The Story of Park's Marriage Contract (2023) Episode 10

Episode 10 of The Story Park’s Marriage begins in the Joseon period with Madam Yoon berated by her peers. They tease her over her sons unable to take the scholar exam. One of those happens to be Tae-min, who apologizes for his failures. Unfortunately, the patriarch (Chairman) throws something at Hye-suk when she asks him for help. He badmouths her for doing a bad job raising the kids.

We then cut back to the present, where Hye-suk is told to leave the room after the fiery encounter and bombshell reveals. Tae-ha is spiralling out of control, realizing that everything he knew is a lie. The thing is, nothing has gone back to normal despite Hye-suk being dealt with, and now both Tae-ha and Yeon-woo need to face the truth that the Chairman could actually be the real crook here. Yeon-woo promises to always be by his side as he faces this, and the pair look longingly into one another’s eyes.

Hye-suk reveals the truth to Tae-min too, who’s shocked that she’s waited until now to tell him. He’s livid about the company’s toll on the family and she points out that it would have left her with nothing. The irony, of course, is that she’s neglecting ehr own son. “You;ll need to stay queit in order tobe safe and get shares at the next meeting,” She says. Tae-min, incredulous, tells her rthat she’s cruel.

Yeon-woo’s pop-up is the talk of SH right now, and after their fiery encounter last episode, Yeon-woo atches things up with Deputy Yoo. Yeon-woo is polite and tries to be civil… and thta he;ps her to open up. She points out that the Chairman was the one who asked her to sabotage everything, and she even has pictures of it too. Not only that, but his surgery in the US story and everything else was a complet efabrication too. Plus, he knew about the contract marriage.

Tae-ha confronts his grandfather about this and he admits to everything. He believes that he saved Tae-ha and lifted him up when in reality, Tae-ha was living in hell. Tae-ha bitterly retorts that he’ll never forgive him for letting his mum die and warns him off from Yeon-woo. Unfortunately, he gets a smack to the face for his trouble.

When Tae-ha leaves, Yeon-woo is there to greet him in a separate car but he’s struggling with his heart again. This time it’s Tae-ha’s turn to sleep it off and recover, and Yepon-woo is left twiddling her fingers. The doctor points out that three months back Tae-ha’s condition deteriorated, which matches the time period for Yeon-woo showing up.

Yeon-woo ends up speaking to the Guardian Angel again, who gives her a choice over whether to return to the past or stay in the present. However, she tells Yeon-woo that if she stays, then Tae-gha’s heart will stop. But why is all this happening? Well, apparently Yeon-woo’s father saved a woman from being bullied by a bunch of kids and handed over a pocket watch. She stopped time to stop her from dyign in the well and transferred her to the present.

Whule Sa-wol gets into the groove of part-time work to earn her keep, Hong worries that she’s getting bored of him. However, when he finds out it’s just that she’s concerned about her name and being an idiot here in New Joseon, he asks her to marry him. And the pair share a lovely kiss outside!

Yeon-woo, seeing the dilemma that Tae-ha is in, rings the chairman and organizes a meet. At his place, Teon-woo encourages him to apologize and stop hurting Tae-ha. In fact, she even drops to her knees and begs him. He snubs her attempts at salvaging the situation though and tells her never to return again.

On her way out, Yeon-woo is grabbed by someone hiding in the closet. She’s been kidnapped, and with pictures sent over to Tae-ha to confirm she’s been drugged, he receives a message telling him he needs to arrive at a specified location – and he needs to be quick. These are supposedly the Chairmen’s men and they take her to an abandoned warehouse.

Yeon-woo is smart though and feigns stomach problems to try and escape. She fends off one of the men and thankfully Tae-ha shows up just in time to save her and bring her back home. Tawe-ha is livid when he realizes this was the Chairman’s doing, and he decides to head over and confront him. 

Myeong-soo happens to be waiting in his living room. It turns out Myeong-soo wants revenge and has orchestrated all of this from the shadows. The Chairman’s son apparently killed his wife, Ji-eun. Hhis stake in this comes from the Chairman making a big call at the hospital. Using his power, he forced the surgeons to abandon Ji-eun’s work and to focus on Myeong-soo’s son instead. The chairman claims this is just bad luck, which only riles him up more.

When Myeong-soo pounces on the old man and grabs the chairman by the throat, Tae-ha jumps in and manages to stop it from escalating. He even drops to his knees and begs for forgiveness, realizing now that Myeong-soo is the real bad guy and he was hiding behind the chairman this whole time. He’s hit in the head with a heavy pot by Myeong-soo and as he passes out on the ground, the Guardian Angel’s words echo through – Tae-ha is going to die.

The Episode Review

Whether Tae-ha dies or not is still up for debate but it would appear that Yeon-woo has come to the present presumably so she can spend more time with her beloved before he properly passes away. It’s a nice way of rounding things out and an additional twist that keeps things interesting too.

The show has done well so far to keep things fresh and this week’s doubler-bill has lifted the veil and revealed a lot of secrets that have been hidden away for a while.

Quite what next week’s double-bill has in store for us remains to be seen but it’s certainly been quite the exciting watch.