Our show comes to an end this week on a happy if lackluster note. After starting out heavily focusing on the romance and comedy, it’s a shame not to have an abundance of that in our final week. I’m sure that’s what most of us were hoping for — I know I was.
EPISODES 15-16
The relationship between our leading couple is on rocky waters in our final episodes. Hong-do is allowing all these seeds of doubt to grow in her mind when it comes to her relationship with Yoon-bok. She asks Camille what happened to her relationship with Grandad Shin, and of course they broke up because he had to return to Seongsan Village.
Hong-do has noticed that Yoon-bok seems worried and overhears him having a conversation with Grandad Shin. Yoon-bok informs Grandad Shin that he will join the police investigation and put an end to the threat to the village. Grandad Shin doesn’t want him to get involved again; he thinks it’s too dangerous and Yoon-bok should let him deal with it. But Yoon-bok wants to tie everything up before he leaves for Paris with Hong-do.
This leaves Hong-do wondering if she is doing the right thing taking Yoon-bok with her to Paris. She confronts Yoon-bok asking him if he will really be happy abandoning everything: the village, his family. Yoon-bok looks crestfallen. He does not want to lose another person he loves and she is the most precious person to him. How Hong-do does not lose her resolve at this point is completely beyond me! Instead, she thanks him for always treating her with care and walks away in tears. Once Yoon-bok has regained his composure he chases after her “having something to say” but she is hiding in her room, so he doesn’t get to say it.
On the day of the fashion show Chil-bok (Hong-do’s dad) steals the spare key to the storage room. Very suspicious. Then, Gamjjok makes a bold appearance trying to enter said storage room, but is seen by security. He is finding it hard to evade them so decides to hide inside, where he is unmasked. Omo, it’s only Director Lee!
As he is taking off his mask and changing his clothes to go undetected, Hong-do catches him. She sees the burn on his arm and has a flashback to when she was in the village as a child and she bumped into him running away from the storage room. Things take a sinister turn when Hong-do asks if he’s “that man.” This menacing look comes over his face as he grabs a scarf off the rail and throttles Hong-do unconscious. Knowing he needs a bargaining chip, he shoves her in the back of his van and speeds off. With Yoon-bok in hot pursuit.
When Yoon-bok loses sight of the van he calls Director Lee, who tells him if he wants to see Hong-do again he needs to retrieve the jade box from storage in exchange. Yoon-bok searches everywhere, going to Director Lee’s home and workplace to no avail. Chil-bok tearfully explains to Grandad Shin that he was threatened and had to steal the key. They had shown him pictures of Hong-do and roughed him up so he would do it.
Hong-do wakes up tied to a chair and terrified. Although she manages to escape, she doesn’t get very far. Meanwhile, Yoon-bok has received instructions from Director Lee about where to go to exchange the box for Hong-do. At the exchange, we see a hooded man getting out of the car and walking with a bag only to get knocked over by a motorbike and the bag stolen. As Director Lee opens the bag cackling maniacally, it’s revealed that the “man” was Yoon-ah and Yoon-bok is standing right outside his hideout. *Fist pump*
As luck would have it, Joon-oh woke up — and told Yoon-bok where he needed to go to catch Director Lee. Not being fazed at all, Yoon-bok starts kicking ass and taking names which I for one enjoyed. It is nice to see this part of Yoon-bok resurfacing. With the commotion outside, Director Lee decides it’s time to leave. But not without leaving a parting gift for Yoon-bok. He orders his henchmen to set the room on fire with Hong-do inside. Wow, that got very dark very quickly.
Yoon-bok saves Hong-do (I was wondering when he was going to dust off his armor) and chases after Director Lee, who is escaping on foot. He was quite menacing up until this point. What kind of bad guy forgets his car key in this situation…?
Yoon-bok catches up to him pretty swiftly and Director Lee jumps straight into monologuing, admitting he was to blame for Yoon-bok’s father’s passing. he claims that money is more important than life, and mocks Yoon-bok for not being able to hit him because that’s not what “noble scholars do.”
Thank God for Hong-do showing up just in time to whack him over the head. Telling him she’s not a noble scholar so she’s happy to beat him up, she sprinkles in some insults and satisfyingly calls him an asshole. I loved this moment — Hong-do refusing to go down without a fight (and Yoon-bok’s face) were absolutely priceless. Director Lee then gets carted off by the police leaving Hong-do and Yoon-bok alone. The atmosphere between the two of them is so awkward that Yoon-bok chickens out again and doesn’t tell Hong-do that thing he wanted to say.
Finally, it seems Yoon-bok has mustered up the courage to talk to Hong-do. He calls her to meet and it starts off with awkward small talk. Yoon-bok tells her that before he met her he didn’t know what he wanted out of life. He didn’t know what happiness was or what it was like to open up and live freely. Then he says he’ll do what she wants and stay at the village, and that he wishes her health and happiness. Hong-do reciprocates and leaves in tears. Are they really going to leave it like this!? He has failed to tell her what he wanted to yet again, and it’s the most frustrating thing I’ve seen through the whole show.
Meanwhile, all the subplots are quickly tied up. Chil-bok is accepted back into Hong-do and Hong-hak’s life, which I found surprising considering Hong-do’s attitude towards him right up until this point. On the other hand, Camille and Grandad Shin agree to meet up in Paris when he has handed over the village — their relationship progression throughout has been a plus point for me.
As for Yoon-ah, she is going to write Hong-hak’s next webtoon, a continuation of the one based on her. Yeojoo-daak regularly visits Joon-oh, who now seems at peace with his situation and happy to see his mum on a regular basis. And Yi-bok has quit the police force and is living in the village again after reconciling with Grandad Shin.
After an unnecessary one-year time jump, our hero is still hunting down relic-stealers, but with Yi-bok by his side. He has been implementing new things at the village and the siblings have managed to convince Grandad Shin to open up the village to the public. And our heroine is living in Paris being a designer like she had always dreamed, the catch being that our leading couple are still pining for each other even though they are “where they should be” in life.
The closing scene features Hong-do sitting in her favorite French cafe, looking up Seongsan Village on her phone (which is incidentally her most searched term), and seeing that Yi-bok has been appointed Grandad Shin’s successor. Just as cherry blossoms fall and the Titanic music makes a comeback, she sees Yoon-bok standing in front of her asking if he’s too late. Hong-do jumps into his arms, thrilled to see him. It’s sweet and well put together, with a romantic backdrop and Yoon-bok in his signature hanbok and gat.
That being said, from all the previous cutesy/romantic moments they’ve had throughout, this ending fell short for me. It would have been nice to see them reach this moment sooner and get a peek at how they were going to make it work. The pace was pretty quick earlier on in the show, but it slowed down somewhere along the way and never really got that momentum back. A lot of time was devoted to the mystery saga, and although it was necessary to propel the main storyline it felt a little overemphasized.
And so, Hong-do and Yoon-bok didn’t really get the ending they deserved. There was no explanation of how they felt after the traumatic experience they both faced at the end (and it didn’t seem to affect either of them or how they viewed their relationship). Our leading couple held this whole show together, so it would have been fitting to see more of them together in our final week. The message here, as I interpret it, is that if you love each other enough you make it work. And they did in the end, so I guess that’s a win?