Summary
Queen of Tears continues to suffer from being overlong, but there’s plenty of drama in the latest episode nonetheless.
Blimey, this is much too long, isn’t it? Queen of Tears is a good show, but it runs the risk of becoming a tedious one as Season 1 progresses at such a long-winded pace. It isn’t that there isn’t enough drama to fill the runtime, as there’s plenty going on in Episode 7, as in previous outings. It’s just that often the drama would be more effective if it were tighter and more refined.
Anyway, let’s get to the meat and potatoes. It’s one step forward and two steps back for Hyun-woo and Hae-in. After all their important bonding in Episode 6, the bombshell moment when Hae-in was sent the divorce papers immediately threw their relationship back into disarray.
Hyun-woo’s Unusual Strategy
Understandably, Hae-in is devastated. And, reading the room, she thinks there’s a strong chance that Hyun-woo was taking advantage of her terminal illness (which he was!). What complicates matters is that Hyun-woo really was falling back in love with his wife and regretting his previous actions. But his attempts to console her fall on deaf ears and Hae-in’s will to live literally dissipates with the stress.
The stress compounds with Hae-in’s condition and the news that the therapy failed. Before long, she’s idly wandering into traffic, telling Hyun-woo – ever the hero – not to bother saving her next time, since what’s the point?
Hyun-woo’s outside-the-box solution to this is to tell Hae-in to stay alive just to hate him; to deny him the satisfaction of her death. He indulges her worst opinions and judgments of him, for her sake. It’s an interesting character turn.
Public Enemy Number One
The drama continues back in Korea. Eun-sung’s scheming is continuing apace, with his deal with Soo-cheol being finalized and all the attention in both the embezzlement scheme and the divorce palaver being directed at Hyun-woo. Hae-in’s family has him followed and his business audited, and when he tries to defend himself with theories of who might have really been involved, he’s thwarted by his lack of proof (and the fact that Director Jo leaves the country with Grace’s help.)
Hae-in continues to torment Hyun-woo too. She signs the divorce papers but will only file them at her leisure, and makes his working life nightmarish. He puts up with it, but the interesting element is, again, how Hae-in steadily starts to realize that Hyun-woo is not the monster she assumes him to be. He doesn’t have another woman, he continues to make nice gestures on her behalf, and he feeds stray cats. He’s a nice guy, he was just no longer in love with his wife.
But that’s not an easy pill to swallow, so Hae-in is adamant that he can’t make amends for the crucial fact that he wasn’t there for her when she needed him the most. And this is important too since, as I’ve been saying throughout these recaps, Hyun-woo’s original position was that of an absolute scumbag. Hae-in’s right that it will take more than a few nice gestures to make up for his earlier intentions.
Parent Trap
If nothing else, Hyun-woo was right to caution Hae-in about Eun-sung. When the latter meets Hao-in for dinner, he offends her with an offhanded comment about divorcing Hyun-woo so that Eun-sung can replace him. When she leaves, though, she takes a turn and realizes her medication is missing.
The big reveal of Episode 7 is one we’d already figured out, which is that Seul-hee is Eun-sung’s biological mother. The string-pulling matriarch is conspiring with her son to finally give them their happy life together at the expense of the Queen Group; the privileged being overthrown by the disenfranchised. Hyun-woo also learns that Eun-sung’s adoptive parents were killed in a drunk-driving accident, despite neither of them being drinkers. The whole thing stinks.
Queen of Tears Episode 7 ends with Hyun-woo and Hae-in reconciling
Interestingly, Episode 7 ends with another reconciliation between Hyun-woo and Hae-in, though this one is refreshingly not interrupted by terrible news.
The main problems persist, of course. Hae-in is still dying, and any experimental therapies might not take. Eun-sung is still scheming, and he’ll be happy to take both of them down along the way. And the marriage is still built on a bedrock of mistrust and inauthenticity.
But progress is progress, right?
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