A lot happens in each episode of Queen of Tears and episode 12 was especially long at 1 hour and 30 minutes. Despite the episodes being long, it seems people are enjoying the show enough for the makers not to trim down the runtime or change up the content. I’m still trying to understand what’s made the show so popular, but one thing is for certain: it’s the actors, beyond just the leads, who really make it feel like a story that’s taking place in your own backyard, so you want to know everything that’s going on without distractions. If episodes 9 through 11 were filler episodes, it’s like everything actually important has finally taken place in episode 12. Keep your tissues ready though, because this episode is surely going to turn on your emotional taps. So, without further ado, let’s jump straight into it.
Spoiler Alert
Why does Hae-In go with Eun-Sung?
In episode 11, Hae-In thought Eun-Sung was Hyun-Woo and went with him, while Hyun-Woo chased after them. Now, when the car stops, Eun-Sung tells Hae-In that he’ll take her to meet her grandfather if she agrees to go along with him. Additionally, Hyun-Woo would feel shattered if he learned that Hae-In couldn’t even recognize him, so she agrees with Eun-Sung’s idea for the time being. Just before leaving, though, Hae-In told Hyun-Woo that the money they were looking for was possibly safely stashed in their house and not in the storage space they just visited. In the meantime, in the US, the person who visits Da-Hye is Geon-U’s biological father. He hurts her physically and even threatens Geon-U and tells Da-Hye that he had set Soo-Cheol up for failure back in Korea before coming to the US. In the middle of the night, when he’s drunk and asleep, Da-Hye escapes with Geon-U and the gold statue that she was meant to sell to scrape together enough money to get by in the US together.
Hyun-Woo wakes up bruised in his own car. It’s the broker who was given the job to kill him; however, Hyun-Woo knows exactly how to solve this matter, too, because he’s a real all-rounder. Though the broker is meant to kill him, Hyun-Woo escapes with his lawyer-y words, and Eun-Sung is left a laughing stock. The broker, listening to Hyun-Woo’s words, informs Eun-Sung that he’s committed the murder and needs the money wired to him immediately. Eun-Sung brushes him off, saying it’ll take some time and he shouldn’t call him at the moment. This is proof that Hyun-Woo was right about Eun-Sung, and the broker was foolish to believe the guy.
In the meantime, like an incel stalker, Eun-Sung forces Hae-In to have a meal with him after she’s changed, and only then will he take her to meet her grandfather. Hae-In has to oblige, but she does not eat, though he’s prepared a spread of her favorite foods and wines, thanks to the housekeepers. Eun-Sung finally tells Hae-In that he saved her life when they were kids and has kept her necklace ever since. He tells her that they knew each other before that, too, and she thinks he was the one who saved her from drowning. However, we learn in the epilogue that it was actually Hyun-Woo who saved her when she was drowning, which means they’ve known each other just as long as Eun-Sung and she have, or technically, a bit longer. Eun-Sung thinks he can convince her to fall in love with him just by saying they are destined (as if this is some K-drama…just a joke).
When Hae-In meets her grandfather, he thinks she’s house help and asks her to give him some food. Hae-In is devastated to see the condition of her grandfather but leaves a pen that he himself gifted her with a recording device inside of it. In the meantime, Seul-Hee realizes Eun-Sung’s brought Hae-In home and yells at him for being foolish. Hae-In gets out of the room before things escalate, and Eun-Sung wants to follow suit, but Seul-Hee stops him, saying Hae-In has been using him all his life.
Hyun-Woo comes to the rescue, and at first, Hae-In is afraid it’s Eun-Sung because she’s already confused them once before. Hyun-Woo convinces her it’s him when he says some things only he would. Eun-Sung watches through security footage to see what’s happened. Hyun-Woo takes Hae-In to his new Seoul home, i.e., the spot he’s been staying at since the divorce. In the meantime, Seul-Hee tells a devastated Eun-Sung that it’s not a coincidence that the people who ill-treated them just passed away under mysterious circumstances. It was all her doing, so she was never a neglectful mother.
Grace shows her true colors yet again, and the sly fox looks for the best way to make money, betraying Hyun-Woo yet again. This time, Seul-Hee finds out about Hyun-Woo sneaking in with Grace’s help. In return for a 7% share, 2% more than Hyun-Woo had offered, Grace tells Seul-Hee that the money is in the house somewhere.
Why Does Hae-In Not Accept The Ring?
Hyun-Woo takes Hae-In to go see a beautiful sunset, which is apparently a place that grants love wishes. By this, I mean anyone who confesses their love there will have it work out for them. After some soft romantic moments, Hyun-Woo gives Hae-In a ring and asks her to withdraw the divorce. She tells him she can’t accept it because of what happened with Eun-Sung earlier. She admits to Hyun-Woo that she hallucinated him in Eun-Sung. At home, the chairman’s not actually been taking the medication he’s meant to, which means he’s back to his old self and might have been faking it all along. In the meanwhile, the family makes plans to storm into the house with the police because Hyun-Woo’s learned that the chairman hasn’t made any new appointments in the hospital. Basically, they can prove Seul-Hee is being neglectful.
To add to the shock, Da-Hye arrives in Yongdu-ri and apologizes to the family for whatever she’s done. Soo-Cheol’s mother, of course, doesn’t approve, but Soo-Cheol defends his family and also protects them. When they’re alone, Da-Hye tries to act like she’s only there to return the money to Soo-Cheol’s family, but they end up crying in each other’s arms because she’s obviously madly in love with him. The next day, Hae-In tries on the ring just for the sake of trying it on, but Hyun-Woo catches her. He tells her he was going to sell it but then changed his mind when he sees that she actually wants to wear it and is making excuses about trying it on. Eun-Sung tries to figure out where the money is in the house because he heard Soo-Cheol and Hae-In talk about a panic room once before. It’s to no avail.
At the end of Queen of Tears episode 12, the chairman is caught by Seul-Hee hiding his medication. She tells him to just give her the location of the money, and she’ll let him be with his family. However, he tells her that she’s basically imprisoned him in his own house. Tired of what’s going on with him and his family and learning that the person who was supposed to love him was actually simply after his money, the chairman decides to give up his life by taking his wheelchair onto some steep stairs in the house. The family arrives the next morning to see an ambulance and learns that Hong Mang-Dae has passed away. There was no need to kill the poor old man!Â
After the grand funeral for a good man, the family brings the chairman’s picture back to the house. According to law, Hong Man-Dae’s assets will now be distributed based on his will. I suppose this was part of his great plan to make sure Seul-Hee doesn’t get a penny. Seul-Hee tells the family to give the old man one final tour of the house. Apparently, she’s still got some more tricks up her sleeve; I mean, there are still four episodes remaining. Anyway, the episode ends with the family going into the elevator, which has a secret backdoor, as Hyun-Woo has figured out. They now know where the money is.
