The hit Korean drama ‘It’s Okay To Not Be Okay’ has finally ended with episode 16 titled “Finding The Real Face”.
Like many have hoped for, this drama ended on quite a happy and satisfactory note.
Here’s a recap of episode 16 (ending) of It’s Okay To Not Be Okay.
Note that it may not be highly detailed.
Recap of Episode 16 (Ending)
The episode started where we left off in episode 15 where Gang-tae kisses Moon-young and a deer makes the noise again, similar to a previous episode.
Like Moon-young, he shouted at the deer but this time, Gang-tae continues to intensely kiss her instead of running away.
In the meantime, Sang-tae meets up with Jae-su at Soon-deok’s house. He then tells Jae-su that he resigns from the part-time job at the pizza shop as he wants to become an illustrator.
Jae-su tries to raise the wages but Sang-tae declines it. Jae-su then mentions that he wants to ‘coolly let Sang-tae go‘. Sang-tae, being the honest guy, immediately says Jae-su can’t possibly look cool.
Back in the mansion, Gang-tae and Moon-young continues to chat and he tells her why he left their photo at his mother’s tree. After some time, Moon-young kept saying she’s sleepy, hinting at something.
In the next scene, Sang-tae mentions to Jae-su that he is not going back to the mansion for the night, to let the couple to reconcile. Jae-su hugs Sang-tae wishing to have an older brother like the latter.
In the morning, Gang-tae’s and Moon-young’s clothes are seen scattered around the bed as the couple slept together (implying they finally made love).
Gang-tae then makes breakfast as Moon-young back hugs him in the kitchen. They continued to chat and Moon-young then showed him a drawing by Sang-tae (which showed Gang-tae’s happiness when sleeping).
In the next scene, Oh Ji-wang is seen playing chess with the patient Pil-ong. He then gifts a pair of shoes to Pil-ong as a farewell gift, asking him to leave the hospital and get well. He hopes that Pil-ong finally ‘finds the exit door’ and overcomes his trauma from the Vietnam war.
Later, Ji-wang finds his son Cha-yong secretly sleeping in the infirmary. He then pulls him out and everyone finally finds out that they are father and son.
He then intends to sack Cha-yong as the whole nurse training didn’t help him much.
Back at the mansion, Gang-tae, Moon-young and Sang-tae have breakfast together. Sang-tae asks if they reconciled and Moon-young isn’t afraid to mention what they did. She even emphasized that they French-kissed and did something after.
Gang-tae being shy as usual kept kicking Moon-young’s ankle to make her stop talking.
Moon-young then mentions that she doesn’t intend to buy a camping car for Sang-tae and will pay him in money instead.
Sang-in and Moon-young later meets in a cafe as she hands him the last (tenth) manuscript of “The Murder of the Witch of the West”. Moon-young also gives him the manuscript of her final book and asks him to choose only one of them.
Sang-in chose Moon-young’s manuscript but secretly texted Seung-jae to take Do Hui Jae’s final manuscript from the table.
He later realizes that Seung-jae didn’t take the manuscript as he accidentally sent the message to Moon-young’s phone instead. As always, she started swearing when she saw the message.
Moon-young then visits her mother at the detention center for the final time. Her mother as usual tries to convince her that she’ll never be like Gang-tae and his brother.
She however seemed to have overcome the fear and pities her mother for not knowing what it’s like to feel warmth.
In the meantime, she remembers Sang-tae who manages to overcome his fear of butterflies and painted new butterflies on the mural.
In the next scene, Gang-tae meets up with Jae-su at the pizza shop. He tells Jae-su that he will treat the latter as an older brother. Jae-su who is overwhelmed keeps asking Gang-tae to call him hyung, since it’s something he has hoped for in a long time.
Back at the mansion, Sang-tae and Moon-young is seen busily preparing for the final book. Gang-tae who tries to join them gets pushed out of the room by Moon-young as he’s an ‘outsider’.
During the night, Sang-in and Seung-jae is seen digging around the rubbish area for the manuscript that was thrown away. Sang-in as usual scolds Seung-jae for not finding the manuscript, and she finally answers back. She then tells Sang-in that she quits and leaves.
Her bravery stemmed from the fact that she managed to find the manuscript from the rubbish dump and hid it with her at the house. However, she couldn’t hide the foul smell from Ju-ri.
Ju-ri then meets up with Sang-in at the restaurant and she smells the same thing from Sang-in. She also discovers that Seung-jae is actually six years older than her, although the latter kept pretending to be really young.
Back in the mansion, Gang-tae finds both Sang-tae and Moon-young already sleeping.
The show then fast forwards to the time when the book is finally published. Sang-in and Seung-jae comes to the mansion to bring the newly printed books to hand them over. The books are titled “Finding the Real Face”.
Sang-tae who is extremely proud of his accomplishment goes to his mother’s tree at OK Psychiatric Hospital. He then reads the book at his mother’s tree while Gang-tae and Moon-young watch from behind.
After the book’s publishing, they managed to get OK Hospital to hold the book-reading event.
On the day itself, Director Oh Ji-wang embarrasses Sun-deok as he shouts her name in the hospital, recalling their old history together.
Many of the old faces came back as they were invited. This includes Eun-ja (played by Hae-sun) who was a patient that believed Moon-young was her daughter.
Jeong-tae also reunites with his girlfriend Ah-reum who came by for the book-reading.
Kwak Dong-yeon also makes another appearances as the ‘flasher’ Ki-do who used to be a patient in OK Hospital. The whole gathering turned out to be a happy reunion.
Gang-tae, Sang-tae and Moon-young then take turns to read the newly published book at the event. As none of the press came, only Seung-jae filmed the event with her phone for her YouTube channel.
The lines in the book resonate with Eun-ja, Ki-do and the rest as it seemed to be written about them.
Halfway through the reading, Sang-tae and Moon-young gets into the quarrel as both wanted to read the lines. As always, the whole event ended in a mess.
Gang-tae then meets up with Soon-deok at the cafeteria and hands over a copy of the book.
Meanwhile, Ju-ri and Sang-in meets outside the hospital. He then tells her that he will stay in Seongjin city instead of going back to Seoul because it’s cheaper and also because of her.
Sang-in then slowly put his finger over Ju-ri’s finger, indicating the beginning of a romance between them.
Before Gang-tae and his family left, the Director tells them that he has a present. He then reveals that he bought a camping car for them, as he’s sorry for everything.
Gang-tae then tries to convince both Moon-young and Sang-tae to go on a trip, but the both of them showed their disinterest.
He then drinks with Sang-in and Jae-su to vent his frustration.
Upon arriving back in the mansion, he sees Sang-tae and Moon-young waiting for him, with their bags packed. They faked their disinterest and wanted to surprise Gang-tae.
Due to his hangover, Gang-tae couldn’t do much but vomit on the first day of the trip, as Sang-tae bonds with Moon-young.
After many nights of fun together, Sang-tae finally decides to leave the trio.
He decided to work with a publishing company as an illustrator. He then reiterated that ‘Gang-tae belongs to Gang-tae’.
This shows that Sang-tae has finally matured as an adult, and doesn’t wish to burden his younger brother anymore.
The driver of the publishing company came and it’s actually Sang-in.
Before they left, the four of them head for coffee instead.
The show ended with the final parts of the story from the new book, where the three characters’ mask finally fell off.
The message was that they finally knew how to find happiness.
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