When The Camellia Blooms – Season 1 Episode 18 Recap & Review

The Joker Is Revealed!

The identity of the Joker is finally revealed in the latest episode of When The Camellia Blooms and while we expected it to be Heung-Sik’s dad, the show managed to keep us guessing right up until the last minute thanks to another clever twist. The future of our two protagonists is up in the air though as Dongbaek had to make a very hard decision for the sake of her child, which was quite the emotional scene to watch.

The episode starts with Pil-Gu angrily telling his mum that she never asked for his permission for any major decisions in his life and believes it would be best for them if he lived with his real dad. Meanwhile, as the police asks for Heung-Sik’s DNA test, they discover his dad in the house but unable to walk. After speaking with Pil-Gu about their situation, Dongbaek tells Yong-Sik that she has decided to send him to his dad until they have caught the joker. This prompts Yong-Sik to double down on his investigation and as he head back to the scene of the crime, he figures out that the joker mistook Hyang-Mi for Dongbaek.

Back home, a sad Dongbaek is surprised to find her mother at her door-step, while Pil-Gu tries to settle into his new home with Jung-Ryeol and Jessica. In Onsang, Dongbaek and her mother have a heart to heart while sleeping in the same room. Dongbaek then gets closer to her mum and tells her she will give her her kidney, insisting despite her objections.

The next day at the Camellia, Yong-Sik observes Dongbaek and is worried, realizing how down she is. Her mother later speaks to him about his feelings and when he tells her that he’ll never break up with her, she reveals that she wants him to be the beneficiary of her will.

Feeling guilty about calling Pil-Gu a burden to his mum, Ms Kwak visits Dongbaek to find out how they both are. Unaware of what she did, Dongbaek storms out, crying and telling Ms Kwak that she will never be able to make up for what she said.

Back at the station, the results of the DNA are in and it shows that the joker is not Heung-Sik after all which angers Yong-Sik as he was convinced of his guilt. Suddenly realizing something, he rushes out of the building while Captain Byun receives a call from the lab where they reveal that they tested the DNA on another hair sample and have identified the person it belongs to.

We then cut back to Yong-Sik who runs to Heung-Sik’ shop, realizing that the joker stopped killing 5 years ago and that coincided with someone falling off a building. Arriving at Heung-Sik’s warehouse, he bursts in and confronts him and his dad. Heung-Sik cries and begs him not to take his dad away as he’s all he has and promises to keep him locked up. Ignoring his pleas, Yong-Sik orders his Father to come with him, it’s here we see that he was actually able to walk all along and is, infact, the real joker.

The next day, Dongbaek arrives in Seoul and takes Pil-Gu away from his school. The latter protests and tells her he wants to become an MLB player. She offers him an ultimatum – her or baseball. Pil-Gu starts to cry though, unhappy that she’s thinking to marry someone but ends up going with her. As they walk away, they come across Jung-Ryeol but as he tries to stop them, Dongbaek punches him and berates him for how poorly treated Pil-Gu was in Seoul.

Back in Onsang, Dongbaek asks Yong-Sik to meet at the train station. An excited Yong-Sik arrives just as the joker is caught. Unfortunately, his happiness is short lived as she decides to break up with him because of Pil-Gu and how he feels. As they both cry, we then hear an older Pil-Gu narrate that after that day he finally grew up with the love and affection of his mum. The episode ends with Pil-Gu as an adult, on the phone to Dongbaek as he gets ready for work.

The latest episode of When The Camellia Blooms was certainly full of very emotional scenes and it should definitely tug at the heart-strings, especially with the final few scenes. Dongbaek had a tough choice to make and decided to break things off with Yong-Sik in an attempt to keep her son happy. It was definitely tough to watch as poor Yong-Sik has been trying so hard all this time. With two episodes to go though, I am really hoping this is not the end for those two and I will be rooting for them to live out their happy ending.

The truth is finally out and the joker’s identity has been revealed as Heung-Sik’s father. The show did a really good job at building the tension during its run-time, managing to keep us guessing over who the killer could have been. Personally I would have liked to see a bit more background into Heung-Sik and his dad, especially with his real motives behind the crimes. Perhaps the last two episodes will give us that but in the meantime, there are still quite a few plot points that need to be addressed here.

One of them being Dongbaek and her relationship with her mother but also Ms Kwak who has been acting as her best friend and Mother figure. Will we be graced with a happy ending for all our characters?

 

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