Doona! follows the titular former K-pop idol and a college student navigating life, cohabitating in the same sharehouse.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
College student Lee Won-Joon moves into a sharehouse and meets a beautiful and strangely familiar housemate, Lee Doo-Na, the retired K-pop idol. They get off on the wrong foot but she comes to see Won-Joon for the innocent and sweet guy he is.
Gradually, their friendship grows and their bond becomes stronger. He tries to get to know her better and celebrate her birthday.
Doo-Na feels unsafe whenever she has eyes on her. Her housemates, including Won-Joon and Jin-Joon, his school crush he still has feelings for, capture the stalker.
Won-Joon and Jin-Joon’s efforts at reigniting a flame that never quite got to burn in the first place all fail. Meanwhile, his relationship with Doona starts getting publicity.
It gets awkward when she kisses him. He later confronts her about it. Meanwhile, new housemates move in, including Jin-Joon.
The two love birds grow closer as she takes Won-Joon on a trip. Meanwhile, Won-Joon clarifies his feelings to Jin-Joon. His relationship with Doo-Na suffered rough patches and as they go their different ways, they thrive in their respective careers at the expense of their relationship.
The ending sees the two reconcile and go on to live their separate lives.
Doona! ending explained in detail:
Why did Doona leave music?
Doona was at the height of her musical career and her fame was at a sky-high level. However, all her life she has done nothing but sing and dance on the stage.
She was burnt out and worked out of her mind and body. She could not sing anymore or perform like she used to. There was toxicity in her group and the management was abusive as well.
She had crippling anxiety and the online trolling and unwarranted negativity took a toll on her. She finally broke down during one of the performances and decided to quit.
Her manager In-Wook, who had groomed her to be a performer since childhood, sends her to live in a sharehouse all by herself so that she would realize what abandonment feels like, since he thinks all she fears in life is being forgotten and ending up alone.
Do Won-Joon and Jin-Joon end up together?
Won-Joon and Jin-Joon are two other vertices of the main love triangle in Doona. Won-Joon always aced his exams back in school and ranked number one. Jin-Joon always followed and ranked second.
Won-Joon had a major crush on her and it was the same case with Jin-Joon. However, Jin-Joon was going through troubles related to her family, specifically her abusive father who is severely averse to his daughters having a love life.
She didn’t have enough courage to share this with Won-Joon and so when he expressed his love to her, she was over the moon, albeit still apprehensive and worried that she’d disappoint him.
He misinterpreted it to be her lack of interest or reciprocal feelings. He went away and they drifted apart. Later, they meet again in the college and their love for each other remains still. However, Doona’s arrival changes things.
Won-Joon realizes and makes peace with the fact that he now loves Doona and that he has moved on from Jin-Joon. She later confesses her feelings to him anyway, also revealing the truth about her feelings back then and about her family situation.
She knows that he now loves Doona but it still breaks her heart. She later focuses on her studies and becomes independent after severing her ties with her father. She goes to Brazil later on and has a thriving career.
Doona ends with Won-Joon and Jin-Joon being on good terms and good friends again.
Do Doona and Won-Joon end up together?
Doona’s manager from MSA Entertainment, the guy she called as a kid to tell him she wanted to be an idol. Over the years, he would work her to the bone and she would learn dance, singing, and performing her soul out.
She would also develop feelings for him but he remained a manipulative, money-minded, and narcissistic man, who ignored her pleas when she didn’t want to perform anymore. She would eventually quit the music industry.
In-Wook then sends her to live in a sharehouse, where she spirals further and doesn’t even get up on her bed for days, having lost all sense of purpose or willpower, until the 21-year-old college student Lee Won-Joon arrives.
They become fellow tenants and after a misunderstanding-filled start, they gradually become good friends and also start falling for each other. Doona finds new energy and deems life worth living again, thanks to Won-Joon.
They do end up confessing to each other after a lot of melodrama. However, In-Wook’s return incapacitates Doona, who still can’t take him out of her mind and seeks his validation.
He’s there to take her back and get the group together again. This devastates Won-Joon until she returns and apologizes, and he understands after a while. Their relationship flourishes until Doona gets an opportunity to jump back into music.
A meeting with In-Wook shakes Won-Joon’s confidence in the future of his relationship with Doona. Although he wished for her to sing again, her new spell in the music industry had some restrictions.
While she regains her stardom, she can’t communicate with Won-Joon. He, meanwhile, feels bad and worse. When she finally meets him she feels they’re going to get back together, as she’s also fought for him with her management.
However, he breaks up with her, even though it pains him. He gives up on their love. Two years later, he completes his military service and she goes onwards and upwards with her career as a solo artist.
They meet again and it’s a heartbreaking reunion until Doona confronts Won-Joon again and asks him to apologize, and he does, for not fighting for their love that day and giving up on it.
The two embrace, tears in their eyes, confessing how much they’ve missed each other. The ending of the show has the two thriving in their respective careers but they’re not together in a romantic capacity.
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