Summary
After finding out from Lee Chae Young that Han Do Joon has been the latest target on Han Yeo Jin‘s list, Kim Tae Hyun attempts to try and get her to reason with her to stop her revenge once again. Just as she starts to waver, her hand is forced by Daejung Group‘s Chairman gives her a deadline to kill him. Han Yeo Jin under pressure to kill him earlier than planned and Kim Tae Hyun against the killing, Kim Tae Hyun hatches a plan to take Han Do Joon out of the hospital to be brought to Lee Chae Young who plans to take him with her abroad, only to have his plans fail, ending in the death of Han Do Joon. Disappointed, Kim Tae Hyun decides to come down from the 13th floor—also known as his position as Han Shin Group heir—to return to his previous life on the lower floors, leaving Han Yeo Jin.
Recap & Thoughts
Coming off from learning that Han Yeo Jin was in the midst of killing Chief Surgeon Lee on the operating table, the same night Kim Tae Hyun learns that Han Do Joon‘s been the taken down by Han Yeo Jin. Sitting in his room, he receives a call from Lee Chae Young pleading for him to help her. Unaware that Han Yeo Jin was trying to call him at the same time, he leaves the mansion for Lee Chae Young.
Kim Tae Hyun arrives to a distraught Lee Chae Young waiting outside the Operating Room. She’s unable to do anything with the lack of power and pleads him to save her husband. Kim Tae Hyun heads to the observation deck to see Han Do Joon being operated on. He tells her he’s in good hands and not to worry. Everything will be fine. Lee Chae Young, who’s now warmed up to Han Do Joon, fears that he won’t come out of this. If that happens, she says, she won’t be able to forgive Han Yeo Jin. Kim Tae Hyun tells her that if that happens, Han Yeo Jin would feel bad, too, seemingly still not grasping Han Yeo Jin‘s ruthless nature, that she is capable of doing such a thing. The act which Kim Tae Hyun described as one belonging to a street thug or a delinquent is exactly what she is as Lee Chae Young tells him that this is the work of Han Yeo Jin; she verified it all moments before his return and she saw it with her own eyes.
Han Do Joon‘s surgery is successful. They are given good news that he will survive to Lee Chae Young‘s relief: he will require close observation, but they’ve managed to lower the intracranial pressure to normal levels; but this is only so that Han Yeo Jin can deal her brother what he deal her the last three years. The surgeon lets them know he’s been transferred to the Intensive Care Unit, only to find out that he never even turned up there. The nurse telling them that she wasn’t even aware that Han Do Joon was in surgery. They try to think where he could have been transferred to. It takes them awhile before Kim Tae Hyun thinks of the one place he could have gone, and that is the 12th floor.
They move to the 12th floor and before they ask about the patient they’re looking for, they are given the answer they are looking for by the nurse: Han Do Joon is on the floor and has been placed in the Restricted Area. Lee Chae Young attempts to see her husband as his legal guardian, only to be stopped by the guards. Han Shin Group Heir Kim Tae Hyun is denied access even when he tries to force his way through the guards. As Kim Tae Hyun is stopped, the door suddenly opens, revealing one of Han Yeo Jin‘s secretaries and following behind, Chief Surgeon Lee. Han Yeo Jin‘s let Chief Surgeon Lee off for his crimes to have him commit the same crime for her.
Behind the doors, in the room that was once hers, lay Han Do Joon in an induced coma. Chief Surgeon Lee is to keep watch of him, giving him enough anaethetic to keep him laying still in his bed, but aware enough to hear everything that’s going on just like he did with her. In three years’ time, she would then have him suffer the same fate as he tried to have her suffer. In three years’ time, she would cut his carotid artery like he had Chief Surgeon Lee do.
Kim Tae Hyun seems to be aware of what is going on behind the doors, but he tries to have Chief Surgeon Lee speak about the things he’s been made to do by Han Yeo Jin. He asks the chief not to do it, to tell him what happened. However, Chief Surgeon Lee remains tight-lipped, only thanking him for putting in a good word for him and pledges his loyalty to both him and Han Yeo Jin, telling Kim Tae Hyun that he will work for both of them to the end.
After Han Yeo Jin‘s inauguration where she was voted in as Han Shin Group Chairwoman, Kim Tae Hyun tries yet again to have her reconsider continuing her revenge plot. He tries to have her see that Chief Surgeon Lee, along with Director Park, had a big part in saving her life (and be in a position to reclaim her position) before having her see that he and Chief Surgeon Lee are the same: both were in desperate situations which led them to her room.
Chief Surgeon Lee, a new rising star in Hepatic-Pancreatic-Biliary at the time, was amidst a malpractice a suit. Kim Tae Hyun suspects that it might have been because his confidence was sky high which saw him perform an emergency operation on a leukemia patient without carrying the relevant tests before doing so, leading to death and his charges for malpractice due to negligence. Because of the malpractice, he was not called into perform surgeries and patients avoided him, too. But when she came in that day, Director Park called Chief Surgeon Lee despite it, because he acknowledged he possessed great surgical skills which would see him repair the complex gastrointestinal perforations and fractures she sustained from her fall from the window. He even performed the complex Whipple Procedure. It was all done in a short amount of time. He saved her life.
He makes a point to credit Director Park as well. Kim Tae Hyun guarantees that had Director Park not been at her surgery orchestrating the whole operation (which involved doctors from almost every department), she most likely would have died. He tells her that because all the doctors were at her surgery, there were patients who didn’t get their surgeries and died because of it. The two people who were responsible for keeping her in her induced coma were also the people who saved her.
The day after her surgery, Chief Surgeon Lee had to return to his trial. It wasn’t looking good and he was so afraid. So when he was given a lifeline by the Han Shin Group lawyers and their counsel team, he was so happy and relieved he cried to the point of causing everyone in the court to feel embarrassed. Kim Tae Hyun doesn’t say what the result was, but we’re going to assume the trial was successful and a part of the deal for Han Shin Group getting him off (like how the Group helped Kim Tae Hyun with the police and his underground surgeries), Chief Surgeon Lee was brought in by Han Yeo Jin‘s father to keep her asleep until he passed away, therefore arriving to the present point.
Kim Tae Hyun argues that he and Chief Surgeon Lee are no different in this sense. Chief Surgeon Lee, like himself, came into her room because of personal circumstances which left them desperate. Chief Surgeon Lee‘s was the malpractice suit. Kim Tae Hyun‘s was his ill sister. It’s the reason why the chief was so distressed about having Kim Tae Hyun come up to the 12th floor and entering the Restricted Area: it pained Chief Surgeon Lee to see Kim Tae Hyun follow in him in his footsteps. He adds that for someone like Chief Surgeon Lee to be on the 12th floor (a surgeon who should be operating on people and saving lives), is not a doctor anymore because of it. He’s living in a prison worse than death.
Han Yeo Jin argues the same point she’s been using: he’s not a doctor anymore the moment he locked her up. As well, the malpractice suit, which Kim Tae Hyun argues as being his reason for doing it, is no excuse. The suit is a price he has to pay for the crime he committed.
Kim Tae Hyun moves on to ask what she plans to do to pay for the crimes she’s committing now. He gets her to think about the reasons for helping her go back to her throne, hinting at a connection between her surgery, the 12th floor and his mother’s death. He has her go back to the time when he asked her about what she wanted to do when she got out of the 12th floor. He tells her that it was her words about wanting to tear down the floor and make it a normal hospital. He reveals to her that he helped her because this floor was also a prison to him. He wanted it torn down as well.
He asks her to stop her revenge. She’s the got her position back. It’d be hard for Han Do Joon to take it from her now. No one would dare stand on his side to fight her. He asks her to let Han Do Joon go, for her to come back to him as the Han Yeo Jin he loves. She tells him that he should given in and come a little closer to her. Kim Tae Hyun ends the conversation with one last insight of his, hoping she makes the right decision: "Giving in is done by someone with power. Surrendering is done by someone without power. You have the power." He then ends with "And I trust you" before congratulating her on becoming Han Shin Group‘s chairwoman.
Second time round, Kim Tae Hyun seems to have managed to avoid a heated ending to their discussion. Unlike last time, he left with a warning and hearing the sound of her throwing glass against the room. This time, he leaves telling her that he trusts her to make the right decision before congratulating her on becoming Han Shin Group‘s chairwoman and smiling. He might just be slowly getting through to her.
This doesn’t go well with Secretary Min. He wants Han Do Joon in captivity and dead. His words about wanting Kim Tae Hyun to be a subordinate to Han Yeo Jin wasn’t a display of loyalty to his new boss, it was to make sure that Kim Tae Hyun listens to Han Yeo Jin and let her carry out her revenge on Han Do Joon, because if she doesn’t carry it out and Han Do Joon returns, there is a possibility that Han Do Joon might do something to him. It was revealed that he was already anxious about waiting three years for Han Do Joon‘s death, Secretary Min tells his subordinate. He actually wants him dead immediately and he’s thought of a way to do it.
With the Han Shin Electric labour union signing ceremony coming up, he’s gone and made sure Han Yeo Jin turn up, convincing her that turning up personally is right since she was such a star at Kim Yeong Mi‘s funeral. What’s more, it would look good and increase stock prices. Convincing Han Yeo Jin to participate, he’s also gone and contacted Daejung Group, passing on information regarding the death of his son as being caused by Han Do Joon. (All of this isn’t explicitly show in the actually episode, but it can be assumed when piecing Secretary Min‘s intentions and the fact that he’s been tipping off Daejung Group‘s Chief Secretary at the end of Episode 16.) The information causes Chairman Choi to turn up at the Han Shin Electric labour union signing after-party, demand Han Yeo Jin to hand over Han Do Joon so that he can take care of him.
Han Yeo Jin does not hand over Han Do Joon. She tells Chairman Choi that he must die in her hands, which Chairman Choi has no problems with. However, she must do it within three days. If he is not killed by then, then it is war.
So with the ultimatum set, Han Yeo Jin sets off to weaken the Daejung Group. The Group’s presidents question her ability in fighting off an old hand such as Chairman Choi and think it’d be better to hand over Han Do Joon. But handing over Han Do Joon is not an option. She tells the presidents that turning his body over is not a difficult thing, but if she did it then it’d start rumours that she submitted to Daejung Group. She would be disrespected in the business, political, media and financial arena; and conglomerate rankings will change. The Groups below would try to take their spot, attack them in each field and break them apart. It’ll be over by then.
With the presidents with her (not that they dare challenge her regardless of whether they agree or disagree), she has a team of elites in the Strategy, Secretarial, and Emergency Planning working on finding a weakness. Hacking some email communications, one of the team members discover the code-name ‘lavender’ being used throughout when talking about something in secret. (This word seems to be mentioned a lot, Kim Tae Hyun talks about liking lavender and he’s also having the neglected lavender garden replanted. We’re wondering if it all has a connection to the story.) Han Yeo Jin believes the code-name must be a business which came about from the secret Choi Sung Hoon stole. She has the the team member begin a search for the company in New York which is related to Daejung Bio amongst the merger and acquisitions Morgan is leading after discovering the highest occurrence of the code-name to be in Morgan in New York. It only takes him a few seconds to determine the company to be Alexon Biotech. She has everyone find everything about the company and begin acquiring the company, having all subsidiaries of Han Shin Group invest money into Alexon Biotech.
Initially, Daejung Group is unaware who’s suddenly developed an interest in buying Alexon Biotech, but the Chairman is quickly given the heads up when Han Yeo Jin purposefully lets him know Han Shin Group is the Group interested. Her plan is to have Chairman Choi put in large sums of money buying the company before she pulls out, and have the company confirmed and bought by Daejung Group. The end result, Daejung Group spends ₩2.5 trillion buying Alexon Biotech. With the amount he just invested, it should keep Chairman Choi quiet for a while Han Yeo Jin says, pleased to have dealt quite a hit to his pockets.
As this has been going on, Kim Tae Hyun has decided to try relieve a bit of pressure off of Han Yeo Jin. Since she doesn’t want to hand over Han Do Joon to Daejung Group and she can’t kill him, he hatches a plan to take him out of the hospital and have him sent to Lee Chae Young to be taken abroad. He recruits his bodyguard Sang Cheol to hold off any guards and Chief Surgeon Lee to cause a reason for transferring Han Do Joon out of the room. The initial plans appears to be to cause disturbance in the motion sensors and have the nurse out of the way as she looks for Dr Kim of Neurosurgery, but Chief Surgeon Lee was unsuccessful on sending her out of the room and had to settle for transferring him to the Operating Room as she suggested where, mid-way, Kim Tae Hyun would then take him out of the hospital.
It’s not certain whether Kim Tae Hyun would have made it past the guards if Han Do Joon‘s escape wasn’t part of Secretary Min‘s plans. Kim Tae Hyun‘s attempt was caught on by the CCTV footage. Kim Tae Hyun had planned for an onslaught of guards to attack considering he did recruit Sang Cheol to help him (Sang Cheol had asserted previously that between Daejung and Han Shin, Han Shin is more powerful because Han Shin has him, someone who has 20 levels of martial arts and Daejung are all less than his one punch!), but there was no further obstruction and he was let go. Kim Tae Hyun probably should have been suspicious he got out of there so easily. Last time when he tried taking his sister out, he was found out immediately, but this time, he had not one person stopping him, not even a text warning him like last time.
Let go, he escorts Han Do Joon to the airport where Lee Chae Young stands waiting with a helicopter, ready to take him with her abroad. The plan might have succeeded if Han Do Joon didn’t suddenly wake up and was very reluctant to accept plans to leave abroad. Thinking that Daejung Group would negotiate with him over the vast amount of information he had about Han Shin Group, he throws several punches and knocks Kim Tae Hyun and Sang Cheol out with a gas tank before stepping out of the ambulance to wave down Daejung Group‘s people. He is runned down by the people he waved down before being stabbed.
The killing of Han Do Joon leaves Kim Tae Hyun angry and disappointed. He walks into her dining room hoping she didn’t order it. Han Yeo Jin, her skin as thick as ever, straight out tells him she ordered it. He doesn’t believe her—or perhaps it more like he doesn’t want to believe her; so, she tells him that she knew about him trying to save Han Do Joon. She also knew Secretary Min was sending information to Daejung Group also. She then confirms again: "It’s true. I ordering them". Just to add salt to his wound, she tells him she needed someone to create an illusion of someone handing Han Do Joon over to Daejung Group without her doing it herself. He was perfect, she says. He’s a naive, idealistic humanist. No one would doubt his good intentions. She tells him that this is who she is. She then moves to ask whether he regrets saving her from the 12th floor, to which he replies yes after seemingly struggling to admit that they were his true feelings.
Han Yeo Jin struggles with the answer as well, taking a brief moment to internalise the shock of hearing his response. As if it was imperative he understood just how ruthless she can be, she admits knowing about his mother dying because of her before walking out. She then walks off, leaving Kim Tae Hyun to deal with the pain alone.
Despite Han Yeo Jin‘s betrayal, by night, he seems to have reconciled with the situation, displaying none of the anger he displayed earlier in the evening. Come morning, he even tries to console her after spotting her looking sorrowful outside. She doesn’t want him to leave as she’ll be left in the darkness again. She thinks that he resents her for his mother’s death. He quickly interrupts, telling her that he doesn’t blame her for his mother’s death. He also doesn’t blame his incompetence anymore. It was a tragedy created by the 12th floor and everyone’s desire for power. That said, he tells her that he will now return to his place.
Han Yeo Jin tells him that this is his place now. She tells him that from up here, he can do anything: he can tear down the 12th floor or restructure Han Shin Medical Center. Kim Tae Hyun declines: "this is the 13th floor. If I destroy the 12th floor, this place will be destroyed as well." Han Shin Group would fall. He tells her he just wants to climb down from this place. He makes a case for her to join her next. He tells her that up here, she can enjoy the nice view; but below are also people, streams and forest trails and Windy Hill. He says down below there is also everything they need to be happy, too. He asks if she wants to come with him. Her silence and apologetic eyes give him the answer. She’s not willing to go with him. "Asking you to abandon your position as Chairwoman and run away with me, I’m the crazy one," he says to himself. Han Yeo Jin tells him that he’s not crazy, the things he mentioned—the people, streams, forest trails and Windy Hill—can’t be traded with a mere position of Chairwoman. (It sounds like the things below aren’t good enough, but we’re thinking she might be meaning the opposite.) But this place place is where she belongs; she back to the swamp where the alligators live. The picnic is over, she tells him.
He tells her that there are times when she’ll miss picnics, so when she misses them, go to him anytime. He’ll be waiting for her. They hug and part. Han Yeo Jin has his bodyguard go with him to protect him under the pretense his bodyguard has been fired and needs a place to stay.
The final scene of Episode 16 ends with Lee Chae Young at the crematorium, holding a photo of her husband, as he is being cremated.
Final Thoughts
We really wanted Han Do Joon to be saved. It’s sad to see that it didn’t go that way. Having said that, based on how he went, the way he refused to go abroad with Lee Chae Young and then stepped out to call over (who he thought was) Daejung Group‘s people, it showed that Han Do Joon still very much wanted power. If there was a chance for him to take back power, he would. If there was a chance for him to gain power elsewhere and bring down Han Shin Group, he might have done it, too. In Episode 14, he came off as almost human the way he was so receptive to Lee Chae Young and we were fooled for a moment that maybe he’d let go so easily. We think, had Han Do Joon not been killed, he probably would have gone for the power over living a normal life without power with Lee Chae Young. And so, although we wish Lee Chae Young and Han Do Joon was able to have a happy ending, we think based on the frame of mind Han Do Joon was in, the way it turned out is a more suitable ending.
We feel sorry for Lee Chae Young. It’ll be interesting to see what she will do. She did say that she would never forgive Han Yeo Jin if anything were to happen to him. Now it has. It feels like she should make some kind of grand fight with the way she’s been just taking all the things that’s happened to her. First she was forced to marry Han Do Joon which cause her lover’s family to go bankrupt. Then she was disregarded by Han Yeo Jin, made into a nobody after she helped Han Yeo Jin regain her position and now, when she’s finally started to warm up to Han Do Joon, he’s been taken away.
With the whole situation of Han Yeo Jin admiting that she knew about Secretary Min planning to deliver Han Do Joon to Chairman Choi and then having him killed, we can’t make heads or tails of the situation. It really did feel like she had not intended to have the situation turns out the way it did, at least not initially. As she said to the presidents, she didn’t want to hand over Han Do Joon to Daejung Group as it would lead to Han Shin Group to lose their ranking upon submitting to their requests. So, to make sure she doesn’t have to submit, she had Daejung Group spend the ₩2.5 trillion so that she’d be able to disable them and keep them quiet for while.
But then Han Yeo Jin is quite a cunning person and someone who has the ability to know everything with how she’s able to tap into someone’s phone through her Security Office (as shown in Episode 15 when she tapped into Kim Tae Hyun‘s phone to find out he was talking with Lee Chae Young). If we went by the look she gave when Secretary Min received a call and suddenly left the room to take it, she certainly was aware Secretary Min was in contact with Daejung Group. It’s just a matter of how much she knew. There’s every possibility she didn’t know until too late. Maybe she started investigating Secretary Min during the battle to buy Alexon Biotech and by the time someone from Security Office discovered Secretary Min‘s plans, it was too late to stop everything and had to choose to protect Han Shin Group over not betraying Kim Tae Hyun. Despite Han Yeo Jin‘s ruthlessness, we like to think she wouldn’t hand over Han Do Joon if she could help it, especially after Kim Tae Hyun‘s appeal for her to reconsider and finding out about her being the reason his mother didn’t get the surgery she needed resulting in death.
We also find her insistence of admitting she handed over Han Do Joon despite knowing the cause of his mother’s death. Was it unnecessary for her to admit that she did so while knowing about the cause behind his mother’s death? He’s not an enemy she’s wanting to bring down and instill fear. It’s Kim Tae Hyun who she loves and wants to stay with her, not drive him away towards hate. It doesn’t make sense why she’d want to hurt him like to such an extent by adding this extra bit. It really feels like it’s the writer’s way of having the story head a certain direction. Kim Tae Hyun and Han Yeo Jin must be broken up and this was the means of delivering it.
The situation regarding Han Yeo Jin‘s imprisonment, thinking about it, her father started her captivity and Han Do Joon carried it on, but the person who might have actually truly started it is Han Yeo Jin herself. Had she not been so rash in jumping out the window thinking her father plotted to take Choi Sung Hoon away from her, her father probably wouldn’t have had to come up with a quite insane plan to keep her alive by putting her in an induced coma for the next six months, which would lead to Han Do Joon keeping her that way for the next three years. If she looked into things, saw things and reasoned things the way Kim Tae Hyun does, maybe all of this wouldn’t have begun.
It’s also hard to understand why his father was so harsh with Han Do Joon when he was younger. We can’t help to wonder if his father treated Han Do Joon more fairly, instill some good values, give him equal opportunties so that he doesn’t grow up to want the top seat at Han Shin Group, this probably would have been the best bet in having the situation turn out the way it did.
Daejung Group Chairman as well. The way he blames Han Yeo Jin and Han Shin Group for the death of his son seems so misdirected. It was he who sent his son to her so that he and his son could steal Han Shin Group information. Had his son not gone and worked with Han Do Joon to try steal information, the situation might not be the way it is now.
Chairman Choi, Han Yeo Jin, they have a tendency to see what they like and what they don’t like, instead of going to back see what/who started it all. We suppose it makes good drama! If everything was so perfect and logical, there would be no drama to watch! :oP :oP.
Last two episodes. We’re really curious how it all ends. Kim Tae Hyun has had that ring sitting in his drawer for a while. There has to be a wedding, right? We really would love to see her somehow remain Han Shin Group Chairwoman but also live in a nice normal household with Kim Tae Hyun. It’ll be nice to see Chief Surgeon Lee get back his life as a surgeon. We really feel sorry for him. His skills which was one of the best have deteriorated to the point that in the very first episode, he had to bring in Kim Tae Hyun to fill in for him. We really hope Chief Surgeon Lee receives a happy ending. We don’t know what to expect for Lee Chae Young‘s story. It feels like she’s one of those characters who will be made to lose everything, become average and live abroad, not that it would be a bad ending if that happens. She had said she never wanted to be a chaebol’s wife, so it might be the way she wants so it’s pretty much a happy ending.
It should be great!
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