Thank you for the recap! YP is over...

Yongpal ended, can't believe it honestly. And this is one of the most confusing and bumpy rides I've ever watched in dramaland.

I have a lot of mixed feelings after watching the last two episodes. Mostly disappointment that I hoped it would end differently.

From the first time I heard about Yeojin's cancer I knew this whole plot would be horrible. And not only the writer implemented it in the storyline, but gave it a central position in a last chapter of his drama. All this just seemed so unnecesary and not wanted by anyone, which made a plot in these episodes feel forced and overdone. I had a higher hopes, much much higher.

And as for the ending, this is one of the very few dramas that would really use that cliche ending when the viewers are showed the happy lives main leads live after the drama. I mean, not only Taehyun and Yeojin deserved it, but WE deserved to see it, because watching the last episode with constant fear that they may really kill off Yeojin was truly a suffering. I'm just pissed, nothing more to say.

I'm also a bit let down overally regarding the whole drama. Because when you have a crazily good cast, a brilliant idea for a plot, resources from one of the top TV broadcasters in a country and a seasoned production team who seems to know what they're doing, one could think you can't fail. It was true, unfortunately only partially in Yongpal. I'm glad the acting was daebak till the very end and the chemistry was also on point, I just wish the story(and the production, because 'WTH, the flashback in a penultimate scene of last episode? Really?') would have been handled differently.

I'm not gonna even write or think anymore about wasted on nothing Cynthia's cameo, out of ass second-found-in-America--Yongpal (who didn't do anything during the surgery and just was there) and the way the evil ones, mostly high officials and directors were just escorted to jail by the police, because someone said they were burglars. I really don't want ridiculous and pulled out of asses explanations to cloud my good memories of Yongpal.

Therefore, despite all the complaints and drawbacks, I'll remember Yongpal as a really enjoyable and engaging drama (and I'm glad they didn't kill Yeojin and at least let us imagine they had a good life together after that). I'll definitely come back to it someday mostly to once more witness the Kim Tae-Hee and Joo Won' pairing on screen.

Thanks to all the team anyway for giving us Yongpal and hoping their next projects turn out as good or more recommended, even better. For the last time, thanks, Yongpal team.

The things I liked about this ep.:

1-that that employee was suspicious enough (and persistent enough) to somehow hack into Hanshin Hospital medical records, and have access to YJ’s medical records (I want to ask if that is even possible, however considering this drama universe, I guess anything is possible?). 2-That that employee tracked TH down, and managed to see TH and show him his findings. 2-That TH sent a coded message to HJ through CY, and that TH was able to figure out that something fishing was going on, based on CY’s answer (and also based on the restraining order). 3-I love that the bodyguard’s answers to TH’s questions helped confirm that something fishy was indeed going on. 4-I loved the stewardess’ intelligence in confirming that the water was poisoned, and her sending the bodyguard a coded message as well (and not letting the bodyguard talk, so he would reveal anything that would be heard). That was actually one of my favorite scenes in this ep. I replayed that scene a few times. 5-The stewardess having the smarts to move HJ to another wing (TH’s room), which would give TH and his bodyguard better and easier access to her. 6-Sec. Min gloating about things being over soon. I actually liked that scene (a lot) because I got to see Sec. Min smile, and show other facial expressions than his constant stone face. He is quite attractive when he smiles. 7-I also liked the arrest of the board of Directors, CY and her spy maid. That was very satisfying to watch. 8-Seeing the police (or detective) guy wink at TH. 9-Seeing Cynthia back, with a new YP to boot.

I really liked the scenes in the previous epis. where we saw TH trying to adjust to his new life (all the hoop las, and how he was treated), and him cooking for his wife, etc… And I would have liked to have seen more scenes of their new life together, before the show was over. I also was not surprised to find out that the bodyguard had been assigned (personally) to TH all along. That was what I thought, when I first saw him in the kitchen, in ep. 17. I remember thinking, “there is a reason why he is living with TH.”

I knew they would go back to the Hill of Wind, so that scene did not surprise me. I was a little surprised however that everyone seemed to have known that TH had a ring for YJ (OK, maybe just the stewardess and HJ). So does that mean that the stewardess went through TH’s drawers when he was living there, or did TH leave the ring behind, when he left? I was curious about that. And the stewardess probably told HJ about the ring.

O.O

It's like half-way through the people in charge realized they didn't need to put any effort into this show because people would watch whatever crap they produced. So they stopped trying.

*sighs* I'll just keep the good memories of episodes 1 - 6.

Entertaining drama but fell way short of potential. There really was no overarching theme to this series and it felt like a soap opera of random events happening, especially toward the end (Now she's being poisoned! Now she has liver cancer! Now Tae Hyun gets a restraining order! Now Cynthia's back randomly! Now she's better!).

In the beginning, the drama focused on the theme of social injustice and the corruption of those in power (Yong Pal's mother dying because all the surgeons were attending to a VVIP, the suicidal girl who was abused by the idol, the "emergency X-ray" patient situations...).

That was what drew me in, but the drama ultimately went nowhere with this theme. At the end of the series, things have really not changed, even at the hospital. Because Yeo Jin is the CEO, she gets a whole conference room of expert surgeons discussing her case (when they potentially could be helping save other patients like Yong Pal's mom). She gets a specialty surgeon from Johns Hopkins flown in to do her surgery. She gets a liver donation from her housemaid. A poor patient would have no access to these advantages. So I'm really not sure what the whole point of the drama was.

Since I stopped watching a long time ago I'm just going to believe that Yeo-jin actually died.

What really got me confused was why the intelligent and cunning Jeo-jin who predicted how the scenario of her brother's "rescue" and eventual death would play out, would carry on keeping the biggest sneaky-rat Secratery Min around? Why? Like he jumped ship in seconds when she woke up despite being 'loyal' to her brother for YEARS plus she hated everyone who played a part in her imprisonment. I mean Min was right in the middle of that mess, he knew everything but never did the right thing. So why didnt she want to kill him like she wanted with Chief Lee. Both Chief Lee and min were on the same boat, i.e. scared of her brother and so they kept following him...so why was he kept around but Chief Lee just HAD to die. Plus later she knew he was going behind her back to communicate with her rivals. Seriously, its not like she NEEDED him to show her how Hanshin runs. She was shown to be competent enough on her own despite being in a coma for 3 years. He should have been the first to get fired once she was in charge.
Secondly, i think the extention damaged an already thinly stretched plot. Chae-young's revenge made zero sense. She HATED her husband one ep and then the next (might i add, as soon as she had the conversation with Sec Min about how she was a nobody without her husband) she starts to love him so much that she is avenging him by slowly causing (?) cancer in another human. Even though technically Jeojin wasnt the one who killed him, she just allowed him to be killed. Chae-young and Jeo-jin had so much potential. They should have been working together since they had both been imprisoned by the same man for years. But noooo we cant have females playing nice and working together. So. Much. Potential. Wasted.

Could there be a second series? the doctors' conference showed someone seemed to be dictating their response? That TY could not be the only one to assist chief lee was because he wasn't a fully trained surgeon yet. That would make him criminally liable; but he can be present in the OR (as a surgeon in training). Now for the foreign doctor, with expertise on the procedure, to assist in a Korean hospital, if that is acceptable, then maybe there could be a series 2 with different sets of characters. YP has its pretty and for the early episodes, quite a suspense. It lost me a bit; and hoping the writer reads DB to hone his/her craft. We are doing valuable service to humanity, peeps.

it should have ended with everyone back together and having a party or something.I Loved YP

really need season 2. pleaseeeee

I don't understand why the ending of the series looks like there will be another yong pal series that's because i think revenge plot for yeojin doesn't over yet...really confusing .....but if there are a new yong pal series still with joo won in it, i would like to see what happen next to our yong pal ^o^

What a big letdown!

Second seasons work when the first is so well done, so compelling yet leaves many open questions, or suggests new adventures (ah, the lamented yet fantastic Three Musketeers).

A follow up to a first season like this would be excruciating.

In my mind, this show ended at episode 6. It was awesomeness up till then.

I'll think of possible developments and endings on my own. The story we got was so disappointing, without clear themes and no character consistency.:(

I was just starting to enjoy cutthroat YeoJin. I would've loved another episode of her ruthlessness then her death; leaving Yong Pal as Chairman who delegates most of the corporate duties but actively takes over the way Hanshin Hospital is run thereby ensuring cases like what happened to his own mom and sister have more options. He would be the caring doctor that we saw running First Floor Clinic, but would"ve learned he needs to be a crocodile when dealing with the rich and entitled and doctors who make decisions on who they will or won't treat based entitrely on their ambition for advancement. Would've ended satisfactorily for me tyen, even though I hate sad endings. But hey, he could've settled down eventually with Nurse Noona.

I wish I could have watched the drama that August watched.

Yong Pal was a drama coming straight from OCN. It's mostly "noir", the most underrated genre on Korean TV,- mainstream channels lately give more chances to those stories but, statistically speaking, we could still count them on the fingers of one hand.

I had countless things to write on this thread but the ending reminded me why I liked all the dark series on cable stations and I don't . It's not a happy ending nor an open one; it's a very sad finale plus my brain can't see beyond the OR and that high-risk surgery with next to zero probability of success.

Thank you for the recaps, gummimochi and Heads No2. You're right. We did cry our lungs out but perhaps we were searching for the real Yong Pal on the wrong channel rather than simply being on the wrong floor.

I started watching Yong Pal hoping for some sort of Healer/surgeon mashup: guy with mysterious bag full of stuff sneaking into building and vaulting over roofs, doing technically illegal things but living up to his own moral code! Mystery! Surgery! Suspense! And for the first few episodes, when we had the cool lady-at-the-bottom-of-a-well imagery, I was hopeful!

And then came the nuclear centrifuge episode, which I feel was a sign of things to come. It was completely tonally different from the start of the show, and had moved into a strange case-of-the-week format. The plot itself was laughably horrible. JW was already starting to look exhausted. The episode had been put together so late that it aired with editing errors that were very visible. It felt like the entire show had been hit very hard by something, and was now randomly lurching around.

For me it never recovered. Motivations never made sense for more than a few episodes, characterizations were all over the map, and it just felt like the entire show lost its direction. If there had been a solid story arc to start with, it was now lost.

To be honest I don't know why Yong Pal had such crazy hype before it even aired, but I wonder if that "success" is part of what derailed it: interested parties scented money and started wanting to put their stamp on the drama. It happens all the time in production, but I can imagine in a live-shoot environment it's particularly hard to ward off meddlers, especially as you usually manage meddling over time - which live-shoot doesn't have.

Anyhow. I wish this had been a better show. I hope everyone involved gets to catch up on sleep now.

WTF of ending did I just watch? It has so much potential in the beginning and then went downhill after episode 6. I prefer YJ to die or at least went to jail in the last episode after all the horrible things that she did including conspiring in killing president Go and her own brother.
YJ is a real monster when her brother get to die without killing anyone, she was set free and live happily ever after. How is that serve the moral compass?

Gaaaaaaaa.

GM i am saddened by this final episode.

Obviously the ending was ill-planned, probably meant to be filler for eps 19 and 20 that never materialized. BUT STILL.

i am saddened. YP could have been really good. Maybe top 25-30 of all time! but with this pathetic ending, maybe YP can be thrown into the pile of almosts, which isnt bad but the potential to be great was there right up until they turned this into a makjang and forgot about yong pal and the energy that he brought to the table.

sigh.

love the analysis tho! thank you GM!

"What happened was the the new guy came in to save the day but the one who’s always been there gets the credit."

... but that's not what happened.....

So this is the end of my strange experience in kdrama watching.

Having watched ep 1-4 religiously, stopped, continued watching ep 5-6, stopped again, read ep 7-13 recaps and decided not to watch those episodes (er, just remembered I actually watched 8, can't remember what it was all about though lol), randomly picked ep 14, kinda liked the episode (the start of YJ's revenge?), ep 15 was the last episode I could watch, resorted back to reading recaps only for the two last episodes, now I'm glad I decided not to watch the episodes I didn't watch LOL! A really strange way to follow a drama!

At least I had a nice memory of Yong pal from the 6 early episodes. I'm too old to enjoy a whacky roller coaster ride anyway! Thanks for the recappers! See you at the next drama recap! :-D

I stopped watching after ep 5 as I saw that it was going downhill faster then a train without breaks. Plus I don't fancy KTH. Average actress

Yes. He is. He is still Yong Pal. Whether Yeo Jin should have called him Tae Hyun or Yong Pal, it doesn’t matter. Because they are one and the same.

Yes, YJ may not call TH Yong Pal if it’s not for the show’s attempt to make it relevant but she already knew he’s Yong Pal since she knew he saved her risking his own life. Since she saw him leave her behind in that church to bring the new mother and the preemie to Hanshin. It is Yong Pal who left her to become the doctor he always wanted to be. It is Yong Pal who opened the 1st Floor Clinic and never turned away any patient who needs his help even if they can’t pay. It is Yong Pal who never gave up when all hopes for her was lost, she heard him beg Chief Lee. It is Yong Pal that she woke up to from her 2nd nightmare.
When Yeo Jin woke up from her first nightmare, it was Kim Tae Hyun she knew. When she woke up this time round, it was a man whom she knew will not give up his soul for the world to do the thing he loves and it was a man who loves her.

I think while we ridicule the show for taking the possibilities of medicine to unimaginable extremes, we are often at fault to expect the ridiculous. They could easily have make TH be the ultimate hero. Have him single-handedly get the whole surgery going and perhaps led by Chief Lee. Then would we cry out “Yes, he is Yong Pal!”? Perhaps some would and some will roll their eyes at the impossibility. The thing is TH can’t even start that operation because he needed someone more experienced in this area to make it successful. Do we really think TH can handle ALL surgeries? He even has to consult a fellow doctor for pediatric medicine. If that makes you disappointed, then it can’t be helped. But at least we know TH is not Yong Pal and not God. Chief Lee who regained his skills as a talented surgeon is the best person to do the operation with TH because he did the Whipple on YJ before. That ‘Yong Pal’ from America was also needed because TH and Chief Lee could not do it themselves, there’s another part of the operation which they needed help. At least to make sure YJ has some chance to live. It wasn’t deus ex machina. Yes, Tae Hyun could have earned back his reputation to save YJ by breaking the rules to save YJ or go ahead with no one else(he would if that’s all there’s left in the end) if only it was not Yeo Jin. If Chief Lee said he would not risk the operation because he is a better doctor now, would TH recklessly go ahead with the operation knowing it will kill YJ?

We are frustrated with TH slowness in figuring out Chae Young only because we as viewers get to see it all. Step into TH shoes and what do you see? YJ has never told TH why she disliked CY. She never even told TH that CY asked for him in that deal. Instead, TH saw a CY who was willing to help YJ in escaping in the episode 6. He saw a CY who helped YJ at the funeral. He saw a CY who desperately wanted to save her husband and lost him He saw a CY who has a right to be angry with YJ...

K-Drama writers/PDs ability to so effortlessly and consistently eff up what should be and often began as good shows is amazing.

Congrats to this drama though many were commenting here and there. The perks of being a top rating show aye?. LOLS. I enjoyed it much its a roller coaster ride of emotions. This show was so promising and just a few lapses at the end, some people summarized it unfairly. hmmmm. This is a good drama for me, entertained me well. Satisfied with the ending!

Haha the ending was just crazy lame. If it were the beginning there would be something to say for dramatic impact- but right at the end?

And really I didn't understand Chae-Young's 'revenge' at all! She wanted to escape she got her escape but didn't realise that escape meant no perks and was therefore resentful that her husband got dinged and killed? Even as she was well aware he deserved it and that she even helped caused it?!

Lame!

When I was watching watch 'I hear your voice' I learnt so much life lessons. This drama teach people that its ok to get revenge, having a killing spree and the worst part is to get away with it. I agree with one of the comments thay YJ is the real monster.

Sorry for typo as i was typing from my phone

I thought, after yeojin open her eyes, their are going to have wedding reception. I'm bit dissapointed. After all. It's worth it to watched :)

A good start, got behind after a few laps, then a total fail at the end... a wasted drama with so much potential...

"Or maybe I'm just waiting on the wrong floor." Well said, I liked the ending of your summary of the episode than the actual ending of Yong Pal.

The last episode has left me with a lot of questions. What happens after the surgery? Why is there a new Yong Pal? What's the point of Cynthia's role in the last episode? What happens to Hanshin itself, since the chairwoman is in the hospital, and its boardmembers have been arrested? Are they going destroy the 12th floor like Yeo Jin said she would? What about Tae Hyun's future? And his relationship with Yeo Jin?

I had high expectations for this drama, so the last episode was a major let down for me.

i'm not satisfied with the ending, but overall this is good drama, i always like shocking n not simple ending even if it's happy ending,actually i wanna see yj evilness or regret for her revenge or twisted ending. this is the most unsatisfying ending for joo won drama.