With the impossible heir taking over the company by force, what’s a mastermind genius ex-bestie to do but take over the takeover? In our final week of the drama, justice is delivered, an end point is reached, and all our plot points slowly fizzle out into a lackluster ending that underperformed my already-low expectations.
EPISODES 11-12
If an unsatisfying drama has an unsatisfying ending, does that make it a satisfactory conclusion? Whatever the case may be, The Impossible Heir ends — shockingly — without a single twist, and with nothing interesting occurring. The moral of the story is equally mangled, but we’ll get to that later.
We open up back in the hospital room, with the glare-off between In-ha and Tae-oh. The chairman is saved from patricide once again, and that ends that. In-ha continues his massive takeover plan, politicking with a bunch of guys three times his age. He also talks to his overly loyal friend Mo Ki-joon — you know, the kid that murdered on his behalf and took the fall for every one of In-ha’s crimes. In-ha tells him not to worry about taking the fall. But we all know that’s sociopath speak for “imma kill you” and sure enough, In-ha orders a prison hit on him.
Meanwhile, the Gold H Investment plan is going off without a hitch. The loan shark that owns the thing on paper is going to play his role in front of the Kangoh shareholders, but for some reason Tae-oh shows up instead and essentially reveals his hand. I don’t understand why the show did this, and this whole plotline barely holds together — but the purpose is to show that Tae-oh has had this plan in his back pocket, and he’s amassed enough stock-holding power to flip a few politicians. And Ki-joon.
Ki-joon survives his brutal stabbing, and after a convincing speech from Tae-oh, testifies against the very-arrested In-ha. Here, the drama does us a disservice with it’s editing (among other things). It has a fondness for ending on huge, loud, no-context scenes, and In-ha’s public arrest is one of them. It’s not until we get into Episode 12 that we back up and see that this was all Tae-oh’s doing, thanks to Ki-joon’s witness statement.
While Tae-oh and In-ha are trying to outplay each other, a few earlier plot points are touched upon. The most significant of these is Tae-oh’s imprisoned psycho step-father. He’s suddenly let out on leave, and he’s given intel as to where Monk Mom is. He makes a beeline there to terrorize and probably murder her for real this time, but she’s so scared she falls from the steps of her temple and dies.
Tae-oh gets word and goes to the morgue to identify her body. Yes, she’s really dead, and he’s utterly distraught. I want to feel for Tae-oh here, but really, we have not seen these two characters together for the entire drama and Monk Mom has had nothing to do with the story, so this comes off as another emotionally bankrupt plot moment.
But… maybe it’s the twist we’ve all been waiting for? Tae-oh’s mother has left him a letter. Ooooo, maybe it’s about his biological father and this will give us something to take to the bank? Nope. It’s just a nice letter to tell him to forgive everyone, forget the past, and live happily. Tae-oh seems greatly affected by this. And so am I, except with excessive eye-rolling.
The one good thing that comes from this scenario is that Tae-oh and Sung-joo get on the same page. Sung-joo tells him, “We both lost our mothers, and I think it was the same person” — Tae-oh’s mom’s demise was cooked up by In-ha pulling strings, and it is the same for Sung-joo’s mom’s arrest. She’s held accountable for all her crimes, and I’m not a bit sorry. So between this alliance of Tae-oh and Sung-joo, and Sung-joo finally telling off his mom, Sung-joo is now one of the good guys. Talk about a rando redemption arc. (Still, Lee Ji-hoon’s wildly over-the-top facial expressions have been the one thing entertaining me in this drama.)
Meanwhile, In-ha’s not only been legally converted to a Baek, but he can’t escape the gobs of evidence that are now turning up against him. Just like every blink-and-you-miss-it legal proceeding in this show, In-ha is soon slapped with a sentence for life in prison, and that is basically that. The drama thinks this is Very Emotional, but alas, it’s just another flat plot arc, ending with an equally flat moment.
The drama concludes this “high school friendship” storyline with a painfully try-hard scene in the courtroom. In-ha is asked for any final words after receiving his sentence. The metaphorical spotlight is on him, and Hye-won and Tae-oh, who are present in the courtroom. It’s implied they are all in anguish for the deep, long-standing bond between all three of them that is now broken. In-ha looks at them, but says nothing. He later commits suicide in his cell as a single tear drips down his cheek. *Really, Show?*
In case you forgot about Hye-won (I did), she reappears into our storyline in the courtroom scene, and earlier, to briefly provide moral support for Tae-oh after the loss of his mom. After the smoke clears the two have a beer together again like the old days. Hye-won says, “I want to focus on myself now” (uh, when did you do anything but that?) and they have a bonding moment about how they’re the same as they ever were, chasing their dreams for themselves. LOL. It’s as if the drama totally forgot that their “forbidden romance” was what started everything breaking down — indeed, it forgot the romance entirely. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, I guess. There was no chemistry or real story here anyway, so I’m happy to wave good to Hye-won as she pursues her lofty career in politics. Bye Felicia.
In case you were wondering about the best character in this show — Chairman Kang — he survives his fake-yet-real heart disease and he lives on to praise Tae-oh. He tells Tae-oh that he sacrificed everything to protect Kangoh, and that means he, Tae-oh, is the one who should be the rightful heir.
After a handy three-year time skip, we see our Tae-oh and Chairman Kang duo surveying their very CGI Royal Road. “Your dream is here,” says Tae-oh, looking off into space with a satisfied expression. They created the thing they wanted to. Too bad the drama didn’t even fully explain the significance of this so that we could feel their victory with them.
And so, our drama winds to a close. In that glorious palace-like office of the chairman, a slow pan reveals that the current chairman is now… Tae-oh. He watches the fireworks from his tower like he did once as a scrappy teen, and he says to himself: I dreamed of this when I was 18, and I’m still dreaming dreams for myself.” The end. Roll credits. *Cue popcorn throwing*
So what exactly is the message here? Scheme to take over a man’s company and eventually he’ll just hand it to you because you’re so clever? Agree to a loveless marriage for money and connections and then dump your spouse when you don’t need a leg up anymore? Fight your way out of the gutter only to find that being a chaebol chairman isn’t enough and you want more? Okay, in Tae-oh’s defense he started a “foundation” to help humanity — like every drama chairman before him — but really, I’m at a loss here.
I didn’t expect a great ending from this drama, but I did expect one that was a little more satisfying — and if it can’t be satisfying, can we at least have some sort of resolution? Nothing was explained or resolved, really. Was Chairman Kang really sick or not? What happens to Hee-joo and her forced marriage? What exactly was the point of her and her crush on Tae-oh, since it went nowhere? What was the point of Hye-won’s character, since that also went nowhere? And most of all, why did the drama even tell us about Tae-oh’s parentage if it was never going to be a part of the actual story? Oh, Impossible Heir. Never has a drama thought so well of itself, and done so much nothing to earn that good opinion.