What a finale! We have followed our twins on their journey and taken every twist and turn with them. There are tons more to be had in the drama’s conclusion, but the wallop it packs isn’t only about the action — it’s also about the culmination of long-fought fights and deep familial bonds and emotions. Also, Ji Sung is amazing.
EPISODES 15-16 WEECAP
If it was up to me I would have delayed watching this finale for weeks! I don’t want it to be over, I don’t want to say goodbye to our twins, and and and… what if one of them doesn’t make it!?
But, getting right into it, we pick up with the cliffhangers from last week: Woo-shin’s eureka moment over the adamas’ hiding spot, and Soo-hyun and the SIH discovering what is essentially Team A’s mass grave site.
Interestingly, Episode 15 is a pretty quiet episode — low on action, heavy on planning and setup, and mostly centered around the brothers coming to terms with everything that they’ve uncovered. And you know what? It was a perfect episode because not only were they laying ground for the final episode, but the emotions were so raw and heartrending that — dangit, Ji Sung — I’m just completely carried away by his portrayal of these brothers. In fact, most of my notes for these scenes between them consisted of this: adjajkdhjkashddfkjasjdhasjdjkahdjah!!!!!!! which is the only way to really explain them.
The first is when Woo-shin, in his meditative way, finally meets up with the far-more-harried Soo-hyun and gently helps him realize where the adamas is. This scene is just packed out with amazing story and amazing acting — from Ji Sung playing both sides of this exchange so masterfully, to the willful decision of Woo-shin to share the truth, even though he knows it will break his brother.
And it does. Seeing Soo-hyun’s agony is just… agonizing. Lee Chang-woo is nearby and witnesses the whole thing, eventually becoming a part of the exchange. First, Soo-hyun is furious for the danger they were in all along (how he shattered that precious toy!!), but then just has to laugh over the irony of it all — that the boys had the adamas all along. It’s the best part of the drama, right here, not only the way it’s drenched in irony and heartache, but the way the brothers’ intentions are overlapping, too.
Woo-shin, we learn, embarked on this whole thing out of love for his brother, knowing the agony he was in all his life, blaming himself for his father’s death. And just like that Soo-hyun’s whole life of guilt and grief is turned upside down.
But it just gets ever better, because while the team is planning out what the heck they’re going to do — and Seo-hee follows a creepy “doctor” and finds Team A’s current hideout — there’s all this far deeper stuff going on too.
The brothers meet up yet again and this time it’s even more heart-wrenching, if you can believe it, with Soo-hyun breaking down in sobs, and Woo-shin putting his hand on his brother’s heart and wishing he wasn’t in pain. GAH!! This story has just transcended wildly well-written suspense drama and hit me directly in the heart with my favorite sort of story ever: about family, brothers, heartache, and sacrifice. I need a moment.
We continue with a whole lot of hatching of plans and making deals until we finally get to the action that sets off most everything to come. Soo-hyun and what’s left of the SIH need to get their hands on Team Leader Lee, so they make a plan to head to the chairman’s funeral where Team A will be gathered.
But it all goes to the devil quite fast when their hideout is raided by Team A and their endless supply of rifles. Our good guys have a couple of handguns and are running for their lives (leaving the dead behind and also the rat in their midst!) until they’re boxed into a tiny room and prepare to make a final stand.
It’s here where I literally gasped loud enough to wake up the entire neighborhood. Lee Chang-woo motions for Soo-hyun to move behind him so that he’s protected… except he says, “Woo-shin-ah, move behind me.” OMG, sure enough it’s Woo-shin! The boys not only switched for a second time, but Lee Chang-woo knew the difference between his estranged identical twin sons and holy moly it’s just one of the best moments the drama has packaged up thus far. It says everything that we need to know about Lee Chang-woo as a father, and it makes his inevitable and sacrificial death all the more devastating.
Woo-shin and the SIH are saved thanks to Seo-hee who contacted Hyuk-pil and convinced him to help them. And so, all of Team A is apprehended, and boy is it satisfying.
But there are a lot more moments of realization to come, because Seo-hee realizes that Soo-hyun is actually Woo-shin, and Woo-shin realizes that the very person they need to capture is not there: Team Leader Lee.
The final episode backs up and gives us more context on how that whole operation played out, but I’m glad they kept it from us because those twists were everything.
Woo-shin might be safe for now, but it’s Soo-hyun who is in danger. While all of Team A was supposedly offsite, he was going to their hideout to snoop around. But Team Leader Lee is there waiting, and the two have a truly horrific fight. Like, some fast-forwarding was necessary, that’s how brutal it got.
Soo-hyun puts up an impressive fight against this trained killer, but in the end he’s strangled by Lee and it’s… horrifying. And what’s worse is Lee’s laughing and hollering afterwards. He’s truly an animal. And Soo-hyun is really dead!? Disbelief is the only thing keeping me from sobbing right now.
Seo-hee and Woo-shin, followed by Tae-sung and [my new oppa] Agent Han (Won Tae-min), drive like crazy people following the GPS tracker in Soo-hyun’s hand. It’s a race against the clock and I don’t know what. is. happening.
It’s a testament to this drama’s amazing screenwriting, though, that when we find out what’s happened to Soo-hyun, we don’t really need any dialogue at all. The GPS signal goes out and as they all pull up to the spot, all we need to see is the looks on Tae-sung and Agent Han’s faces to know exactly what’s going on.
Woo-shin and crew run out to the shoreline, and it’s just empty water in front of them. This scene is so powerful; it’s like the drama knew that it didn’t even need words.
The heartbreak level is off the charts, but they still need to catch Team Leader Lee, which leads to another vicious fight, first with him and Tae-sung (and oppa Han), and then a truly horrifying standoff with Woo-shin.
I could start every sentence in this weecap with “Ji Sung’s acting is aMAZing” and it still wouldn’t be enough because he blew me away in these episodes. In this scene, Woo-shin endures Lee’s taunts about how he killed his brother, and with a self-restraint that’s hard to imagine, somehow keeps himself from shooting Lee fatally during his taunts, and instead incapacitates him.
“It’s over,” Tae-sung says to Woo-shin as they apprehend Lee — but Woo-shin just collapses onto him and sobs. Dude, I don’t know how many more of these sobbing broken hero scenes my heart can handle.
But of course, apprehending the culprits isn’t really the end, and even though they’re in custody, the “higher ups” are pulling the strings, and we see the SIH/good guys struggle to get anywhere.
Backtracking a bit is Woo-shin’s earlier deal with Hye-soo — Woo-shin will give her the adamas for Team Leader Lee, and his end-goal of a retrial. She’s already got her own deal going on with Lee, though, and she and Team A have quickly formed an alliance that’s (seemingly) untouchable.
In the space of mere days Hye-soo has effectively usurped Haesong from her husband’s grip, and with Team A behind her, she’s the new master. Literally. I guess after so many years of living in that hell she learned how to become a master chess player and manipulator because we see her outwit and outplay everyone with what she can now offer from her throne.
She gives Lee what he wants (Soo-hyun), and then she even fearlessly maneuvers her way out of the hit on her own head, offering Sun what she wants (to torture her sister, and boy does she).
All the action feels over, but we have no real resolution. Seo-hee mourns for her parents and regrets everything that brought her to that point. Woo-shin sits on the shorefront where Soo-hyun disappeared — as does Seo-hee — and they mourn for him. It’s another beautiful scene where Woo-shin grieves and admits how guilty he feels: “I started this whole thing to make Soo-hyun feel less guilty, but it’s like I pushed him into that sea myself.” More crying. And I’m crying, too.
For a little while, it seems like Woo-shin is tempted to enact revenge on Lee, but even Tae-sung (I love how these two so openly trust and rely on each other now!) tells him it’s not worth it. That getting rid of Lee won’t get rid of the pain — or the root of the corruption.
And so, that makes Woo-shin’s visit to Haesong mansion all the more powerful. We get a lot of callbacks to the opening of the drama, but this time Woo-shin is greeted with a smile by Dragon Lady Kwon and welcomed to see the new master… Hye-soo.
Woo-shin seems lighter than when we last saw him. He tosses a duffel bag at Hye-soo’s feet and says it’s the adamas, and in exchange for it, he wants her to keep Team Leader Lee alive, so he can be punished by the law. She says she thought their deal was off, and Woo-shin says disappointedly exactly what I’ve been riding on the whole time: I thought that you of all people in this house would have the most decent heart.
It strikes me that where we’ve landed at the end of this drama is this: each character has suffered incomparable losses and there’s so much grief — some that comes out in vengeance, and some that comes out as a desire for truth.
The plot feels settled… ish? Woo-shin and Seo-hee meet up and talk about how no one wants to believe the truth about Haesong and Team A, despite her convincing journalist and Hwang’s testimony. Woo-shin agrees, and says he’s going to write a book about it; people are more likely to believe fiction, anyway. And maybe they’ll put the dots together then.
I loved this as the ending of the story — that although there was no way for them to completely beat the mountain of power in front of them, they will continue fighting to reveal the truth (as Woo-shin so eloquently says to Hye-soo).
And then we get to our twist. And I’ll be honest, I’m not quite sure how I feel about this yet, and I haven’t had enough time to digest it. But, Seo-hee heads over to Woo-shin’s apartment to get interviewed for the aforementioned book, and offhandedly notices a letter on his desk that’s left opened as if it was read in a hurry. It reads: Song Soo-hyun is alive. Find the adamas.
WHAT! Just, what!? There are a million different ways to read this — beyond bait for a second season — but in our closing shots, we see Woo-shin (I think?) at the shore again. The slightest smile dashes across his face, and we pan down to see the adamas in his hand.
So, are we right to think that once again there’s a fake one in the possession of Haesong? And who sent the letter? My knee-jerk reaction was Hye-soo, because it’s so circular, but I’m not sure, since she didn’t seem to hold to his request to keep Lee alive (ordering the hit via Sun). Or, maybe Soo-hyun himself sent the letter? And is that Soo-hyun on the beach with the adamas, not Woo-shin? That might make more sense, but of course the left/wounded hand is in a pocket, killing our only clue as to which twin it is… I need a few days to ponder through that twist and all the clues there, but honestly I’m not even ready to think about that too deeply right now.
My heart is still lost in these last few episodes, and I can’t think beyond them yet. All those emotions and tears and brutal deaths. Everything that was between our brothers, spoken and unspoken. Dammit, what an amazing show.