Under the Queen’s Umbrella (슈룹) is a historical Korean drama series directed by Kim Hyung-shik, and stars Kim Hye-soo as Queen Im Hwa-Seong, Kim Hae-sook as Queen Dowager, and Choi Won-young as King Lee-ho. Others joining the show include Moon Sang-min as Grand Prince Seong-nam, Bae In-hyuk as Crown Prince, Yoo Seon-ho as Grand Prince Gye-seong, and Kang Chan-hee as Prince Ui-seong alongside other cast members.
The series takes on tvN’s Saturday-Sunday 09.10 PM KST timeslot previously occupied by Little Women. Under the Queen’s Umbrella Episode 13 has a runtime of 61 minutes.
Netflix describes the series as:
A SPIRITED QUEEN TRIES TO REIN IN HER ROWDY SONS IN ORDER TO MAKE ONE OF THEM THE NEXT KING OF JOSEON, WHILE HER COMPETITORS VIE TO SNATCH THE THRONE.
-Under the Queen’s Umbrella Episode 13 Recap Contains Spoilers-
While on the one hand, Cho-wol leaves her daughter born out of wedlock with Grand Prince Muan at the palace, and the latter agrees to care for her in hiding, the new Crown Prince Seong-nam deserts the Crown Princess, Cheong-ha, on their wedding night. Muan struggles with the newborn, and though Queen Hwa-ryeong can’t hide her disapproval of the communion, she eventually caves in and helps him with the baby.
Cheong-ha even reaches out to her mother-in-law. She asks him if the Crown Prince hasn’t been taught well about procreation, especially since it’s a major responsibility on both of their backs to make way for the future heir of the palace. Hwa-ryeong accepts her thoughts and decides to speak with her son. She summons him to her quarters later and confirms that Cheong-ha was, in fact, her choice and not Queen Dowager’s bait to lure him into another trap.
The King has further plans to rely on Seong-nam and announces his claims of handing him the responsibility to reform Uichang. Chief State Councillor cuts him off instantly and deems it unworthy for him to handle political matters at such an early stage. However, the other councillors have a mind of their own this time and disagree with him. They believe that they’ve been unable to solve these issues because of the conventional paradigm they’ve been leading with, but the Crown Prince had already presented them with realistic solutions for the same, and it would be good practice for him to execute them; even the new Minister of Taxation, Park Gyeong-u gives his consent for the idea.
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In order to refer to some texts related to Uichang, Seong-nam goes through a bunch of books. Going through them takes him back to his memories of his elder brother, and he ends up discovering a mysterious loose parchment. Bringing it into Hwa-ryeong, he reveals it to be a page from his brother’s treatment journal, further questioning the intentions of Physician Kwon. She matches the page with the former Crown Prince’s old journal kept in her belongings. His writings disclosed that ever since the physician started practising acupuncture on his body, he started throwing up blood, and it caused him severe pain.
Seong-nam informs his mother that while acupuncture helps in the treatment, it can also be detrimental for the patient, depending on how deeply it’s pierced. With all the circumstantial evidence in hand, Hwang-ryeong declares Kwon as the prime suspect in the Crown Prince’s murder.
At the same time, Prince Ui-seong meets up with Kwon and Master Toji outside the palace. They divulge their plans of conspiracy to him, and he scoffs at them for thinking that he’d rile up a rebellion against his father. Kwon finally blurts out that he killed the Crown Prince on the orders of Ui-seong’s mother, a fact that wasn’t known by Master Toji either and is news to him as well. Ui-seong starts seeing through the plan and asks about his role in it all. To earn an audience with the Chief State Councillor, he’s eventually reinstated as a physician of the palace.
However, the unlikely source who made this possible is neither Ui-seong, nor Consort Hwang, but Hwa-ryeong. She turns the tables on him by asking him to join in her hunt for the answers to the Crown Prince’s murder instead of straightaway accusing him of the same. Not knowing her real play, he accedes, pretending to be loyal to her cause. Conversely, he accepts the idea of being on the inside as an opportunity.
A guard sent out by Hwa-ryeong returns with a prescription written by Royal Physician Yoon during Crown Prince Taein’s treatment back in the day. The Queen tallies it with the prescription brought from outside the palace in the son’s case. Both prescriptions include two herbs that aren’t conventionally used inside the palace. Moreover, the handwritings in both cases seem identical as well. And with that, Hwa-ryeong has the next target in vision – find Master Toji at any cost.
Kwon helps Consort Hwang in her plans to take down the new Crown Prince once again. Yet, in his next meeting with the Queen, he’s taken aback to hear that Royal Physician Yoon Sang-uk is alive and that they must find him to resolve the conspiracy. Ui-seong discloses his plans of taking down the present King to Won-hyeong, and he’s astounded to hear of it all since he was an accomplice in Crown Prince Taein’s deposition. Ui-seong however, has jumped on to vehement plans of aiming directly for the throne instead of taking the Crown Prince’s seat.
Grand Princes Gye-seong and Il-yeong walk in on Muan’s secret. He admits that he plans on naming the child A-ra and will record her upbringing in her journal. A woman is shown feeding the child, raising the possibility that Cho-wol has, in fact, not abandoned the child but is rather staying on the palace premises in hiding.
The next day, A-ra falls sick, and Muan is reminded of his incompetence as a father. He asks his mother to find Cho-wol because their daughter needs her mother. Accepting all the unforeseen setbacks that may come his way, Muan is reunited with Cho-wol with the condition that everything stays a secret and with the promise that at the right time, Hwa-ryeong would help them all live their truth without having to hide.
Under the Queen’s Umbrella Episode 13 Ending
Seong-nam traces the whereabouts of Master Toji and unveils the truth of his identity as Royal Physician Yoo Sang-uk. He interrogates him as to why he ran away after the news of the Crown Prince’s demise. He admits that he was afraid of the circumstances, but his prescription had no faults whatsoever. Seong-nam pulls out a “drawing of the state of a dead body”. Toji thinks it belongs to Crown Prince Taein; however, Seong-nam corrects him, stating it is his brother’s.
Toji recognises the identical nature of the same with Crown Prince Taein’s report, which revealed that he was poisoned. Though he’s certain that he was poisoned, the poison was never discovered, thus tying the two murders together. Seong-nam feels cornered due to the lack of evidence, but Toji confesses that he examined Crown Prince Taein’s body back in the day.
However, the situation is two-fold yet again. It was Toji and Kwon’s plan all along for the former to act as bait, a strategy to use the Queen’s sources as leverage. Hwa-ryeong doesn’t let her guard down either; she connects him with Kwon and believes them to be on the same side somehow, noticing how easily he was caught.
Queen Dowager and Consort Hwang convene after a long while. The latter prepares tea for the Queen and uses the same poison procured from Kwon earlier, but Queen Dowager’s senses are too powerful to be beaten like that. She’s onto her and drops the question about the real identity of Ui-seong’s father.
The last scene is a complete game-changer as Kwon approaches the deposed Queen Yoon and addresses her as his mother.
Under the Queen’s Umbrella Episode 13 Review
The latest episode may create some confusion regarding the connections between the two deaths of Crown Prince Taein and Hwang-ryeong’s eldest son. Nevertheless, the dots on the mystery circle are finally being bridged as we near the season’s finale. Physician Kwon had previously seemed like a mere puppet in Consort Hwang’s game, but with the new revelation at hand, his motives for inciting the rebellion against the present King are clearer than ever. This is more so his trajectory of vengeance rather than anyone else’s. It’s also been foreshadowed that Ui-seong is possibly his son, and if it is so, it won’t be a shocker either at this point.
Either way, whether we approach the story with Ui-seong’s desire to usurp the throne or Kwon’s attempts at overthrowing the present King, they’re both advantageous to Kwon and his motives for retribution. It adds even more layers to the complexity of his actions till now. The initial phases of the season had presented him as an expendable character, one who didn’t seem to have a weighty presence in the plot.
However, now, with the gradual progression of the storyline, he’s been timely announced as being the mighty antagonist all along. Though he seems like an unlikely choice for the same visibly, the same reason makes him all the more a fatal threat to even Queen Dowager, who believed herself to be ruling the game since the beginning while Kwon executed his schemes underneath her nose without ever being spotted. It’s going to be interesting to see how she reacts to this new development because, until now, everything has been in her foresight, except the deadliest blow about to shatter her game.
Under the Queen’s Umbrella Episode 13 is now streaming on Netflix.
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