Queen of Tears Episode 3 Recap

Who's in the cast:
Kim Ji-won as Hong Hae-in
Kim Soo-hyun as Baek Hyun-woo
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
Kim Joo-ryoung as Grace Ko
Yoon Bo-mi as Na Chae-yeon
Jang Yoon-ju as Baek Mi-seon

A card sets the opening four years in the past, when Baek Hyun-woo brings Hong Hae-in home to Yongdu-ri, his farming village. At the Yongdu-ri Supermarket his mother runs, Hae-in admits she has never had an ice pop, not even as a kid. Hyun-woo already suspects from her holey T-shirts that she is poor, and he waves off her protest that they are vintage. He tells her he has two million won saved, that he won't mind if her family is buried in debt, and that he will stay by her side.

Back in the present, the boar attack that closed the last episode echoes in Hae-in's head, and her voice wonders why that memory came back. Yoon Eun-sung runs up calling her name, but it is Hyun-woo who takes her back toward the lodge. She admits she never quite believed her doctor until this fright, and has now decided she simply won't die. Her ankle is sprained, so Hyun-woo carries her, and when he asks if that is too much, she rules it proper for an injured woman.

A night at the hunting lodge

Outside, Hae-in's younger brother, Hong Soo-cheol, lectures their father, Hong Beom-jun, on campfire wood. He gets nothing but smoke and blames the damp logs. When someone says Hyun-woo can light any wood, Soo-cheol sneers that his brother-in-law is a country boy who probably played soccer with pigs.

Inside, Moh Seul-hee, the partner of Chairman Hong Man-dae, says Man-dae left the hunt early because a shaman phoned to warn him of danger today. Soo-cheol bursts in to tell his mother, Kim Seon-hwa, that a boar has hurt Hae-in, though not badly. That night the shaman calls again. Seul-hee tells Man-dae about the dream: his late wife waiting by the hunting ground with a kitchen knife, ready to take him with her.

As the family fusses over Hae-in's sprain, they learn Hyun-woo served in the Marine Corps Reconnaissance Unit and won shooting awards, which Hae-in confirms. She says flatly that if he had hesitated a second, she would not be here. Her aunt, Hong Beom-ja, admires his arms. Asked how he decided so fast, Hyun-woo says his body simply moved, and someone teases that his instinct wanted her alive to rewrite her will.

Then comes a report on the hunting course. The barbed wire was cut, and the boar had been shot before it wandered in. Worse, that course was the one set aside for Man-dae. Footage from nearby cameras and dashcams will be checked.

At dinner, the household dotes on Hyun-woo, down to a side dish grilled the way he likes it. Eun-sung tells the table he lived in Korea until about 13, went to the States as an adoptee, and lost his adoptive parents by the time he finished college. Man-dae, who lost his own parents at 15, says he sees him differently now, and Eun-sung is told to think of them as his family in Korea.

Outside, a local man shows off his Pungsan dog, which once dragged his son out of a house fire. Eun-sung asks to buy it. When the man says the dog is family, Eun-sung offers 100 million won, then, as a watch ticks, drops to 90 and then 80. The man cracks and sells for the full 100 million.

Elsewhere in the lodge, Soo-cheol muses to his wife, Cheon Da-hye, that Eun-sung looks too polished for someone who had it hard. On his way back from the restroom, Hyun-woo stalls him with a sudden offer of midnight tutoring on the KFTC. Soo-cheol, laughing, asks if he is scared to share a room with his sister. Hyun-woo insists he isn't, then heads the wrong way.

Upstairs, Hae-in asks Hyun-woo to undo the buttons at the back of her shirt, since she hurt her fingers too, then sends him off the moment he is done. While he showers, she keeps replaying the gunshot and scolds herself: "Stop it, Hong Hae-in." He steps out to say there is no robe, and she marvels that he is all muscle these days. When he returns with dripping hair, she asks if he left it wet on purpose to look like Timothée Chalamet in the rain.

In bed, the king-size feels small, and Hae-in reminds him they once shared a single bed on her first visit to Yongdu-ri. In flashback, Hyun-woo insists it is too dangerous to drive at 9 p.m. and gives her the room. Then he knocks to ask her to look at the stars with him, and she invites him in. In the present, she says they held each other tight in that bed. One of them floats a hug, the other suddenly finds the bed roomy, and it ends with a claim of only joking and a scaredy-cat jab.

Morning brings a gun and a suspect

The next morning, the dog's owner tries to return Eun-sung's money, pleading the dog is family. Eun-sung takes the money back, then raises a gun at the dog. Hyun-woo demands to know what he is doing. Eun-sung lowers it, jokes that he nearly shot Hyun-woo a second time, and says he was only playing. Hyun-woo declares the sale over and sends the couple off. When Eun-sung asks why he can't kill it, Hyun-woo says they love it, and Eun-sung asks what if the dogs were strays, or injured.

The camera at the forest entrance catches a figure from behind. Man-dae asks Beom-jun if he doesn't recognize his own brother, Hong Beom-seok. Over protests, Man-dae orders a check on whether Beom-seok has left the country and ends the trip.

Elsewhere, the dog's owners recall a boy from about 20 years ago, a good student from the Evergreen Hope Orphanage on a Queens Group scholarship. He was caught after a brewery's shepherd dog was killed. In flashback, scolded that the dog was valuable, the boy asks whether he may kill worthless dogs, then. Now one of them asks if someone looks like that boy, and the other asks who.

Hae-in starts to feel things

A call brings Hae-in a meeting with Chairman Hermann of Hercyna. Alone, she spirals. She can't die with Hercyna so close, with limited editions unworn and islands unvisited. There is also the art bought from painters in their nineties, on the theory that prices soar when the artist dies.

At the office, Hae-in asks her secretary, Na Chae-yeon, about a woman whose heart races at the sight of her husband. After three years, his piercing stare and broad shoulders still get to her. Secretary Na says the woman needs a brain CT, and Hae-in compliments her insight.

She is feeling sympathy too, which she says an ice-cold woman like her never used to. She shields a mewing cat with an umbrella. She lets a juice salesman with a baby in an incubator keep visiting for now. In a restroom, she overhears an employee sobbing that insurance won't cover a surgery. Hae-in grumbles that illnesses can be cured, then cries anyway.

Her doctor doesn't blame the tumor: it sounds like a change of heart, common in people near death. Hae-in hears the verdict underneath and rejects it. She has nearly died many times, a miracle has saved her every time, and if the doctor can't save her, the doctor can stand aside and watch.

Hyun-woo and Beom-jun call on Beom-seok, who greets Hyun-woo as Director Baek. He admits he was at the hunting grounds. When told the cut fence and bait were planned, he lashes out at Beom-jun for not caring when he was framed and pushed out. He says Seul-hee turned him away at the villa, claiming the chairman was asleep, and begs Beom-jun to help him make amends. Beom-jun says some relationships are best left alone, then thanks Hyun-woo for coping with a family that has five lawsuits among relatives. Later, Seul-hee flatly denies that Beom-seok ever asked to see the chairman.

Seon-hwa asks Grace Ko to look into Eun-sung's character, since a deal for Soo-cheol is at stake. In an elevator, Eun-sung startles Grace and guesses who sent her. Grace calls herself Korea's original Madam Matchmaker. What she wants most is to see Hae-in and Hyun-woo split, because the Queens heiress married without coming to her. She warns him not to get in her way again. He says he was only following orders, and never expected Hyun-woo to come out of nowhere and kill the boar for Hae-in.

Hyun-woo's friend Kim Yang-gi, the divorce lawyer, notes he has gone from lonely male Cinderella to the family hero. Hae-in's father even served him a pheasant leg, his first. Yang-gi tells him to milk it. Hyun-woo replies, "All I want is to be free." Yang-gi lists the suits, car and fortune he would be giving up.

Hyun-woo's siblings come to Seoul

At his boxing gym, Hyun-woo's older brother, Baek Hyeon-tae, loses a young student to taekwondo despite a championship belt and a board-breaking display that cuts his hand. His sister, Baek Mi-seon, who has closed her hair salon early, shuts down his talk of Hyun-woo's divorce. Hae-in isn't answering her calls, so they drive to Seoul to talk her out of it in person.

Meanwhile, Yang-gi praises Hyun-woo's acting but warns that a big lie, once caught, will crush him, so nobody can ever learn the truth. Hyun-woo figures he is safe as long as it stays between them.

At the department store, the receptionist will not let Hae-in's in-laws up without an appointment, photo or no photo. Then Hae-in walks in and Hyeon-tae introduces himself. She says she knows who he is, and they explain Hyun-woo doesn't know they are here.

Upstairs, after a stiff chat about their father's 60th birthday, one of the siblings ventures that Hyun-woo is difficult. Mi-seon explains that your opposite is the person you share a bed with, like her and her husband fighting over the air conditioning. Hae-in replies they sleep in separate rooms with their own AC. Secretary Na soon pulls Hae-in away for a meeting. On the way out, one of them thanks her for the building in town. Hae-in has to ask Secretary Na about it; she bought it around the wedding.

That evening, Chairman Hermann skips the meeting to watch his baby daughter roll over for the first time. At the office, a staffer tells Hyun-woo Hae-in is dining with Eun-sung. At dinner, Eun-sung tells her what Hercyna really wants: more floors, which means a license to change the building's structure. Chairman Hermann will deal with whoever proposes it first, and only Hae-in knows. Back at the office, the staffer mentions Hyun-woo's siblings came to see Hae-in. It is news to him.

Over udon, Mi-seon texts Hae-in that divorce is not the answer and that she blames Hyun-woo, crying emoji included. Then Hyun-woo calls, and the siblings report the visit and the text. His reaction reveals the problem: Hae-in never knew he wanted a divorce, because he never told her. Hyun-woo calls Hae-in. At the restaurant, her phone lights up with his name and then shows a power-off screen.

A long night out with Eun-sung

Over drinks, Eun-sung asks about Hyun-woo. Hae-in calls him a good man who ran in to save her, and Eun-sung claims Hyun-woo hesitated, weighing whether to save her at all. Hae-in answers that he was the one watching the wrong person: "you were looking at my husband, while he was looking at me." She defines love as staying through something you hate enough to die from. Eun-sung says she is over-explaining, which people do when they lack confidence, and she downs her drink.

Hyun-woo is waiting outside the house when Eun-sung brings Hae-in home asleep. He asks how much Eun-sung made her drink, since she hardly ever drinks but then drinks like a fish. Hae-in wakes enough to say she mixed her drinks. Hyun-woo learns Chairman Hermann never showed and it was just the two of them.

Walking in, Hae-in says years of skipping things for a long, healthy life were useless. From now on she will say and do what she wants, and kill whoever she wants, starting with everyone who betrayed her. With three months left, she figures, any trial would be short, and he can be her attorney. Hyun-woo steers her inside.

He asks where her phone is and goes to search the car, but Hae-in finds it in her jacket, switched off. Before she can do anything with it, Hyun-woo stops her and flounders, saying what a relief it is the phone turned up. Hae-in wonders aloud why she was the unconfident one. Reminding him that she lives as she pleases now, she kisses him.

A card jumps to Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, three years earlier. One of them calls the name a scam; it is French for without worry. Hae-in recalls taking only one lesson from The Happy Prince as a child: leave home and you suffer. Hyun-woo says that is why the prince was happy, and Hae-in decides he was happy because he went mad. In a final scene, Hae-in pitches a cancer treatment support center for employees' families, insisting it is a calculation for the store's efficiency, not charity.

Thoughts

Hae-in's thaw is the heart of this hour, played for laughs and for keeps. The asking-for-a-friend scene with Secretary Na is the funniest thing in the episode, and the restroom scene, where Hae-in scoffs at someone else's tears and then cries anyway, is the saddest. I love that the doctor names it a change of heart and she hears a death sentence. Her definition of love at the bar also lands squarely on the opening flashback, where a young Hyun-woo with two million won to his name promised to stay by her side. The sting is that today he told Yang-gi all he wants is to be free.

Eun-sung's charm offensive at dinner is undercut by everything he does with a dog. The ticking watch, the gun the next morning, the joke about nearly shooting Hyun-woo a second time and the owners' story about an orphan who asked if worthless dogs could be killed all point one way, and the episode stops just short of saying it. I am more curious about the elevator. Whose orders was he following at the hunt, and what was the plan before Hyun-woo got there first? Grace as a spurned matchmaker is a delightfully petty motive for a villain.

Meanwhile, Yang-gi's lecture on big lies arrives just in time to be proven right by Mi-seon's text, which is sitting on a phone Hyun-woo now knows about. Hae-in, drunk, has just promised to kill everyone who betrayed her and to hire her husband as her attorney. Then she kisses him, and Mi-seon's text is still waiting for her.

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