Bon Appétit, Your Majesty Episode 11 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Lim Yoon-a as Yeon Ji-young
Lee Chae-min as Yi Heon (King)
Kang Han-na as Kang Mok-ju
Choi Guy-hwa as Grand Prince Jesan
Seo Yi-sook as Grand Queen Dowager In-ju
Shin Eun-jung as Queen Dowager Jahyeon
Lee Joo-ahn as Gong-gil
Oh Eui-sik as Im Song-jae
Jang Gwang as Chang-seon
Ye Soo-jung as Internal Princess Consort Sim
Kim Kwang-kyu as Eom Bong-sik
Kim Hyun-mok as Min Gae-deok

Under the night sky where he asked her to be his companion, King Yi Heon waits for an answer. Yeon Ji-young, his chief royal cook, can only apologize. She does not belong to his time, she explains. Her father is alone back home, and she has a career she spent her whole life building. Yi Heon accepts it on one condition: if she leaves, she must promise to come back, and if she cannot, he will find her himself.

Ji-young says she will come back on her own and asks for a promise in return: that he will not be a tyrant. He smiles and asks whether she still sees him as one. Privately, she begs her heart to settle so she can forget him and go home. Yi Heon tells her he will wait.

A picture book and a new name

Later, Yi Heon shows Chang-seon, his chief eunuch, a book of drawings of every dish Ji-young has cooked for him. The last page is the bibimbap she made the day they met. He wants to cook it for her someday, though he has forgotten its name. Chang-seon knows how much she misses home and suggests hwanseban, food that brings one home. Yi Heon asks whether that means she will leave once she eats it, and Chang-seon hastily apologizes.

That night, Seo Gil-geum, the kitchen maid with the extraordinary nose, finds Ji-young sitting outside alone. Ji-young expects to find the Mangunrok, the old book that brought her to Joseon, soon. Asked whether she still means to come to the future, Gil-geum admits that a new world frightens her. They agree to decide once the book turns up. Then a shooting star crosses the sky, which Ji-young credits to the lack of air pollution, a phrase that sails past Gil-geum, and they make a wish.

Soy meat for a seventieth birthday

In the royal kitchen, the cooks prepare the jinchan, the banquet for the seventieth year of Grand Queen Dowager In-ju, the king's grandmother, who has stopped eating meat. When Ji-young suggests serving none at all, one cook is scandalized and asks whether she even knows what a jinchan is. The talk turns to something that is not meat but tastes like it, and Ji-young has the answer: soy meat. Her menu is a soy meat gujeolpan, the nine-section royal platter, and an eggplant pie.

In the banquet hall, Grand Prince Jinmyeong, the king's young half-brother, hopes the Grand Queen Dowager stays strong until he has a son. Then Kang Mok-ju, the king's long-serving consort, forces her way in past Senior Court Lady Kim. Mok-ju's own court lady was exposed as the accomplice of the female physician who tried to harm Jinmyeong, so she is met with fury. She swears she has done nothing wrong. The Grand Queen Dowager orders her confined until the truth comes out, but lets her stay for the day if she behaves.

Elsewhere, Grand Prince Jesan, the king's uncle and Superintendent of Saongwon, the office that supplies the royal kitchen, hears that half the Inner Palace Guards have been swapped for rebels. The family of Yi Jang-gyun, the king's Principal Drafter, is held at a mountain base, to be killed if he turns. Salgoji Forest is ready. Jesan declares that a new Joseon begins today.

At the banquet, he presents a sipjangsaengdo, a painting of ten symbols of long life, and apologizes for his blunder in the Ming contest. The Grand Queen Dowager admires the gift and punishes him anyway. His mistake nearly cost Joseon its ginseng, she says, so he should resign from Saongwon. Jesan bows and agrees.

Meanwhile, Yi Heon learns that Chu-wol, Mok-ju's inspector court lady, is dead in prison. Arrested in the Jinmyeong inquiry, she apparently died by her own hand, a hairpin-shaped blade in her neck. Yi Heon declares it gimu, a state secret. He has his Chief Royal Secretary, Im Song-jae, investigate everyone she knew. Confronted over the death, Mok-ju dares her accuser to bring evidence.

In the kitchen, the cooks marvel at the soy meat and mangle the name of the eggplant pie. Ji-young explains that the menu is vegan. When Shim Mak-jin trips over the word, Min Gae-deok explains it as animal ingredients be gone. Gil-geum picks up something Ji-young dropped and sniffs out licorice and jakseol, a green tea, until Chef Eom Bong-sik calls her. It is chocolate Ji-young made for the king.

The king dances the Cheoyongmu

After the court's bows and a performance by dancers from Jahongwon, the palace office Mok-ju runs, the Grand Queen Dowager calls Ji-young over. Ji-young explains that the soybeans replace the meat her guest of honor cannot eat. The old queen teases her for sneaking in real meat, and Ji-young takes it as a compliment. One guest silently promises that the cook's showing off ends today.

Next comes a lion dance by jesters the king summoned, then the Cheoyongmu, the masked dance he performed for Ji-young in private last episode. Gong-gil, his jester, opens with a birthday invocation, then the masked dancer is revealed to be Yi Heon himself. The Grand Queen Dowager is moved and the court is stunned, since he has not danced it in over ten years. Ji-young thinks he will be remembered as a sage king. Another voice silently tells him to enjoy his filial piety while he can, because he will soon be a tyrant who ruins his own family.

Intercut with the dance, Jesan corners Jang-gyun, who protests that he is a special royal inspector on the king's secret orders. Jesan openly calls it treason. He accuses the king of hiding the Muin purge, an earlier purge of scholars, behind his mother's death, and blames Jang-gyun for leading the bloodshed. If Jang-gyun obeys, his family lives. When the dance ends, Yi Heon wishes his grandmother many more springs, and she wishes he will light up the nation like the sun.

The hidden draft of the royal record

At the gate, Jang-gyun is held back until Yi Heon orders him let through, with Shin Su-hyeok, commander of the Urimwi royal guard, on duty. Before the whole banquet, Jang-gyun presents a private draft of the historical record, not the Sago archive's official copy, with the scribe's commentary. It holds the truth about Deposed Queen Yeon, the king's mother, who was poisoned. Ji-young realizes in horror that this is the spark for the Gapshin purge, the king's revenge for his mother's death, and resolves to stop it.

Jang-gyun has also brought an old woman he found while searching for the draft. She is Internal Princess Consort Sim, the deposed queen's mother and so Yi Heon's maternal grandmother, who lost her wits after her daughter's death. She insists she knows nothing and begs for the queen's life as though it were still that day. When Yi Heon asks whether she recognizes him, she calls him Your Majesty and announces that she smells something tasty.

The Grand Queen Dowager tries to leave, but Yi Heon roars at everyone to sit and orders Song-jae to read the draft aloud. In the record, two consorts, Yang and Sung, petition that the queen is jealous and unfit. She scratches the late king's face, angering him and his mother, now the Grand Queen Dowager. Officials including Han Min-seong back her banishment. The final entry records the Grand Queen Dowager, then Queen Dowager, asking the late King Seonjong to have the deposed queen poisoned. Voices beg the king to stop.

Yi Heon demands to know whether his grandmother really asked for his mother's execution, and she answers, "It is true. I requested it." A voice in the hall calls Jang-gyun a traitor, since the late king ordered the matter buried forever. Then out comes Consort Sim's bloodstained jeogori, a hanbok jacket, the one hidden in her doll. The queen wore it when she died, runs the explanation, apparently from Jang-gyun, and the draft records her last plea to have her injustice righted. Consort Sim cries that her daughter wore it.

Ji-young stands before the sword

Yi Heon draws his sword and vows to set everything right today. Ji-young begs him to hold back, and he asks whether she wants to die too. He tells her it does not concern her, and she answers that it does. "Because… I love you." She reminds him of his promises: the bibimbap, the waiting, a good king instead of a tyrant. The court joins her in begging him to sheathe the sword.

Yi Heon apologizes to her but blames his grandmother and the late king's concubines and orders Su-hyeok to seal every exit. Then Ji-young remembers her chocolate. Hoping it might bring Consort Sim back to herself, she gives it to the old woman and asks her, as a mother, to tell the truth.

Yi Heon tells his grandmother that everyone responsible will die here. Then Consort Sim speaks clearly. Her daughter took the poison, coughed blood and cried out to the sky that her son should become a sage king and right his mother's injustice. Yi Heon shouts that it is too late, but Ji-young insists his mother never wanted him to shed blood. As the court begs for mercy, he turns on his dead father, asking why he killed his mother and then made him king.

Yi Heon walks off alone and, in what looks like a vision of his mother, hears her marvel at how much her crown prince has grown. Ji-young finds him. Everything he did to avenge his mother went against her wishes, he says. He once wished his father dead and wanted every official who helped depose her killed. Ji-young makes him promise never to think that way again. When he teases her for worrying, she says his pain hurts her too, and he insists, twice, that he heard her.

Jesan's second plan

Told that the cook ruined the plan, Jesan decides they must get blood on their own hands and orders the second plan for tonight. Someone who has worked out that Jesan staged the day confronts him. Blood cannot be shed there, so it ends in threats. Elsewhere, a senior official admits his side put Yi Heon on the throne despite his mother's fate and calls a meeting at his residence that night.

In another room, a figure who appears to be Queen Dowager Jahyeon, Jinmyeong's mother, gathers her circle, and they are frightened too. She admits her fear but notes that Yi Heon listens to Ji-young even in a rage. Someone suggests getting rid of Consort Kang, as they call Mok-ju, and making Cook Yeon queen instead. She calls it merely her opinion and orders silence until the Grand Queen Dowager sends for them.

At Gangnyeongjeon, the king's quarters, Ji-young points out that from Jinmyeong's poisoning to Jang-gyun's timing, it is as if someone wanted him to lose control. Yi Heon admits he is lost without revenge. Her answer is a meal: he should dine with his grandmother and give her a chance to explain. Ji-young feels that may be why she was sent to this time. He agrees, and she plans the seoksura, the evening meal, for the Grand Queen Dowager's quarters.

First, she passes on a riddle from Tang Bailong, the Ming master chef: the edges of things are the hardest to see, and he should bolt his door at night. In the kitchen, she announces reconciliation rice noodles, and the cooks scatter for rice and the hakdok, a stone grinder. A massacre now would spark a revolt and cost Yi Heon his throne, Ji-young reasons, but a reconciliation could change history.

That night, at Jesan's residence, the conspirators report that the Chief State Councilor's faction is meeting, so they must move first. Song-jae is in Salgoji Forest as bait, and a secret letter has reached the Urimwi commander. They need only seize the cook before going after the king, whose hunting ground will become his grave. When Im Seo-hong, Song-jae's father, arrives early, Jesan orders him killed first. The old man is heard crying that treason is underway.

In the kitchen, Gil-geum breaks a plate, a bad omen, and then a palace guard comes asking for the chief royal cook. Meanwhile, an urgent message reaches the king from Song-jae. The assassins who attacked them at the house of Jang Chun-saeng, the craftsman, were former border officers, and he has found their base in Salgoji Forest. The Right State Councilor follows with worse news: rebels have taken the chief royal cook to the forest, leaving her hat behind. Remembering Tang's riddle, Yi Heon vows to rescue her and crush the rebels himself. In her quarters, Mok-ju dresses up late at night for a special guest.

In the Grand Queen Dowager's quarters, a servant cries that the king has lost his mind. The Grand Queen Dowager faces a masked intruder as if he were her grandson and asks whether he has truly chosen the sword. The intruder is Jesan, wearing the king's Cheoyong mask. She should never have crowned the deposed queen's son, he tells her, and he is restoring the country to a sage king. She calls him the real tyrant, and he kills her, though with her last breath she promises that the king will make him pay. Outside, his men shout that the king has gone mad, and Jesan gives the signal to begin.

Attackers open fire, someone cries out for Court Lady Choi, and on-screen cards announce that Bongdeokgung, the palace, has fallen, then jump two hours ahead. In Salgoji Forest, Su-hyeok goes ahead to check something suspicious. It is Song-jae, who begs the king to run from Jesan's trap. The ambush comes at once. Song-jae is struck, and he calls himself the most treacherous of subjects, one who tried to be loyal and pays for it. Yi Heon screams his name as the guards drag him away.

Ji-young wakes with a sore head beside Gong-gil, who has carried her somewhere unfamiliar. The rebels' red headbands mean they hold this place too, he warns, and the king will be in greater danger if she does not escape. She refuses to move until he explains, but guards appear and they run. Seeing the headbands and swords, she understands it is a revolt and asks about the king. Gong-gil's only reply: "You, above all, must be safe."

Thoughts

The banquet sequence is the best thing the show has done with its history-book premise. Ji-young has known all along that a purge is coming. The episode makes her watch its trigger arrive in real time: the Cheoyongmu, the draft, the grandmother, the bloodstained jacket. Her confession lands because it is the only weapon she has left. The chocolate is a lovely bit of plotting, too. It turns her cooking into the key that unlocks the one witness who can tell Yi Heon what his mother really wanted.

What makes the back half so cruel is that Ji-young's victory only forces Jesan's hand. He wanted the king to turn his sword on the Han family, the faction that put him on the throne. When that fails, he kills the Grand Queen Dowager himself and lets his men shout that the king did it. He strikes on the very night Yi Heon agreed to make peace with her. Tang Bailong's riddle now reads clearly. The danger nobody sees is at the edges, in the uncle who played the fool and, I suspect, in the minister who rushed in with news of a kidnapping.

Song-jae's farewell is the episode's sharpest sting. He spent the series as a schemer, and in the forest he calls himself the most treacherous subject who tried to be loyal anyway. I am also keeping an eye on Mok-ju, dressing up for a special guest while the palace falls, and on Chang-seon's name for the bibimbap. A dish called food that brings one home is an ominous gift for a cook who has just promised to come back.

Previous: Bon Appétit, Your Majesty Episode 10 Recap. Up next: Bon Appétit, Your Majesty Episode 12 Recap. See every episode in the Bon Appétit, Your Majesty episode guide.