Jae Hyun’s obsession with his wife and his ambition in “Pandora: Beneath the Paradise” was so great that what he wanted was the only right thing, and everything else was wrong. He had managed to build a beautiful life for himself based on this web of lies. HATCH saw immense success, and before Hong Tae Ra got her memories back, she was as much in love with him as she could be. His lies had constructed the ideal life for him, and he saw no reason why a “few inconvenient facts” should disrupt that. Truth be told, maybe he did Hong Tae Ra a favor by saving her more than a decade ago. But it was the fact that he did not give her back her own life: he constructed a reality for her that suited him, and that is where he went wrong. Jae Hyun does the exact same thing with HATCH. He knew that the technology they had was not perfect, yet he had no problem using humans in his trials, knowing that he would be endangering their lives. Once again, he was taking their choice away. Jae Hyun did not have a concept of free will; everything was only about his desires, and he was ruthless in enforcing it.
How Does Tae Ra Plan Her Revenge?
Even after Tae Ra’s memories had come back in “Pandora: Beneath the Paradise,” and she had made it clear to Jae Hyun that she did not want this life and despised him for doing this to her, he went ahead and tried to erase her memories again, to turn her back into his wife and Jiu’s mother. He killed her brother, knowing what he meant to her, and had plans to completely incapacitate Hae Soo, even though she was like a sister to Tae Ra. This is not what you do to someone you love. At this point, it is just pure madness. Therefore, Tae Ra decides that the only way to defeat him is by playing his own game. According to Jae Hyun, the only threat or nuisance he is facing is Hae Soo, and he plans for Yoo Tae to kill her. Tae Ra buys time by knocking him unconscious by spiking his drink. Her next step is to reveal everything about Jae Hyun to Min Young Hwi. She shows her how it was he and Sung Chan who were responsible for Kyo Jin’s being in a coma and for his perceived death.
A devastated Young Hwi meets Sung Chan, and upon seeing his lack of remorse while confessing his actions, stabs him in the neck. She then meets Jae Hyun, who is equally unremorseful, but he is not caught off guard like Sung Chan and is able to knock her down. Unknown to him, this entire interaction was being broadcast to the world, and by the time he stepped out, it was all over. Lucky for Jae Hyun, Tae Ra is at the venue, and she claims that he is innocent. This shows Jae Hyun that at least the woman he loves is still by his side. But he gets a rude shock when he finds that Tae Ra never lost her memories as she drives off the cliff with both of them in the car. Jae Hyun saves her once again, but this is a trap laid out for him.
What Happens To Jae Hyun In The End?
After the devastating revelations for Jae Hyun in “Pandora: Beneath the Paradise”, Tae Ra makes it look like Jae Hyun has passed away with the help of Do Jin, who was waiting near the shore, after their accident. Within the next 24 hours, she speaks the entire truth in front of the media, albeit with a few changes. She claims that she was unaware throughout and that she was as blindsided as the rest of the world. She asks to take Jae Hyun’s body so that she may perform the last rites. But Jae Hyun is alive, and the group has tailored a punishment for him. Kyo Jin, who has survived the explosion at the temple, manipulates Jae Hyun’s memories to live in a reality where nobody knows that Tae Ra exists. In one of them, she is even married to Kyo Jin, much to Jae Hyun’s chagrin. Jae Hyun continues to live versions of this life, where he is stripped of all power and is in prison, close to being declared a lunatic because nobody but him knows that he was married and had a daughter.
In the real world, Tae Ra starts requests that she wants to return to her previous identity as Mun Ha Gyeong. She plans on going abroad to get the chip removed from her brain and start a new life with her daughter. Jiu still doesn’t know anything about what her father has done and believes that he is busy with his presidential duties. Tae Ra dreads the day she will have to tell Jiu the truth. Meanwhile, Do Jin and Hae Soo decide to divorce and go their separate ways. Do Jin has literally lost everything. He cannot call Young Hwi his mother anymore; his relationship with his brother will never be that of normal siblings, and he has also lost his wife now. His father in prison refuses to speak to him because he just wants to spend the rest of his days alone, being the boss and repenting his sins. But there is still one loose end in all this i.e., Young Hwi. She comes to know that Kyo Jin is alive and goes to meet him. Kyo Jin doesn’t want to see her, and he says that he stopped thinking of her as his mother a long time ago. But Young Hwi is persistent. However, a little accident with the electronics causes Jae Hyun to wake up and attack Kyo Jin.
Young Hwi tries to protect him and loses her life in the process. But Jae Hyun is not concerned with Kyo Jin. He rushes back to his house and once again dresses up as the old Jae Hyun. Tae Ra has to come back from the airport to deal with Jae Hyun since she believes that he kidnapped Hae Soo. But that turns out to be a decoy, and Hae Soo is safe. Jae Hyun has a gun to Tae Ra’s head, and as Do Jin and Hae Soo beg him to let her go, his mind is elsewhere. After everything he went through in the simulations, his only desire is for his daughter to have a positive opinion of him. He also knows that his life is over, and he cannot be the old Jae Hyun again, not just because of public opinion but because the weight of his crimes has hit him hard. With that realization, he commits suicide by shooting himself, and his body falls off the cliff.
Time passes and Tae Ra settles down in Switzerland with her daughter. At the end of “Pandora: Beneath the Paradise,” Kyo Jin comes to meet her in her new home, and it looks like he has had plastic surgery to heal his burn scars. Tae Ra seems happy, but this is clearly a woman whose heart is heavy due to what she has endured. When she checks up on Kyo Jin, to her shock, she finds lightning marks on his back—the same kind that was on Jae Hyun’s. Jae Hyun received those marks when he killed Yoo Ra. The lightning that struck that night had hurt him, and those marks were a result of that. The presence of them on Kyo Jin’s back cannot mean anything good. When Kyo Jin looks back at Tae Ra, she sees the face of Jae Hyun.
What Can We Expect From Season 2?
The reappearance of Jae Hyun could mean a few things. Firstly, I find it impossible to believe that Jae Hyun survived that fall. However, this series is very fond of the trope of extensive plastic surgeries and unexpected and far-fetched plot twists. It wouldn’t be unfair to assume that Kyo Jin and Jae Hyun were connected in some way before the former came out of his coma. He could be one of the puppeteers behind the scenes who will be the villain of “Pandora: Beneath the Paradise” Season 2 if that happens. But something more reasonable would be that Tae Ra has PTSD. Everything that she went through was bound to have an effect on her mind. Maybe she’s just hallucinating. Or maybe, just maybe, someone is running simulations on Tae Ra the way she did on Jae Hyun. This ending is open to plenty of speculation.
As for the other characters, Jang Geun Mo has made repentance the sole purpose of the rest of his life, so we don’t expect much from him. Hae Soo and Do Jin might be struggling to find their footing in the world again, now that they don’t have the benefits of nepotism to hold on to. Then there is Kyo Jin. He might want to get back to his research once he deals with his trauma. If there is a “Pandora: Beneath the Paradise” Season 2, we might see these things happen, or it might be that some other hidden conspiracy has completely overturned all of their lives. This remains to be seen.
