Previously on Hotel King… recap ep 25

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Anna’s Recap

SPOILER ALERT: Do not proceed if you do not want to know what has happened so far!

Jae-wan sure is slacking off with his General Manager duties; not to mention that he’s also the self-proclaimed protector of Ciel. Mo-ne and her constant neediness are probably distracting him from the actual task at hand with Ciel. All he seems to care about nowadays is her, so it’s no wonder that he is STILL getting blindsided by things. Seriously, he should be plotting and scheming against Chairwoman Baek and Joong-goo and not wasting time watching Finding Nemo. There’s a war going on here. Get it together, man!

Jae-wan is feeling both relieved and happy that he was finally able to visit his mother’s grave and greet her for the first time. Of course, he doesn’t know yet that this is just some random grave that Joong-goo found and used to trick him. And while he was at the grave, Mo-ne found out from the old man that runs the resort house that Chairwoman Baek is Jae-wan’s mother, and how her father and Joong-goo had ruined her life. Jae-wan meets Mo-ne at the resort house, ready to tell her about seeing his mother’s grave, but all she does is cry her eyes out and tells him to run away with her. She refuses to tell Jae-wan what’s actually wrong, and just cries and bums everyone out. Mo-ne’s not actually feeling bad that her father and Joong-goo were super evil guys that ruined a poor girl’s life, but only cares that Chairwoman Baek is Jae-wan’s mom. Raise your hand if you’re surprised by her selfishness. No one? Yeah, me neither.

Because he’s blinded by love, Jae-wan agrees with Mo-ne’s request to stay the rest of the day and overnight at the resort house and not go back to Ciel. Maybe Ciel is such a hot mess because its GM chooses to ditch work without warning, and have a beach day with his girlfriend instead. That night, Mo-ne cries some more and tells Jae-wan that she will give him all the love that he never had while he was growing up. Jae-wan, in return, tells her that he loves her, and they sleep together that night.

Jae-wan and Mo-ne begrudgingly get back to work the next day, and the first thing that Mo-ne does is rile up Chairwoman Baek. She marches into Chairwoman Baek’s office and demands to know if she killed her father. Chairwoman Baek wonders aloud why a maid thinks that she has the right to freely walk into the Chairwoman’s office at any given time. Right?! Mo-ne keeps muttering about how she can’t be her dad’s murderer because if it was true, then “that person” (Jae-wan) wouldn’t be able to handle it. Instead of being concerned with finding her dad’s murderer, she only cares about Jae-wan’s reaction to the truth. Wow, some daughter she is. Chairwoman Baek refuses to answer her question, and Roman walks into the office right on time to drag Mo-ne and her ridiculousness out of there.

Once outside, Roman tells Mo-ne to stop her crazy talk because Chairwoman Baek didn’t kill her dad. She then suddenly decides that it’s her place to tell Roman that he shouldn’t resent Jae-wan because he really cares for him and how he should reconcile with him. Mo-ne rambles on about needing the truth, meaning that she wants to find out for Jae-wan’s sake. Roman quickly sees through what she’s saying, and confirms that Chairwoman Baek is Jae-wan’s mother. Mo-ne tells him that Jae-wan’s planning to have Chairwoman Baek arrested for her various crimes against Ciel, and that she doesn’t want to see him having to call the cops on another one of his parents. Roman doesn’t want his mother getting arrested either, so he agrees to help dissuade Jae-wan from his plan.

Roman shows up at Jae-wan’s house later that night, despite previously saying that he wants nothing to do with him anymore. They have some brotherly bonding time with a game of catch and a glass of whiskey. Over their drinks, Roman urges Jae-wan to not send Chairwoman Baek to jail for his sake because he loves his mother very much. Instead, he will help Jae-wan convince the Board of Directors to vote her out of the Chairwoman position and then the two of them will leave together. Probably wanting to get on Roman’s good side and slightly touched by his devotion to his mother, Jae-wan agrees to not send Chairwoman Baek to jail.

The next day, Jae-wan brings flowers and plants to his mother’s grave to spruce up the surroundings. While he’s cleaning up the area, someone comes by to ask why he’s doing all this to the grave of an old man that died many years ago. Jae-wan realizes that Joong-goo had tricked him yet again, and that this wasn’t his mother’s grave. And then after a meeting with the Board of Directors to convince them to vote for the dismissal of Chairwoman Baek, Roman inadvertently reveals another thing that Joong-goo had tricked Jae-wan for years about. The gangster boss that Joong-goo said Jae-wan killed in NY when he was a kid turned out to have only been shot in the leg by him and didn’t die. Joong-goo had been using the murder all these years to get Jae-wan to be obedient and do his bidding. Oh boy, Jae-wan really looks like he’s out for blood now.

Putting on a fake smile, Jae-wan pays Joong-goo a visit and is suddenly very respectful towards him. He thanks Joong-goo for bringing him to his mother’s grave, and asks him to bring him back there because he forgot the way. Joong-goo eyes Jae-wan warily but nevertheless agrees to take him. At the grave, Joong-goo suggests that they should put up a tombstone. Jae-wan uses this as the perfect opening to reveal to Joong-goo that he knows he lied about this grave being his mother’s and also how the gangster was never actually murdered by him. Next thing you know, Jae-wan pulls out a gun and points it at Joong-goo! Joong-goo drops to his knees and begs Jae-wan to not kill him, and then falls down a nearby ditch when he tries to get away. Jae-wan points the gun at Joong-goo’s head and pulls the trigger. But the gun was empty all along. He leaves Joong-goo to die in the ditch, and tells him that he’s now dead to him. Miraculously, Joong-goo later manages to get himself out of there and back down the hill.

Now that he thinks he is finally free from Joong-goo, Jae-wan gets back to preparing for the Board of Directors meeting to vote out Chairwoman Baek. On his way to the hotel, the remorseful Team Leader Yoo gives him an envelope of information about Chairwoman Baek’s plan with John Howard to bankrupt Ciel, instead of just selling it. Since Chairwoman Baek is going to such extremes to destroy the hotel, Jae-wan makes up his mind that he’s going to go back on his promise to Roman, and will proceed with his original plan of having Chairwoman Baek arrested.

The cops descend on Chairwoman Baek’s office with a search warrant and to arrest her. Jae-wan is personally leading the charge, and watches them take her away. In the aftermath of the search of the office, Jae-wan finds a picture left behind. This picture is the very same one that Mo-ne saw last episode, of Baek Mi-yeon and a baby Hyun-woo. Recognizing his mother in it, Jae-wan rushes out to ask Chairwoman Baek why she has this photo. On his way, he runs into Mo-ne and frantically tells her that he needs to go confirm something and will explain everything later. She sees him holding the picture and reveals that Chairwoman Baek is his mother. In disbelief, Jae-wan chases after the police car with Chairwoman Baek in it, but it just keeps driving farther away from him.

Et cetera:

Woo-hyun tells Roman that Chairwoman Baek tried to run over Jae-wan with a car in the last episode. When Roman asks her if she will really kill Jae-wan if he continues to fight her, she reassures him that Jae-wan will never win against her.

Roman reveals his identity as Joo-wan, Jae-wan’s younger “brother,” to Chae-kyung when he was trying to convince her to vote for Chairwoman Baek’s dismissal.