We bid farewell to our moonlighting tale this week, and as expected, the 15-year-old mystery is finally put to rest, the bad guys get their comeuppance, and the curtains fall on a happy note.
EPISODES 11-12
We resume with the tender moment we left off last week where Soo-ho addresses Yeo-hwa as someone else’s wife. He soon realizes that he is not hallucinating, and the moment passes. Yeo-hwa acts like she’s unaffected, but guess who sneaks peeks at Soo-ho with longing in her eyes? Get a grip, Cho Yeo-hwa!
Pil-jik comes to inform Lord Seok about Soo-ho’s real identity, and Yeo-hwa overhears their plot to eliminate him. Unfortunately, Lord Seok catches wind of an eavesdropper and orders for the house to be searched. Yeo-hwa manages to escape to the shrine and change out of her moonlighting disguise, but Jeong spots the outfit and notes that she’s a lady with many secrets. When the Capital Defense officers arrive at the Seok compound, Soo-ho runs into Jeong and he’s surprised to see that the merchant he frequently ran into at Myeongdo inn is his rival Lord Seok’s back-from-the-dead son.
Jeong shares his suspicion about his wife with Soo-ho, and Soo-ho jumps to Yeo-hwa’s defense. Jeong then reveals that he knows his wife is the masked vigilante and Soo-ho’s lover. To this, Soo-ho replies that Jeong should get to know Yeo-hwa first before judging her choices. Jeong takes the advice and asks around for opinions on the masked vigilante, and he learns that Maskie is a hero. Since he likes “cool and great” people, Jeong shares his knowledge of the masked vigilante with Yeo-hwa, and he tells her that he hopes the hero is never caught.
Yeo-hwa informs Yoon-hak and Soo-ho that Lord Seok knows about Soo-ho’s identity, and that Pil-jik plans to kill them both. Yeo-hwa is totally worried about Soo-ho — although she claims that it’s solely because their plan will fall apart if something happens to him. But Soo-ho is more worried about Jeong’s personality as a husband than he is about the attempt on his life. Lol.
Pil-jik strikes by kidnapping So-woon to lure Soo-ho and the masked vigilante to the Pil inn, but when our OTP are not being worrywarts, they make such an excellent team! They don’t break a sweat to rescue So-woon, and Pil-jik is arrested. The rescue operation and subsequent arrest is too easy, I’m almost embarrassed on Pil-jik’s behalf. Was this the best he could do?
Speaking of arrests, the king orders for Lady Oh to be picked up under the pretext of investigating her for embezzling from the dowager’s charity. This is the king drawing the battle line on Lord Seok, and Seok confronts the king for taking the decision alone. “I am still the king of this nation!” The king declares, putting Seok in his place. But Lord Seok laughs in his face because Lady Oh has already disappeared. The audacity of Lord Seok to call the king a kitten! Ugh! He’s such a cartoon villain with an even more aggravating voice.
Up next, the king invites the Seok family to a tea party in the palace. But is it really a tea party if Lady Oh doesn’t show up with the tea? Heh. Lord Seok is the most shocked he has been since this drama started, and I want to laugh in his face so bad. Who’s the kitten now, sir? LMAO. Lady Oh makes to serve her “meaningful” tea, and behold, the poisonous petals sit pretty on one of the saucers in the tray. The king grants the honor of the first cup to Jeong, and the tension in the room is tensioning!
The whole point of this exercise is to get Lord Seok to break and prevent his son from drinking the poison, thereby proving his involvement in the late king’s death. But Lord Seok already “killed” his son 15 years ago, so this doesn’t faze him one bit. Meanwhile, Yeo-hwa struggles to keep her composure after a previous warning she got from Yoon-hak not to react to anything that happens at the tea party. She actually tries to prevent her husband from drinking the tea, but she’s scolded by her parents-in-law for interfering. Lady Yoo, please, they’re trying to kill your son again!
When the king realizes that Lord Seok isn’t going to break, he stops Jeong from drinking the tea, and Seok smirks. He’s really incredible! Lady Oh admits to poisoning the late king with the tea 15 years ago on Lord Seok’s orders, and the scribe meticulously records her confession. To prove the truth in her words, Lady Oh drinks the tea, dies, and puts an end to the Tea Party of Horror.
Before she breathes her last, Lady Oh tells Yeo-hwa that Lord Seok already killed her brother, and Yeo-hwa gets to hear the full story from Pil-jik in jail. Apparently, the year after her brother went missing, he returned to see her, and that’s when Pil-jik captured him and killed him. Yeo-hwa’s emotions are a mix of fury and sadness. On one hand she blames herself for being the reason her brother returned and ended up dead, and on the other hand, she vows revenge against her father-in-law.
Masked Yeo-hwa attacks Lord Seok’s entourage with the intention of killing him right there and then, but Soo-ho stops her. Soo-ho acknowledges how upsetting the situation must be for her, but killing Lord Seok means her life is forfeit, and he doesn’t think her brother would want her to die for his revenge. If killing Seok is indeed the only way to end the situation, Soo-ho says he’ll do it himself, and he pleads with Yeo-hwa not to hurt herself. Gahhh! This was such an emotionally charged scene.
As Yeo-hwa reminisces over how her brother left the moonlighting sword to her, she finds two letters tucked into a compartment of the sheath. One of the letters is from her brother and is addressed to her, and the other is the late king’s letter addressed to the current king which states that Lord Seok should be held responsible if something terrible were to befall him. Finally, they can nail that bastard Seok!
The king assembles the ministers — including Lord Seok who plots to dethrone the king and install a new puppet — and Yeo-hwa comes in with her sword. She reports her father-in-law for killing her brother and the family of the head of the late king’s guard, and Soo-ho corroborates her claim. Lord Seok tries to hush Yeo-hwa up, but his threat of expelling her from his family can’t stop her. She informs the assembly that Lord Seok poisoned the late king, and to the shocked ministers, Seok goes: “So? What is the issue? Everything I did, I did for the nation.” Ha! This man’s middle name is Audacity!
In the full glare of everyone, Yeo-hwa puts on her mask, and Lord Seok sputters at the sight of his masked nemesis. She brandishes her sword at him, and the PTSD from his near-death experience makes Seok fall over like the rat he is. Hehe. “Don’t make me regret not cutting off your head that night,” Yeo-hwa smirks. She is such a delight to watch, going from grieving sister to betrayed daughter-in-law and then comical masked lady all in one scene!
The king orders for Lord Seok’s arrest, and Seok gives us his villain monologue and the Staredown of Unrepentance before he is escorted out. In a voiceover, Yeo-hwa tells him to consider himself fortunate that she didn’t punish him herself as she usually does. This once, she will watch him pay the price for his crimes according to the laws of the land. It’s ironic how Lord Seok’s villain era started from objecting to the late king’s wish to break the barriers of the class system by supporting talents regardless of their class. Seok wanted to uphold the class system so badly, and now as punishment for his villainy, he is demoted to the lowest class and exiled. As for Pil-jik, he also gets to keep his miserable life, but he’ll never be able to raise his head in public again.
Thankfully, Seok bears the consequences of his crimes alone as Yeo-hwa already pleaded with the king for mercy on behalf of the rest of the family. Lady Yoo is quite subdued in the aftermath of the whole thing, but to her credit, all she wanted was for her son and daughter-in-law to stay safe. For all of Lady Yoo’s traditional mother-in-law ways, Yeo-hwa genuinely liked her, and the feeling is mutual. Lady Yoo apologizes for everything, and wishes for Yeo-hwa to live well and happy.
Yeo-hwa requests a divorce because she no longer wants to live as someone’s wife or daughter-in-law. Or lover — just in case Soo-ho confuses her intentions for the divorce. In Joseon, there’s not much of a difference between the status of a widow and a divorcee, so Yeo-hwa urges Soo-ho to go on his own path. But he refuses the suggestion. “Whether you wear a mask, are a widow or get divorced, I don’t care. I will be by your side,” Soo-ho insists in the sageuk version of the confession in Coffee Prince. Lol.
Everybody — minus our OTP — gathers at the Myeongdo inn to plot a way out for Yeo-hwa, and they realize that her marriage can be annulled since the groom was not present at the wedding. Jeong pushes forward with the plan, and the king grants them the annulment. Yaay! But now that Yeo-hwa is legally and socially free to be with Soo-ho, she does the next best thing. She disappears! Pfft. MBC really made a whole fuss about adding five extra minutes to Episode 12’s runtime only to use it all on a time-skip!
Flash forward to a year later, Jeong has resumed his merchant activities at Myeongdo inn, and he regales his customers with the tale of the masked lady who appears when the moon shines brightly a.k.a. the flower that blooms at night a.k.a. the Korean title we were robbed of. The commandant of the Capital Defense squad — who was such a fun character — is made the minister of war, and Soo-ho is promoted to the commandant position.
Yeon-seon has become the financier of the Myeongdo merchant guild, and Yoon-hak has left politics to pursue his dreams of living a freer life. Yeon-seon’s dream has always been to own a house in the capital, but so far, no house has caught her interest. Yoon-hak offers to show her a house that might interest her, and he takes her to his own house! The way I squeed! This might just be the sweetest and most thoughtful proposal I’ve seen in a while. Bi-chan and the ex-commandant’s daughter — who had this funny side romance going on — also get their own happily ever after.
As for our OTP, well, Yeo-hwa returns to the capital to resume moonlighting duties, and commandant Soo-ho catches her on her first attempt. She’ll never be able to escape from him now. Soo-ho sweeps Yeo-hwa into his arms, and he leans in… and the next thing you know, we get a freeze frame while the OST swells in the background. Ha, not this drama robbing us of a kiss! We waited for 12 episodes, man! But our OTP’s romance has never been about skinship, so I shall forgive Show. Half-heartedly.
With this, we come to the end of what has been such a wonderful show. The drama neatly tied up all its strings to give us a beautiful bow, and I don’t have any major complaints — aside from the whole Lord Seok drama. In the end, he was such an uninspiring and typical flat-ish villain. What’s new? Tsk. I think sageuks need to step up their game because their villains have been so boring and predictable of late.
If there’s one thing this drama did well, it’s the subtle nature of the featured love stories. The romance wasn’t the all up in your face type, but the show — and the actors — made it work. I especially loved the OTP’s cute interactions and their badass teamwork… it was soooo good! Honey Lee was amazing as usual, and she made Yeo-hwa really lovable and distinct from the other moonlighting heroines in the dramaverse. Our hero, Soo-ho, was just chef’s kiss! He was so adorable and precious, and he tugged at my heartstrings with all his puppy in love facial expressions. I was initially worried about how Lee Jong-won would fare alongside Honey Lee since she’s got such a strong on-screen presence, but it turns out that I didn’t need to worry at all. Their chemistry was perfect for the nature of their love story.
Overall, Knight Flower was a consistently good watch. I’m a simple person, so when you give me a fun and well-executed show that doesn’t leave me disappointed at any point and sticks the landing, well, I couldn’t possibly ask for anything more.