Queen of Tears Episode 13 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
Kim Kap-soo as Hong Man-dae
Lee Mi-sook as Moh Seul-hee
Jung Jin-young as Hong Beom-jun
Kim Jung-nan as Hong Beom-ja
Jeon Bae-soo as Baek Du-gwan
Hwang Young-hee as Jeon Bong-ae
Jang Yoon-ju as Baek Mi-seon
Kim Shin-rok as Hyeon-suk (special appearance)
Kim Young-min as Kim Yeong-song
Kim Joo-ryoung as Grace Ko

The empty room and the last message

In a flashback with no date, Hong Man-dae welcomes someone into the house and shows how his secret room opens: a handle, then a button. In the present, the room is bare, with fresh marks where something was hauled out. One of his children curses the woman who must have gotten there first.

Someone asks whether they gave him a good send-off, and one of the Hongs accuses Moh Seul-hee of killing their father. When she is ordered out, she says she is a legal resident and only a court can evict her. Baek Hyun-woo, whom she calls Attorney Baek, confirms there is a procedure but says she will have to go. Someone announces that the Hongs are moving back in. Seul-hee, who lived with the chairman for over twenty years, is told to stay if she thinks she can bear it.

Hong Hae-in hears her grandfather's voice say her name. In a message, he says his mind clears only now and then, like sun reaching a basement, and he is left with regrets. He spent his life hoarding money, regrets it, and hopes his family lives differently. He loves them, he says, and he is sorry.

At the burial, someone coaxes Hae-in to eat. The funeral feels like a death rehearsal, she says. Her three months have already run out, and another round of mourning would look bad for the family. Asked whether that is her worry, she says no. "I kept thinking that I wanted to live." The world, with its sun and birds, is too beautiful to leave.

The call from Germany

A screen at Dreamland Theme Park asks for an ID check, and someone asks how it was found. The secret-room lines from the opening play again as Seul-hee shows her son, Yoon Eun-sung, the money. She loved him in her own way, she says, and the money will keep him safe.

In Yongdu-ri, one of the Baek children, a proud member of the Queens Minor Stockholders' Club, runs the numbers. The 21 percent the chairman had entrusted to Seul-hee has passed to his family. Eun-sung's stake has fallen from 59.1 percent to 38.1 percent, and with their frozen shares the Hongs will hold 34.7 percent. Their father's only request is that nobody learn he is their father.

Hyun-woo takes a call from Germany. Hae-in's tumor can be destroyed with high-intensity ultrasound, without opening her brain, and there has been a recent success. Her family erupts in joy around her. That night she asks whether it really works for rare cases like hers, and he says he is sure.

The episode rewinds to the call, and when someone asks whether Hae-in knows, the answer comes with a catch. Part of her hippocampus will be damaged, and she will very likely lose her long-term memory, perhaps everything from before the operation. It is her only choice if she is to live: her WBC is not rising fast enough for the clinical test, and there is no time. Hae-in's father, Hong Beom-jun, begs Hyun-woo to keep it secret, take her to Germany first and persuade her there. Back in the present, Hae-in asks whether she will live, and he says yes. She cries tears of joy: she feels as if she has woken from a long nightmare.

Hae-in's first two secrets

With a free day, the couple buy two tickets at Gurang-ri Station for their first trip since the honeymoon. Hae-in then says she has three things she has kept from him and will tell them one at a time. The first: the pink MP3 player he found is hers. The letter H on it stands for Hae-in, and she lost it in their schoolyard before leaving to study abroad. When he starts to explain, she cuts him off. Eun-sung once told her he saved her long ago and called it destiny, she says, but she and Hyun-woo have their own story.

Hyun-woo describes that schoolyard day: black slip-ons, white socks, a high ponytail. He thought he had found his dream girl and searched for her, but she had vanished like Cinderella, leaving only the MP3. Meeting again, marrying and even divorcing, he says, is what fate looks like.

Hae-in then tells him she will withdraw the divorce, as he asked. She runs a department store, she warns, and has no patience for returns. They agree there will be no refunds, not for a change of heart, a fight, or a forgotten promise, and Hyun-woo vows to stay at her side.

Leaving Yongdu-ri

Grace Ko presents her bill to a woman she calls ma'am. Five percent would be 45 billion won, she says, but she will settle for 40 billion. She is handed a check, a card shows the name Ko Jeong-ja, and she counts aloud. Then the payer suspends it until Grace's work gives satisfaction.

At the Baek house, Jeon Bong-ae makes a mountain of kimchi and pear extract as a parting gift. Cheon Da-hye joins in and out-chops everyone. Her mother-in-law, Kim Seon-hwa, asks whether she expects to be taken back this way. Da-hye says no, she will leave when she is done. She only asks to keep calling her Mother, since Seon-hwa is the first person she has ever called that.

The village women teach Hae-in to dye her nails with balsam: if the color lasts until the first snow, a first love comes true. A woman named Bang-sil teases that Hyun-woo once slipped her extra snacks at church. For Hae-in, the color means hope for a first snow she never expected to see. Hyun-woo asks whether her first love is the man from the bus or taxi she once mentioned, and she says yes. He reminds her she has accepted his ring, so that love had better not come true.

Elsewhere, word comes that Michael, the CEO of Ever H, a new name on the shareholder list, has met Hae-in's uncle, Hong Beom-seok. Beom-seok is lobbying the anchor LPs for Eun-sung's seat. Paper companies in Hong Kong and Switzerland stand ready, and the first order goes out: buy 2.1 percent in small, regular purchases. Someone else notes that Eun-sung has taken the bait and is finally spending the secret fund. Beom-seok is still in New York, and the plan is to keep Eun-sung anxious until the buying proves embezzlement and foreign exchange violations.

Hyun-woo adds that Pyeon Seong-uk, the land broker who kidnapped him, agreed to hand over a double contract and details about Director Jo, then never showed. He has not used his phone in over a week. A news report follows: a man in his forties has been found stabbed to death near Sambang Reservoir, too decomposed to identify.

Grace visits Seon-hwa, who is making dried persimmons, and fusses over her rough hands. A comeback is coming, Grace says, and everyone will choose between Seon-hwa and Seul-hee, whom she calls a sly fox. During a face treatment, Grace learns that Hae-in has found a hospital and will soon leave for Germany.

That night, Kim Yeong-song meets Hong Beom-ja. She heads him off: with her assets and three ex-husbands, she cannot accept. He hands her an envelope marked for condolences. It is for her father, he explains, so he can eat and drink with friends in the afterlife.

Hong Soo-cheol announces he is staying in Yongdu-ri until he finds a place in Seoul. He has had two sets of training wheels all his life, he says, and wants to take them off. Hae-in is not going home either: she is moving into Hyun-woo's studio. He admits he wants time alone with her, and the answer is an instant yes, which prompts a complaint about discrimination.

Grace reports to Seul-hee that the family returns tomorrow and that she has seen Da-hye. In a flashback, Da-hye begs her not to tell Seul-hee, and Grace replies that Seul-hee already knows about the golden Buddha. Da-hye says her conscience brought her back, because Soo-cheol was the first person to love her as she is. Seul-hee fumes, and when Grace adds that Hae-in leaves for surgery in Germany next week, the order comes to find out which hospital and what operation.

Under the stars, Seon-hwa tells Hae-in she dreamed of a shooting star while pregnant with her. After twenty years of fighting, she feels awkward being affectionate but full of regret. Hae-in says they can warm up slowly after Germany. The next day, Soo-cheol hurries his parents to the car with their bags already packed.

Newlyweds in Seoul

In Hyun-woo's building, a neighbor greets him as the bachelor on the 11th floor, and Hae-in corrects her: she is his wife. Now they must act like newlyweds, always touching and living their days side by side. Hard times will come again, Hae-in says, and good memories can be pulled out like candies from a jar. She wants to collect memories instead of stocks or money. At a batting cage, Hyun-woo says he used to come for the chance to focus on one thing. Now that one thing is saving her.

Eun-sung stops Hyun-woo to say he is glad about the surgery, since he has feelings for Hae-in. Then he reveals he knows about the side effect. She would refuse if she knew, he guesses, so Hyun-woo should keep the secret and get her into surgery. He wants her to live, he repeats.

At Queens Department Store, Hyun-woo takes leave so Hae-in can shop as a customer. In a flashback, the old Hae-in orders the chairs removed. Now she buys lip balm, a coat and more, and feels tired and duped. Once reinstated, she vows, the chairs will come back, with concerts and space for kids and couples. He makes her promise not to change her mind after surgery, half-joking that brain surgery can change a personality or erase a memory. She says she only wants to be a slightly better person in return for more time.

In Yongdu-ri, Baek Hyeon-tae's wife, Hyeon-suk, arrives, and Bong-ae panics that she has come to return him. Hyeon-suk reveals that he lost half their savings on stocks and that his cryptocurrency is down 90 percent. Bong-ae tells her to leave while she can, but to come over when the kimchi is made.

Later, Hyun-woo tells his parents that he and Hae-in want to give them the building she bought. Hyeon-tae and Baek Mi-seon both covet the first floor, and Bong-ae tells Hyeon-tae to give up his gym, since he has not been paying rent. Somebody christens it the Dubong Building, for Baek Du-gwan and Bong-ae, to groans.

At the store, Christmas decorations go up in October on Hae-in's own old orders. Then snow falls inside, and when she asks if she is hallucinating, Hyun-woo tells her that her wish for early snow has come true. When she says her first love will come true too, he bristles, so she tells her second secret. She knows he rode bus 372 home in the back seat by the window, because she followed that bus across the Han River. "And the guy is you." A staff member later reveals that Director Baek asked for the snow test, with big flakes.

The third secret

Meanwhile, Beom-jun tells Seon-hwa about the memory loss and admits to asking Hyun-woo to keep it from Hae-in. She calls that wise, since Hae-in might have refused, then grieves for their poor baby. Someone confirms a trip to Frankfurt, and a news card identifies the body at Sambang Reservoir as Mr. Pyeon, the land broker.

In Germany, Hae-in delivers her third secret: Yeong-suk, the raccoon she claimed lived on the rooftop, never existed, and Hyun-woo has called its name for four years. Then he tells her his own secret. She will very likely lose her memory after the surgery, probably all of it: people, places, everything she has lived. It is still her only chance.

Hae-in asks if he is making her choose between forgetting and dying, then says she will pretend all of it was a good dream. She tries to pull away. He holds on and begs her not to choose or think, only to live. "Just... live."

The episode closes on Hyun-woo's message to a Hae-in who remembers nothing. He introduces himself as Baek Hyun-woo, her husband, and tells her she was very sick but is better now. He remembers everything, he says, and will tell her. He cannot break up with her over a change of mind, because they agreed on that. They will meet the first snow, fill her empty candy jar, and trust the fate that brought them together. He loves her, he says, and always will.

Thoughts

The episode plays out like a long exhale before a fall. Almost every sweet scene is laced with the side effect we know about and Hae-in does not. Think of the refund speech, the candy jar of memories, and Hyun-woo's movie line about brain surgery erasing everything. Even her three secrets read differently once you know what the surgery takes. She is handing him memories to keep, and the raccoon reveal is the funniest goodbye I have seen in a while.

The secrecy question is the meat of it. Her family, and then Eun-sung, both push him to keep quiet: the family until Germany, Eun-sung until she is under the knife. Hyun-woo goes along, then cannot hold it once she is laughing about four years of Yeong-suk. I am glad he tells her, but his plea not to choose is still a way of choosing for her. Her line about pretending it was all a good dream sounds less like acceptance than like a door closing.

On the business side, the secret-room money now sits with Seul-hee and her son, and Grace is drawing a fee from a payer the dialogue never names. Eun-sung is spending his secret fund exactly as the Hongs hoped, and Pyeon is dead before he could hand over his contract. The obvious suspect is the man who hired him, and I doubt the show lets that go.

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