5 Times Honey Lee & Lee Jong Won Are Thwarted In Episodes 9-10 Of “Knight Flower”

It’s wild to believe that we’re almost at the end of “Knight Flower.” Much happened this week to set us up for an explosive finale. This is one of the rare shows that could actually benefit from a couple extra episodes because it feels like there’s so much we need to resolve before then. Enemies wait at every corner to foil Jo Yeo Hwa (Honey Lee) and Park Soo Ho (Lee Jong Won) in their search for the truth. Here are five times they were thwarted both professionally and personally in the latest episodes!

Warning: spoilers for episodes 9-10 below.

1. Ji Sang orders Yeo Hwa to leave for a three-year period of mourning

Royal Secretary Park Yoon Hak (Lee Ki Woo) is as surprised as Soo Ho when a masked figure crashes his meeting with Yeo Hwa and puts a sword to his neck. Soo Ho steps in to save his brother but is bewildered to find that it’s Yeo Hwa. She’s equally confused to find him there. Soo Ho inadvertently hints at Yeo Hwa’s identity by calling her “buin” which means “wife” and is used to refer to married women. Yoon Hak starts putting everything together, especially when Soo Ho ditches him to run off with the strange masked figure.

After Soo Ho reveals the reason that Yoon Hak wanted to meet with her, Yeo Hwa agrees to a second meeting. By then Yoon Hak has already deduced that Yeo Hwa is the masked man Soo Ho’s so eager to protect, and he’s having a great time poking fun at his brother for being so besotted. But things take a serious note at the meeting when Yoon Hak comes clean and reveals to Soo Ho and Yeo Hwa that he believes her father-in-law Seok Ji Sang (Kim Sang Joong) is behind the previous king’s murder and the spate of crime in the capital. Yeo Hwa thinks through the long years she’s been with this family and how Ji Sang seemed so eager to find her brother and acted with such concern toward her. It comes as a horrible shock as she realizes that the only reason he was so keen to find her brother was to discover what the last king’s secret order to him was.

She leaves with great dignity but in complete shock. She has to know the truth, so she tests Ji Sang by writing a fake letter supposedly sent to her indicating that the sender has information on her brother. Ji Sang immediately reacts badly. Yeo Hwa realizes that Yoon Hak was right when he immediately forbids her from going, but she doesn’t expect his next action: to order her to mourn at her husband’s graveside for three years. This was a common practice at the time, used to shun women away under patriarchal Joseon law and turn her into a graveyard keeper. But her husband, whom she never even met, has been dead for over 10 years. To send her away now is an ugly act, and Ji Sang’s insistence on it shows that he doesn’t care if she sees his true face anymore.

2. When the team finds little in the way of useful evidence.

Yeo Hwa, Soo Ho, Yoon Hak, and Merchant Jang So Woon (Yoon Sa Bong) meet at the Myungdo Inn to discuss what to do next. With Oh Nan Kyeong (Seo Yi Sook) using King Yi So’s (Heo Jung Do’s) mother, the Queen Dowager, to warn Ji Sang that she has her eye on him and prepared to reveal what he’s done if he doesn’t do as she says, Ji Sang’s on edge. And a bad guy on edge tends to get ugly. He orders Kang Pil Jik (Jo Jae Yoon) to kill Nan Kyeong. Soo Ho arrives on time to stop him, and that puts Ji Sang in a quandary. He can’t have Pil Jik spilling the beans, so he threatens him into house arrest. Pil Jik knows that he’s done for because he failed Ji Sang’s mission and is prepared to do anything to get into his good graces.

And our good guys have no proof of anything that they can use to bring the bad guys down despite said bad guys having a ton of infighting going on.

3. Soo Ho and Yeo Hwa are thwarted by societal expectations

Things gets worse when Soo Ho realizes that Yeo Hwa’s being forced out of town by Ji Sang. He’s more upset about it than about the fact that they can’t find evidence. Even Yoon Hak is agog that his priorities are out of whack right now. Yeo Hwa and Soo Ho are aware of this thing that’s been brewing between them for some time, and this week, Yeo Hwa’s the one who addresses it. She tells Soo Ho that this is not something that they can act on. At the end of the day, she’s someone’s wife. It doesn’t matter that she’s never met her husband and lived cloistered for years and years. Society dictates that widowed women are as good as dead. There’s no happy ending in the future for them.

Soo Ho knows and hates that this is true but vows that he’ll keep her name unblemished. There’s nothing he can do short of running away with her, and with both of them determined to have justice, they can’t do that at the moment either.

4. Kang Pil Jik escapes Soo Ho and Yeo Hwa

A masked Soo Ho and Yeo Hwa break into Pil Jik’s guild where he’s under house arrest, and it’s so cute that these two are carrying out vigilante shenanigans together. He’s surprised to have two masked men break in, but Soo Ho’s face is really recognizable, and he puts two and two together quickly. Much to Yeo Hwa’s horror, Soo Ho unmasks himself and sort of loses it when Pil Jik’s nonchalant about killing his family.

He’s inches from killing him when Yeo Hwa stops him, and he’s all, “You said you wouldn’t stop me!” And what’s so impressive about this show is that this doesn’t become some wild moral conundrum where Yeo Hwa tries to tell him that revenge is bad or anything silly like that. She agrees and lets him go, and Soo Ho’s about to shed some blood when Pil Jik confesses. He vows that he’ll give Soo Ho everything. Alas, he’s bluffing for time, and him and his henchman manage to injure Yeo Hwa (just her arm) and escape. Not good.

5. The prodigal son returns to Soo Ho’s and Yeo Hwa’s horror

Even more not good, Ji Sang’s prodigal son Seok Jeong (Oh Eui Sik) has been found out by his father.

Ji Sang orders him to leave the city. Seok Jeong is flabbergasted that Ji Sang would go as far as to lie that he’s dead, but Ji Sang says that he shouldn’t be surprised seeing as leaving the family means that he’s dead to them. Seok Jeong really does love his mother though, and he’s taken with Yeo Hwa’s plight, having to mourn a husband she doesn’t know. So he meets with his mother Yoo Geum Ok (Kim Mi Kyung) and reveals that he’s alive. Geum Ok is overjoyed and brings him home where Seok Jeong lies that he was attacked by bandits and had amnesia and returned when he got his memory back after over 10 years, haha. This could be the plot of a whole other drama.

Yeo Hwa would have preferred if he died. On one hand, she doesn’t have to mourn at his grave for three years. On the other hand, her mother-in-law’s hinting that she wants grandchildren and expects Yeo Hwa to get busy that night. Patriarchal norms are wild. This poor woman’s been forced to shun the light of day and colorful clothes and other people for years, and they suddenly want her to procreate in a night. Ridiculous. Soo Ho’s even more upset at this state of affairs because there’s literally nothing he can do. Yeo Hwa’s trapped and without answers. She knocks Seok Jeong out on their “wedding night” and escapes to Myungdo Inn where she finds a very drunk and sad Soo Ho thinking that he’s hallucinating upon seeing her. And we leave off there!

It isn’t clear what role Seok Jeong will play in all of this. Is he interested in Yeo Hwa? He seemed taken with her beauty, but that’s about it. What happened in his life to make him leave home and come back? It remains to be seen on whether he’ll be a help or a hindrance, especially since he suspects that his wife is the “lover” he keeps seeing Soo Ho with.

Meanwhile, Ji Sang’s getting equally cornered. He, Pil Jik, and Nan Kyeong were the key conspirators behind the king’s death, and Nan Kyeong’s on the outs with them. He and Pil Jik are still powerful though, so our good guys may have it rough in the final week. Soo Ho and Yeo Hwa remain adorable even if the romance has been very tame so far. We’ve two episodes left and not so much as a kiss, which is fitting for the time period. But having one would be quite nice. Yoon Hak and Yeo Hwa’s best friend/maid Yeon Sun (Park Se Hyun) are also too adorable for words, so here’s hoping that we get some thrills, justice, and romance in our last couple of episodes!

 

cr: Soompi