In the previous episode of Captivating the King, we saw that Park Jong Hwan had realized that he had no option but to kill the king if he wanted to save his own life. He sent Lady Dong to poison the king, but I believe it was tactically a wrong move because the fact that Lady Dong loved the king wasn’t hidden from anybody. Queen Dowager and even Park Jong-hwan knew the extent to which that woman was ready to go just to get affection from the king. The previous episode ended on a cliffhanger, but it was very evident from the onset that Lady Dong was not going to kill the king. All her life, Lady Dong craved the king’s attention, but till the very end she was not able to get it. Lady Dong was not a bad human being, but she had made some erroneous choices that landed her in trouble. So, let’s recap the events of Captivating the King episode 15 and find out what Yi-in does next.
Spoiler Alert
Did Lady Dong kill the king?
Lady Dong, in the fourteenth episode of Captivating the King, went to the king’s palace and expressed her desire to get close to him one last time. Actually, Dong knew that the king wouldn’t grant her request, and even if he did, she would have backed out at the very last moment. Dong revealed to the king that she had been forced to go and poison the king, and because she knew that she wouldn’t be able to do that, she had consumed the poison herself. Lady Dong died in the King’s arms, though she didn’t reveal on whose orders she had been acting. Though Dong didn’t explicitly incriminate Park Jong Hwan, the king knew that he was the one who was behind it. Dong loved the king with all her heart, and she never wanted anything bad for him. Her death changed something inside the king, and he became adamant to find solid evidence so that he could punish the perpetrator. Yi-in went to Hee-soo, and he told her what had happened. He said that he felt really bad that he couldn’t save Lady Dong, and somewhere, he held himself responsible for her death. Yi-in met Queen Dowager, and he told her very bluntly that he knew that his uncle was the one who had killed his elder brother, the former king, and he was the one who had sent lady Dong to kill him. Obviously, Queen Dowager loved her brother, and she didn’t want any harm to come to him. She told the king that Park Jong Hwan’s loyalty could not be questioned, as whatever he had done was for the welfare of the state. But those words didn’t have any meaning for Yi-in, as he had already made up his mind to take action against his uncle and finish the conflict once and for all.
What happened to Park Jong-hwan?
Because Lady Dong had taken her own life, there was no person who could testify in court about what Park Jong Hwan had done, and he knew that which was why he was very sure that nothing would happen to him. But the king already had a plan in mind, and he was very sure that through it, he would be able to get the better of his uncle. The king made Yoo Hyun-bo realize that if he wanted to save his life, he would have to accept in front of everybody that, together with Park Jong Hwan, he conspired to kill the king. Yi-in told Yoo Hyun-bo that if he did what he was asked to, then his life would be spared. Yoo Hyun-bo realized that he didn’t have a lot of options, and probably this was his best bet. So Yoo Hyun-bo testified in court and that’s where Park Jong Hwan realized that he could no longer save himself. The king thought for a very long time about how he should punish his uncle. Yi-in might have had a lot of hatred for his uncle, but at the end of the day, he was his own kin, and it was not easy for the former to give him a death sentence.
But at the end of Captivating the King episode 15, the king came to the decision that Park Jong Hwan would have to consume poison and take his own life. Yoo Hyun-bo was exiled, whereas Myung-ha was given the job of taking the poison to Park Jong-hwan and witnessing him die in front of his eyes. Myung-ha accepted the fact that there was a time when he wanted to kill the king, but Yi-in didn’t take any action against him. Queen Dowager literally begged the king not to kill Park Jong Hwan, but the king didn’t listen to her and went ahead with his decision.
What did Queen Dowager find out about Hee-soo?
At the end of episode 15, Queen Dowager finally got to know that Hee-soo was not a boy. She called Hee-soo to her chambers, and she told her that she was happy that her son had finally found a girl with whom he would love to marry. Hee-soo was shocked, and she told the Queen Dowager that she had no such intention and that she was happy serving the king in the capacity of a baduk player. One more development that happened was that Prince Rui had expressed his desire to play a game of baduk with Hee-soo, and he asked the king to send her to Beijing. Jung Je-pyo had come to Joseon, and he told Yi-in that Prince Rui had decided not to interfere in his internal matters. Prince Rui had complete knowledge about what had happened between Yi-in and his uncle since Park Jong Hwan had already informed Qing about everything, hoping that it would save his life. It would be interesting to see in the season finale how Queen Dowager acts, as now she knows about Hee-soo’s identity. She was disappointed and hurt by her son’s actions, and as soon as she found out about Hee-soo being a girl, it felt like she had a purpose, and she abandoned the idea of drowning herself in self-pity. Yi-in has some important decisions to make, and it would be interesting to see how he plays his cards and if he is able to resolve the conflicts in his personal life.
