Season 1 and the characters develop over the coming weeks.
As if to highlight how miserable things had gotten between Hyun-woo and Hae-in, the former isn’t exactly devasted by the news of his wife’s impending demise. In fact, he’s kind of excited by the idea of finally being free of her and her in-laws.
Things take a darker turn when Hyun-woo, on the advice of his attorney, begins to manipulate Hae-in into believing he still loves her in order to secure the Queen department store in her will. As it stands, none of Hae-in’s assets are being bequeathed to her husband, which he was fine with since his freedom is more important, but he latches onto the idea of profiting from this scenario very quickly, despite initially expressing reservations about it.
Hae-in sees through the ruse initially. However, when Hyun-woo starts asking if there’s any chance of her tumor miraculously healing, her brain – understandably – doesn’t default to the idea that he’s eagerly making sure she’ll die. When he falls asleep with multiple tabs open doing research on her condition, she assumes he was looking for a sliver of hope, not reassurances that she will die as quickly as advertised.
Hae-in’s relationship with her mother gets fleshed out in Episode 2
It was clear in Episode 1 that it wasn’t just Hyun-woo who had issues with Hae-in’s family. She also had a testy relationship with her own mother, and the latter clearly favored Hae-in’s brother, Soo-cheol. For reasons that are still a little cloudy, Hae-in’s mother blamed her for the death of her child, Su-wan.
We see how petty Hae-in’s mother is when she files a petition to stop the construction of a department store that Hae-in was carrying out on land she owned, despite having obtained the proper permissions beforehand. She uses this to strongarm Hae-in into inviting her ex-boyfriend Eun-sung for dinner, in the hopes of Soo-cheol being able to schmooze him into some kind of profitable deal (after overspending on his taxes due to a miscalculation, exposed by Hyun-woo, who bears the brunt of the repercussions.)
Eun-sung is the right-hand man of Hercyna’s CEO. Hyun-woo doesn’t particularly care that he’s an ex-boyfriend of his wife’s, at least not at first. But eventually, he starts to rile Hyun-woo a bit, though given how we have seen him behave, it isn’t entirely clear whether this is because he still loves Hae-in deep down or just feels personally attacked.
How does Queen of Tears Season 1 Episode 2 end?
Towards the end of the episode, Hyun-woo attends the annual family hunting trip that Hae-in’s grandfather stages each year, the idea being that whoever kills the most animals has the best business acumen. Historically, Hyun-woo hasn’t cared much for the event, but he’s quietly seething about Eun-sung.
Episode 2 ends with Hae-in almost getting killed by a charging boar, made susceptible to its attack because of her illness causing her to lose focus. Luckily, Hyun-woo saves her in the nick of time, instinctually. There’s definitely something still there between these two, and while Hyun-woo’s thought process thus far has been pretty despicable, it still seems like the show is going to revolve around him realizing that he still loves his wife after all.
At the very least, he needs to keep her alive until she changes her will.
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