Queen of Tears Episode 7 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
Kim Joo-ryoung as Grace Ko
Yoon Bo-mi as Na Chae-yeon
Sebastian Roché as Liam Braun (special appearance)
Jeon Bae-soo as Baek Du-gwan
Hwang Young-hee as Jeon Bong-ae
Jang Yoon-ju as Baek Mi-seon

The hour resumes in Germany, on the scene that ended episode 6. Hong Hae-in holds up the divorce settlement agreement and begs Baek Hyun-woo to say it is fake. He cannot. He wrote it, he admits, and he is sorry he did not tell her sooner.

Hae-in pins down the timing. He wrote it the day she told him she was running out of time, meaning to ask for a divorce, and changed course once he heard she would die soon. He confirms all of it. She asks what is stopping him from lying now, and all he offers is that their lock is still on the bridge. Leaving, she says she is too tired even to be upset and does not want his reasons. Once the door closes, he says he loves her.

Out on the road, horns blare as Hae-in steps into oncoming traffic, and Hyun-woo pulls her back. Panting, he promises to explain everything and do whatever she wants. She cuts him off with his full name: if this happens again, he should not save her.

Hyun-woo picks a fight on purpose

In Seoul, Hong Soo-cheol muses that the papers prove Hyun-woo is ordinary after all, while little Hong Geon-u coos nearby. He doubts Hyun-woo acted alone. He whispers his suspect: his aunt, Hong Beom-ja, who has been taking Hyun-woo's side lately.

In Germany, Hae-in's doctor, Liam Braun, tells Hyun-woo that her white blood cell count has not improved and the Filgrastim treatment is not working. He adds a warning. Running into traffic is not what people do when they want to live. The patients who fight hardest are holding onto something: hope, love, even hatred. A second chance only matters if she has a reason to fight.

Then Hae-in asks to be discharged. The treatment is failing anyway, she says, so her giving up should be good news for him. Hyun-woo changes tactics and asks if she is really not going to sue.

He tells her he hated every second of living with her, that her three-month news made him feel saved, and that he would be grateful if she just signed. He even offers to keep sucking up to her if she rewrites her will. She asks whether he can handle making her this angry, and the exchange ends in a shouted dare to bring it on.

Back in Seoul, the Hongs' lawyers say prosecutors will not stop at Team Leader Song, and Secretary Jang expects Chairman Hong Man-dae to be subpoenaed. Man-dae notes that he served time in jail at about Soo-cheol's age. Soon everyone is looking at Soo-cheol, who declines to stand in for his grandfather. Someone argues for closing the resort deal fast, before the probe leaks and Mr. Yoon backs out, which would suit Chairman Yeom.

Elsewhere, the plotters lay out their trap. Director Jo will leak a height-restriction problem with the permit once construction starts, so lenders pull out and Soo-cheol falls apart. Rescue money in convertible bonds then becomes Queens stock once prosecutors move in, making the group the largest shareholder. Grace Ko is pleased, and someone notes that the divorce papers surfaced at the perfect time.

Among the family, the argument runs from the bug planted on Man-dae to Hyun-woo trying to divorce Hae-in first. When talk turns to another woman, Hae-in takes over. The Audit Team will go through his computer, accounts, phone and bank records. If they find any embezzlement, she will bring every charge she can, and everyone else should stay out of her way.

Hyun-woo's divorce-lawyer friend, Kim Yang-gi, meets him on his return and jokes about his ruined act. Hyun-woo corrects him. Hae-in cried, and that made him angrier than he has ever been. She is surely plotting to push him out now, and she should be, he says, because she needs something to focus on. Yang-gi asks whether he means to march into a battle that will kill him. Her warning not to save her plays again, and Hyun-woo answers, "At least she'll live."

Soo-cheol stops Hyun-woo to spell out HSC: Hong Soo-cheol, the heir. Hyun-woo urges him to halt the resort, since Mr. Yoon's consultants forecast 500 billion in yearly operating profit and Hanjeong Consulting puts it near 89 billion won. Soo-cheol tells him to stop being uptight about his success.

After Hae-in's mother, Kim Seon-hwa, demands to know why he hid the papers, Hyun-woo leaves his electronics outside and goes in to see Man-dae. The chairman can live with a divorce, but not with being fed to prosecutors through Chairman Yeom. Hyun-woo argues that Song's embezzlement was aimed at Man-dae all along. Song's documents were signed by Director Jo Hyeon-myeong, a college friend of the head of an outside auditor that never flagged five years of theft. Someone else helped Jo and planted the bug to frame Hyun-woo, but he cannot say who yet, and Man-dae will not trust the man who tried to divorce his granddaughter. Soon a phone call warns a man addressed as Director to get moving, because Hyun-woo is looking into him.

The Baeks hear the news

In Yongdu-ri, Baek Hyeon-tae is caught trading Queens Department Store shares on the divorce talk, selling and then buying back. Then his mother, Jeon Bong-ae, calls Hyun-woo's phone, and Seon-hwa answers. The family is a mess because of him, Seon-hwa says, and he has been preparing a divorce. She vows to see the two divorced and hangs up. Baek Du-gwan, meanwhile, is plotting with Park Chun-sik and his circle to beat his rival Park Seok-hun. The plan is to have Hae-in praise a Yongdu-ri pear on camera, until the divorce news reaches them too.

In Seoul, Seon-hwa fumes that Bong-ae knew and deceived them, and scolds Beom-ja for always taking Hyun-woo's side. Beom-ja has another target. A man named Conan cautions her that confronting that woman without hard evidence would only make her look foolish. They know she has a son, he says, so find him first. Beom-ja instead needles Moh Seul-hee about having no children. She then lets slip that Hae-in has suffered so much, and covers when Seon-hwa asks what she means.

Later, Hae-in shows Hyun-woo that she has stamped her seal on the agreement too. She will decide when it is filed, though, and she means to hire better lawyers than her aunt ever did. Hyun-woo accepts, then warns her off Yoon Eun-sung. He lists the investment for Soo-cheol, the Hercyna contract and the data recovery shop where he took dashcam footage after the hunting incident. Eun-sung visited it, and the owner vanished. Hae-in says she is not easily fooled. "I fooled you though," he replies.

War at the office

At Queens Department Store, one staffer is dazzled by Hae-in's diamonds, and Peacock One is declared: the worse Ms. Hong's mood, the fancier her outfit. When an employee spills coffee, Hae-in shrugs it off, and someone finds her calm scarier than her anger. Then the Audit Team arrives at a desk to investigate expense abuse, and an onlooker wonders whether the Hong-Baek war is back on.

Hae-in rejects every item put before her, even ones she approved before Germany. Secretary Na Chae-yeon and Hyun-woo's secretary, Kim Min-gyu, swap schedules so their bosses never cross, and the staff chat runs on code names, the Owl and the Eagle. Secretary Kim's panicked message reaches a boss who is in the chat too, and the two meet at the elevators anyway. Hae-in orders a report on three years of the Law Department's lawsuit losses, and after a few barbs Hyun-woo leads his team down the stairs.

Grace sends Director Jo off while two of his colleagues panic over shares pledged on a loan from a savings bank he introduced. At Sungmin University Medical Center, a phone shows Hyun-woo's name and Hae-in gasps. Later, Hyun-woo calls in a favor from a watch dealer. He wants the owners of ten rare Ronde de Frédic pieces with yellow diamonds.

On a lot of dirt and cement, Soo-cheol is learning to ride a bicycle while Cheon Da-hye watches. He crashes, and his mother rushes over to fuss over her bleeding son. Soo-cheol snaps that she never let him skateboard, ski or even fall. She says she was protecting her son, and he answers with his own: Geon-u ought to be able to ride a bike, and his father will teach him. Amid the scuffle, someone at the lot takes a call from Kevin in Manhattan about an Upper West Side apartment that must be signed for in person.

Following Hyun-woo

Secretary Na reports that Hyun-woo keeps calling a woman's name in the rooftop garden: Yeong-suk. Meanwhile, Hong Beom-jun has had Hyun-woo tailed, and the log is baffling. He hits a batting cage alone and eats alone every day at a diner called Grandma's Handmade Food. He runs laps around an elementary school field, singing and shouting. He also feeds a stray cat he named Meow, and his hacked phone is full of photos of the woman he supposedly wants to divorce. One investigator calls it love, and the other agrees.

Hae-in says the numbers will tell her everything. Secretary Na finds his finances spotless, but on days he withdrew millions of won in cash, he spent 300,000 won at Moulin Rouge, a flower shop. Today he sent flowers to a Kim Min-ji.

The address leads to a funeral hall. Kim Min-ji, a store clerk, is among the bereaved daughters, and a wreath carries Hae-in's name as CEO. Min-ji sobs her thanks for the flowers, the generous condolence money and the visit. Someone observes that Hyun-woo has been sending wreaths in Hae-in's name all along.

Hyun-woo is there too. A little girl cries for her mother, and someone remarks that at the funerals they usually attend, mourners talk inheritance and gift taxes. Then Hae-in turns on Hyun-woo. Sending flowers and money behind her back is despicable scheming. Even if her memory fades, she will never forget that he left during the hardest time of her life. She will despise him until she dies, and he is to do nothing and get out when she says so. He agrees.

Eun-sung makes his move

Over dinner, Eun-sung presents Hercyna's terms. Hae-in balks at the brand's wish to hire only staff aged 27 and under; getting older is a blessing, she says. Since owing him makes her jumpy, she asks what he wants. He wants her to divorce Hyun-woo. She says that is her decision and he is crossing a line, so he crosses it properly: when Hyun-woo's seat is empty, can he take it? Later, alone, Hae-in breathes hard amid a clatter of objects.

Yang-gi digs into Eun-sung's past. A Korean family in America adopted him at 12. They were not rich, yet they moved to a bigger house and sent him to Hillcroft Academy, at over 60,000 a year. Both later died in a drunk-driving crash, and neither of them drank.

Eun-sung and Seul-hee then meet alone. He calls her Ms. Moh, and she tells him not to: it is Mom. He answers that she forbade the word for so long that he can no longer say it aloud. She tells her son she wanted to raise him herself, but that would have meant meatless seaweed soup on his birthdays and barely affording school uniforms.

Eun-sung admires the house Chairman Hong spent five years building and says the two of them will soon push everyone out and own it. She warns they have not won yet. Over a memory of a young Man-dae playing with his wife and small children, a voice says they must take that from him and act now.

Seul-hee then offers to face prosecutors, or jail, in Man-dae's place. They will say she used the scholarship fund to hide his slush fund without his knowledge. She is neither family nor a Queens executive, she argues, so only she would be criticized. Man-dae tells her that ten children could not compare to her.

A night in the rain

In the rain, with Meow meowing nearby, Hyun-woo finds Hae-in standing outside. Where is her car, he asks, and her driver, Mr. Oh? She does not know how she got there. It happens a lot lately, she says; she is short on time, and "I keep losing it in pieces." Then she tells him not to look at her like that.

She has a 51 percent chance, she says, and she will work on getting treatment in Germany. She starts the story she told him in Germany, about her business rival Kim Ye-na and a car accident, and her words begin to repeat. Hyun-woo weeps. He apologizes, and she cannot see why. She asks if he is worried about her and tells him not to be afraid. Then she says his full name and tells him she loves him.

After a replay of Secretary Na's Yeong-suk report, Hae-in wonders whether he is still looking. In a flashback to four years ago, she tells Hyun-woo that a raccoon named Yeong-suk lives in their garden and comes out only when no one is around. He scoffs at first. Now Hae-in's voice calls him an idiot for still believing it, the same way he believed her when she said she would make him happy. Hyun-woo calls Yeong-suk's name and asks her to come out. Something chitters, and he gasps.

Thoughts

Dr. Braun hands Hyun-woo the episode's thesis: people fight for their lives when they have something to hold onto, even hatred. So Hyun-woo volunteers to be the hatred. Telling a dying woman he hated every second of their marriage is cruel. It is also the most loving thing he can think of, and his answer to Yang-gi makes the logic plain. What makes it work is that Hae-in keeps finding him out anyway. The batting cage, the solo dinners, the wreaths sent in her name to a clerk's family all point the same way, and she chooses to despise him regardless. Then the rain scene takes all that effort away. Her illness hands her back the version of them from before the papers, and he hears the declaration of love he has spent the whole hour making impossible.

On the other side of the board, the hour finally says out loud what Beom-ja is still hunting for. She is told to find Seul-hee's son first, while he is already eating dinner with her niece and asking for Hyun-woo's seat. Yang-gi's detail about the adoptive parents who died drunk-driving without drinking is the coldest line in the episode. Seul-hee's offer to take the fall for Man-dae now reads very differently. I am also keeping a list: whose watch carries a yellow diamond, and who at that bike lot is buying an apartment in Manhattan within two weeks.

Soo-cheol deserves a word too. His bike lesson is played for laughs, but his complaint that his mother never let him fall is the most honest thing he has said. It is a little sad that he is pedaling straight into a resort deal built to make him crash.

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