Bon Appetit, Your Majesty’s ending was definitely way more positive than I expected, and I’m happy to admit that I got it wrong. The final episode of the show did have many fights and a whole lot of tragedy, mainly the one shocking twist I did not see coming. The show has been a huge success thanks to its striking story, great chemistry between the leading pair, and the exciting food that we get to see in each episode. The gourmands are certainly going to want to try some of these recipes. While much of the ending doesn’t make complete sense, I suppose this was the best they could go about without giving us a sad ending. I am truly glad they didn’t mess with our feelings with the ending, and many people are going to be excited for this happy conclusion. Of course, this show is entirely fictional, but it would be interesting to find out that a king was wrongly accused of murdering his own people when it was his uncle who was the actual perpetrator. This storyline’s not completely unrealistic if you ask me. But with that said, let’s jump straight into the ending of this very fictional show.
Spoiler Alert
What Happens to Yi Heon in Joseon?
Gong-Gil manages to save Ji-Young from being kidnapped the first time around, but the king has a close brush with death while fighting everybody on Jesan’s side. Jesan already believes the king’s not going to make it out of this situation, so he goes to the palace and tells Jinmyeong’s mother that she needs to issue a royal decree to make her son the next king. After much hesitation, she ends up doing it anyway, but she’s not very happy. Meanwhile, people are already telling Jesan that they’d like to see him on the throne, and all this time, Yi Heon is still alive, but just not back at the palace. When he makes it back, he tells his uncle that he’s ready to become a deposed king as long as he’ll watch over Jinmyeong and make sure things go smoothly.
Yi Heon is given the name Yeonhuigun now, and he realizes that Ji-Young was really speaking the truth. I think he always believed her, but this makes it so very clear to him that she saw him as a tyrant right from the start. We never find out how Jinmyeong fared as king, especially after what happens at the end of the Joseon era timeline. It’s possible he was a good king, but he never restored the name of his brother, mainly because he didn’t know it wasn’t actually Yi Heon who killed their grandmother.
On the other hand, Ji-Young tells Gong-Gil that, in the future, it’s revealed that the king died soon after he was exiled, which would mean she’s not got much time to try and save him now. Jesan has made false promises to Kang as well, but she’s one of the true losers in this situation. Ji-Young gives Gong-Gil a dangly artifact to give to the king as a reminder of her, and to let him know she’s safe. He attaches this to the Mangunrok he’s currently writing, making it the finished product, if you will. But everyone who believes Ji-Young, i.e., all the cooks, knows that Yi Heon is innocent, so they decide to help him. This is almost like a comedy scene with Chun-Saeng returning as a superhero for the final time. Unfortunately, despite having access to his special inventions, the gang can’t fight off Jesan’s people, and Jesan ends up kidnapping Ji-Young, as he had originally planned. He tells Yi Heon that if he doesn’t come by himself, Ji-Young will end up dead. Everybody wants to save Ji-Young, but Yi Heon says everything is his fault, so he needs to be the one to save her.
What Happens to Consort Kang?
One of the surprising things to me is that, after all this time, Consort Kang ended up giving up instead of pretending yet again that she’s not responsible for anything. When Gong-Gil shows up in her room, she knows she’s done for, because he’s there for revenge. Kang ends up using her blade and killing herself because she will not be dishonored by a fellow jester. However, Gong-Gil has to get his revenge for his sister, so he pulls out his sword and deals the final blow. Kang’s death is not unexpected, and we know that Jesan doesn’t even care about her at all. If he did, he’d have kept her by his side the whole time.
What Happens to Ji-Young?
The ultimate shock of the show is that when Yi Heon goes to save Ji-Young and ends up in front of Jesan’s sword, Ji-Young comes in the way of things and saves Yi Heon, suffering a fatal blow herself, though. This is right after she’s found the Mangunrok and come to the realization that it was written by his majesty himself, and it was basically his journal of all the food she prepared for him. When Jesan’s sword comes down on Ji-Young’s back, and she dies, she starts to float into the sky, with the Mangunrok’s words coming out of the book. Generally, how time travel works is that if you die in one timeline, you’re not going to make it to the other. You’ll end up dead in both. However, if we can imagine that Ji-Young still had a little life left in her after getting sliced in the back, then it makes sense that she went back to her own timeline.
Ji-Young wakes up in the hospital with a massive scar on her back. Her dad is delighted to see her, but that’s because it looks like she had a bad accident and wasn’t conscious for a while. Ji-Young desperately looks for the Mangunrok and tries to read out the words Yi Heon wrote. The hope of his beloved returning to him, wherever she is. But it doesn’t work, just as we’d imagined. Ji-Young also learns that Yi Heon’s body was never found, which means she did change history, but does that mean a “cook Yeon” would be in the books too? That makes no sense, but we can imagine the book came to the future with Ji-Young specifically, which means nobody else has seen it. It’s her Mangunrok, the same one Yi Heon was writing, and nobody would believe that in the present day, of course. We never learn what happened to Ji-Young that caused her accident, but all I can think of is that something took place on the flight. It obviously didn’t crash, because that would kill a ton of other people, too. Soon after recovering, Ji-Young returns to work and creates a new menu, which is specifically a Joseon dynasty royal meal crossed with fine dining. She agrees to become the head chef at Enfin just because the Michelin guide is about to come find them.
Who Else Is In The Future Timeline?
In Bon Appetit, Your Majesty’s ending, to make things more exciting and positive, all of Ji-Young’s fellow chefs (their reincarnations, of course) l end up in Enfin’s kitchen. Obviously, none of them remembers what Ji-Young did back in Joseon, but that is the curse of time travel, eh? They’re all delighted to work with her, the person who won an award. I suppose this is what the Hwanseban truly is: a dish that brings you back home. In this case, it doesn’t bring Ji-Young back, but Yi Heon. Finally, the show gives us the happiest conclusion, with Yi Heon and Seong-Jae showing up as the guys tasting the food for the star. Ji-Young runs her mouth with Seong-Jae, but he’s apparently a fraud, so it doesn’t really matter. On the other hand, another guest shows up to try the food, and this pretend Michelin star judge is none other than Yi Heon himself. Since this is the final episode and there’s no time to waste, the show doesn’t even pretend that he forgot what happened. Instead, he immediately tells her that he promised to find her, and a king always keeps his promises.
I suppose I never thought of a scenario where Yi-Heon would end up in the future timeline as himself. This is not a rebirth; it’s literally the same thing that happened to Ji-Young. We never truly find out how he came here; however, it looks like a sheet of paper from the book tore and flew out on its own. This is probably what got him to find her in the future, plus she’s a famous chef. So this person is the same Yi Heon, but since he had nothing left to do in the past timeline, it actually makes sense that he made it to the present without a worry. On the other hand, we finally see the duo enjoy the Hwanseban again in the future. The ending is happy, and we know that they’re going to be happy together for a long, long time. Regarding Yonhuigun, we can imagine he was not written as much of a tyrant back in the new past.
