The ending of Queen of Tears fails to reach the level

Warning: This story includes spoilers for the most part Queen of Tears.

Queen of Tears is a K-drama of two halves. The first, made up of its first episodes, is an innovative take on K-romance. The other is a chaotic second part that wastes much of the potential of its beginning. The Netflix hit ended Sunday with a global audience that exceeded that of the popular Crash landing on you (also written by Park Ji-eun). But when the credits rolled, Queen of Tears it was almost indistinguishable from all the K-dramas that came before it.

When we left Hyun-woo (Kim Soo-hyun) and Hae-in (Kim Ji-won) at the end of episode 8, the latter had just refused life-saving treatment in Germany for the brain tumor she was diagnosed with. previously diagnosed. in the series. After antagonist Eun-sung (Park Sung-hoon) reveals Hyun-woo’s previous plans to divorce his wife, the couple are once again estranged while Eun-sung and her mother, Moh Seul-hee (Lee Mi -sook), complete a strike. of the Queens Group poisoning the patriarch of Hong Man-dae (Kim Kap-soo). Hae-in and Hyun-woo are forced back together when her family takes refuge with his.

Queen of Tears take this opportunity to humanize the Hongs. Considering how open this show has been about how horrible its villains are, that shouldn’t work, but as they acclimatize to a poorer life, it somehow does. We begin to sympathize with these horrible, entitled people. But this is also where Park begins to lose control of the narrative.

Giving Hae-in’s family room to grow is a brave move given how objectively terrible her behavior was in the first half of the series, but by expanding the narrative to encompass multiple perspectives, Queen of Tears there is a lot to do. This is compounded by the absurdity that is introduced when the characters are given a series of past connections, when it is revealed that Eun-sung and Hong Seo-cheol’s (Kwak Dong-yeun) wife, Da-hye (Lee Joo-bin), they lived in the same orphanage where they both hatched plans to infiltrate the Hong family. Meanwhile, Seul-hee had been planning her takeover for decades, including the murder of Seon-hwa’s (Na Young-hee) son. This incident also nearly kills Hae-in, but Hyun-woo — who happens to be attending a Marine Corps children’s camp (which is apparently a thing and not at all macabre) — rescues her. The two, Seon-hwa later comments, were destined to be together. It’s an unfortunate premonition of how much mess Queen of Tears will need to be cleaned to the end.

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Despite this confusion of perspectives, the series remained strong until the second half. These early episodes cast a long shadow and moments of intense emotion still emerged. Hae-in’s reconciliation with her mother, although difficult, is touching. Likewise, although the introduction of Da-hye’s abusive ex-partner is yet another example of an absurdly evil character designed to make everyone look good, Lee delivers just as remarkable a performance throughout the film. Queen of Tears‘second half that this doesn’t get in the way of Da-hye’s own narrative. Through moments like this, the potential for Queen of Tears it remains just below the surface, although it is soon obscured by the increasingly chaotic plot.

For a while, everything is controlled by the threat to Hae-in. At least as his health worsens, there is a powerful emotional core to each scene. But when Hyun-woo receives news of a new miracle surgery, it quickly becomes clear that Queen of Tears lost his courage. Worse, this operation will damage Hae-in’s hippocampus and cause her to lose her memory. It’s a weak effort to keep the stakes around Hae-in while Park destroys the emotional driving force of the series.

Interestingly, we get one last reminder that Hyun-woo is a reprehensible character in his own right, as he keeps information about this side effect from Hae-in – and consequently, her ability to consent to the procedure fully informed of its effects worrying side effects – until the last minute. None of that matters because the operation was a success, her tumor disappeared. But as predicted, Hae-in wakes up unable to remember anything – well, that’s how it’s all awkwardly framed, but really, she’s just unable to remember the people around her and quickly makes a specific reference to Mother Teresa, which is especially shocking. From this point on, the series begins its slow, inevitable, and disappointing crawl toward a clichéd happy ending.

It’s strange to say that they should have killed Hae-in, but once the threat to Hae-in’s life proves hollow, everything that follows lacks stakes. It’s hard to care about the dangers that emerge in the final two episodes — including a nearly two-hour finale — because we know the series has already avoided packing an emotional punch. As you take your foot off the gas with more than three hours to go, it’s so hard to believe that when Eun-sung arrests Hyun-woo and takes his place next to Hae-in, that it could mean anything. When Hyun-woo (who has no problem proving his innocence because Eun-sung is comically inept at all) gets hit by a car in the penultimate episode, we know he’ll be fine. When Eun-sung kidnaps Hae-in, Of course Hyun-woo will rescue her, Of course Eun-sung will receive his punishment, Of course everything will be fine – the end card even says “Happy Ending” – we’ve been here before in dozens of other K-dramas.

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The many questions that arise after Queen of Tears‘ The initial promise speaks to a broader trend in South Korean TV. Many promising series don’t seem to know how to end their stories or fall into what is expected in a scenario driven by tropes and clichés. Just in the last year, Dona! wasted an early masterclass in bittersweet storytelling that almost said something about the South Korean music industry to become just another drama full of problematic relationships and derivative storylines. See you in my 19th life started with as much promise as Queen of Tears and despite Shin Hae-sun’s impressive performance, it just couldn’t wrap up his time travel adventures with a satisfying conclusion. K-dramas have their fair share of innovation and variations on the formula, but they rarely last beyond the first few episodes of a series.

That being said, South Korean TV does not resisting change in general, preferring instead to imitate past success. But then, so do the fans. Consider Twenty-five twenty-one, a rare series that got an unconventional ending, only to be criticized for the problem. Of course, every creator has the opportunity to write their endings as they see fit, but it’s important to recognize that many Korean creatives can feel diminishing returns when doing so, thanks to an intense fandom that doesn’t always seem to want or welcome change.

It’s a sad note to end the conversation on a series that, just a few weeks ago, looked like it might end up as one of the best K-dramas we’ve ever seen. Indeed, there could have been a remarkable 10-episode drama about two people on the brink of separation who rediscover themselves under the cloud of mortality, a drama that could have been innovative with more concise writing and a stronger resistance to the temptation of the familiar. While the show we end up with remains compelling and even entertaining to the end, the decision to dispense with its deeply tragic and emotional core makes the enterprise more mechanical and, at times, even boring. The series never recaptures the rare excitement of its early episodes, and ultimately, by fixing Hae-in’s brain, Queen of Tears lose your heart.