Episodes 15-16 (Final) » Dramabeans MGG

King the Land: Episodes 15-16 (Final)

by Dramaddictally

Our feel-good fairytale comes to an end in much the same way it started: with a parade of suits and smiles geared to melt us into mush. With a change of scenery and more than one change of heart, we tie up every remaining thread so our happy couple can live out their dreams — both individually and in tandem.

 
EPISODES 15-16

The only real surprise in these episodes is that never — not once — did Won and Sa-rang meet as children in the King Hotel. Other than that we get everything we might expect from this crowd pleaser that’s worked hard to give us happy tropes without all that crazy conflict we’re used to from other dramas. In that sense, it proved that good times and fluffy feelings are enough to keep us coming back — well, at least as long as the leads are this stunningly pretty.

That being said, the winning formula is exactly why I didn’t like the audience fake-out this week that felt just as cheap and unnecessary as it did last week. From the beginning, I was tuning in for the cutes and cuddles, and no manufactured tension was required to keep me hooked.

Let’s dig in where we left off because the opening scenes with Won’s mom are really one of the highlights this week. We spend a good fifteen minutes focused on seated conversations, which might sound boring but there’s a nail-biting tension that had me holding my breath. Won’s parents sit down together at King the Land and we learn why Mom disappeared all those years ago. She uses the word “banished” and says Chairman Gu chose the company over her and their joint dream of improving conditions at the hotel (apparently Mom is a rabblerouser who started a union and Dad says he “had no choice”).

Mom has clearly been keeping tabs on things even in her absence because she knows all about Sa-rang being banished just like she was. She warns Chairman Gu to leave Won alone and let him live for himself or she won’t sit back and watch anymore. He responds that he’ll lead Won in the right direction but ultimately let him decide. With that, she leaves — and that’s when she stumbles onto Won in the hall.

In a heartbreaking introduction, she says, “I’m your mom. Do you remember me?” and it has them (and me) close to tears. They move to another room where Mom apologizes, saying King Group was too powerful to fight against back then, but now she realizes it was a mistake to leave. She did it to protect him, but in the end he grew up with no protection anyway because she wasn’t there. Still, he turned out wonderfully (yes, well, no one could argue with that).

Won accepts everything she says, offering, “I know how it feels to want to protect something precious to you” (aww). He tells Mom to live for herself now and then leaves, only to crumple to the floor in tears outside the door. Finally, he goes back inside and they hug, where Mom gets to break down in tears this time. Their entire sequence is heart crumbling and the emotional weight is impressive for a thread that was way in the background of this story, only loosely keeping it connected.

After these long, lingering moments, it’s time to get back to the main story. Sa-rang is still at the King Tourist Hotel and Won arrives with the air of a prince going to rescue a princess from her captive tower. She’s standing in front of the building when he gets there and the first thing he says is, “I’m here to pick you up.” Truly, there are no words for how this made me feel. Swoon to the max.

But Sa-rang is the same hardworking heroine we’ve come to know and love. She can’t just take off when she’s got responsibilities, it wouldn’t be fair to her co-workers. So, instead, she invites Won in to help and puts him to work setting up the tablecloths. In a re-creation of an earlier scene at the King Hotel, they lay the cloths together in the manner she taught him and it’s just feels, feels, oh so many feels.

Over the next few days, Sa-rang shows Won around the town and tells him how much she actually likes it out there in the countryside. She’s close to nature and can see the stars in the nighttime sky. Unfortunately, the hotel is about to go out of business and all her co-workers will be out of a job. So, Won buys the hotel and vows to turn it into an elite retreat for city dwellers wanting to escape. And if you think – like I did – that this happens so that these two rebellious kids can run a cute countryside inn together, you’d be wrong. They’re going to buy a different hotel for that (wth).

But before we get there, the next thing Won buys is a ring (with PPL that lasts so long I went to the kitchen for snacks — because that’s what one does during commercial breaks). He plans a big proposal event, replete with a hot pink shirt and drones that light up the sky with a pink-and-purple heart. Then he takes Sa-rang to the restaurant where they had their first meal. Everything is in place and he’s ready to pop the big question when she breaks some news: “I want to call it quits.” She continues, “I feel out of place. I’m done. I want to leave.” And Won’s face is just one big broken heart holding back the sniffles.

But, of course, this is another fake-out. Sa-rang is talking about the King Hotel. She’s gone back to King the Land after her stint at the budget hotel and she’s realized that she’s not living her dream. She wanted to work at the hotel to make people happy and that’s not what she’s doing. She’d rather have her own hotel, no matter how small. And we see a flashback of her talking to Halmeoni, who tells Sa-rang to do what she really wants. You only live once. You deserve it.

Won recovers quickly and supports Sa-rang’s decision, but he decides to postpone the proposal. This is the beginning of Episode 16 and the rest of the episode is really just a waiting game to see when he’ll finally ask. In the interim, Sa-rang meets with Chairman Gu and quits the King Hotel. It’s another easy resolution with the two getting along just peachy by the time she leaves.

Then she buys a little place in the countryside and sets up her own (single suite) hotel, which she’s self-financed, and calls it “Hotel Amor.” (Uh, I know she means this in a romantic way and it’s a reference to her name, but you really don’t want to call your accommodation “love hotel.” That’s a vibe, for sure, but not the right one.)

Won surprises her on the first night her hotel is open and, since no one is there, they become the hotel’s first guests. With some unseen action behind closed doors, they’re bare-shouldered and wrapped in a blanket the next morning. As nice as that moment is, my favorite part is a sweet and funny scene where they brush their teeth holding hands.

Afterward, Won keeps stopping by so often that Sa-rang is almost sick of it. So, to make his visits legit, he applies for a part-time gig as a weekend worker. At his “job interview,” he drops to one knee and reveals the ring he’s been holding onto, which Sa-rang accepts. And it’s all flowers and sunshine from here on out.

Before the wedding, all of our side characters get happy endings as well. Sang-shik is promoted, Da-eul gets rid of her worthless husband boss, and Pyung-hwa and Ro-woon officially start dating. This last one happens after Pyung-hwa kicks her ex between the legs at work when he continues to harass her. Ro-woon follows her out of the airport and the two end up along the waterfront, where he offers to be her umbrella in rainy times. She kisses him lightly and steps back, and his expression is like, “I have permission?” And he goes all in with the kisses.

Even Hwa-ran gets a turnaround and a happy ending — because she may be forced to leave the business, but not the family. In a scene that shows Won holds no grudge, he asks Hwa-ran not to make her son live like they did and to let him stay in Korea. And then he adds, “stop living such a lonely life.” We see Hwa-ran vulnerable in these episodes when she cries after a fight with her husband and her son comforts her with a hug. At the airport, when she’s about to send her son abroad, she has a change of heart and takes him home.

I feel awful for the little boy but I also think Hwa-ran is a complicated character. Last week when Chairman Gu appointed Won president of the hotel, she accused him of always planning to give control to his son (not his daughter). And we’ve seen how hard she worked to get where she is (in contrast to how easy it was for Won). I feel like her behavior is somewhat explained every time I see her sitting in that boardroom where she’s the only woman.

Our big finale is an extravagant, gorgeous wedding, where all the family members and former co-workers are in attendance (including both Won’s parents), and Won and Sa-rang are as beautiful as ever, standing arm in arm in the flower-entwined room. The epilogue shows Won trying on tuxes and we get a meta-moment where they break the fourth wall and say, who cares if they’re watching, let’s kiss anyway. Very cute!

Wow, it’s over. It feels like it just started but also feels a little anti-climactic. We hit every fairytale marker along the way and sent all of our characters off happy and reconciled. You won’t get any complaints from me on the happy ending or all the time this drama spent on showing us amorous affection between our leads. The fact that I was hooked and always waiting for next week, with so little plot in sight, is an achievement.

But so much sweetness can also be overkill because by the end I felt immune to the kisses and was calling for them to wrap it up already. The episode length, especially on these final two, was a little brutal. But the good news about putting all the things I found boring or unlikable in the last two weeks is that when I rewatch this drama, I can just kill it after Episode 12. It’ll give me all the sweet and gooey goodness without any annoying fake tension or too-easily-tied threads. I call that a win.

And actually, for what this story was, I think the ending gave us the only real resolution possible for our leads. We got Sa-rang out of the King Hotel, where she’s no longer under the control of Won’s family, which allowed our OTP to date more freely. And Sa-rang got her own business (with her own money), so she’s not dependent on Won. We sort of get to escape the social class problem by giving them a middle ground where Sa-rang doesn’t have to fit into Won’s world. She gets to keep her world, where he’s happy to join her — but he doesn’t have to give up his life either. Talk about a fairytale ending.

And in closing, I just want to send a shoutout to Junho because I’ve been trying to control my Hottest heart so we could talk about the drama at hand. But now that we’re done here, I’ll say that for me King the Land was Instant Love. I don’t want to Imagine it any other way. And Nobody Else could carry this role. He’s Fire – So Good, as always – and I’ll Be looking forward to any and every project he does next. *Finger hearts*

 
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