First Look: Queenmaker (Netflix)

Someone must talk about one of Netflix’s most criminally underrated K-dramas, Queenmaker. Oh wait, I guess that someone is me!

It should be advised that this rave and review mentions su*ic*de and SA.

If you’re ready, please continue reading.

Queenmaker is a show about a powerful fixer named, Hwang Do-Hee. After one of her employees commits suicide, Do-hee has a crisis of conscience, opting to use her skills to help a civil rights lawyer’s mayoral campaign over the candidate her former boss wants her to back.  

So let’s get into it.

Why I Wanted to Watch

The main reason I wanted to watch this show was because of the theme: powerful women doing powerful women things. I’ve always gravitated towards powerful/strong female characters and just from the previews, I could tell this show had that. 

Additionally, this is a non-romance drama with mature leads. The leads of this drama are veteran actors in their 50s and I like seeing older characters on screen. The rise of Korean popular culture in America came with pop music, which usually skews toward late teens to mid-to-late twenties consumers. Thus, many K-dramas seemed directed towards that demographic and it can get tiring watching another story about early twenty-somethings working their way up and finding love in the big city of Seoul. I think this is also the reason why some people tend to steer clear of K-dramas, thinking it’s going to be a syrupy sappy experience. But I find that dramas with more mature characters sometimes have more mature and realistic themes.

I love the sappy, cheesy stuff, but I also like a hard-nose drama occasionally.

Where We are so Far/ the Set up of the show

I’ve seen the first two episodes so where are we in the show?

Hwang Do-hee is really good at her job. She is a fixer for the family owners of the company Eunsang. The head of the family is the strong matriarch Son Young-shim (played by Seo Yi-sook, who was one of the mothers in Good/Bad Mother, her duality is amazing. I loved her in that show and I hate her in this one. Shows you how great of an actor she is).

Do-hee is helping one of the daughters of the family change the public’s opinion of her as she is facing charges of assaulting her employees. Do-hee is good. Before a trial has even begun, Do-hee has convinced the masses that the woman, who does have a clinical case of anger management issues, was just struggling as a new mother. 

Meanwhile, a civil rights attorney is on day 78 of protesting Eunsang’s unjust firing of part-time employees, all women. She has been camped out on top of the Eunsang department store. With the allegations against one of the daughters of the family and the constant protests, Do-hee has her work cut out for her, Son Young-shim wants Do-hee to keep her daughter out of jail and get the attorney off the roof. 

But people and even the family she works for don’t see Do-hee as an expert of spin, they see her as a loyal mutt. In fact, there are several scenes in which the family insults Do-hee to her face and behind her back, and she takes it until the incident happens. 

Son Young-shim’s son-in-law Baek Jae-min returns from a trip abroad with his personal assistant, a woman Do-hee hired and selected. Later that day, he asks Do-hee to “fix” a situation for him. He explains to Do-hee that the assistant is setting him up for sexual assault. He tells Do-hee that the assistant misread some cues, he did like talking to her but he never did anything with her sexually, but the woman plans to tell people he did.

Do-hee calls the woman to her office and sets it up like she cares for the young woman and knows what happened. The woman feels relieved that someone believes her. Then, Do-hee flips on her and tells her that she knows she is lying and that she doesn’t want to have to bring up her past working in a hostess bar. Do-hee tells the girl to resign. 

Except, the woman is telling the truth. Baek Jae-min did assault the woman and she never worked in a hostess bar. It was a regular bar that she only worked in during her school breaks to help pay for college. My summary is not doing justice to the way in which Do-hee expertly eviscerated the woman but she tore her down, and what was so tragic about that scene was that the girl let her guard down, thinking that someone, someone in power knew what happened to her without her even having to tell. Keep in mind, the assistant didn’t say anything. But now the assistant sees that not only is no one going to believe her but now her reputation is on the chopping block. 

Not 15 minutes after the conversation, as Do-hee was going to her next appointment, the woman jumps from the building, landing on Do-hee’s car right in front of her.

This sends Do-hee into a spiral. She takes off work much to Young-shim’s dislike. When she returns Young-shim tells her to get ready to help Baek Jae-min become the mayor of Seoul. Do-hee objects telling Young-shim that her son-in-law is a rapist. Young-shim doesn’t care. She calls his actions a mistake but Do-hee and her both know that the assault wasn’t a mistake or a one-time occurrence. Do-hee realizes how much she has empowered this vile family and tells Young-shim no more. 

Thoughts so Far

OMG! I love this show already. The storyline. The actors. The outfits. I love it all. The subtle display of how much people value money and power over life in the acting and the script. I mean this show has it all and no one is talking about it!!!

Predictions

I have no predictions for this show. Besides the obvious trope, if I can call it that, of wealthy people doing dirty wealthy people things, there aren’t any typical tropes that I can lean on to make a prediction. 

I will posit that of course Baek Jae-min will not become mayor. And of course, someone from that family is going “straight to jail” but otherwise I have no predictions and I think I like that. That means I just have to buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Let me know if you are watching Queenmaker and what your thoughts are.