Episodes 11-12 (Final) » Dramabeans MGG

Perfect Marriage Revenge: Episodes 11-12 (Final)

by missvictrix

Wild, woolly, and totally satisfying, our story comes fill circle as our heroes confront both the villains and obstacles blocking the way to their happy ending. Whether it’s crazy siblings, bad press, murder attempts, or the mysterious intervention from above, it’s all on the table in our finale week.

 
EPISODES 11-12

Phewf, what a whirlwind this drama was, and never more so than in its concluding week. Just when you thought it was over and you only had kisses and PPL to enjoy for the rest of the runtime, more mayhem reared its ugly head.

First, we return to the murder attempt cliffhanger we ended on last week. Do-gook is able to warn Yi-joo in time, and he spins his car to deflect the oncoming Car of Doom carrying Mom and Fire Guy. He’s fine, thankfully, but the two are utterly shaken and holding each other on the street. This excellent scene finally put a crack in Do-gook’s secret-keeping. “I thought I lost you again,” he says in his panic, but they don’t get to address what that actually means till later. Because ya know, first there are murderous people nearby to deal with.

Our main villain — Mom — is very quickly given the blow final of defeat at the nearby police station. Fire Guy is more than ready to throw her under the bus with the wiretap recording, and people flood in right and left to take both of them down. Mom’s money laundering and embezzlement is in the open, Fire Guy’s murder attempts (past and present) have him very much on the hook again (thanks to being out of the country and thus extending the statute of limitations), and in the first of my favorite twists in our finale: Secretary Kim is revealed as the son of Sun Jin. Say what! We later learn that before he turned coats to work with Yi-joo, he was his own double agent investigating his father’s “suicide.” And so, we finally learn that Mom had Sun Jin at the nursing home creating masterpieces under duress. It’s so twisted!

With Mom and Fire Guy officially incarcerated and out of the picture, it’s time for our OTP to get back to that oopsie comment Do-gook made. He tries to wriggle out of it over an awkward glass of water with Yi-joo, but by accident — thank you, broken glass trope — Yi-joo sees the death date on his wrist.

Yi-joo is beyond shocked, and more than worry about the fact that he’s also death-doomed, she first reacts out of self-protection (which, understandable, and in keeping with her characterization). When Do-gook sees he can’t get out of it, he finally tells her the truth: he was in the car that killed her. He was terrified of her finding out, because how can you tell someone you love that you were the cause of their death before they got their re-do? Yi-joo tells him that essentially, honesty is the best policy, and this will eventually help them get over this bump in the road. It also helps Do-gook with the needless corporate scandal that keeps him busy for the rest of the episode. Said scandal is boring, but serves to show Jung-wook’s true colors to both his family and the world, and so he’s quickly dealt with and put in prison for his own financial crimes.

With the villains (seemingly) dispatched so quickly, our drama seems to know that what we need is to start feeling everything come together. So, Do-gook heads back to the hotel suite where it all began (err, re-began) between them, and berates himself for not being honest with Yi-joo from the start. Then, sensibly, he decides to start doing so now. There’s a chamber of secrets in his bedroom, and he tells Yi-joo over the phone to go in. There she finds a stockpile of paintings, and the one displayed on the wall is her piece Frozen Spring which she loved so much.

Okay, it’s actually really fun when Do-gook gets to tell his side of the story, and we see him overseas, captivated by the painting a friend has on his walls (aside: the piss-poor dialogue in this scene made me love it even more). Do-gook stares at Frozen Spring with a glimmer in his eye and eventually buys it. He then learns who the painter is, and before he knows it, he’s head over heels for Yi-joo — who, very inconveniently in our first timeline, has already married Seo-hyuk. This is where we see Do-gook’s strong interactions with Yi-joo in Episode 1, where he’s been observing her cruel life and becomes inexorably frustrated by the entire situation.

Anyway, the two make up in our present timeline, and Yi-joo decides that the weird shaman is where they need to go to get their supernatural questions answered. As usual, the shaman serves as an information conduit, but they leave without much other than: a) only one person was meant to die, that’s why their deaths got jumbled and they were sent back; and b) eh, no one really knows WTF is going on, but let’s just be happy, okay? It works for them and it works for me.

A few months pass, and our OTP is busy being happy, as promised, at Home Base. Yi-joo has a great rapport with her mom now, and they’ve had nice healing moments. The Yi-joo we have at the latter end of our story is so much stronger for all the love she’s received — or should I say, finally allowed herself to receive — and this healing current in the story is quite nice. Then, Yi-joo learns she’s pregnant and in an adorable scene between them, we see how Do-gook is over the moon. It’s the same day as their death dates, so this has to be a good omen, right?

Or not. In the most random act of villainy that turned our deceptive resolution on its head, Do-gook is called by his brother-in-law to a nearby cafe. Here, he learns that Jung-wook has just tried to commit suicide in prison. Then he tried to escape. Now he’s currently missing, but how far can he possibly get, amirite?

I admit I had no idea where we were going with this, but when Do-gook turns white as a sheet and flies out of the cafe back home to an empty house, it was such a great final twist — made even more so for being highly improbable and silly.

Sure enough, Do-gook’s brother-in-law confirms that Yi-joo was kidnapped, and while Do-gook is gunning it to go after Jung-wook’s car, we get another great twist. Jung-wook can’t kidnap Yi-joo and run away with that limp of his, they’re all thinking. But nope, the CCTV reveals he’s totally fine. The limp was a lie! OMG, I love this so much!

This kidnapping is the climax to end it all, and it’s where the two timelines/lifetimes truly meet midway. Do-gook races after his hyung and realizes it’s the same direction and the same time of day as the original accident. Yi-joo’s tied up in the backseat of Jung-wook’s car but is able to free herself and tries to attack him. In a giant burst of action we have more car accidents, Do-gook punching the lights out of his hyung for all his villainy, and then Do-gook getting repetitively stabbed in the gut — all while the original Truck of Doom comes zooming down the road. But it zooms right by them. Then, the death dates disappear from their wrists. They made it! They made it? Sadly, our hero slumps to the ground, succumbing to the fratricide attempt.

Two months later, and after multiple surgeries, Do-gook remains in his coma. His wonderful mom tells Yi-joo she’ll bear the grief of it so that Yi-joo can eat and properly care for herself during the pregnancy. It’s a dire time, but the pacing is spot on here. We all need time to catch our breath if we’re going to get all these plot threads tied and truly believe that once and for all, our OTP has made it to their happy ending.

Finally, Do-gook begins to come back to consciousness. Interestingly, we see him return mentally to the original timeline and we watch how all that played out from his side of the story (thanks, Show!). Then, he finally wakes up, as Yi-joo prays for his survival while on the hospital rooftop. It’s a nice full circle moment as we see that in both timelines, one was pleading for the survival of the other… and what do you know, it works.

When Yi-joo returns to the hospital bed and sees Do-gook awake, she’s overwrought. “I haven’t left your side for two months and I leave for two seconds and you wake up?!” (I’d be saying that exact same thing). Then, just so we’re certain that Do-gook is back in full form, he answers, “Giving you a hard time and teasing you is what brings me the greatest joy.” LOL, perfect marriage indeed.

From there, we get the rest of our wrap-up. Jung-wook is excommunicated. But even worse than that, he learns that his mother was the one who abandoned him, so all his rage and pain was misguided his whole life. Speaking of abandonment, incarcerated Mom has been abandoned by Yoo-ra as well. And Yoo-ra? Well, she first tries to weasel her way into the Taeja Group fam again, but these ladies have seen it all and they demand a paternity test on the baby before they can dream of taking it in.

And what do you know, the baby is actually Se-hyuk’s! With a new game plan in mind, Yoo-ra evilly crashes his family party celebrating his engagement to woman #3. Their storyline is ended quite cruelly: Yoo-ra says it will be hell for them to raise a baby in that tiny apartment, and Se-hyuk looks utterly broken. I mean, I guess it will be hell for them, because they’re both weak and greedy, but it’s funny that their bad ending actually mirrors the happy ending of our OTP…

… Because when we do a final check in with Do-gook and Yi-joo, they’ve relived their hotel proposition scene, registered their marriage, reenacted a proper engagement, and now they have a little baby that they’re both obsessed with. Yi-joo paints a family picture — our closing scenes again mirroring our opening scenes — and it’s gratifying to see this truly happy family. As Yi-joo said in her moment of understanding when she was keeping vigil over Do-gook’s life: “I wasn’t sent back for revenge. I was sent back to live life properly.” All hail, happy ending!

What a ride this drama was. While I’d probably rewrite it in my head a bit differently, that didn’t stop me from enjoying it all the way through. There was far too much plot for 12 episodes — and that’s exactly what kept everything so addictive. Like the quote that when you’re passing over thin ice your safety is in your speed, that’s exactly the method this drama chose. And I think it worked. Of course, you can pick it apart when you look back on it as a completed work, but in the thick of it, and watching all the plot unfold, it was bold and fun, and that’s enough for me.

 
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