In Queenmaker, Do-hee believes that she drove Han I-seul to her death until she finds evidence that suggests otherwise. Han Chae Kyung plays the role of I-seul.
Han I-seul was part of Eunsung’s Corporate Strategy Team. She worked under Do-hee and was appointed as Baek Jae-min’s secretary. When Jae-min returns home from a trip, he tells Do-hee that he is being blackmailed by I-seul.
He shows Do-hee the text messages that I-seul sent him, which prove that he had spent time with I-seul outside of work. He admits that, for a while, he had feelings for her, but he never acted upon them. He even rejected I-seul’s advances.
I-seul did not take the rejection well; she felt humiliated. She promised Jae-min that he will pay the price for rejecting her. She told him that she is going to accuse him of sexual assault, and that is why he now needs Do-hee’s help.
Do-hee believes Jae-min because she has known him for years and thinks that he is a good man. He puts up with his wife’s anger and assault, and Jae-min uses that to gain Do-hee’s sympathy.
Do-hee’s involvement in I-seul’s death
To protect Jae-min, Do-hee takes action. She calls I-seul to meet her and asks her if something is bothering her. Do-hee reminds I-seul of her past struggles to use her past to her advantage.
I-seul’s mother had to raise three children all by herself. I-seul then had to work hard to pay her university tuition; she even had to work in a bar for that. She managed to get a job at a company like Eunsung all on her own.
When I-seul still does not admit anything, Do-hee shows her the text messages that Jae-min had given her. I-seul insists that she never sent these and that she is the victim here, but Do-hee does not believe her.
If I-seul accuses Jae-min, Do-hee will accuse her of being a girl who uses her body to take advantage of men; it will be a believable story since she worked in a bar. The world will believe Jae-min, and I-seul will not be able to handle it.
Do-hee asks I-seul to resign if she does not want this story to get out. I-seul gets on her knees and promises to forget everything that happened, but Do-hee still refuses to let her keep her job.
Minutes later, I-seul sends Do-hee a mail to tell her the truth that Do-hee refused to listen in person. When they were abroad, Jae-min called I-seul to his hotel room and sexually assaulted her. I-seul refuses to let Do-hee use her past to silence her.
She tells Do-hee that Jae-min destroyed her life, and she will never be able to forget what he did to her. Now, Do-hee is the only person who knows what happened to her, and she is the one who helped Jae-min sweep it under the rug.
I-seul then jumps off the office building and kills herself. Do-hee witnesses this and sees that I-seul was holding onto Jae-min’s missing cufflink at the time of her death.
Her death leaves Do-hee shaken. She reads I-seul’s mail and soon realizes that Jae-min fabricated those text messages. He assaulted I-seul and portrayed himself as the victim.
The truth
Do-hee’s guilt prevents her from seeing the full picture. It is only when her senior, Cha-sun, brings it up that Do-hee realizes that she failed to note important details.
The Corporate Strategy Team would do anything to hide the crimes committed by the owner’s family, and yet I-seul chose to tell Do-hee, and no one else, her full story before killing herself.
Do-hee starts investigating and finds out that after I-seul’s death, Ms. Guk deleted the CCTV footage of the headquarters and the rooftop. She also replaced the entire security system, which means they are trying to hide something.
Do-hee and Cha-sun then get the CCTV footage from the buildings surrounding Eunsung to get to the truth. They finally find the footage that shows Jae-min leaving the building minutes after I-seul’s death; he seems unaffected, as if he knew she was going to die.
Do-hee comes to the conclusion that Jae-min killed I-seul. Later, she gets the proof to support her claim when Ms. Guk gives Do-hee I-seul’s phone, which contains the recording of I-seul’s last conversation with Jae-min.
He was on the rooftop with her that day and was ready to pay I-seul to keep her quiet, but I-seul wanted him to admit his crime and apologize to her publicly. When Jae-min realized that she is not going to stay silent, he pushed her off the rooftop, making her death look like suicide.
Do-hee finally brings the truth to light. She had promised to make Jae-min suffer for killing an innocent woman, and she keeps her promise; she brings Jae-min to his knees.
Also Read: Ji-yeon Guk: Queenmaker character explained
