Today, we’ll be discussing Episodes 9 and 10 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, and Lee Joo-bin as Cheon Da-Hye. We are joined by Ernabel Demillo, a frequent guest on K Drama Chat and Department Chair of the Communication and Media Culture Department at Saint Peter's University and host of the Emmy-award winning "Asian American Life" show on CUNY-TV. We discuss:

• The song we feature during the recap: Fallin’ by Isaac Hong.
• Queen of Tears is now the second most popular K Drama of all time on tvN, after Crash Landing on You; both shows are written by Park Ji-eun.
• tvN has announced two extra episodes at the end of Queen of Tears; what will the episodes be about?
• Kim Soo-hyun has been nominated for Best Actor in the Baeksang Awards; we feel that Kim Ji-won, Han So-hee, Park Seo-joon, and Kim Tae-ri were snubbed.
• The Hong family is in a terrible situation. They’ve been locked out of their house, they don’t have cars, their credit cards have been canceled, they’ve lost control of their company, and they’re lost their jobs.
• Both dads are having an identity crisis: they have lost their jobs and purpose.
• Hyun-woo and Hae-in are driving us crazy because they won’t communicate with each other!
• We think their lack of communication stems from the time Hae-in emptied the nursery and Hyun-woo left the marital bedroom. When this happened, they stopped talking to each other and then their pride wouldn’t let them ask the other back into the bedroom.
• Hyun-woo and Hae-in kept missing opportunities to patch up their relationship, including when Hae-in overheard Hyun-woo talking about wanting to be by her side, when Hyun-woo came home all beat up, and when Hae-in realized the pink MP3 player was hers.
• There are many in Korea who think the story of Hae-in and Hyun-woo is based on the true story of the granddaughter of the Samsung chaebol who married an ordinary staffer.

In 1999, Samsung heiress Lee Boo Jin married Lim Woo Jae.

• Hyun-woo does a great job of convincing David Yoon that he doesn’t know where Hae-in is, even though he did pick them up in a van.
• The reference to Prince Sado, who was the father of the prince Yi San in Red Sleeve, and who later became King Jeongjo.
• Instead, Hyun-woo is investigating the land broker, the owner of the data restoration company, the failed investment fund, and the location of the Chairman.
• Hyun-woo convinced the deceived farmers to sue the land broker, which meant the land broker couldn’t leave the country for his honeymoon. Later, the land broker and his thugs try to beat up Hyun-woo, who manages to defend himself ably because he was a champion boxer in his youth.
• Our crazy predictions for this show.
• Moh Sul-hee and David Yoon are now at odds with each other because David Yoon didn’t want the Hong family banished. David Yoon wants to be with Hae-in.
• We speculate about why David Yoon is so obsessed with Hae-in.
• Until the very end, Hyun-woo is in the dark about Hae-in’s feelings towards him. He thinks she hates him because he abandoned and deceived her.
• It looks like Beom-ja will have a romance with the village marriage counselor, who looks like Leslie Cheung. Leslie Cheung is a debonair Hong Kong singer and actor. This prediction came from Laurel, one of our listeners!
• The theme of regret in this show. Hyun-woo, Hae-in and Beom-ja all express regrets over their actions.
• Hae-in is so brave when she reveals during the press conference that David Yoon threatened her. In this instance, Hyun-woo finally learns that Hae-in still cares for him.
• The amazing acting with their eyes by Kim Soo-hyun and Kim Ji-won.
• The K Drama elements we see in this episode, including: all the crying, all the food, all the drinking, the Trip and Catch, the Bulgari Serpenti necklace that Moh Sul-hee wore, and the Subway scene!
• Ernabel’s recent trip to South Korea.

References

• A sneak peak into the life and work of South Korean singer Isaac Hong
• Fallin’ by Isaac Hong on YouTube
• The Uncanny Similarities “Queen Of Tears” Bears With A Real-life Heiress Story
• Podcast episode with Dan Pink on Brene Brown’s show about the Power of Regret
• Leslie Cheung on Wikipedia
• Podcast episode with Brene Brown and Dan Pink on the Power of Regret