Today, we’ll be discussing Episodes 1 and 2 of Queen of Tears, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Kim Ji-won as Hong Hae-in, Kim Soo-hyun as Baek Hyun-woo, Park Sung-hoon as Yoon Eun-Seong, Kwak Dong-Yeon as Hong Soo-cheol, Lee Joo-bin as Cheon Da-Hye. We discuss:

• The song we featured during the recap, The Reason of my Smiles by BSS.
• We introduce the characters of this show and stumble over their Korean names.
• How there appear to be five main leads, which seems to be common in K Dramas.
• The show is set in the modern day, in Seoul and the village of Yongdu-ri.
• The central premise of the show, which is that Baek Hyun-woo and Hong Hae-in are locked in a loveless marriage. Hyun-woo wants a divorce but nobody is on his side on this matter. Then Hae-in announces that she has a rare brain tumor and she has three months to live. Hyun-woo sees a way out of this marriage and maybe a chance to inherit some wealth, if he can convince his wife of his love.
• Whether the couple was actually in love at the time of their marriage, and their motivations for marrying.
• How Hae-in was initially suspicious of Hyun-woo, but between his actions, his Internet searches and his shooting of the wild boar, she is looking at him differently.
• How cloud cytoma doesn’t appear to be a real disease.
• The origins, structure and power of the chaebol conglomerates in South Korea.
• How this show is a real study on marriage because there are so many different perspectives on marriage, many of them not very positive.
• How village life is so often romanticized in these K Dramas.
• Arranged marriages and whether the practice still exists today.
• How the royal tradition of having sons-in-law prepare the food during jesa appears to be made up by the Hong family in this show.
• Kim Soo-hyun’s amazing acting and comedic timing in this show.
• How these first two elements showcase so many K Drama elements, most notably crying, drinking, food, flowers, protesting someone you love at personal cost to yourself, a funeral, and a confession.
• How Sung Hee had so many favorite lines but Joanna made her pick just two.
• The many questions we are looking forward to exploring, like: What is the chairman’s girlfriend’s real motivations? What happened to Hae-in’s brother? What happened between Hae-in and David Yoon?

We are recapping and analyzing Queen of Tears in real time. Each episode will drop on a Friday and cover the two episodes from the previous weekend, hopefully giving our listeners the insights they need before going into the weekend, when the next two episodes drop.

References

• What to know about the chaebol families that dominate South Korea’s economy
• Can South Korea’s untouchable chaebols change?
• An economy of human sacrifice: the practice of sunjang in the ancient state of Korea
• The Reasons of my Smiles by BSS, with Korean and English lyrics