7 Characters Who Got Their Just Desserts In Episodes 13-14 Of “Longing For You”

Here we are! After weeks of tight pacing, “Longing for You” is at an end, and what an explosive end it is. We know the who, what, when, and why of Oh Jin Woo’s (Ren’s) death. But we don’t know how Oh Jin Sung (Na In Woo) and Go Young Joo (Kim Ji Eun) are going to prove their case at trial and whether Cha Young Woon (Kwon Yool) will join them or not. The finale answers all those questions and more. Here are seven characters who got their just desserts!

Warning: spoilers for episodes 13-14 below.

1. Jung Woo No

Secretary Jung Woo No (Kim Chul Ki) has been Yoo Jung Sook’s (Bae Jong Ok’s) loyal right-hand man for so long, she may as well be his religion. He lies repeatedly to Young Joo that he had nothing to do with Jin Woo’s or Park Ki Young’s (Lee Kyu Han’s) deaths. The joke’s on him though because Young Joo calmly confirms his evidence, has Jung Sook dragged in for questioning and confirms her evidence (where she denies everything), and brings in a very alive Ki Young into the interrogation room.

We get surprised Pikachu faces from Woo No and Jung Sook because Jung Sook thought that Woo No had offed Ki Young on her orders. And Woo No had thought that no one would find that he disobeyed Jung Sook because he couldn’t kill someone he had partially helped raise. Young Joo just smirks as they fall over themselves in an attempt to explain how a dead man was miraculously alive and being kept in Woo No’s apartment this whole time. Naturally, Woo No recants and blames himself to save Jung Sook. But Ki Young has spent a long time plotting revenge and gathering evidence. And even though the Prosecutor General springs Jung Sook out of detainment, the stuff Ki Young has on Jung Sook could prove very damaging at trial.

2. Cha Jin Cheol

Cha Jin Cheol (Choi Kwang Il) seems to have discovered a conscience late in life. After having ignored the children he fathered for years, not even knowing where or who they were, he has a sudden crisis upon finding that his wife intended to use said children as heart donors for their son. Jung Sook rightfully points out his hypocrisy. He was fine with killing an innocent person if it meant that Young Woon got to live. But he’s suddenly acting like she’s a monster because she killed one of the sons he didn’t care about for years? At least Jin Cheol doesn’t try to pretend that he’s a good person. He merely tells his wife that he won’t let her get away with this anymore and leaves. Jung Sook’s down to only Woo No as her last ally, but even he can’t save her from Ki Young’s damning evidence.

3. Park Ki Young

Ki Young is a fascinating character because you can pinpoint the exact moment he went insane. He was brilliant, a high academic achiever, and a happy, well-adjusted kid under Jung Sook’s tutelage until he found out why she was being so kind to him. He found that something was awry when his mother’s friend told him that Jin Jin Hospital had prescribed his mother narcotics under the guise of medication. It didn’t take him long to realize that Jung Sook basically poisoned his mother so she could rear him as Young Woon’s donor. Worse, he even found a death certificate on her computer marking him as brain-dead. He even found that he had another half-brother, Jin Woo, and that Jin Cheol was his father, not just Jung Sook’s husband who was nice to him. And Ki Young just lost it.

Young Woon asks why he didn’t just come to him, but Ki Young wasn’t sure he would even believe him. He lost his entire support system and was utterly betrayed by the people who should have cared for him most. And Jin Jin was such a powerhouse that he knew he had no way of going against them unless he got some power of his own. Ki Young planned everything. He followed Jin Woo for a bit and discovered that he was a chef and had a thing for ankles. That got him the idea to create a serial killer who used a chef’s knife to cut ankles. Next up, he didn’t have to work hard to get Bae Min Kyu (Jung Sang Hoon) to use that method to kill his wife and create a serial killer. Once the investigation began, Ki Young hoped that Jin Woo would be thrown in jail, which would prevent Jung Sook from being able to use him as Young Woon’s donor.

But Jin Sung’s tenacity got Jin Woo cleared. And so, Ki Young watched and waited as Jin Woo was killed, gathering all the evidence he needed to take her down. Jin Sung is disgusted. Ki Young’s reasons are valid, but at no point did his plan to ruin Jung Sook consider Jin Woo’s life. He didn’t bother interfering with Woo No killing Jin Woo and didn’t warn Jin Sung that his brother would never leave Jin Jin Hospital alive. Ki Young did do a great service in personally collecting all the evidence to destroy Jung Sook. But that doesn’t make him a good guy. He’s tried for his own crimes (kidnapping, accessory to murder) and faces jail for a long time.

4. Cha Young Woon

Young Woon has had a terrible few weeks. The dead friend he considered a brother is alive and is his actual half-brother, but his mother wanted him dead, and the ahjusshi he considered an uncle is his mother’s private hitman. It’s a lot to wrap a head around. Young Woon tries to protect his mother as much as possible, realizing that she truly did this out of love for him. But love can only go so far, and his isn’t as twisted as hers. Jin Sung and Young Joo are trying to be understanding about where he’s coming from, but even he doesn’t know what to do. It’s one thing to hear that she was trying to save him. It’s another to see how callously and brutally she has treated Jin Woo and Ki Young and how she has plotted their murders from the start.

So when Young Woon digs up the CCTV footage of Jin Woo’s room the night he was pronounced brain dead, he can’t defend his mother anymore. His mother may have lived for him, but Young Woon has to live everyday with the knowledge that someone was murdered so that he could live. He can’t live for her. And the kindest thing he can do for her is to build a mother-son relationship that isn’t based on obligation and resentment. So he hands the footage over to Jin Sung and Young Joo.

I am living for Kwon Yool not being the bad guy here.

5. Yoo Jung Sook

And we reach the trial of our villainess. The evidence against Jung Sook has reached a peak at this point. Ki Young was very thorough and hacked into her computer to copy files on Jin Jin’s Again Project. The details are chilling. Jin Jin gained a reputation for itself as a hospital that values people’s lives over money due to offering free physicals. But it turns out that the data from those physicals was being used to pick individuals who would be ripe for organ donation—forceful organ donation to Jin Jin’s wealthy backers and international billionaires. Young Joo finds several death certificates prepared in advance, turning perfectly healthy people into dead ones so that Jin Jin can harvest their organs and sew them into rich people who would kill anyone to live just a day more.

It’s enough to put Jung Sook away for a long, long time. But the one thing they don’t have is proof that Jung Sook was behind Jin Woo’s death. And that’s where Young Woon’s provision of the CCTV video becomes crucial. The court is aghast as they watch Jung Sook in Jin Woo’s hospital room, tearfully asking the comatose man to save Young Woon’s life. And she turns off his ventilator and kills him. Jung Sook and Woo No are sentenced to death row, while Ki Young and Min Kyu get life in jail.

Jung Sook addresses the court, saying that while she did raise Ki Young to be her son’s donor, she wasn’t without feeling. She cared about him too. She notes that she was just prepared to do anything for her son, and it just so happened that the means at her disposal were greater than that of the average person. She had the power to do it, so she couldn’t stop herself from doing it. Jung Sook was never an over-the-top sort of villain and felt human and grounded to the end. She accepts her punishment without complaint.

6. Go Young Joo

Life gets really busy for Young Joo afterwards. Jung Sook’s connections were far-reaching, and Young Woon, Jin Sung, and her basically have to clean up the entire medical profession from the bigwigs to doctors who were bribed. It’s actually been great to see Young Joo’s role in the show. She was crucial to ensuring that Jung Sook and Woo No were punished, and she constantly put her career on the line to fight for what was right. Despite an obligatory damsel-in-distress bit for both her and Yang Hee Joo (Jung Ga Hee), this show did a pretty decent job at giving us two women whose arcs revolved around their career growth. Well done, show.

7. Oh Jin Sung

A year later, Young Woon continues to write to his mother. She collects his letters but leaves them unread. Perhaps it’s due to shame, or perhaps she just doesn’t know how to face him. Ki Young and Min Kyu plot to escape from prison. They have the maximum sentence so Ki Young reasons that there is really no further punishment they can get at this point. Jin Sung and his family mark the two-year anniversary of Jin Woo’s passing and are grateful to have been able to get justice for him. He’s thriving as a cop and happy with what he does, despite the work load. Young Joo and Young Woon’s potential romance seems to have fizzled out because she vaguely drops a hint to Jin Sung that she’s interested. He looks thrilled and says he’s been longing for this for sometime. And we leave them there!

“Longing for You” was a bit of a surprise. It seemed like a standard thriller, but there was never a slow moment, and the central mystery wasn’t overly convoluted. All the actors gave fine performances, and Na In Woo continues to prove that he’s quite talented. Plus, Kwon Yool wasn’t a villain! I live for the day he gets a lead role. Everyone in this show was longing for something, be it a new heart for their son, revenge, or justice. But the point is that not all long-held desires are equal, and some can corrupt the more you cling to them. And that’s a pretty good message to leave us with.

 

cr: Soompi