Dong Yi and King Sukjong episodes 45-60 FINAL

Here is the final post in the mini recaps of the romance about Dong Yi and King Sukjong’s relationship. Now it’s all about who will be the next King!

And the two contenders are the princes: Dong Yi and King Sukjong’s son, Geum (Prince Youn Ing) and the king’s son with Jang Ok Jung (JOJ) (the current Crown Prince) .

JOJ knows that her relationship with the King is over and she must live with the humiliation of the demotion from Queen back to Bin, a concubine. So now she focuses on her son becoming King, which means destroying the competition: DY and her son.

historical note: 

JOJ’s son became King Gyeongjong (r.1720-1724) and DY’s son became King Yeongjo (r. 1724-1776)
King Yeongjo was the longest reigning king in the Joseon period. Read about King Yeongjo and the politics  of sagacity. 

Read more about Dong Yi and the Joseon period:

What were the social classes in the Joseon period?

How did people address each other in the Joseon period? 

What was the ranking system for Court Ladies ?

What was the Concubine Ranking System in the Joseon Palace?

How did people tell the time in the Joseon period?  

What can we learn about the status of women in the Joseon palace watching Jewel in the Palace?

What can we learn about Joseon society through the paintings of Shin Yun Bok?

Was there really a Court Lady Investigation Bureau in the Joseon Palace?

EPISODE 45

Geum is desperate to meet his father, so one day sneaks into the palace with the local poor kids who go there for a feast.

But he bumps into the Crown Prince instead.

The Crown Prince is nice to him thinking that he is merely one of the poor children who has got lost. JOJ doesn’t recognise him either and only sees a cheeky low born child. She wants to punish him for daring to come near the Crown Prince! But thanks to the Crown Prince, Geum manages to get away without a beating!

Geum leaves disappointed that he hasn’t met his father yet.

But then he meets a ‘yangban’ in the village. He talks in plain language to him (he’s a prince and so would be a yangban’s superior). Poor Geum doesn’t realise that the yangban is his father, the King!

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***

EPISODE 46

Geum is happy to skip school with the yangban (he needs a lesson in not to talk to strangers!) and they stop to watch a ssireum Korean sumo game in the village.

It’s cute how the King is always trying to be macho in front of DY. And now he tries to impress his son too.💕

The King ends up in the ring with a huge opponent and the chief eunuch looks on in horror as the large man throws the King to the ground. But somehow the King manages to win the next round and falls on top of the much bigger man. Geum jumps for joy!

Later DY and Geum meet a prospective teacher: turns out Geum is a child prodigy, but they need to keep this hush-hush as this could put him in (even more) danger.

He’s robust too, unlike the Crown Prince who is a sickly boy and may not be able to have children. Geum is looking like the better candidate to be king. No wonder JOJ’s mother isn’t happy.

So she hatches another plot to kill Dong Yi and Geum

Worried about the Crown Prince’s position, JOJ’s mum orders her men to set fire to DY’s house!

While DY and her son are sleeping, the men lock all the doors…

Luckily, the Kings guards are on watch and save them from a tragic end.

But JOJ’s mother’s plan has really backfired, because the incident helps the King persuade his government that it is unsafe for them outside! Also according to Confucian law, since his son is now 7 years old he must come back to the palace and have the education befitting his status. The officials complain but the King is adamant. 💕

JOJ is furious as she watches DY and the prince stroll back in to live at the PALACE. 😁

***

EPISODE 47

Now living in the palace Geum can finally meet his father. But he’s perturbed to discover that the yangban he chatted to so casually is really the King!

He’s frightened that his father will shout at him for speaking to him so disrespectfully. But all is well and Geum starts getting used to life in the palace.

DY is made a level 2 concubine.
read more about concubine ranks in the Joseon period.

JOJ hears that Geum is ‘stupid‘ and not doing well in class. She must be delighted and wants the King to see this, so persuades him to sit in on the princes’ exams.

But she’s going to regret doing that.

JOJ didn’t realise that DJ TOLD Geum to keep a low profile in class for his own good. But he can’t help showing off his knowledge when the King arrives. The King is amazed and realises that his son isn’t stupid after all – he’s super smart.

And now he wants Geum to study with the Crown Prince! oh noooooooooo! JOJ is FUMING.😭

Meanwhile, the Queen has become seriously ill and since the Crown Prince is sick too, she tells a stunned DY that Geum should study with the Crown Prince so that he will also be fit to be King if need be …

***

EPISODE 48

Geum can’t study with the Crown Prince after all. So he studies with a famous scholar instead, but team JOJ don’t like this either…

So JOJ’s mother goes to see a shaman. She wants to know the fortune of DY’s son but instead hears that her own family will come to a bloody end.

Then she tries to frame daft Oh Ho Yang for burning down DY’s house by getting her assassins to hang him with a suicide note confession. But Chun Soo is on his way back to the capital (from exile) and saves him.

DY is overjoyed to see Chun Soo again.

The Crown Prince’s health condition is no longer a secret and the Queen orders JOJ to tell the King. Of course she doesn’t want to do that. Luckily for her, the Queen collapses and JOJ plots to get rid of her for good.

***

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EPISODE 49

Team JOJ are overjoyed at the Queen’s bad health and believe that the heavens are on their side! They get the shaman to do some black magic near the Queen’s residence to speed up her demise!

But Lord Jang now also discovers the secret about the Crown Prince’s health. And he’s furious because obviously he doesn’t want to support the Crown Prince if he’s sick.

And things are about to get worse for JOJ…

Back at the palace Geum is out looking for herbs for the Queen’s medicine when he stumbles over the black magic doll used by the shaman…

…Then the Queen dies.

Her last words to the King are to protect Geum.

historical note: 

Queen Inhyeon is buried next to King Sukjong. See King Sukjong, Queen Inhyeon, and Jang Hee Bin’s tomb here. 

***

EPISODE 50

The Queen also asked the King to make DY Queen so that both the princes would be safe. But the Namin join forces with the Soron faction and lobby for JOJ to be Queen since SHE is the Crown Prince’s son.

Geum and the Crown Prince are becoming friends.

They hang out together and study together. The Crown Prince wants to know what is wrong with him, so he sneaks to the pharmacy with Geum to find out what herbs are being used in his medicine. The princes then check the medical books and to his horror the Crown Prince finally discovers what his illness is.

Meanwhile, DY tries to make peace with JOJ.

She gives her the voodoo doll and promises not to reveal the Crown Prince’s infertility problem to the King. JOJ looks as though she might accept this offer as DY looks sincere.

(this is the second point in the drama where JOJ has a chance to turn things around and be good)

But JOJ’s brother stirs things up again

He persuades her that it is a trap and not to trust DY. And when the King announces that DY will be promoted to a Bin level 1 concubine, (the same level as JOJ) JOJ is afraid that DY could become the next Queen.

Read more about concubine ranks in the Joseon period

JOJ smiles and tells DY that she will accept her offer so that they can all live happily ever after. But as she says these words, Geum finds a strange book in his school bag. His teacher is shocked when he sees the inappropriate book which has surely been planted by JHJ.

The young prince is going to be in trouble…

***

EPISODE 51

JOJ confirms to DY that she is NOT going to accept her olive branch.

They are enemies and she will do whatever it takes to get rid of DY and her son. Geum is accused of stealing some important books only meant for the Crown Prince.

But he was in the Royal Pharmacy at the time of the ‘robbery’ so he has no alibi as he promised the Crown Prince to keep that a secret. The Crown Prince saves the day by telling the King that he gave the book to Geum. And so all is well.

Ambitious Lord Jang, knowing that the Crown Prince is ill, decides to switch sides and visits DY! He suggests they reveal the Crown Prince’s illness. But she doesn’t want anything to do with that.

The Crown Prince and Geum sneak out of the palace

They hear festival music. It’s coming up to harvest and people are lighting lanterns and making wishes. But the Crown Prince ends up getting arrested and dragged away to the police station!

Meanwhile, the palace is in chaos when they find out that the Crown Prince is missing. Soldiers search for him and DY goes out incognito too, but the Crown Prince is about to be punished for stealing …

***

EPISODE 52

Everyone searches for the Crown Prince. He’s in prison and can’t tell the police who he is although he can hear the royal guards swarming around looking for him.

Chun Soo finally finds him after he takes the police on a wild goose chase around the village promising to take the police to his ‘parents’ house’!

The Crown Prince becomes very weak and ill.

His mother is furious and blames Geum for all the shenanigans outside the palace. But the King thinks everyone is overreacting. ‘Boys will be boys’.

The government – Namin and Soron factions – lobby to remove DY and the prince from the palace for putting the CP’s life in danger.

But when the Crown Prince gets better, he reveals to his mother that he knows what his illness is. He feels guilty for getting special treatment when he isn’t worthy of his position. He eventually goes to the King to tell him he is sick.

***

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EPISODE 53

The king is livid that JOJ has kept their son’s illness a secret for so long.

Lord Jang makes sure that the officials hear about the Crown Prince’s illness too so they stop supporting JOJ. If the Crown Prince changes there’s no point backing her.

It’s a cold palace. 

Team JOJ loses supporters.

Guards arrest her mother for attempting to kill DY and the prince. And all JOJ has left is REVENGE.

She wants DY and the prince dead.

So she tells her brother to start a big palace fire. This will cause chaos as local citizens will have to come in and help put out the fire. A perfect opportunity for the assassins to sneak in too and kill DY and the prince.

The fire starts in the Crown Prince’s residence, so while everyone including DY are worried about finding the prince, the assassins sneak in. They find DY’s residence and DY throws herself over her son to protect him.

But she collapses as the sword comes down on her.

cliffhanger… 

***

EPISODE 54

Chun Soo arrives to save the day AGAIN!

Quick flashback: He noticed the suspicious group of men entering the palace. And rushes to save DY and Geum from the assassins. But DY is seriously injured and losing blood.

Chun Soo chases after the assassins. The soldiers lock the gates and arrest the men who have no time to swallow their deadly pills to commit suicide. Soon we find out that it was JHJ who ordered the men to kill DY and the prince. So the guards go off to arrest JHJ too.

JOJ is horrified to see her family suffering in the stocks. But later the guards arrest her too, even though she’s still refusing to repent and still blaming politics and fate for the situation, not herself.

The King must decide how to punish JOJ.

But it’s a sensitive issue because she is still the Crown Prince’s mother. The earlier King – Yeonsangun – never got over the death of his mother and became a tyrant king. If the Crown Prince is psychologically scarred over this it could be this situation all over again.

First the King wants JOJ to commit suicide! She refuses to make it easy for him. She wants him to suffer too! She says her only crime was loving him so she must die by his hand.

The King has no choice but to sentence her to death by poison. Her mother and brother also get the death penalty.

***

Yeonsangun appears in the first few episodes of Jewel in the Palace, (MBC 2004)
Read about the tyrant king Yeonsangun and other kings of the mid-Joseon period
see Yeonsangun’s humble tomb in Seoul 

EPISODE 55

The Crown Prince kneels outside the King’s residence begging him to change his mind. But it’s all in vain.

Before her execution, JOJ makes DY promise to protect the Crown Prince. (It’s a sad moment, because it seems that deep down she knew that she really could trust DY all along.)

But JOJ is not going to make things easy for the King.  Her last request is that he watch her die.

Then before she takes her final bow and drinks the poison, she learns that her mother and brother are on their way to their execution in exile: And as the wooden cells go through the village, Oh Tae Poon’s wife encourages everyone to throw rocks at them.

The King weeps as JOJ drinks the poison.

But politics must continue and The Noron faction now back DY. They want her to be Queen and her son to be CP! But DY doesn’t want to be Queen and blames JOJ’s ambition for all the trouble in the first place. So the King makes a law that forbids concubines from becoming Queen.

A new Queen arrives. (King Sukjong had three queens.)

Although Geum is still only young, the new Queen decides he must get married! Palace rules state that married princes (except the Crown Prince) must leave the palace. So she obviously wants DY and the prince gone…

***

EPISODE 56

DY is stunned that her son must marry so soon but manages to get permission to choose his bride (rather than the Queen choosing for them). She refuses all the suiters from noble Soron families. Nobody can believe it. And then she says she has someone in mind. But he is a scholar with no interest in politics.

Everyone laughs when they hear that she has chosen someone who has no power in politics.

But there’s a twist:

The home of the scholar has ‘wang gi’ royal energy.

Previous kings have stayed or lived at his house. The Soron faction are worried that this could sway public opinion in Geum’s favour as having the right to become the next king.

But the wedding of the two children goes ahead.

***

EPISODE 57

The King is spending time alone deep in thought.

Finally he announces that DY is to live outside the palace. The Soron faction are thrilled, others are disappointed. But nobody knows that he plans to abdicate and live with DY: that way the Crown Prince can become King and Geum can become Crown Prince and both princes will be safe.

He arranges to meet the Qing envoys to explain his decision.

But while the king is away, Lord Jang discovers what’s going on.

And he doesn’t want DY to become the Queen Mother: that would be a position of power for her and so bad for HIM since she would never support him. 🤓

And the Soron faction don’t want a lowborn prince to become King in the future. So Lord Jang pushes the Soron leader to stop the King abdicating.

Lord Jang is desperate to get rid of DY and her son, so while the King is away, (and security low in the palace) he plans to frame her.

He finds a way to be the leader of the army! Lord Jang is now in control and Chun Soo and Chief Seo are powerless to do anything!

***

historical note: 

DY and JOJ were both top level concubines, but Dong Yi’s (Suk Bin’s) social position before she became a concubine was the servant class – much lower than Jang Hee Bin. Her son King Yeongjo always had a complex about his mother’s low status – read more in The Confucian Kingship of Korea: Yongjo and the Politics of Sagacity

EPISODE 58

Lord Jang is now in charge of all the soldiers (except a few Royal Guards who didn’t go with the King).

Chun Soo is worried. DY also realises that he’s up to something. He seems to have the new Queen wrapped around his little finger and she is eager to believe that DY is bad. Now, he persuades her to move Dong Yi to her new residence while the King is away.

DY’s supporters believe Lord Jang is going to attack and kill DY and her son as they leave the palace. But no, it’s more sophisticated than that: he is going to frame DY for the attempted murder of the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince’s palanquin and entourage are attacked

But ‘luckily’ the Crown Prince is not harmed. However, guards arrest Chun Soo and his men who are at the scene (waiting to protect DY).Since the King is away, the Queen is in charge and has to issue an emergency decree for the arrests of DY and all those involved in ‘the conspiracy’. DY refuses to leave her quarters and guards surround her residence ready to arrest her.

Lord Jang rocks up looking very smug indeed. He reckons she regrets refusing to support him.

But now for the twist:

The guards are NOT there to arrest DY, they are there to arrest Lord Jang. The Queen was not so gullible after all and discovered what Lord Jang was up to.

Great ending! That’s as good as the twist back in Dong Yi episode 36 at the banquet!

***

EPISODE 59

The Soron are in a panic as Lord Jang prepares for an interrogation.

We discover that DY previously told the Queen about the king’s abdication and persuaded her that it was Lord Jang who was the real baddie.

DY has also sent word to the King. Since his army is already out of the palace, they secretly find and follow Lord Jang’s men and catch them trying to pay off merchants involved in the fake assassination attempt.

Lord Jang is beheaded

And his head displayed on the palace gates. There are exiles and executions for his cronies.

But everyone is against the king abdicating. In the end the Queen adopts Geum. That way he will be safe and a legitimate heir to the throne. DY decides that she must leave the palace.

***

EPISODE 60 FINAL

And so for the final episode.

DY has left the palace but she is busier than ever. She has set up her own citizen’s advice bureau and is helping the lowborn who have problems with corrupt yangban! Sometimes the King joins her and one night they out and we have the same fun scene when she steps on his back to get over a wall!

The only difference is that now she KNOWS she’s stepping on the King! (Remember back in the early days of Dong Yi and King Sukjong’s relationship she didn’t know who he was!!)

DY discovers that the Finance minister and police chief are involved in corruption – allowing yangban to have twice as many slaves and charge them double tax. They’ve even framed a lowborn for the murder of an official. But thanks to her investigation he is released and the baddies are caught.

read Was there really a Court Lady Investigation Bureau in the Joseon Palace?

Years later…

Dong Yi and King Sukjong are both dead and King Yeongjo is visiting his mother’s (Dong Yi) grave with Chun Soo.

A young lowborn girl (played by the same actress as DY as a child) is picking caterpillars from the grave. She wants to protect the grave as she’s heard about all the good work that DY was able to do even though she came from the lowest class. Chun Soo tells the little girl – whose name is Dong Yi – that she could be a great person too when she gets older.

And so for the moral of the story:

It’s not class that matters, it’s what’s in your heart.

***

I liked this final episode, particularly the scene when Dong Yi climbs onto the king’s back to climb over the wall. Their relationship has remained relaxed even though he’s the king. So cute. It’s nice to think that Dong Yi and the king continue their close and trusting relationship until the end. Historically, was that really the case, though? Well, let’s not be cynical!

I feel bad for Chun Soo I the story: he spent his whole life protecting Dong Yi, never having a family of his own, and then he outlives her and now lives to protect her son, King Yeongjo. 

Read more about Dong Yi and the Joseon period:

What were the social classes in the Joseon period?

What was the ranking system for Court Ladies ?

How did people address each other in the Joseon period? 

What was the Concubine Ranking System in the Joseon Palace?

How did people tell the time in the Joseon period?  

What can we learn about the status of women in the Joseon palace watching Jewel in the Palace?

What can we learn about Joseon society through the paintings of Shin Yun Bok?