The Forbidden Marriage: Episodes 11-12 (Final)

The Forbidden Marriage: Episodes 11-12 (Final)

by Unit

The end of our forbidden tale brings with it a final and swift showdown between our heroes and the baddies, leaving us with sweetness — tons of it — and plenty of romance to go round.

 
EPISODES 11-12 WEECAP

As we approach the climax of the drama, the queen selection process proceeds towards its completion as well, with Lady Seo’s unrelenting effort to crown her daughter as queen. She lays out traps for the other candidates — from spiked drinks to her default kidnapping — but Hwa-yoon outwits her every time. At some point, Hwa-yoon — or rather, Shin-won disguised as Hwa-yoon — allows herself to be kidnapped, but it’s a bait to trail the kidnappers to their hideout, and round them up for arrest. By the way, Shin-won looks really good with his hair let down like that. Lol.

Heon tasks Minister Jo to handle the interrogation himself, and his henchman confesses to be the one behind the death of the crown princess and the subsequent women who died in her quarters. He refuses to name his master, though, but Heon is not done with him yet. Neither is Minister Jo, who intends to kill the guy in order to cover his tracks.

In the meantime, So-rang gets arrested after being caught red-handed (or rather, rash-handed) as the mastermind behind the spiked tea — no thanks to the rash on her hands which developed after she touched the tea during her own private investigation. Talk about shooting herself in the foot! The wishy-washy dowager clearly knows the forces messing with the selection, but she chooses to go about it the political way: jailing So-rang in order to set a proper trap for Lady Seo and her minions.

Court Lady Won eventually returns to the palace after finding out that her husband married her sister and they both lovingly raised her son. Well, she wasn’t expecting her (ex) husband to stay single forever, and she’s content with being Cupid’s instrument to bring him and her sister together. So-rang feels like her current situation is about to mirror that of Court Lady Won (with Heon and her stepsister), but Court Lady Won absolutely refuses that fate for So-rang. With a little prodding and emotional blackmail here and there, she fishes out the court ladies on Lady Seo’s payroll — proving So-rang’s innocence, and So-rang is set free. Hooray!

But they’re not the only ones interested in a free and fair selection process. The Moseolodan, which is the association of single (and ready to mingle) citizens of Joseon, have been building over the course of the drama, and their ideals are spread around by ARTIST JEONG (Hong Shi-young a.k.a. Giriboy) — who pours the pain of his one-sided feelings for Hae-young into his bestselling (Joseon equivalent of a webtoon) “Dating Rules for Singles.” Lol.

The Moseolodan have finally had enough of the baddies messing with the selection and elongating the marriage ban, and they stage a protest to the palace with a demand to withdraw the ban. The gate is thrown open for them per Heon’s orders, and after a long, impassioned address concerning the crown princess’s murder and other selection hindering events, it’s time to announce the results of this year’s selection.

Without further ado, we welcome the dowager to announce the winning candidate between Hwa-yoon and Hyeon-hee. It’s all for formality’s sake since they both know the winner already. Hwa-yoon had the highest score in the second round of the selection process, but in the final round, she expressed her desire to withdraw from the race because she had no reason to become queen. After all, the king is in love with her “competitor” and for the good of the country, royal marriages should be based on love rather than politics.

“Yes, I want Ye Hyeon-seon to be the queen,” Hwa-yoon insisted after the dowager warned that stepping down will make Hyeon-seon the default queen since they’re the last two candidates in the selection. Thus, the new queen is announced: Ye Hyeon-seon, and with great joy, Hyeon-hee (a.k.a fraudulent Hyeon-seon) steps forward. But wait. From the shadows, there’s another foot stepping forward, too. Ta-da, it’s So-rang!

“Who is the real Ye Hyeon-seon?” the dowager demands, as both ladies square up against each other. Hyeon-hee falters. So-rang is resolute. The dowager is already in the know, but she still calls their father (Eom Hyo-seob) out to clear the air, and the debate is settled. Lady Seo is arrested, Minister Jo looks the other way, and their father leads Hyeon-hee away. He’s so embarrassed to have believed Lady Seo’s words that his eldest daughter ran away with a man, and he cannot even look So-rang in the face. How sad.

Anyway, back to our selection process, the results are out, but the ball is in So-rang’s court. Heon already asked the question in the past, but she turned him down. “Will you be my queen?” he asks her again, and this time, it’s a yes! The crowd cheers, Shin-won wears a slight smile. Heon formally announces the end of the marriage ban, and everyone goes wild! The end. We can all go home now. Hehehe. Just kidding. But really, it’s all filler from here on out.

It was such a good decision to not extend the drama beyond 12 episodes because they really stretched themselves to fill up the remaining 40 minutes-ish of the final episode. I mean, Instagram reel-like framing of the screen for the marriage proposal scenes of the many Joseon lovers? Are you kidding me? But it was kinda fun, though.

The late crown princess finally gets a proper gravesite, and it’s touching how So-rang is there to comfort the father of her predecessor. Hyeon-hee is made a slave, and Lady Seo is hanged. Minister Jo’s henchman leads back to his master as the mastermind of evil, and Minister Jo draws his sword against the king. He’s unrepentant to his final breath — a trait I appreciate in villains — and the king delivers the killing strike. No Min-woo pops up again to exchange pleasantries with the henchman (who kidnapped his sister), and I love that they let the henchman die by his hands.

Unfortunately, while we watch everyone else in Joseon get married, we don’t witness the royal wedding — just So-rang in her wedding dress. Pffft. So-rang worries about not being suited for the position of queen, but there’s no one else who can understand the people better than someone who travelled round Joseon during her days as a tramp. Plus, since she was instrumental in ending the marriage ban, she can work with the king to enact more policies for the benefit of the people.

Gwang-yi’s words make sense, actually, and So-rang’s first policy is to extend maternity leave, and institute paternity leave, too. Heon gets hilariously terrified of the aftermath of childbirth, and he tells So-rang he just wants her alone, no children. He’s totally being a baby right now, and with him, I don’t think she needs another one. But when his suggestion for birth control is abstinence, So-rang is forced to shut down the idea. LMAO!

In the end, everyone finds their own person: from Hae-young and Artist Jeong, to the king’s eunuch and Court Lady Won — both of whom even adopt three kids! Hwa-yoon gets the lead role in Crash Landing on Shin-won (literally, as per their parents’ and So-rang’s machinations), and this is a pairing I can get behind. I almost developed cavities from all the sweetness involved in the never-ending filler scenes, but we got a happy ending for the people we care about, and that’s all that matters.

PS: Artist Jeong begins a new work: “The Forbidden Marriage.” Hopefully, it’s way more campy than its drama counterpart — which wasn’t bad, but was unnecessarily bogged down by the whole Minister Jo and Lady Seo nonsense.
PPS: It’s implied that the kids we see after the time skip are Shin-won’s son and So-rang’s daughter, but please do not tell me they’re setting them up to be each other’s first loves. *Facepalms* Goodness gracious! I’m out of here.

 
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The Forbidden Marriage: Episodes 11-12 (Final)
Source: Buzz Pinay Daily