Queen of Tears Episode 5 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
Kim Kap-soo as Hong Man-dae
Lee Mi-sook as Moh Seul-hee
Kim Jung-nan as Hong Beom-ja
Kim Joo-ryoung as Grace Ko
Yoon Bo-mi as Na Chae-yeon
Seo Sang-won as Park Jin-kook
Jeon Bae-soo as Baek Du-gwan
Hwang Young-hee as Jeon Bong-ae
Jang Yoon-ju as Baek Mi-seon
Kim Young-min as Kim Yeong-song
Sebastian Roché as Liam Braun (special appearance)

Episode 4's closing night outside Yongdu-ri, the farming village where Baek Hyun-woo grew up, plays again. He apologizes for shouting, and Hong Hae-in admits she has no idea how she got there. One moment she was at the gate, the next she was somewhere strange, and it terrified her.

Afterward, Hyun-woo asks why she came at all. His sister texted, she says: his father was losing the village election to a rival handing out pork gukbap. She could not let that stand. Hyun-woo teases that she answered soup with beef and lobster.

A night at the Baeks'

The Baek family is out calling her name: Hyun-woo's father, Baek Du-gwan; his mother, Jeon Bong-ae; his brother, Baek Hyeon-tae; and his sister, Baek Mi-seon. When she turns up, the relief is loud. Then everyone heads to bed, with someone explaining that country people sleep early. In Hyun-woo's room, Hae-in's hair is still wet, and an old dryer works only if you grip it at the bottom. He shows her the trick, and the whirring goes on until her hair is dry.

In Seoul, Hong Soo-cheol calls his mother over. A clip of Hae-in's visit is online, captioned with praise for the beautiful CEO. In it she tells the villagers she missed her father-in-law's birthday, so the meal is on her. Someone in the room notes that she never did that for her own mother's birthday. The neighbors pile crab and pork belly in front of her, and the views pass 300,000.

Back in the room, Hae-in tallies the meats she ate. Someone laughs that one neighbor handed over a chicken leg from her best hen, a treat she never gave her own son-in-law. The neighbors seemed to like her, she says, and then she winces.

The Baeks keep a secret, badly

Bong-ae rules that nobody mentions the divorce while the couple are getting along, and Mi-seon agrees. Too late: someone has already talked it over with Kim Yeong-song over makgeolli. Someone else points out that Yeong-song is no professional sworn to secrecy. Yeong-song says he told only his mother, his only family, but she is not well; she asks why he never comes home, then asks who he is. Du-gwan, told to worry about his son's marriage, waves it off. A daughter-in-law who came all this way to help his campaign, he reasons, means a healthy marriage.

In the bedroom, Hyun-woo tends Hae-in's hurt hand and scolds her for wandering off. She complains that her lifeline is short, which suits her terminal illness. It is not terminal, he answers, reminding her she swore to beat it. One of them calls the German clinic the best cancer center in Europe. Then Hae-in asks him to come with her, because nobody else knows she is sick. Of course he will.

Soon after, Hyun-woo walks out of the room and stays outside. Inside, Hae-in wonders whether he has run away. Hyeon-tae assumes a fight and advises an apology, but Hyun-woo says he only came out to pull himself together. When Hae-in texts, he tells her to go to sleep, and she wonders aloud what he is afraid of. He will stay out until she is asleep, in case he starts something, and drink until he passes out. He asks Hyeon-tae to keep him out of his own room, because his wife is very, very scary.

Later he turns to Hyeon-tae and calls him hyung. He always assumed he would be fine whatever happened to her, because he did not like Hong Hae-in. The plan was to hate her, resent her and count down to the day he leaves. "All I have to do is not like her," he says. He cannot manage it.

Separate rooms

Inside, Hae-in tells herself that sleeping apart is nothing new, and a card jumps back two years. Staff empty a room on Ms. Hong's orders while she talks business. When Hyun-woo asks what is happening, the answer is that the room is an irritation they do not need. He has his things and a bed moved into it and says he will stay there for now. Muffled sobbing follows, and a voice says someone has no right to cry.

In the morning, Hyun-woo finds that Hae-in has not slept. Hyeon-tae's son, Baek Ho-yeol, cares more about her car than school and names her his role model. Yeong-song's mother, who has dementia, tells the guests that divorce is no big deal before he hurries her off.

Once the car is gone, the family wonders whether she caught on. Someone blames last night's stories about the principal's daughter who sent Hyun-woo love letters. Hyeon-tae admits worse: Hyun-woo never went to his room, and the brothers drank at the family supermarket, which earns him a smack. Mi-seon cannot understand how a love that real cooled so fast.

A card goes back four years: Mi-seon sits Hae-in down, lists the family's cattle, supermarket and orchard, and admits to being a snob about family. She has heard Hae-in's family is not well off, and she asks her to break up with Hyun-woo. Hae-in, who calls her supposedly shabby clothes a special vintage line, refuses. Hyun-woo arrives, and Mi-seon insists he has always liked delicate, innocent girls. He used to, he concedes, but the woman he loves now is Hae-in. In the present, Mi-seon takes the credit: her meddling drew them closer.

A houseguest at the Hong estate

At the Hong estate in Seoul, Hae-in insists she did not wait up for him; the bed was strange, the dogs were loud and she forgot her sleeping pills. Inside, Yoon Eun-sung offers tea as if he owns the place. Hae-in's mother has invited him to stay rather than eat alone at his hotel. Asked if he minds, Hyun-woo asks whether Eun-sung would leave if he did. No, says Eun-sung, so the answer does not matter.

Washing up, Hae-in finds a mark that will not come off. Over a hot drink, Eun-sung asks why Hyun-woo is not in her room, and her hesitation gives away the separate rooms. Grace Ko, the family's private secretary, fills in the rest for him. The marriage is awful, she says, yet Chairman Hong Man-dae quietly heeds Hyun-woo's advice, and so does Hae-in. Talk turns to the plan they share, and Grace wants Hyun-woo out of the house soon. Eun-sung then tells Hae-in that most husbands would object to a man moving in, but Hyun-woo said it did not matter at all.

Soo-cheol shows Eun-sung that every house on the estate connects underground, with panic rooms throughout. Before dinner, Hae-in's mother, Kim Seon-hwa, raises the videos and the work they made for the PR office. Pressed, she says she has never seen Hae-in smile like that, and rarely at her. Hae-in replies that she has no reason to smile at her mother and leaves them to eat.

Soo-cheol tells Eun-sung his sister envies him. He shows off a shaman's talisman their mother bought to keep him safe and hold Hae-in back. It does not seem to work, he admits.

At the hospital, Hae-in's doctor, Park Jin-kook, explains the German offer: a CAR-T therapy that engineers immune cells from her blood to attack cancer. It has cured leukemia, but never a brain tumor, and there is no guarantee. She tells him she will survive whatever it takes and will not hear otherwise.

Secretary Na Chae-yeon mentions a man whose baby is in an incubator. Hae-in finds him; the baby is in neonatal intensive care, and the parents like the name Cho-rong. Hae-in promises to order his green smoothies regularly, one for every employee, about 250 of them.

In a meeting, Soo-cheol pitches Man-dae an integrated resort with hotels, a duty-free shop, a casino and a water park for one trillion, or 900 billion at a pinch. Eun-sung will invest, he says. Hyun-woo asks for a feasibility study and notes the casino and duty-free shop need government approval. A friendly contact in the ministry does not reassure him, because positions and people change, so the risks get reviewed first. Then someone calls back about a gas delivery man with a dashcam that day. The footage is gone, and recovering it will take at least three or four days.

Beom-ja goes to war

Moh Seul-hee and the family doctors plan the chairman's menu, and the doctors settle on plain chicken, egg whites and beans. Hong Beom-ja, Man-dae's daughter, calls it a death sentence for her rib-loving father. Since Seul-hee ferments his soy sauce herself, Beom-ja orders her to taste his food first.

Behind a locked door come a scream and breaking glass. Afterward, Beom-ja insists Seul-hee hit her. Seul-hee admits it, says she was fed up, and apologizes. The listener, who says Beom-ja always strikes first, does not buy it.

At the MZ Detective Agency, Beom-ja's old investigator, once Manager Park, now wants to be called Conan Park. She wants everything on Moh Seul-hee, still a mystery after 20 years. "When she hit me, I finally knew what to do," Beom-ja says.

Eun-sung calls: the Hercyna due diligence team arrives in five minutes. Alone, Hae-in shakes and shivers until it passes. She arrives late and brushes off Eun-sung's offer to postpone; being sick, she says, would at least let her rest. In the elevator, Hyun-woo asks what is wrong and is told it is none of his business. She opens the meeting in French. Elsewhere, someone asks in English which hospital Hae-in uses, since she has skipped the family checkup.

Back at the hospital, Dr. Park advises postponing Germany. Her white blood cell count is too low to collect the cells. Hae-in reminds him she has no time, insists she feels fine, and walks out.

In the brain tumor department, she runs into Beom-ja. Her aunt cheers her with the story of a friend, Mi-yeong, who had the same illness five years ago and now plays golf. Hae-in only wants her silence; her husband is the one other person who knows. Beom-ja promises. Then she calls Mi-yeong and finds the number dead. Another friend, Suk-hui, tells her Mi-yeong died of a relapse while Beom-ja was in the detention center, and Beom-ja sobs.

Grace shows Eun-sung Napoleon's dress sword, which Man-dae bought at auction in 2014. Eun-sung offers Man-dae a Jacques-Louis David portrait of Napoleon. Man-dae laughs that he once shined shoes outside a store he now owns.

Beom-ja urges Hae-in not to go so far and asks why Hyun-woo is not going. He is busy, Hae-in says, and she is going alone. In the car, she cries. Beom-ja then confronts Hyun-woo: he was the only one who knew, so why did he let her go alone? He had not known she left. Her phone is off.

Hyun-woo sits through drinks with his friend Kim Yang-gi, who plans a trip to Gapyeong while Hyun-woo checks the weather in Germany. Yang-gi asks whether pretending to love her has turned real; Hyun-woo denies it. Then the contact saved as The Queen calls, and he answers by calling her honey.

In Germany, a nurse calls for Mrs. Hong, and the tests begin. An email delivers an interview Hae-in gave. Her goal is a trillion won in sales. Once every goal is met, she wants a break: travel with her husband, which they have not done since their honeymoon, and walks, tea and dinner together every day.

At the institute, the doctor thanks her for her support, then says they cannot isolate her immune cells. Her condition has worsened, and they want to wait and try again. Hae-in is done waiting; if she waits, she will die.

A place without worries

At Sanssouci, a guide explains that the French name promises a carefree spot, and that Frederick the Great wanted to be buried there. Hae-in scoffs at the name and dreads the stairs back down. Then Hyun-woo shouts her name, and she thinks she is hearing things. He scolds her about her shoes and explains: her phone was off, the hospital said she was turned away, and Secretary Na said she was not on her flight. So he came to the place he remembers her liking on their honeymoon.

She called it a scam then, she says. When he proposed, he promised she would never cry. Since the wedding she has cried while driving, in the shower and at the car wash, and the separate rooms meant he never heard. He admits he would have said anything to marry her, and says he should be at her side now.

She asks who told him not to come. She wanted him there so she would not feel alone. "I've always felt alone," she says. He apologizes. She hoped a miracle might be waiting far from home, but it is not here. All she wants is to go home with him.

In the epilogue, the palm-reading moment returns. Hyun-woo asks whether her line is really that short, agrees it is a bit short and decides it should be longer. A pen clicks.

Thoughts

The confession outside is the best scene the show has given Hyun-woo so far. Kim Soo-hyun lays out the escape plan like a recipe, then admits the recipe failed. It recasts his scheming over the will as self-defense. The flashback with the emptied room does something similar for Hae-in. Whatever that room once was, the separate bedrooms seem to have started with grief rather than indifference, and the sobbing that follows sits under the whole marriage.

Beom-ja has the episode's sharpest turn. She goes from shrugging off her niece's tumor with a golf story to learning that the golfer is dead, and Kim Jung-nan makes that phone call hurt. I also like that a fight is what finally sends her to Conan Park. I want to know who is asking about Hae-in's hospital, and whose dashcam footage is being rescued. The biggest puzzle is why Hyun-woo, who promised to go, did not know she had left. Her question at Sanssouci suggests she never told him to stay home.

My small theory concerns the mark Hae-in cannot wash off. A pen clicks in the epilogue, so I suspect we already know who put it there. A longer lifeline drawn in ink is a sweet, hopeful promise from a man who keeps insisting he does not care.

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