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KBS Drama "Seven Day Queen" Yeon Woo Jin & Park Min Young ~The End~


Bella D'Amour

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  • Seven Day Queen: Episode 15sevendayqueen15-00683.jpg

     

 

 

It’s nice to get a short reprieve from all the life-and-death drama in this drama, even if we’re all fully aware that today’s stop in happytown is only a quick layover on the way to tragedyville. But when the happiness is this happy, it makes me think that maybe it’ll be enough to carry these two through this lifetime.

 

 

 

EPISODE 15 RECAP

 

 

 

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After trading his father’s secret will and the throne for freedom with Chae-kyung, Yeok struts out of the palace like a hero, hand-in-hand with Chae-kyung. Yeonsangun looks as though all the wind has been knocked out of his body as he watches them go. They only get down the corridor before Yeok grabs Chae-kyung in a hug of relief, and asks if she’s really okay. He tells her never to be in danger again, and she looks up at him, eyes full of love, and promises not to. Back in the throne room, everyone drops to their knees to bow before Yeonsangun, who just stares soullessly at the will that Yeok casually tossed on the floor on his way out. He walks past it and contains his rage until he’s in the privacy of his own room, where he starts breaking everything in sight.

 

Nok-soo looks alarmed at the outburst, and though Minister Shin lingers outside the door in worry, she turns him away saying that he has no right to be here. Yeok goes to face the music and tells his mother everything, and she pounds his chest in anger, asking if he knows what he’s just done. Yeok says, “Yes, I have given up the throne,†but she counters that he’s given up his life as well. Yeok says that he had become just like his brother, suspecting his family and letting them die just to be king. The queen dowager claims that he wasn’t the one to do those things, but he argues that everyone from his mother to Myung-hye to the Snail Brides—they are all him, and everything they do and even the world that they dream of begins with him.

 

His voice trembles as he says that he was becoming more and more like his brother, adopting the characteristics that he hates most about him. “If I am no different from him, then why must I push him out and become king? I could not find the reason I had to be king, so I will be satisfied in this life with protecting the person I want to protect,†he says. The queen dowager cries, “Did you forget that your life is not just your own?!†Yeok counters, “Just because you gave birth to me, just because you saved my life, don’t think you can control my fate.†He storms out and swallows back his tears before rejoining Chae-kyung, and he asks brightly if she wants to go anywhere. He says he really doesn’t want to return to that house and leads her out.

 

 

 

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As they walk down the street together gazing into each other’s eyes, Chae-kyung narrates that their lives had at last become simple and easy, with no suspicion and no secrets between them. “We only had death to fear,†she says. “…But death comes to everyone,†Yeok adds as he picks up the narration, “until then, we just prayed for happiness together.â€

 

He leads her to the inn where they first reunited as adults and says that since they can’t go back to their youth, they should at least start over in adulthood and clear up all the misunderstandings between them.

 

 

 

sevendayqueen15-00212.jpg sevendayqueen15-00209.jpg

 

 

 

Chae-kyung reminds him that they don’t exactly have great memories at this place, where she had performed memorial rites for him while he was alive and well. Yeok says it wasn’t the memorial that offended him, but the fact that she was with Yeonsangun at the time.

 

She says apologetically that she didn’t know about all the strife between the brothers, and Yeok says gently that he knows. “That’s why I was able to not hate you, and that’s why I was able to love you,†he says, all casual-like. Chae-kyung’s eyes turn to saucers and she tries to get him to say it again, but Yeok pretends not to know what she’s asking for and walks away grinning. Cheeky.

 

 

 

=== << Read full: http://www.dramabeans.com/2017/07/seven-day-queen-episode-15/>> ===

 

 

 

COMMENTS

 

Ohmygod, could we not have let them be happy for one full episode?! Why is it so painful to root for this couple? I don’t even know what else Yeok has up his sleeve when he’s already given up the secret will and the throne once to save her. What can he possibly give up this time? Today’s trap actually felt a little too easy and repetitive compared to the heart-pounding climax of the last episode, so I wished that we hadn’t so quickly returned to Chae-kyung and her family being in danger. I was hoping for a quieter hour for more extended character growth without the mayhem. We did mostly get that, with Yeok and Chae-kyung finally getting to feel secret-free and happy together, and with Yeonsangun growing disturbingly more and more unhinged. I just would’ve liked for more time to have passed before Chae-kyung and her father ended up on death’s door again.

 

The last episode really proved to be a huge turning point for all of our characters, especially for Yeonsangun, who seems to have crossed into a side of himself that’s brutally violent and seemingly bloodthirsty. Though he still has a clear rationale in his own twisted head for everything that he’s doing, I can see how to anyone else, he’s becoming a madman who kills for no reason. The eunuch’s death totally freaked me out, with its horrible sound effects and his incongruous laughter, and I thought how easy a downward spiral it would be for him to drink himself into a stupor every night and kill his father or Yeok or Chae-kyung in his mind while killing innocent servants around him.

 

On the flip side, becoming a little unhinged has made Yeonsangun more emotionally vulnerable and honest with everyone, which is an interesting side effect of no longer caring to keep up appearances. If only he’d been this honest before he lost all of his people. I just can’t believe he’s already at the if-I-can’t-have-you-no-one-can place, and is ready to kill Chae-kyung just to keep her to himself. That officially makes you a psycho in my book.

 

 

 

Despite being sad that Yeok and his friends parted ways (for all of a minute), I was really proud of Seo-no for sticking to his principles and for finding his own purpose outside of Yeok. He seems to have a clearer understanding of what makes Yeonsangun a bad king, and I just love that he insists on fighting for what he believes in even if he knows it won’t change the world. I thought it was important to see the consequences of Yeok’s choice right away—he sacrificed a great deal when he chose Chae-kyung, not just the throne for himself, but the dreams of everyone around him.

 

 

 

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But I’m still glad he did, because it was such a welcome change of pace to have Yeok and Chae-kyung finally on the same page about everything and keeping no secrets from each other. They’ve always been adorable, but before I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop because there were so many secrets they had kept in an effort to protect one another, and I get so nervous about characters finding things out in the most suspicious and inopportune ways (like Myung-hye pretending to a maid when Chae-kyung knew who she was—that stressed me out). But now it’s them against the world, and despite knowing that they’re in for a world of hurt, shifting their dynamic to be a unit makes me think that they can handle just about anything. But… that’s not an open invitation to pelt them with pain, ya hear me?

 

 

 

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  • Seven Day Queen: Episode 167dayqueen16-00481.jpg

 

Wow, what a doozy of an episode. I’m still amazed at how this drama can be so delightful at times and then so effectively sucker-punch me a moment later, and make me like every part of that roller-coaster experience. What this show never lets us forget is that actions have reactions, and consequences are never far around the bend—it’s a sobering truth, but perhaps also one that reminds us to savor the highs when they come, like the characters in the drama.

 

=== << Read full: http://www.dramabeans.com/2017/07/seven-day-queen-episode-16/>> ===

 

COMMENTS

Just when you thought Yeonsangun might be getting predictable in his murderous rampages and jealous fits, he goes and pulls this. I’ve always found him a fascinating character, but I have to say that he’s growing even more riveting as the drama goes on. What’s particularly intriguing about him these days is that his words do make logical sense to me, but because his temperament is growing increasingly unstable, they come off as unhinged rants more than reasonable beliefs. For instance, his insistence on his mother’s status being the cause for his lack of respect does make sense, to an extent, but he’s approaching the matter with this frenzied intensity that makes me think he’s grasping at straws. He’s always been brilliant at deflecting his own responsibility by turning it around on someone else (the classic “You made me hurt you!â€), but now it feels full-on delusional.

It’s also particularly chilling to see him growing positively cavalier about killing people—when he killed the eunuch accidentally, we saw his immediate shock at his actions, but now he’s far past the point of feeling that twinge of guilt. And worse than rage-fueled violence is the blank-faced kind, as though he’s broken with his sense of moral code, which I find infinitely more chilling. It was a particularly nice touch to have him eating dinner while giving orders on how to desecrate dead bodies, like the matter was so trifling that he couldn’t be bothered to tear his eyes away from his beef while issuing it.

There’s something visceral and discomfiting about watching his lusty appetite for food on full display, as though it correlates directly with his bloodlust—early-series Yeonsangun seemed tightly in control and intellectually sharp, but now it’s like he’s letting go of that control and letting his impulses drive his actions. Which is, of course, a heckuva lot more dangerous than the cat that toys with its prey without killing it. Granted, he’s a cat that’s going to kill his dinner ultimately in any case, but at least before it felt… I don’t know, civilized. Not like you could go at any moment, in any number of gruesome ways.

As for Seo-no…. waaaaaaah! *cries a river*

 

I was startled at how much Seo-no’s sacrifice moved me (there was some seriously ugly crying going on)—not because I didn’t like the character or the plot but because I thought it was completely expected and in character. I’ve always thought that it felt fitting for his character to go out with the cause, for so many reasons, but mostly because in my eyes, Seo-no was the cause. That seems strange given that it’s Yeok’s rebellion, but Yeok has always been pulled in multiple directions and fielded layers of conflict, and has at points doubted his reasons behind it. It’s part of why it’s such a compelling central storyline, because every part of Yeok’s life is intertwined in this rebellion and he’s in so deep that there’s no way out of it without messy, painful casualties.

Meanwhile, Seo-no has always felt like something of the pure hero to me: He lives for this one reason, and is able to pour everything into it because he doesn’t have anything else to lose. It’s not that either friend has it easier or tougher than the other, but it makes Seo-no a symbolic type of character—he is the nation’s hopes, and appeals to that side of Yeok’s desires for a better future. He’s not conflicted about the mission the way that Yeok is, which makes him an idealistic voice among them. With his death he now becomes a martyr, and therefore, I suspect, a galvanizing force for Yeok—just when he thought he was out, he’s pulled back in.

 

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