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Miss Ripley: Episode 15

Miri reaches the end of her rope, as everyone comes to collect what’s owed. The men in her life continue to think that they can save her, and don’t stop hurling themselves under buses to prove their love. Apparently a simple candygram just won’t do.

 
EPISODE 15 RECAP

All hell breaks loose in the media frenzy surrounding Miri’s scandal, but the real bomb is dropped quietly at a church. Lee Hwa trembles at the sight of her stepson, as the nun gasps, “That’s the fiancé of your daughter…”

Miri walks up to see who’s inside, and Lee Hwa starts to cry at the sight of her. Yoo-hyun introduces them formally – as mother and daughter. Miri, rightfully confused, doesn’t process what he means. “Yes, she is Mother, but she’s your mother.”

Lee Hwa shakes her head, “No, there must be some mistake. There must be some mistake!” and she runs out of there, unable to face them. It finally sinks in that Miri has just found her mother.

She asks how long he’s known, and laughs bitterly, wondering if it was fun for him, to take this kind of revenge on her. She supposes this is the price for her lies. Well karmically speaking, you’re not wrong.

But he assures her that it’s not revenge; he was shaken at the fact that the woman he loved lied to him, but was even more fraught to realize that it didn’t change his love. He sought out her mother in an attempt to find out more about her, to know how she became that way, to better understand her.

He never suspected it would lead them here.

She tells him that they forced her to legally change her name, but she insisted on still being called Miri because she knew her mother would come back for her. How ironic that her keeping her name was what kept Lee Hwa in the dark about her true identity this whole time.

Yoo-hyun tells her how his father met Mom on a plane when she was a flight attendant, and Miri asks bitterly if that’s why she was abandoned. He begins to tell her about Grandma, but she cuts him off angrily, wondering if that’s an acceptable reason to abandon your child. And then when Mom reappears like this, is she just supposed to accept her and be happy?

She trembles, “The way I’ve lived… the way I’ve lived…”

Lee Hwa drives away in tears, as we flashback to the day she left home, tearing herself away from a pleading, crying Miri. And then young Miri scattering her father’s ashes all alone…

Only she wasn’t alone, because Mom was standing ashore, watching her. Okay, that’s it. You’re officially the worst mom ever. I mean, you were already the worst, but this? Being here and seeing her, and still doing nothing?

Back in the present, she returns to that spot. The family secret-keeper comes up behind her, and she cries, “That’s the last time I saw her…” She was then orphaned, and later adopted, and Lee Hwa couldn’t find her.

He tells her that her husband not only knows about everything now, but knew back then too. She’s shocked to realize her big secret wasn’t so secret after all. At home she cries, clutching her photos of Miri as a child.

Yoo-hyun gets panicked calls from Chul-jin about their hotel being flooded with reporters, and he tells Miri that the story about her mother has already leaked to the press somehow. Damn, that’s fast.

She apologizes, not realizing how fast this would affect the company, but he tells her that he’s decided to just deal with everything as it happens and think later, which sounds obvious, but it’s probably an implication that he doesn’t know what any of this means for their relationship, but he’s just going to figure it out later, after crisis control.

She walks up to her apartment and finds Myung-hoon waiting for her outside. He tells her that he’s thought long and hard about how to deal with all of this, and he’s decided: he’s going to tell the prosecutors that it was all HIS doing, and that he told her to lie.

I’m sorry. WHAT?!

He says that if he thinks back, he was the one to ask her first whether she graduated from Tokyo University, and it all started there. Um, that’s like saying if I ask, “Are you the King of Atlantis?” and you answer “Yes,” then I’M at fault for you telling the world that you are the monarch of a lost civilization in the sea. Hello!

He goes on to say that he’ll take all responsibility and all she has to do is confirm the story. He adds that he genuinely loved her, and he’s thought this through.

So this is how you’re proving that love? Is everyone in this drama drinking the kool-aid? What the hell is wrong with all the men in this drama? Okay, I was with all their foolhardy choices up until now, because I get it—she’s pretty and you’re in love. But this is crazytown.

At least she feels like it’s wrong enough to put up a protest, but he’s made his decision, and he tells her that’s how it’s going to be. She looks up at him with tears in her eyes and says, “I’m sorry.”

Wait, that better not be you ACCEPTING his martyrdom. Because you are not a child, you’re not helpless, and for god sakes, you’re not even innocent! Please tell me she’s not going to let him do this.

Myung-hoon thinks back to all his happy memories with Miri when they were together. Most people would be angered by those memories if they knew that they were based on lies, but he’s clearly got a savior complex that overrides any reason.

At home Miri takes out her mother’s necklace and throws it bitterly into the trash. Hee-joo finds it the next day and looks at it curiously, knowing what it means to Miri. Then she sees the news stories linking Miri and Lee Hwa.

The story gets bigger and harder to control, and Lee Hwa flips out in her office. The chairman comes to see her, and she asks him how he pretended not to know all these years. He says that if he let on that he knew she had a daughter, she would never have married him.

Lee Hwa: I think I shouldn’t have. Because this marriage has made me into this kind of mother. For twenty years, everything I did for this company, for you—is this the price? Calm down? Because I was afraid of debt, I became a mother who abandoned her daughter and ran away. And that child, because nobody accepted her, got adopted to Japan where she ended up a bar hostess, and came back a liar! Is this the price for loving you?

Because I was grateful for you repaying my debts, I made it all the way here, being called an evil bitch. I didn’t even recognize that child when she came to me, and then to protect your son… this company… I spared no tactic…

I want to go back now. Me… and Miri… and your son… so we can live without perversion. I want to go back. Grant me a divorce. I can’t live like this any longer.

Her secretary interrupts to answer her question about where the press leak came from. He tells her that someone discovered a photo of Miri from her bar hostessing days… the night that Lee Hwa had thrown them in her face.

Oh crap. So it’s her fault that it’s out in the open too? It’s enough to make her faint, and she hits her head on the way down, enough to send her into a risky surgery. Gah, how convenient of you to go unconscious to avoid facing your actions. Yoo-hyun and Dad wait nervously as she goes into surgery.

Meanwhile the prosecutor tries to talk Myung-hoon out of taking the fall for Miri. But Myung-hoon just digs his heels in and says nothing. Grar!

Hee-joo finds out from Chul-jin that the news stories are true, and comes home to find Miri packing. Miri packs away the photos from her childhood, looking fondly at one of her and Hee-joo.

Hee-joo: “Are you going somewhere?” Miri: “I have to go pay. There’s so much I’ve done.” I sincerely hope this means you’re not going to let Myung-hoon take the fall.

Hee-joo returns her mother’s necklace and Miri laughs bitterly that she’s been calling her Mother all this time, taking all that horrible treatment from her own mom. Hee-joo tells her that she’s collapsed, and that she felt so horrible that she asked her husband to set everything back in its place.

Miri refuses to believe it. She shakes her head as she says over and over again that her mother isn’t allowed to collapse—not after what she’s done. She’s the person who abandoned her child. She isn’t the kind of person to collapse.

While unconscious, Lee Hwa dreams of coming back to Miri still as a child, returning to her with happy tears. They run to each other in a field and embrace, and then Mom cooks a modest meal for her. Sad, that all she can have now is this imaginary reunion with Miri. If she were still a child it would have been like this.

Yoo-hyun asks his father why he did it, and Dad tells him it was his selfish greed in wanting to keep Lee Hwa to himself. Yoo-hyun tells him that he should’ve considered the pain he caused to the motherless child, only then realizing why he felt such empathy for Miri – because he was the same when he lost his mother.

He admits that even after learning everything, his heart still sways, and Dad tells him that their marriage can never be.

Hirayama makes a ruckus in the Mondo lobby, tearing the place apart as he shouts for Yoo-hyun. The reporters eat it up. He rushes up to Yoo-hyun as he arrives, and roughs up a few of his bodyguards just for kicks.

Up on the roof, Hirayama sticks the newspaper in his face, asking if this is his idea of love. He makes it clear what he thinks love should be: protection, as in getting your hands dirty to protect the one you love. He declares Yoo-hyun’s “kind” as too calculating.

I actually like that this character difference is pronounced and consistent. Hirayama is the fiery, passionate one who’s a hothead, and Yoo-hyun is the cold, calculating one who thinks of everything as a problem with a solution.

Yoo-hyun tells him not to assume that he’s the only one with a heart, and Hirayama warns him that if he doesn’t protect Miri, he’s not going to stand by.

The prosecutor’s office storms Hotel A to confiscate all of Myung-hoon’s files, and news breaks of his taking the responsibility for Miri’s lies. Chul-jin wonders if they should do something to get Miri out of this, like use their corporate power to lean on the prosecutors.

But Yoo-hyun tells him that he’s going to do nothing.

Yoo-hyun: She did this herself. She has to take responsibility for it. It’s the right choice for her. If this is a pain she has to endure, she has to do it. That’s the only way she’ll be able to stand upright once she comes back out into the world.

Well thank heavens SOMEBODY in this drama thinks with his brain. Finally, some sense!

He calls a press conference to basically explain the backstory, adding that their engagement isn’t broken, and the reporters ask if his trying to understand and sympathize with Miri means that he forgives her. To drive the point home, his dilemma is intercut with images of a young Miri growing up like Cinderella, adopted by her foster parents to basically be a servant.

He makes it clear that she still has to pay for her crimes, but leaves the question unanswered about his feelings. In the very least he succeeds in getting the press to back off for a while.

Lee Hwa lands back in critical condition and Hee-joo tries to convince Miri to go to the hospital, but she refuses.

Miri: Why do I have to go there? I don’t have a mother. I’m an orphan. Since when is she my mom, that woman? She’s the person who threw me away twenty years ago. She’s the one who threw away her only child to go be with the person she liked. Do you think that’s all? Do you know who spread those pictures to the press? My mom…that person who is my mother.
Hee-joo: But she’s still your mom.
Miri: No. So if she appears I have to call her Mom, and if she disappears again, I’m back to being an orphan? No. I don’t want to anymore. I don’t have a mom. I lived and ate well without one, and I was even happy without one. Do you know that? … I don’t care if she dies! I don’t care if she dies. A mother? I don’t have one.

Gah. Heartbreaking.

Hey, I’m with her on this one. I mean, I know she’s just lashing out, but I don’t think she should consider someone her mother just because she reappeared out of thin air. That said, if Lee Hwa dies like this, she’ll inevitably regret not going to see her, even if it’s to say hateful things.

The doorbell rings and whoever it is bangs on the door violently, refusing to go away. Both girls stop in their tracks, and Miri braces herself to face the prosecutors. Hee-joo shakes her head, refusing to open the door, but Miri signals her that it’s okay, and to open it.

She goes to the door herself, but it’s Hirayama there instead, demanding that she not end up in jail like this. He grabs her, kicking and screaming, and drives off with her. Hee-joo calls Yoo-hyun in a panic.

He drives off in search of Miri, though of course it’s his minion that does all the heavy lifting. They’ve had someone tailing Hirayama for a while, and he reports that there’s been some movement to try and prepare a boat to set said tonight.

Hirayama drags her onto the dock, while she screams for him to let her go. She wants to face the charges and pay for her sins, but he declares it a cruel world that won’t forgive her. She kicks him free long enough to run away, but he chases her doggedly, like he’s always done.

Yoo-hyun finally catches up to them as he’s dragging her back onto the dock, and punches Hirayama in the face. He hits Yoo-hyun back and Miri screams for him to stop.

Hirayama shouts in Yoo-hyun’s face that Miri is his woman, and that just because he’s lived his life well and the world treats him nicely, does not mean that they get the same treatment.

But while the boys are busy fighting it out, Miri runs to the edge of the dock and holds a hook up to her head. She shouts at Hirayama to stop, and that if something happens to Yoo-hyun, she’ll just die right there.

Sirens wail as the police close in on them.

She inches closer to the edge. “Do you think I can’t do it? Like you said, I’m a bitch with nothing. But I met that person and got treated like a human being. I learned what love is, and even what happiness is. Do you know that? Don’t come any closer! Don’t come any closer!”

But just then, she loses her footing and goes tumbling into the ocean as the two men watch in horror.

Yoo-hyun jumps over the railing, shouting her name.

 
COMMENTS

Hm. I sort of wanted to see Miri fight tooth and nail till the bitter end, until she was forced to face the consequences of her actions. But I suppose her decision to turn herself in doesn’t mean that she faces anything less than what she’s due.

I definitely want Miri to pay for her crimes, and it looks like that’s where the finale is headed – though through it, to her redemption and atonement. I’m not so set against her that I need a tragic ending for her or anything, but hers is one case where I definitely want an eye for an eye. Not vengefully, but a just punishment, to fit the crime.

I’m not upset at the drama for making Myung-hoon the martyr, because it’s consistent with his character, but HE upsets me greatly because he’s just enabling her till the very end. You’re doing no one any good. What’s sad is that such a pivotal character initially, ended up so marginal in the end. I hope she does something else in the final episode other than pathetically say “I’m sorry,” like that fixes anything.

I could do without all this hospital everybody’s-life-hangs-in-the-balance thing, because it’s unnecessary drama in an already very dramatic world. I want to watch people own up to their wrongs and have to deal with the fallout, not lie comatose and have guilty dreams. What’s that about?

How tragic and perfect that Miri spent her whole life as an orphan chanting, “I’m not an orphan! I have a mother!” and as soon as her mother reappears in her life, it’s now become: “I’m an orphan. I have no mother.” Dramatically speaking, it’s actually one of the story elements that has had a satisfying fallout in comparison to the others.

I wasn’t a fan of the mother-daughter relationship when it was a birth secret, but now that both of them are facing the abandonment head-on, it’s gripping. It’d just be nice if one party was, say, conscious, so that they could have a dialogue about it instead of talking to other people or imaginary versions of the other. Hopefully that’s one element the finale will deliver to satisfaction.

 
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i hope she doesnt die,everything would be solved and she would live the happy life she deserves. Yes she lied heaps and did all that shit but cmon-considering what she went through in the past and present with the whole mom and love triangle and making mistakes. & how she realises her mistakes and wanted to face her wrongdoings. She didnt even run away when she had the opportunity (with the end of ep15)

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oh & go to page one of the comments. i explained what happened in EP16 preview

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Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Looks like you are new to Dramabeans, we are not like the rest of all the forums!!!
WE HATE SPOILERS WITH OUT WARNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have the courtesy to WARN people that you are writing a spoiler, so the people that have not watched will know ahead of time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stop!!!!!!!!!! we do not need your help!!!!!!!!!! people around here know were to go if they need SPOILERS!!!!!!!

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What the hell is with the savior complexes of the men in this drama?!

Myung-hoon, Yoo-hyun, Hirayama, the Dad.

Myung-hoon, especially. DRIVING ME UP THE WALL! Everything I respected about his character is trash now. All because of a woman. GAH!!! GET YOUR HEAD ON STRAIGHT PLEASE! YOU'RE AN INTELLIGENT MAN!

And really. Did we REALLY need to put the mom in the hospital? * GROAN *

And please, God, don't tell me you're going to put Miri in the hospital, too, in the finale!!!

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I'm not sure how I feel about the direction the show is going for the finale. At the end of this episode I just drew a blank, but I felt uneasy and dissatisfied.

What bother's me about what's happening is that the set up for the show was not one of a fairytale happy ending which I don't think we're going to get, but I still get the feeling like what's happening is a sort of cop out. (If we're gonna have a cop out it should at least lead to happy ending Show!)

Mainly what bother's me is the idea that Miri would somehow find redemption WITHOUT, through her own will, taking responsibility for her own actions.

Interestingly one of the definitions of redemption is 'recovery of something pawned or mortgaged.' It's intriguing to think of Miri's redemption in those terms because she's pawned her beauty, her heart, and her integrity for status and money. Redemption can also mean a payment of an obligation. And really, Miri has an obligation to the people she's wronged (just like Lee hwa has a GIANT obligation to Miri) especially since all of those people continue to support and protect her.

The latest turn of events relates to something that constantly runs through kdramas (and inevitably leaves me utterly incensed ripping my hair out- I take my kdramas seriously) which is that other people are ultimately responsible for who you become. Not that other people contribute to or affect who you become BUT that other people are ~ultimately~ responsible for who you become. I hate that! I find it is such a cop out and a disservice to the hero/heroine. It's tragic and at the same time defeatist to think that you can't ever overcome what others have done to you or made you. :'(

I pity Miri. I wish shitty things didn't happen to her, her whole life and that things would get better for her,...but I just. can't. seem to love her, defend her and be a champion for her as a character like I want to! I don't know how I would react to her in the real world, but as a character I wanted the show to move me that way, but it hasn't.

The trajectory towards the finale makes Miri a prisoner puppet robot of fate and other people. There are many kdramas with this type of theme, but I didn't think Miss Ripley was one of them because we had a heroine who would stop at nothing to make her life what she wanted. You would think that, that proactive determined person, once she has changed her mind and gained a conscience, would be as proactive in working to earn her redemption even if she ultimately fails (keep her a prisoner of fate if you want Show).

Instead of falling to her almost death I would have liked if Miri confronted her mother. Whether she forgives her mother or not is up to Miri, but that she confronts her is important. And 2, I would have loved it if Miri turned herself into the police and told the truth to everyone. I would have gladly cheered her on till the end. She could have the deadening weight of all those lies, deceit, betrayal and sacrifices finally lifted off of those tiny, tiny little shoulders, literally and metaphorically...

The end to my dissertation :)

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Lovely dissertation, malta :P

I especially agree with your views on how Kdramas tend to absolve their heros/heroines of their guilt by alluding to harsh circumstances of injustice faced by them, which I find infuriating. Relatedly, those kinds of plot-lines always seem to suggest that people are bound to some absolute destiny that makes it seem that people are not responsible for their actions, which is just . . . grrr!!

And, yes, I would have preferred a (supposedly) redeemed JMR to proactively work toward amending her wrongdoings, rather than a comatose one.

Anywho, I enjoyed reading your comment ~

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Wonderfully put!

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I just had a freak out session....KYYYAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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lol hiriyama is full of himself. love how he considers himself a love interest when in fact he's just a sick douche he who pimps out women. really now?

so many feelings for miri right now. she should definitely pay for her sins, but my heart breaks for her at times as well.

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I don't know what to think of this. I loved this drama up till episode 12, when Yuhyun had his new haircut and a new dark side to him...which then went to hell. -_-

After Episode 14 and reading 15's recap, I don't even think I'll watch the last two episodes to keep myself from cursing at the Ripley writers.

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Thanks for the recap!! Is it wrong that I had wished for Miri to run away with Hirayama? I was definitely disappointed with Myung-hoon sacrificing himself. He will never find true, long-lasting happiness for himself if he doesn't respect himself.

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gah! I was also like you go Yoo Hyun! Let her face the consequence , face the law and after that she don't have to bear guilt any more. If myunghoon takes the blame she will be miserable!

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