Queen of Tears Episode 10 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Kim Soo-hyun as Baek Hyun-woo
Kim Ji-won as Hong Hae-in
Park Sung-hoon as Yoon Eun-sung
Kwak Dong-yeon as Hong Soo-cheol
Lee Joo-bin as Cheon Da-hye
Lee Mi-sook as Moh Seul-hee
Jung Jin-young as Hong Beom-jun
Kim Jung-nan as Hong Beom-ja
Kim Joo-ryoung as Grace Ko
Jeon Bae-soo as Baek Du-gwan
Hwang Young-hee as Jeon Bong-ae
Jang Yoon-ju as Baek Mi-seon
Yoon Bo-mi as Na Chae-yeon

A new day starts at the Queen's Boxing Gym, before the story returns to the two threads episode 9 ended on. A visitor who came for the town's best wi-fi spots a youth boxing trophy with Baek Hyun-woo's name on it. He was good, comes the answer. He reads his opponent, dodges and waits until the other man is spent, then lands his punches. The speaker was knocked out by him too.

Back in episode 9's night, Hyun-woo catches up with Pyeon Seong-uk, the land broker he has been chasing. He hands over the papers he could not serve while Pyeon was hiding and suggests he hire a lawyer. He called the police before leaving his car, so Pyeon is off to the station. Two name cards flash up: MR. YOON EUN-SUNG and MR. PYEON.

Eun-sung's two-day deadline

In the dark, Hong Hae-in calls out Hyun-woo's name to a figure who turns out to be Yoon Eun-sung. He mocks her for hiding at her ex-husband's place and says she was easy to find. He has seen her diagnosis, and since the doctor talks only to a guardian, he will become hers. Her parents do not know, and he guesses why: they have already lost one son. If she keeps defying him, he will make the people she loves miserable; if she comes back, her job is waiting. She has two days before his press conference, and he, not Hyun-woo, will save her.

Hong Soo-cheol lunges at Eun-sung out of the dark, then breaks down. He blames himself for the family's ruin because he was the one who got fooled, and all he begs to know is whether Cheon Da-hye is all right. Afterward, Hae-in hands her brother a cover story about a drunken fall over a stone. She asks him to keep the visit from their parents, because she has something to do first.

Two villagers who were out in the dark saw the stranger. The one without night blindness names him as the new chairman of Queens. That makes him the Hongs' sworn enemy, and one of them finds him very much their type.

Next, Eun-sung is on the phone with a woman who has deleted her Korean number and social media and is moving in under a fake name. She asks about Soo-cheol, claiming mere curiosity. Soo-cheol is furious, Eun-sung tells her, and will make her pay if he finds her. Alone, she decides Soo-cheol has every right to be angry and has finally grown up. She can only be Da-hye.

Ointment and regrets

At the Baek house, Hae-in's calls go unanswered until Hyun-woo walks in hours late with a split lip. She checks every scrape while he insists he was not beaten. Three men with batons came at him as he tracked the broker, but he boxed as a boy. The broker has been arrested, which could turn the tables if Pyeon is found guilty.

Hae-in wants him to promise he will run next time. He refuses, because he has already made a promise to himself about her. Only married couples make promises like that, she says, and they are divorced. Then she adds, "Come back beaten up like this again, and I'll kill you myself."

At breakfast, Hyun-woo and Soo-cheol both claim they fell. The gym visit has spread the news that Hyun-woo boxed, and the family brags about his trophies and his national top-ten finish after every exam. One parent claims the credit, only to hear that Baek Hyeon-tae took after them instead, and Hyun-woo is named the family's odd one out. Someone starts to tell Hyun-woo what Hae-in asked to keep quiet, then stops.

Before he leaves, Hae-in puts more ointment on his face and tells him to change the bandage so it will not scar. He lingers by the car to dodge rush hour. She agrees that traffic is best avoided.

At the Yongdu-ri Supermarket, where they once ate ice cream, the two wonder about the road not taken. One asks whether tending their wounds on time would have helped, or whether breaking up back then would have spared them the scars and freed the other to find someone kinder. The answer is no: even knowing the ending, the choice would be the same. The only regret is not asking more often how the other's day went.

Hunting for the chairman

Eun-sung is told to bring the chairman back before anything else is discussed. He sees nothing to discuss. He plans to marry Hae-in as soon as he can, and if she has not agreed, he will make it happen.

At Queens Group, the intranet announces Hyun-woo's removal for malpractice, and he moves into an office the right size for one. Eun-sung promises a personnel committee will show the proof. He mentions seeing Hae-in yesterday. Hyun-woo replies that Pyeon was arrested yesterday and is said to be playing dumb, and that he has a knack for bringing out the truth. Two employees liken Hyun-woo to Crown Prince Sado in the rice chest, kept on show beside the smoking room so everyone can see who visits.

Moh Seul-hee calls Grace Ko, who never deletes the numbers of people who still owe her. Seul-hee is unmoved. Grace did not spend decades under this roof or years abroad like Eun-sung; she was paid, and yet she asked to be CEO. Fine, Seul-hee says: the job is hers if she finds Hong Man-dae. Soon someone is calling Hanju Hospital about its 23rd-floor VIP room, with a cover story about a CEO's stem cell therapy.

One of the chairman's children hears by phone, from a nurse, that Eun-sung moved their father alone, without Seul-hee, and calls a taxi to Seoul. In the village, a borrowed handkerchief goes back toward its lender. The borrower, close to tears, is told the wise eat meat instead of crying.

New faces in Yongdu-ri

Baek Du-gwan finds the village gathered, jokingly, to see him off. Park Seok-hun is the new village foreman, with an inauguration party at his pork and rice soup restaurant. Du-gwan's people complain that the new camp is digging up an old missing receipt and bazaar part-timers' résumés to allege favoritism. Du-gwan explains that freebies and peaceful handovers of power do not exist. When Seok-hun's crew paints over the pears on a wall to rebrand the place as the Pretty Apple Village, Du-gwan tells him, "The pears are innocent." What they really want gone is his reputation.

Soo-cheol's texts to Da-hye go undelivered. In an online game, his friend list shows her account, GEONUMAMA, logged off two hours, three minutes and four seconds ago.

At her spa, Grace is passing on hospital gossip by phone when Hyun-woo arrives with Kim Yang-gi and Hong Beom-ja, Hae-in's aunt. Grace is confronted with her thirteen unregistered branches and the taxes she skipped, and a business card introduces Yang-gi as an attorney. He has a file of divorce clients whose marriages she broke up with false reports and hired seducers. Among these powerful clients is a chairman who used to be a gangster. Grace mentions a better offer and asks what they can match. She is told she has no right to bargain and should stop calculating unless she wants prison.

Soon Grace is helping the search. The dashcam is clean, but there is a list of hospitals with private elevators and whole VIP floors. The chairman is critically ill and most ambulances lack oxygen tanks, so someone reasons he could only have been given oxygen by hand for about an hour. Five hospitals drop off the list. Grace, enjoying the family vibe, asks after Kim Seon-hwa.

Baek Mi-seon brings a Hong family guest to her salon, where the village gossips apologize. The guest calls the stay a break from Bali, Hawaii and Cancún; a villager notes their assets are frozen. When someone suggests everyone leave, the answer is that nobody who says that ever leaves Yongdu-ri.

Mothers and secrets

At a café, a woman whose card is declined over two espressos is rescued by Jeon Bong-ae, who pays, though not for free. The woman is Hae-in's mother, Seon-hwa, and she spends the day picking with a worker named Natasha as her mentor. They clash, and Natasha asks Bong-ae to fire her. On payday Natasha is paid 300,000 won; Seon-hwa's 70 picks, minus the coffee, come to 1,700.

Hae-in's secretary, Na Chae-yeon, visits her in Yongdu-ri. Hae-in asks whether she brought it. Secretary Na cannot understand why Hae-in stays with her former in-laws, especially after hearing about her mother-in-law's japchae and ribs. She also reports that Hyun-woo awaits reassignment over malpractice.

In a separate exchange, Hae-in presses on the malpractice charge. The other voice makes plain the charges will be made up, from law-firm bribes to leaked VIP lists. Whichever one is used, Hyun-woo will end up an ex-convict.

Someone tells Hyun-woo that Eun-sung visited Hae-in at night. He already knows, and snaps that nothing is going on. Left alone, the messenger decides he is jealous.

That night, someone's sleeping pills go unneeded. Du-gwan and Hong Beom-jun drink together, both sore over lost titles. As vice-chairman, Beom-jun rarely heard the no-answer message; now he hears it daily. Watching a drama about a rich family, he picks it apart: the rich have live-in doctors for their blood pressure, and they take the stairs up but the elevator down.

Later, Hyun-woo asks about Eun-sung's visit. Hae-in assumes Soo-cheol talked and admits Eun-sung wants her back, at work and at home. He bristles at the idea of them living together. She notes they are not together either, and he insists they are different because they were married. Not anymore, she says. She has heard about the reassignment, tells him he has done enough, and says she will find her own solutions.

Hae-in tells her doctor by phone that the headaches are frequent, though she injects herself daily for her white blood cells and the tumor does not seem to have grown. Later, Bong-ae shakes Hyun-woo awake. Hae-in fainted, she seems to be injecting herself, and Bong-ae wants the truth. He tells his mother about the tumor: large, rare, inoperable for now, with a rate that is not high, and only Hae-in's aunt knows. He admits he found out after the visit when he announced the divorce, and stayed married because of it. Bong-ae calls him a scumbag, and he agrees, begging her to look after Hae-in while he is away.

The press conference

In the morning Bong-ae is crying, and Du-gwan assumes it is about his lost office. Now that he no longer belongs to the people, he offers himself to her alone; she wonders why she would want that. Breakfast is a feast, and Beom-ja has left for Seoul. At the gym, Da-hye's account logs in. Soo-cheol sends Hong Geon-u's vaccination record and asks her to sing Baby Shark at his shots. Wherever they are, Geon-u gets them without a tear.

As Hae-in leaves for Seoul, a family member accuses her of begging Eun-sung for mercy or colluding with him. She lets them think what they want. Bong-ae gives her a ride, Hae-in thanks her for everything, and Bong-ae blames the wind for her watery eyes.

A contact, reminded of an old family secret, names a patient: Chairman Hong Man-dae. At Queens, Hae-in tells Eun-sung his threats did not bring her back; if she cannot recover what was theirs, she will share it. Hyun-woo finds her at the venue, and she calls this her solution. Grace lies to Seul-hee that Seoul turned up nothing.

Eun-sung keeps his wedding out of the press guide so he can announce it himself at the end. At the podium he says Pione Investment is now the second-largest shareholder in Queens and that he was made chairman at an extraordinary general meeting. He calls the rumors of betrayal false and reappoints his longtime friend Hae-in as CEO of the department store.

Hae-in starts on her script, then abandons it. Eun-sung threatened to frame Baek Hyun-woo, her husband and former legal director, and put him in prison, she says, and she has a recording. She cannot be CEO either, because "I was told that I have little time left to live."

Four years earlier, at a company drinking party, Hyun-woo drinks in place of the intern Hae-in. Afterward she warns him that he is too cute when drunk and must never act that way around other women. Under a LAST NIGHT card, a drunk Hyun-woo tells a companion about it and wonders whether her heart could still race. He plucks petals, she likes me, she likes me not, and lands on yes. For him, though, like is not the word: he loves her.

Thoughts

Hae-in calling Hyun-woo her husband in front of the national press, a day after reminding him they are divorced, is the best turn the writers have given her. The confession lands as the right kind of reckless. Eun-sung built his leverage on her secret, and she just spent it. She also spent it before telling her own parents, who are about to hear about her illness the way the rest of Korea does. That bill is coming due.

The quieter win is Bong-ae. Hyun-woo admits to his own mother that the diagnosis is why he stayed in the marriage, and her verdict is exactly the right size. The next morning brings a feast, a ride for Hae-in and a convenient wind. Grace switching sides under Yang-gi's file is fun, but I trust her about as far as she trusts a check, and Seul-hee does not strike me as someone who misses a lie for long.

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