As our matchmaking tale comes to an end, our OTP must make certain decisions: family or feelings, denial or death. It might be “scandalous” to form romantic entanglements outside the boundaries their society deems as acceptable, but for our OTP, all’s fair in love and matchmaking!
EPISODE 16
Now that the Maeng sisters’ marriage project is concluded and Jung-woo’s annulment is officially underway, the king praises him for a job well done. He also teases that Jung-woo should take up matchmaking as a career. Lol. Honestly, Jung-woo and Soon-deok Matchmaking Inc. is not a bad idea, and I’ll sign up for their services if they’ve got guys like Jung-woo and Soon-gu among their clientele.
Unfortunately, while Jung-woo is still deciding on his future plans after the annulment, Lady Letter Forger strikes again. This time, she sends a letter from “Geun-seok” to Jung-woo. And when Jung-woo arrives at Lord Jo’s residence, she has him locked up in a room with Soon-deok. Uh-oh! Lady Park then informs our OTP that she has reported Jung-woo to the authorities for violating her daughter-in-law, and the officials are on their way to arrest him. Ha! So this is payback for the groom swap. She really got them good.
Jung-woo and Soon-deok apologize for putting each other in this situation, and Jung-woo insists that Soon-deok denies her feelings for him until the end. He’s fine with suffering alone, and no, he won’t ever regret their encounter. When the officials arrive, Jung-woo and Soon-deok are locked in an embrace, and I love that the officials don’t try to pry them apart. They just stand there watching our OTP’s defiant and comforting hug.
After Jung-woo’s arrest, the matchmaking base is transformed into the Jung-woo Rescue Operation base with Sam-soon as chair. Shi-yeol suggests a prison break and Du-ri supports her husband by plotting to make the guards drunk. Lol. Their ideas are really sweet, albeit ridiculous, but things take a more serious turn when Soon-gu comes with the news that Jung-woo will be sentenced to death by poisoning. This show really likes its poisons.
Thankfully, the king halts the punishment just in time. Seeing the king, Jung-woo, and a bowl of poison in one frame gave me flashbacks to week one when the king arrested Jung-woo to make him come up with a plan for the crown prince’s marriage. But right now, it’s a more serious situation, and all Jung-woo has to do is admit that there’s nothing going on between him and Soon-deok. Jung-woo chooses death over denial of his feelings, and the king has no option but to carry on with the death sentence. *Browses Pinterest for funeral outfit inspiration*
But it turns out that I don’t need the outfit because… Jung-woo isn’t dead. You see, he was given a small dose of poison, and the king secretly ordered a physician to save him. Phew! I knew Mr. King was going to come through! But while that’s good news and all, Lady Park already goaded her daughter-in-law to suicide after informing her about Jung-woo’s death. And when Jung-woo hears that Soon-deok is dead, he loses consciousness again. What in the Romeo and Juliet is going on here?
Time skip to a month later. Ye-jin and Boo-gyeom are living happily with Geun-seok. Soon-gu has traded his robe of shyness for the robe of shamelessness — which he wastes no time to rip off whenever it’s business o’clock. Speaking of which, Shi-yeol works the fastest because Du-ri is already pregnant! As for the crown prince, well, who needs Jung-woo stuck to your side when you’ve got a smart wife like Ha-na to have intellectual debates with? Their newest topic of discussion is about Sam-soon’s latest release: The Last Agent of Love of Joseon. It’s fiction, of course, but everyone in town can tell it’s the story about Jung-woo and Soon-deok — both of whom are officially dead.
But as we know, Jung-woo is still alive, and he’s holed up in the matchmaking base nursing his hurting heart. With the annulment finally official, the king visits the base to put Jung-woo to work as a secret royal inspector under a new identity. Jung-woo’s task: rounding up all the bachelors and spinsters in Joseon. Ha! We’re really getting that matchmaking agency after all. But Jung-woo isn’t exactly chomping at the bits to get onboard his new assignment. “Round up? [Bachelors and spinsters] are not bandits!” He rebukes the king like Soon-deok did to him at the start of their matchmaking project. Loool. I love these little callbacks to the earlier episodes.
The king has also found a new matchmaker to work with Jung-woo, and apparently, Ms. Matchmaker has been waiting a while for him to recover. Hmmm. Could it be…? “Jung-woo ya, have a good life.” The king says to Jung-woo after a long pause, and now I’m officially convinced that my hunch is right. Said matchmaker lives in Soon-deok’s childhood home, and she’s none other than… Soon-deok herself! Our OTP has an emotional reunion, and I’m in a puddle of happy tears.
Through a flashback to when Lady Park asked Soon-deok to kill herself, we see that Soon-deok refused to die because love is not proven with death. If she has to die at all, she’d rather “die” as the daughter-in-law of the Jo family — and she slices off the strap of her hanbok to signify the severance of her ties with the family. Soon-deok warns that if she dies, everyone would know Lady Park was behind her death. And she cannot let Geun-seok and Ye-jin live a life resenting their only remaining family member. I’ve never seen Soon-deok look so determined as she dares her mother-in-law to carry out the death threat.
The final scoreline reads Soon-deok 100:0 Lady Park. While Soon-deok moves out and has Geun-seok over from time to time, Lady Park ends up all alone in the Jo residence, unrepentant till the end. By the way, the king sent someone to protect Soon-deok on the night of the confrontation with her mother-in-law, so Lady Park couldn’t do anything funny to Soon-deok even if she tried. Shout out to the best Joseon king ever! He’s not a figurehead; neither is he a tyrant. He’s simply a jolly good fellow with everyone’s best interests at heart. Mr. King is Santa, y’all.
And so, JungSoon Matchmaking Inc. is ready to hit the road! Before arranging other people’s marriages, Jung-woo proposes they get married first. But Soon-deok suggests starting out with a heart-pounding romantic relationship first, and Jung-woo is open to the idea. Our OTP shares a tender embrace as they overlook all the territories they’ll conquer in their matchmaking endeavors, and with this we come to the end of our matchmaking story!
Where do I even begin to express my adoration for what has been one of the most consistent dramas this year? The Matchmakers started out great, had an excellent progression, and stuck the landing. I’m so delighted our OTP got their happily ever after because there’s no one more deserving of it than they are. I liked that the drama respected the relationship they had with their late spouses, and still delivered on a solid second-chance romance between them. The story didn’t even have to jump through hoops to give them a beautiful ending because the foundation for that had already been laid out.
If I had to describe this drama with a word, it’d be “intentional.” This is a well-crafted show with thoughtful writing and plot points that served the story, nuanced characters driven by believable motivations — including prince Jin-sung, whose existence felt real even though he didn’t have a physical presence in the show. Seriously, I can almost picture him in my head. And the cinematography? Chef’s kiss! Every shot was deliberate, and every scene told a story. You could literally just pause at any point to take in the scenery, and it feels like you’re right there in Joseon breathing the same air.
I’m impressed with the show’s consistency at balancing its fun parts and the serious ones. Neither side felt forced, none overshadowed the other, and the drama did not do a nosedive into the genre-switch territory. I need other shows to take lessons because this is how you do a proper balancing act.
Aside from that preemption that disrupted the flow of the episodes, I can’t think of any downsides to this drama. Okay, maybe Lord Jo and Minister Park. But the presence of Dumb and Dumber served to highlight Lady Park’s character as the “brains” of the household, so they were a necessary addition to the show after all.
In a drama with well-written and non-passive female characters, I liked that the main antagonist was a woman — and such a complex and calculating one at that. Having a formidable antagonist like Lady Park run side by side with equally shrewd protagonists like our OTP will always make for a good story, especially in the hand of a skilled writer like The Matchmakers’.
All good things must come to an end, and this drama is no exception. For a matchmaking show, we got a great OTP and lovely side couples whose romances were equally fun to watch, and the romantic in me is very satisfied. Overall, The Matchmakers was a fantastic watch on all counts, and having its concluding episode air on Christmas day made it all the more memorable.