The first question everybody has for fantasy K-drama endings is, “Is it a happy ending?” To answer your question, yes, it is. Not only is the ending of Genie, Make A Wish happy, but it’s literally eternal happiness. But we’ll get to that in a bit. Netflix’s show tells the story of Ki Ka-Young, a psychopath, whose mother abandons her and leaves her with her grandmother. Somehow, Ka-Young’s grandmother accepts the “difficult” child and brings her up as a decent human being despite her antisocial tendencies. But Ka-Young is no ordinary human; she’s actually the reincarnation of a Korean girl who had a genie fall in love with her. Will she reunite with this genie? Will they fall in love again? Or will she end up dying a psychopath? This is the basic premise of the show. But what happens in the end? Let’s find out in Genie, Make A Wish’s finale.
Spoiler Alert
What Is Ka-Young’s Last Wish?
Ka-Young’s final selfless wish is for her to feel empathy again. While this might seem like a selfish wish since she wants it for herself, she’s not really benefiting from it. She just wants to feel emotions like other humans, and this means Iblis dies because Ejllael wins and slits his throat. Additionally, Iblis finally bowed his head down to the one human he respects, making him the loser of this war. With her last wish, Ka-Young is supposed to forget her memories of Iblis and move on in life; however, the thing that breaks Ka-Young down is the death of her dear grandmother.As soon as Ka-Young is able to feel emotions like a regular human being, she’s hit with the loss of her grandmother, who raised her into such a wonderful human being. Losing her grandmother is the worst thing that could’ve happened to her, and she realizes she was a burden on a woman who withered away trying to put in everything she had to raise Ka-Young. But ultimately, instead of forgetting Iblis, Ka-Young gets a special apology from Irem, Ejllael’s sidekick. Irem was so busy listening to her master that she ended up doing the wrong thing, and she realizes that all Ejllael ever wanted was war. He might’ve been an angel, but was he a good spirit? She definitely didn’t believe so by the time he killed Iblis. Technically, this is yet another story that reminds us that there’s no good and evil in the world; it’s all a grey area, and everybody has a little bit of everything. Even the 5 people who make wishes to Iblis are initially corrupted by greed but eventually make selfless wishes because that’s the specialty of being human.
In this case, despite being an angel, Ejllael is selfish and arrogant; he’s only ever wanted victory, so Irem does the right thing in his stead and returns all of Iblis and Ka-Young’s memories back to Ka-Young after she’s spent the whole day crying. But, I think by returning those memories to Ka-Young, I feel like Irem also turned Ka-Young into an immortal genie just like Iblis. So, on that day, when Ka-Young dies in the desert from all her tears, she comes back as a genie. Ka-Young’s image is also cleared when she dies in the desert because everyone learns that she died from crying too much. Despite having been brought up in the village, many people still called Ka-Young a heartless psychopath. So, when anything bad happened in the village, they still blamed her collectively. To make matters worse, she didn’t cry on the night of her grandmother’s funeral, but she’s done so now, which means everyone can trust that she did love her grandmother dearly. It’s also nice to see how much the village chief actually cares about her. So, at the funeral, everybody actually mourns her death, not just Min-Ji, who she thought was her only friend, but also the people who helped raise her, as well as Gu Bo-Gyeong, who finally realizes that Ka-Young was a good person too.
How Does Min-Ji Meet Ka-Young Again?
In Genie, Make A Wish’s ending, when Min-Ji returns to Ka-Young’s ashes, presumably after some time has passed, Ka-Young returns as her genie. I suppose her urn is what can be counted as her lamp. Ka-Young is basically Iblis’ replacement now, and she immediately gives her best friend 3 wishes, making Iblis’ usual speech, though her bestie is unimpressed. Ka-Young tells Min-Ji that she turned into a genie because of her 1000-year love. Min-Ji’s first wish is for her best friend to have seafood with her; her second is to get all the neighborhood kids in need to her dental clinic because they think it’s too expensive. But Min-Ji holds on for a bit for her last wish. While waiting, she sets up the same words Iblis had done during the fireworks festival in the previous one, and this makes Ka-Young cry. This is something Min-Ji never imagined she could witness. So, her final wish is for Ka-Young to be happy and meet “that man” again. Before Ka-Young can tell her that she’s going to forget about her, the wish is fulfilled, and Ka-Young is left alone yet again.
How Does Iblis Come Back?
After her death, Oh Pan-Geum is supposed to go to heaven, but she’s as selfless as ever and only cares about what happens to her granddaughter. She harasses Ejllael while he attempts to guide her soul to heaven (he’s partially responsible for her death, no?) to help her have a word with the almighty. God tells Ejllael that it’s way too loud and he needs to do whatever Pan-Geum wants. Her only wish is for Iblis to be brought back to Goryeo, i.e., Korea, so that he can reunite with Ka-Young and they can forever be happy together. With two shaytans in town, somehow everyone is still delighted, because one psychopath cancels out another Satan, eh? Jokes aside, in the rest of the episode, we see how Iblis continues to meet morally ambiguous human beings, some of whom even manage to scam him, a genie. Iblis also grows his hair out to bring Sade back, who, in turn, bites Ejllael to bring Irem, his companion, back. Ejllael tells Iblis that Pan-Geum was the one who asked for Iblis to be brought back. I suppose his job is done, and he’ll never go after Iblis again. He is, after all, an angel.
Finally, in Genie, Make A Wish’s ending, Min-Ji returns to Dubai to watch the genie’s waltz, a storm in the desert. She’s old (but not wrinkled) by now, and it seems she keeps returning to this place often. I guess it’s a part of her wish, seeing her friend and the Iblis happy together, eh? It appears the duo is finally doing an actual waltz, not a lonesome solo dance. The show ends on the exciting note that both Iblis and Ka-Young are summoned for wishes, because wishful thinking is something humans will never stop. Ultimately, they will see each other again, and Pan-Geum continues to watch over them from the heavens. Iblis’ final wish, being happy and free to roam the different realms, is granted. Maybe that’s why the show is called Genie, Make A Wish.
