[Drama 2013] Thorn Flower / Spine Flower 가시꽃

[baduy]

Text preview for ep 118

Hyeok Min offers to give Soo Ji's mother a 15% stake in the Taegang Group if she in return appoints him CEO of Taegang Holdings. Nam Joon says they mustn't allow this, and Soo Ji's mother accepts Nam Joon's wishes.

Seo Won comes to say a last goodbye to Ji Min before leaving for Australia. but Jennifer blocks his way. and when he arrives at the airport he finds that the first page of his passport has gone missing, so he can't leave the country.

Hyeok Min, having lost everything, weeps and begs forgiveness from Jennifer.  This brings tears to her eyes, but in view of the way he threatened Seo Won's ex-assistant, she presses on with her vengeance.

[Triton823]

Im confused by heyok min's behavior...i understand he's acting like this because he thinks she's pregnant, but i get the feeling he actually loves her....even after knowing the truth....can someone please set me straight!?

[kdramafan469]

@Triton823  I think you may be right....HM might actually still love her, just like that IDIOT Soo Ji loves him even knowing what he and his family have done.

[elegance1]

Am I the only one disappointed that nobody has died yet? D: 

[baduy]

Yes indeed, in the second sequence of ep 117, Hyeok Min admits to his mother that he still loves Jennifer, and is hoping that when her baby is born that will reconcile her to him. [infortunately this scene had me laughing so hard during the live stream that I missed a chunk of the following scene.]This contrasts with what he tells Jennifer in the first sequence, where he tells her that the only reason he has brought her back is because of the baby, and she replies that the only reason she has come back is because he hasn't yet suffered anything like enough for what he did to her. That leads him to ask exactly what else she has in store for him, and in particular does she intend to take out her resentment of him on her child when it's born. She seems a bit flummoxed by that question, and he takes advantage of that to say  it would be good if she could find it in her to stop her vengeance for their child's sake. Then he goes off to cry to Mommy, and she realizes that her little boysy-woysy really wants that girlsy-wirlsy after all. She comments that it looks like he's going as crazy as his sister, but she'll let him have his way for a bit longer, hoping he'll see sense. [Fat chance of that happening, deary: that would require the writer to see sense first, and hopes of that happening are fading very fast.]

I'll cover the rest properly once I've had a chance to watch the stream, which has now appeared on showboom.

[Guest kwave06]

@baduy you're alive!  nice to hear from you again. i haven't seen any of your insights in the threads of current dramas.  what have you been watching lately?

[kdramafan469]

Ep118
http://www.maplestage.com/node/85296/%E8%8D%8A%E6%A3%98%E8%8A%B1-%E7%AC%AC118%E9%9B%86-thorn-flower-ep-118/

What did the ex assistant say that got her so mad?

[SULEM8]

of the conversation was handled Yoo je Joon and Jun se mi?
they no longer love?

[baduy]

 
I already covered the first two sequences of yesterday's episode (117) in my previous post today, but before adding any more about what we actually see, I'll just remark that several sequences which we can tell must have been on the original storyboard have obviously been chopped. And I'm not just referring to how Seo Won's ex-assistant, who was his usual chirpy-indignant chubby chipmunk self at the end of ep 116, came to be sprawled unconscious on Seo Won's sofa when we return to that locality in ep 117. Seo Won "explains" that he slipped him a glass of the spiked wine which flows so freely in this drama, but we are left to imagine (or not) how Seo Won induced him to drink it.

But there have been other, much more important cuts. The clue comes when we spot how, immediately Jennifer returned to the mansion, the pink cuddly squirrel also came back, but without either the scissors/rattle or the cushions. In the deleted scenes, the conviction that something more interesting must be happening somewhere led our little platoon of pink questors to decide to try leaving the country. Alas, airport security decided that the item with split personality disorder was most definitely a pair of scissors, not a rattle, and it was confiscated. Then the cushions proved to be too plump to pass the carry-on hand luggage size test, and they had to be loaded into the hold. Cuddly Squirrel, being a typical Kdrama young cutesy female despite her fabric exterior, couldn't imagine sitting on any sort of seat for long without a large cushion in her lap, and so was already starting to think twice about boarding the flight when she spotted a tourist poster featuring the Eiffel Tower. That did it. Fond memories flooded back of her scruffy, lower class but gold-hearted admirer, the teddy bear, and she missed him -- not to mention his Eiffel Tower(s) -- so badly that she decided it was worth putting up with the bunch of nutters she normally had to share a room with so she could go back to snatching trysts with Teddy whenever Jennifer was out vengeance planning, Ji Min was in a drunken stupor, Je Joon was in his office poring over "Good Guy-ness for Dummies" yet again and still not getting the hang of it, and Ye Jin was shut in the closet. It's just as well she did, because when Teddy realized Cuddly Squirrel was gone, he too showed his true Kdrama character by hitting the honey soju and passing out. In the one scene from this sequence that didn't end up on the cutting room floor, we see Jennifer cradling him in her lap and managing to revive him before putting him back on his shelf.
 
However, to get back to the less interesting bits that survived... While the Squirrel is pummeling her outsize nut in silent frustration, hoping for a chance of a reunion with Teddy as soon as the other occupants of the bedroom are safely out of the way, those occupants are fighting furiously. Je Joon bawls at Ji Min for letting her brother use her like that and for volunteering to take more trauma from Seo Won. He says the only solution is for them to take Ye Jin [assuming they can remember which closet they put her in] and move away somewhere else altogether. But she says she knows he doesn't really mean that. He'd never leave this house while Se Mi is still there and she can tell he's hoping that once she, Ji Min, has been driven completely potty and locked away he'll be able to move Eun Seok in there too. She knows that he slips away every night and goes to sleep with Jennifer. And she adds that she suspects that he's the true father of Se Mi's unborn child. Her yelling brings Ye Jin out of the closet, crying because Mommy is being nasty to Ice Cream Daddy again before running off.

Je Joon follows her and explains that Mommy isn't really a scary person, it's just that she's very upset because Daddy has done something really bad that has let Mommy down. If that's so, the prissy little horror replies, then Daddy should say sorry to Mommy right away. Sure, he'll do that, he replies, just as Jennifer steps into eavesdropping position to hear Ye Jin admit she's not been very nice to Mommy either, whereupon the pair of them agree that from now on they're going to be super-duper-nicey to lovely Mommy. For a moment, we think we see the point of that massive fake original Edison phonograph right by where Jennifer is standing, because it would be the ideal object for her to puke into, but no, she starts to tear up instead. She flashes back to Je Joon begging her not to take out her vengeance on Ji Min or her daughter, and asking her to direct whatever retribution she had in mind for his wife on to him alone. At the time, Jennifer claimed she didn't know what he meant, but she now recognizes that his words indicated he was speaking the truth when he told her he'd come to love Ye Jin, and eventually Ji Min as well, and intended to devote himself to them come what may.

Hyeok Min gets a call from Seo Won, and starts by reminding him he'd warned him to stay out of  his way in future. But Seo Won reveals that right there on his sofa he has his unconscious ex-assistant, who came over to bully him into denouncing Hyeok Min to the police. That gets Hyeok Min straight over there.

Mellowed by the touching encounter she's just witnessed, Jennifer is cradling the traumatized Teddy in her lap when she gets a standard issue Nam Joon phone call and gives him the standard issue replies. No need to recap this scene, since it's a rerun of one we've seen about twenty times already. Apart from the Teddy, that is.

No sooner has Jennifer replaced Teddy on his shelf than Evil Mom shows up, insisting on a talk, and demanding to know just what Jennifer's intentions are. Jennifer tells her (and the eavesdropping Seong Min) that she intends to make her suffer everything her own mother was made to suffer, and when Evil Mom, taking up her son's cue, asks how she intends to treat her child after it's born, she admits it may be hard to handle when her child asks her about how and why her paternal grandmother murdered her other grandmother. At that point, Seong Min can't take any more and rushes in, asking his stepmother what's causing his sister-in-law to talk to her like that. He'll have to ask his mother what the truth is face to face, Jennifer says, and gets up to leave, adding she's not interested in hearing what lies Evil Mom may be about to come out with. What she does come out with is a claim that they've been trying to spare Seong Min the horrible truth that Jennifer is out not only to ruin them all, but to get them killed. She's a dangerous madwoman who has gotten a sinister hold over his elder brother and Seong Min must help protect them all. But Seong Min is clearly more inclined to think that his stepmother has joined the ranks of family loonies, and he leaves without making any response.

Time for a beating-up session at Seo Won's apartment, with ex-Detective Seo coming up with yet another specimen from his inexhaustible supply of Vulnerable Female Relative Pix to back up the blows. Jennifer is moving her evidence collection back into her vengeance HQ [obviously neither the production budget nor her personal funds stretched to getting another place, even though everyone who wasn't supposed to know about this place has been there, done that] when she gets the call saying Seo Won's ex-assistant has been found dumped by the roadside. He's too shaken to talk, but she agrees with her other helper that Seo Won must be the culprit. [What, no suspicion that Hyeok Min might have had a hand -- not to mention a bottle or a golf club -- in it? No, because Jennifer is destined by the Law of Approaching Last Episodes to have a Softening of the Heart towards Hyeok Min in the next episode, and she needs the belated "OMG, Well I never!" discovery that the main brute behind this attack was her poor little hubby to adminster the dramatically necessary heart re-hardening treatment in the nick of time. But we'll get to that in the next episode.]

Cuddly Squirrel has been edging her way along the bed-head towards the door when, drat!, Ji Min's phone rings, she wakes up and C. Squirrel has to freeze. Ji Min goes over to the phone on her vanity table and Squirrel edges another few inches further until DOUBLE DRAT, she realizes Ji Min can still see her in the vanity table mirror so she has to freeze again. Poor lonely Teddy. The call, from a complete stranger, reveals that someone is offering choice items from Ji Min's wardrobe for sale. Ji Min goes to confront her mother, who admits it was she who placed the items on sale, and says that she has to sell off her finery since it's about the last thing they have left to dispose of, now that all her mother's jewels have gone and the proceeds been spent. "Don't worry," she consoles her daughter, "you won't exactly be reduced to going around in a mompe," (mompe being what are fondly known to viewers of the kind of dramas where those items of clothing figure prominently as Country Ajumma Pants, the baggy items with the outrageous flowery prints). But Min Ji is outraged. Her wardrobe collection is her last hope of at least some modeling work now that she's finished as a actress. She protests that she means nothing at all to her mother, whom she accuses of planning to grab the cash then decamp with her beloved son and leave her totally in the lurch. Of course not, her mother retorts, they'll take her with her when they decamp, thus betraying that she's thinking very much along the lines her daughter suspects. Je Min is distraught. Though she's come to mistrust everyone else, especially her husband, she always thought she could trust Hyeok Min and her mother. But now she sees she's wrong, and nobody loves her, not even her own child. For some reason she doesn't add that even her Cuddly Squirrel is cheating on her right that minute under the Eiffel Towers: maybe to acknowledge that horrible truth would have got her reaching for the suicide pills even before the next... [OOPS!!. that's for tommorow's recap, too]

We know Je Mi has her suspicions about Cuddly Squirrel, though, because half way back up to her room she has a sudden thought, does an abrupt about turn and barges without knocking into Jennifer's room. But squirrels, even stuffed pink ones, are very fast movers, and by the time Ji Min gets past the door, Squirrel has dived into the drawer under Teddy's shelf. So Ji Min has to pretend that her real reason for the unannounced and unwelcome visit is to plead with Se Mi to finally give her and the whole family a break and leave the house. Surely she's inflicted enough punishment on them all by now, ruining all their lives? Ah, but that's not what matters to her, Jennifer responds. She wants something more important than that before she'll go. Without asking what that something is, Ji Min repeats her frantic pleas for Se Mi to clear out of the house and their lives then runs out again. Only as far as the dining room though, meaning Cuddly Squirrel's absence from her room goes unnoticed.


One strange feature of contemporary Korean culture is that vast sections of the population spend long summer hours in cinemas watching the crop of "new" (= new productions, creakily old ideas) horror movies that spring up every July and August to top the box office charts. Out of the kindness of their hearts, the TF production team decided to give us a typical seasonal sample of a Korean horrible horror movie sequence without needing to leave our homes. Lights flicker and die, spooky music plays, and a menacing figure emerges from the shadows, none other than the old "innocent" Se Mi, who advances menacingly towards the cringing Ji Min, fingering the diamond necklace she allegedly stole.  Ji Min shrinks back, begging Se Mi not to come any closer and stuttering out an acknowledgment that she's done her wrong and deserves to be punished. Because that's the specific sense of the words 잘못했어 that Ji Min says over and over. That phrase generally gets fan-subbed as "I'm sorry", regardless of context, but the various ways of saying "sorry" in Korean all have quite distinct specific connotations, and the differences often matter a great deal in dramas. Although by no means only used by children, 잘못했어 is an expression rooted in distinctive Korean patterns of child-raising. It's what people first learned to say as children when they were owning up to doing something really bad, and admitting that they deserved and expected to be punished ( = in Korea, hit more or less ferociously) while at the same time nurturing a hope that by admitting the wrongdoing, they might either escape the beating altogether or at least get off with less painful injuries. There's a very good example of how insensitive fansubbing can damage a scene in the first episode of I Miss You. The criminal drunken father lies in wait for his daughter, wanting to force her to reveal his wife's whereabouts. He throws a blanket over her (that's supposed to signal to us that deep-down he's not all bad, since full-on brutes beat their womanfolk without benefit of a blanket) then kicks and punches her ferociously, while she whimpers 잘못했어요!  Now subbing that as "I'm sorry" makes the poor girl sound like a self-abasing doormat or punchbag. What's actually behind her words is an urge to make the beating stop, and what an English-speaking victim would be much more likely to say in such a situation to try to achieve that is "Don't hit me!" Anyway, the key thing here is that Ji Min is admitting wrongdoing in a way that implies both acceptance of deserved punishment to come, and an accompanying hope that be accepting that punishment, the person she's offended against will treat her more mildly.

But then, of course, it's all a dream. Ji Min isn't in the dining room, she's gone back to her bedroom and fallen asleep, much to the relief of Cuddly Squirrel who's made it back safely. However, she's awakened by Jennifer coming to pay a follow-up visit. Ji Min, who had called Jennifer "Se Mi" in her dream, greets her visitor with the correct "Seo Hyeon Eonni", but Jennifer responds, not with the correspondigly appropriate "Agasshi", the correct address from a brother's wife to a younger sister-in-law, but with the intimate vocative familiar "Ji Min -ah" of their childhood, and saying there's something she's come to talk to her about. She sits down on her bed and speaks calmly and gently "Things started to go wrong between us the night of that audition. And if the following night there hadn't been that party at the villa, none of all this would have happened." In particular, she goes on, Ji Min wouldn't have told those lies to the police about catching Se Mi stealing the necklace. Ji Min weeps as she says she had to do that for Hyeok Min's sake, but she now bitterly regrets it and she begs Se Mi's forgiveness, saying she deserves to die and Se Mi ought to kill her. "Kill you?" Se Mi replies. "Why would I kill you? No. I'm going to forgive you." That's another phrase that needs extremely careful translation. "I'm going to..." is a close as we can get in English to the precise implications of the tense Se Mi uses here. [Future tenses are a sensitive area in Korean, a bit like the various words for "you" and for ultimately similar reasons. Middle Korean had a true future tense, sometimes resurrected in saeguk-speak, but it fell into disuse because it's hard to employ a straightforward future tense without implying that  you know what's going to happen. If you're a junior sort of person, that's tantamount to arrogance, and your elders will take offense. If you're a senior person, it amounts to claiming a knowledge that only divine beings can have, and you're liable to be punished for your hubris by a thunderbolt or an urgent need for a kidney transplant. Hence it's best to beat around the bush with expressions like "it could be that", or "maybe it will turn out that" or suchlike and forget about risky plain future tenses altogether.] In this case, the form of future-substitute Se Mi employs indicates that she's minded to forive her, other things being equal. But there's a condition. She has to help make the wrong done to Se Mi known to the world. What that entails becomes immediately plain.

We cut to Jennifer arriving at Seo Won's apartment. She produces CCTV footage of him overpowering her in her vengeance HQ and says that now his time has run out. All the evidence she's accumulated against him will be turned over to the police, and if he thinks attacking her again will stop that, he's mistaken, because all the information is in the possession of other people who will make it known if anything happens to her. But she makes him an offer that takes him by surprise. If he does as she tells him, she will hand Ji Min over to him and let him escape with her. She places a video call to her helper, who is in one of those Kang River Life-Changing Conversation parking spots with Ji Min in the car. Jennifer hands the phone to Seo Won, so Ji Min can ask him face-to-face to run away with her, swearing that this time she really means it. She can't stand life here anymore and she's desperate to get away with him. He swallows the bait at once and demands to know where she is right now, but Jennifer snatches the phone back from him and tells him what he has to do to get that information, which is nothing less than record a full video confession of what happened at the vacation villa that night. As Je Joon, failing to get an answer on Ji Min's cellphone, leaves his office to find out where she is, Seo Won begins recording his confession.

Ep 118 to follow, but maybe not today...

[baduy]

Well guys, the jtbc schedules for next week just went up, and on Monday it's -- guess what -- SOCCER (S. Korea vs Japan). Then, say the schedules, on Tuesday, we get ep 118. BUT WAIT! Episode 118? We had that today!!  But then it goes episode 119 on Wednesday, then ep 120 on Thursday (so there IS an ep 120 after all) and that's it.

But do they really intend to repeat what we just saw today as ep 118 in Tuesday's slot as well, or did somebody goof? At any rate, they keep us guessing right till the end, at least about that.

You want to be even more confused? jtbc are always ready to oblige. They just put up the ep 119 preview, which is listed as due to air in the usual slot on MONDAY. That seems pretty unlikely, since the soccer final is definitely on. But will they really repeat 118 on Tuesday and make us wait till Wednesday for 119, which is what their schedule currently claims?
 
Hyeok Min's mother, hearing from Ji Soo's mother that Jennifer has gone to lay charges
against Hyeok Min, says she has to be stopped at once. Realizing that Eun Seok is Jennifer's child, Hyeok Min goes to the bakery house to find Jennifer.

Jennifer, after laying charges at the police station against Seo Won and Hyeok Min, goes back home and announces what she's done to Hyeok Min's mother and says she hopes she will relish the pain of witnessing his trial.

Hyeok Min persists in hoping he and Jennifer can have a happy ending, but Jennifer, packing her bags to leave, says she never was pregnant with his child, and he flies into a rage.

[SULEM8]

I'll be waiting for the 118 Baduy thank you very much for your resumunes, I really want to know what treatment is dialogue between Yoo je Joon and Jun se mi ~X(

[baduy]

kwave06 said: @baduy you're alive!  nice to hear from you again. i haven't seen any of your insights in the threads of current dramas.  what have you been watching lately?

[baduy]

Episode 118 starts as Seo Won is completing his filmed confession of what happened at the vacation villa, but it's a very partial account which places all the initiative and all the blame on Hyeok Min, and in particular speaks only of helping Hyeok Min to get Se Mi and her father into the car, plant the necklace on Se Mi and push the car over the cliff, without admitting either Seo Won's assistance with the attempted rape or his pushing Se Mi's father downstairs. So it's initially puzzling that Jennifer makes no comment and asks no questions, but simply stops the camera and tells Seo Won where to go find Ji Min. But after he's dashed off, she reflects on his endless arrogance and egotism and his determination to conceal his own real guilt and swears he won't escape retribution for her father's death. So we realize that she has made this video as just one piece in the collection of evidence she's assembled. It will be enough to take away any chance of Seo Won claiming no involvement at all in the events, and that's all she wanted from him at this stage. After admitting this degree of participation, he won't be able to deny the evidence from other sources of his full guilt.
 
We already guessed that the business of letting Seo Won escape with Ji Min was a trap, not a genuine deal, as Seo Won soon finds out for himself when he gets to the meeting place by the river. Je Joon has now arrived home, having left his office to come find out what's wrong with Ji Min. Jennifer calls him and directs him to the same spot she just sent Seo Won so he can go rescue his wife. Seo Won arrives breathless and thanks Ji Min for waiting for him, but she coldly sets him to rights. She wasn't waiting for him. She's just here to keep an agreement she made with Se Mi to atone for the wrongs she did her. Seo Won is taken aback, not only by the reply itself, but by Ji Min's open reference to Se Mi. What else Ji Min has to say we shall probably never know, because the sound engineer dozed off with his hand on the sliders and the next few seconds of sound track are 90% riverside ambience noises, with Ji Min's subdued words completely submerged. But Seo Won gets the message in no uncertain terms when Je Joon shows up, floors him with a couple of mighty punches, then leads his wife away.
 
Back at the mansion, Jennifer is reviewing her video of Seo Won when Je Joon comes to ask her what all that was about. Is he right in thinking that Ji Min was there as bait to entrap Seo Won? She admits that's true and apologizes: she'd no other way of getting from Seo Won the evidence she needed. "So you used Ji Min?" he asks reproachfully, but she explains that Ji Min freely agreed to help he in return for Se Mi's forgiveness. "Forgiveness?" Je Joon asks. "So you're saying that, as far as Ji Min is concerned, your vengeance is over?" Jennifer confirms that's correct. "And is that because of my request [=to stop pursuing Ji Min and take her vengeance out on him alone, as he begged her to do the previous day]?" he inquires. "Not just because of that," she replies. "So why else then?" he asks, and when she makes no reply he continues that he doesn't really need to know her reasons for forgiving Ji Min, but adds that he expects that Se Mi will never be able to forgive him. The way he says that last part uses one of the large repertoire of semi-rhetorical question forms which abound in Korean, one that is used when the speaker implies that the view the speaker is expressing is almost certainly the one the person he or she is speaking to also holds. Almost certainly, but not 100%. He's holding out a tiny hope for himself by putting his remark in that form, and Jennifer, acknowledging that cautious feeler, responds to it. She asks just what is it that he did that he regards as unforgiveable, and gets a very different kind of answer to the evasive half truths she's just been listening to from Seo Won. He admits that the woman he loved was in a helpless state in a hosptal with no family or friends to protect her, yet he ran away and abandoned her. "And did you have no regrets about doing that?" Jennifer prompts him. How could he not have regrets, he replies, and Jennifer flashes back to how, though paralyzed and unable to show any response, she heard his admission that he was going to marry Ji Min because he felt obliged to and also heard his anguished wails of guilt and despair when he collapsed outside her hospital room. She tells him that when she first came round, she was filled with anger and hatred towards him, and tormented by painful imaginings of the kind of life they could have been leading together had he decided differently, but that those feelings gradually faded after she returned as Jennifer and saw how he'd bravely made the best of the decision he took seven years ago and had determinedly stuck by the commitment he made back then to Ji Min, despite all the misery and humiliation Ji Min and her family had inficted on him. No, she says, she bears him no more resentment. He should now devote himself fully to caring for the wife and child he has chosen, with no fear of further intervention by her.
 
Seo Won needs to get out of the country fast. The Philippines isn't quite his style, so he has to head for the other place the writer clearly has some kind of grudge against, namely Australia. Come to think of it, though he started off looking like a weasel, he's been getting to look more and more like a kangeroo, so maybe that's the right choice for him. As he frantically chucks things in the general direction of his suitcase, he comes across a photo of Ji Min and lingers over it, maybe reflecting that she looks a bit like a kangeroo in that shot too, so they might have blended in really well...
 
Meanwhile, the real Ji Min has taken to her bed of despondency again, where she has a companion in gloom. We notice to our initial relief that the rattle/scissors have finally been released from detention by airport police, and Cuddly Squirrel now has that ambiguous item clutched tightly to her chest so as not to be parted again. However, she has her face turned to the wall and hasn't taken the latest opportunity to meet up with Teddy, because she's mourning the sad fate of the cushions. Like all hold baggage items whose owner fails to board a flight, they had been unloaded on to the runway before takeoff, and, being unclaimed, had been destroyed in a controlled explosion by airport security. However, this sequence, too, was deleted, being judged too harrowing for general viewing in view of the extreme affection young Korean female viewers have for cushions. Soo Ji now arrives, explaining that Ji Min's mother asked her to come over because she was so worried about her daughter's state. Ji Min scornfully asks what makes her think her mother has the slightest concern about her, and when Soo Ji ignores that question and remarks on how ill Ji Min looks, she replies that that's because she's lost all hope. Maybe if she had gone off with Seo Won things might have been better: after all that guy was crazily in love with her. But Soo Ji protests that Seo Won never was right for her, whereas Je Joon really and truly loves her. Ji Min replies that she's always known from the start that Je Joon was a really good man, better than she deserved, and for that reason she always thought he would be open with her. But he's known all along who Jennifer really was and he kept that secret from her all this time while Se Mi was making her life a misery. How can she possibly trust someone who did that? Soo Ji says nothing to that, but gives her a quizzical look which seems to suggest that if she, Soo Ji, could remain so attached to Hyeok Min after all he did to her and to others, it shouldn't be too hard for Je Min to accept her husband's sincerity.
 
Seo Won has arrived at the airport and looks at his passport before joining the check-in line. But he finds that what the jtbc preview writer called the "first page" of his passport, but which is actually the last page, the bit they stick into the electronic scanner, has been cut diagonally across, removing the whole of the machine-readable codes at the foot of the page which are all that count in a modern passport. There's a cheeky little post-it note from his ex-assistant admitting that he did the chopping job.

Seo Won calls Jennifer, who cheerfully asks is he already on his way to Australia, but he knows that she knows he can't be, and he accuses her of being behind the defacement of his passport. She admits it, and asks did he really think she'd let him run away without fully facing up to his crimes. All she promised was to give him a short breathing space before she turned her dossier on him over to the police. That time is now up and events will run their course.
 
At Taekang, Hyeok Min visits Soo Ji's mother and Nam Joon to make them an offer. He still has a personal holding of 15% of Taekang stocks, which he says he will transfer to Soo Ji's mother if, in return, she agrees to make him CEO of Taekang Holdings. But Nam Joon knows what's behind this offer, because Taekang Holdings, though ostensibly a financial management company, was actually set up by President Kang as the slush fund and general bribery division of the Group. Nam Joon's father was its first CEO, having taken the job in good faith until he discovered the true nature of its activities, whereupon he was murdered and his death covered up as suicide. He knows full well that Hyeok Min's idea is that if he's given the key to the inner finances of the Group, he will be able to plot to regain control of it, so he advises Soo Ji's mother to decline the offer, and she follows his advice. With this scheme nipped in the bud, Hyeok Min has run out of ideas and hopes. Alone by the river, he addresses his father and admits he has failed to live up to his responsibilities and has lost everything his father spent his life building up.
 
Hyeok Min returns home and admits the same thing to his mother, overheard by both Jennifer and by Ji Min, who is pouring herself the biggest overdose of whisky yet seen in a Kdrama, which is saying quite something. Ji Min's reaction after she goes back to her room to think is not unexpected. Her brother and her mother are admitting they're completely done for. Her father is facing a long jail term, thanks to Se Mi. And she simply can't bring herself to trust her husband. Her life has become utterably unbearable.
 
But now for Jennifer's reaction to what she just witnessed. Here, we viewers are limited to one of two choices, neither of them ideal. We can skip the next four minutes of footage altogether. And I do mean skip. Don't just fast forward, or the images you glimpse as they hasten by will give you an ample clue of what your're trying to miss, and the damage will be done, making you feel like abandoning the drama right here, and liberating the gigabytes it may be occupying on your disk drive. Or we can equip ourselves with one of those plastic inflatable hammers that they use to penalize the givers of wrong answers in Korean TV shows and watch the scene in its full horror while bashing away at the screen with that frustration-relieving implement. Whichever way you choose, suffice it to say (with the vowels elided to mitigate the outrageous revelations) that Jennifer finds herself f**l*ng s*rry f*r Hyeok Min and even r**ch*s out a h*and to c*mf*rt him, though she thinks better of that and settles for letting him sob away with his hand on her lower thigh as night falls over the grief-stricken mansion.
 
Next morning, Je Joon is heading out for work, taking Ye Jin to the self-storage depot kindergarten on the way and they come to say goodbye to Ji Min, but both she and Cuddly Squirrel are still trapped in silent and unresponsive misery.

Hyeok Min is asleep on Jennifer's bed, but she's spent the night sitting in the chair, and is obviously still wondering whether she's GONE TOO FAR in the vengeance department when she gets a phone call from Seo Won's ex-assistant in his hospital bed, revealing that although it was Seo Won who trapped him in his apartment, the vicious beating he got and the threats to his sister came directly from Hyeok Min. This comes as a huge surprise to the brainless idiot body-double who we now realize was silently swapped for the original Se Mi / Jennifer some time the previous day, and who had never dreamed that pitiable, sorrowfully repentant Hyeok Min could ever do anything so naughty as beat up her chirpy little helper and dump him by the highway. So he's a bad buy after all, she concludes, and plan A vengeance is on again.
 
She changes into a black and white outfit, maybe to signify that she's overcome her temporary inability to tell one from the other, and bursts in on Evil Mom without knocking, further alarming her by no longer addressing her as "Mother in Law", or as the President's wife, but by her unadorned personal name. She asks Evil Mom does she know why she came to this house in the first place, and when Evil Mom scoffs that the answer's obvious, she came to avenge Se Mi of course, she asks her isn't she curious to know what her next move is going to be. Evil Mom gets to her feet in indignation, lists all that's happened to the family already and asks what more can Jennifer possibly do. But Jennifer smiles grimly and warns her that all that was merely the start, then goes on to asking her doesn't she herself have any lives on her conscience. Evil Mom denies it, and when Jennifer asks what about Se Mi's father, she blusters that that was all down to Kim Baek Choon. But Jennifer replays her part of Seo Won's confession confirming that Kim Baek Choon always acted on orders from the family. Realizing the game is up, Evil Mom tries to play the pregnancy card, asking Jennifer does she really want her baby to grow up with its father and grandmother in jail, but now Jennifer drops her final bombshell "I never conceived a child by Hyeok Min". Evil Mom doesn't know quite what to make of that, and it's clear she can't quite bring herself to believe it. But Jennifer throws her down on to the bed and says she's about to go to the police with her evidence and lay charges. Evil Mom gets to her feet and follows her out, finally going down on her knees to beg her to be content with all she's inflicted on the family so far and to spare her son and herself from jail. But Jennifer shows no sign of softening this time and says Evil Mom's pleas show she hasn't changed one bit. All she shows any concern about is her precious son's fate, and even now she hasn't expressed the slightest sign of repentance or regret over what was done to Se Mi and her family.
 
Up in her room, Ji Min, apparently asleep, doesn't hear her phone ringing or Je Min leaving a voicemail to ask is she alright since she seemed so odd earlier that morning, and proposing they go for a trip with Ye Ji at the coming weekend. The camera pans to reveal the open pill bottle on the bed by her lifeless hand.
 
Jennifer, en route to the police, has passed through the outer gate of the mansion. Before getting into the car, she turns back to give the place a long hate-filled look.
 

[Guest d0137]

@Kdramafan469Although i lost faith on the revenge drama ending ...after all the tears Kang members show to her, Jennifer wavered as many of us would not want but MUST HAVE EXPECTED (remember? this is a female revenge drama they always do this, waver and forgive)... luckily she didn't hug H Min when he was in his knees crying...She got mad and changed again when ex Seo Won assistant told her that the person responsable for his current condition was H Min not Seo Won...
@Sulem81- Sorry to disappoint but if you have been following this thread it was obvious most of us were all along disappointed at this character behaviour and i might have just been right when i said perhaps he never really loved Se Mi that much or he wouldn't have just completely abandoned her without a single visit after that, so i do not think their conversation was a lets make up or such... 2- Also with his frozen face being in constant dead man mode we can never tell what he is really feeling, only sometimes they make his eyes semi red to imply something but still can't tell...)To be honest i never saw a character like his in any drama (taken he was a supposedly a nice person that could smile and speak freely and had dreams anyone else in the beginning and then his total change to the USELESS AND IDIOT SELF which happened for no apparent good reason to support it apart from being mistreated, cheated, lied to and for discovering this same family wrong doings to his ex and family (even with this he still ask Jennifer to spare Ji Mi and didn't change his DEAD MAN WALKING MODE) ...I think he might have had a secret  kind of "fetish"  for the kind of things they had done to him, whilst they manage to keep him loyal lol
Saying this i think his character might have just become like this as a self punishment, could be his way of just live with it for the rest of his life (him being aware of what he did whilst knowing he does not deserve his son recognition since he abandoned his mother to start with).I really have not seen a HAPPY FACE ON HIM EVER SINCE he left Se Mi in the Hospital bed, only sometimes with his fake daughter (all other times he HAS HIS USUAL DEAD MAN FACE ALMOST AS IF NO FEELINGS INSIDE, like when teaser shows him talking to Jennifer/SeMi he shows no emotion...
REQUEST/PETITION TO WRITER:Writer why don't get the kid real dad to come and collect the last KANG root and really make Ji Mi dead after the pill overdose so that he ends up alone same way he left Se Mi ???(this would be like a Karma for him.  =))  no intervention from Se Mi.
I JUST HATE the site of him!
Not wanting to spoil but Ji Min taking the pills just shows he might declare his love for her or something and Se Mi might go visit her for the usual i forgave you already be happy TO ATTEMPT GIVING US THE USUAL FINAL EMOTIONAL SCENES that will not work as many of us will be more disappointed than touched or tearful  
@BaduyAs always love your recaps and the funny comments >-
@gene71632Nice to see you here, i have read some of your great recaps one of which the disappointing Glass mask which i stopped at episode 90 something when i could already tell where the end was going ... later on i found  i was not wrong after all it was a rather usual silly ending for a Female revenge drama... FORGIVE AND FORGET NO PUNISHMENT!

Thorn Flower had potential prove being we were all kept hooked and waiting and expecting and wondering and cursing ...but then as we approach the end  they start spoiling it with all Evil people begging to attempt sympathy from viewers and with what it seams Jennifer forgiving or feeling burdened at the pleas, i think if they at least put them in prison it would be a little more satisfactory for a revenge drama that is...
EVIL MUM - Watching his son going to jail is no close to a good punishment for her Ex detective Seo what about him??? more than time for him to go down...
Can't tell whom but someone will definitely die but whomever is a fan of Ji Mi, if there is any fan to her spoiled and annoying character and if they have mastered Female revenge K Drama rest assured she will not die for sure, reason being just what i wrote before.... i will surrender if i am wrong on this one because i wish i am and she really dies along with Soo Ji (another waist of space hopeless character) > BUT NAHHH can't see it happening now...

"Guys", you must have realised by now that we are actually following not a DAILY REVENGE drama but a Sunday AFTERNOON FAMILY MELODRAMA, they deceived us, we should take revenge lol! :-O 

[Auntie Mame]

Well, at least we know that the replacement drama is starting Aug. 5th because they just showed the preview.

Frankly, I still think Jennifer will die, with HM killing her.  At least, that's the finale in her original plan because there is no concrete proof that HM attempted to rape her.  Even Seo Woo's testimony is insufficient because the defensive can easily put holes in his testimony by alleging that he's doing it as a grudge for Ji Min's rejection of him.  So, Jennifer will stage everything to push HM's hand into killing her.  And, this time, he wouldn't be able to cover it up because he has neither wealth nor influence to do so. 

In the investigation of him killing her, all the secrets, i.e. her parent's death and the attempted rape, will be reviewed.  This is the only way that she can tell the world because there's also no concrete proof that her parents were killed by the Kangs, either.

If I'm correct, then, it was a very ambitious revenge plan because the enormous wealth had to be slowly siphoned away, while the political influence had to be nullified in one swipe.  I know that we wanted to see blood.  But, in Jennifer's eyes, there may be worse things than blood.  She's going to make them live with facing their horrible selves, i.e. a living hell.  :-w

[Guest d0137]

@Autie MameOh dear if she dies i wish she didn't forgive any of them so they could feel worse about it all...i don't think the ones she has forgiven could care less, they still dare to judge her actions wonder how it would be if their parents were the ones murdered (Soo Ji, Ji Mi, Je Joo)...
...Evil Mum might come forward to confess her crimes in order to take some of the guilt off his son...Seo Won and H Min with both their once upon of time powerful daddy's locked up i can only think of Soo Ji begging her mother to help H Min, unfortunately she has not realised she also needs to get some help together with Ji Mi..they should check themselves in into the ASYLUM lol! 
I guess you might be right since she was willing to die if it came to it she might still do and they will all suffer, including H Min if he doesn't die also because now he loves her ... the others well, ... i think the drama was about selfishness of everyone around her because no one stopped to think of what they did before or truly apologised to her, they only judged her and only apologised out of despair ... so perhaps her death would bring them to planet earth and remember ...

What will be the replacement drama? so many new ones coming up so i wonder...hopefully not a Female revenge drama, might skip this drama genre when the story says: parents or relative died, husband mistreated her or cheated on her, they took everything her family had, she suffered and decided to take revenge...i will see the 'red' light and move on for a comedy drama

[Auntie Mame]

Based on the preview at the end of ep 118, this seems like the replacement drama:

http://www.koreandrama.org/?p=28557

"Can’t Take it Anymore"

Synopsis

A drama based on the things that happen to a family through an elderly divorce.

[baduy]

Well, jtbc have now removed the soccer match from the slot normally occupied by this drama in today's schedules, but replaced it by a repeat of their weekly variety news show.

But on the pages for the drama itself, they're still listing ep 119 as airing today at the normal time.

That's not the end of the odd things, though. Still in  today's schedule are the routine repeats of the previous two episodes in a (very) early morning slot, Korean time. EXCEPT that the episodes they aired this morning weren't the correct ones. Since the next episode in sequence is indeed 119, they should have repeated 117 and 118 this morning. But they didn't. They repeated 116 and 117.  Which fits in with the schedule for tomorrow, which says that they will be showing 118 (even though that already aired last Friday.)

It looks like the jtbc schedulers have become seriously confused about where they're up to in this drama. It looks like we won't get anything today, and if they carry on with their existing schedule, we won't get anything new tomorrow, either.

[Guest d0137]

@Auntie Mame New drama topic sounds interesting but ...we will see there is quite few new promising dramas (not revenge- more mystery, action and thriller) will dive better into those..
@BaduyThank you!Hummm Writer and producer might be having board meetings to decide on what final for this drama:typical, the other typical or lets just surprise them with something original and unexpected ...
I guess they will still conclude with one of the typical endings even after all that brainstorming or perhaps with a long weekend to think about it they might just surprise us ....:-w 

[Triton823]

I"m waiting for the secret brother/sister who needs kidney thing!...oh god if they pull that no more daily dramas for me!