Our Unwritten Seoul – K-drama Episode 10 Recap & Review

The Review Geek

22-06-2025

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Episode 10 of Our Unwritten Seoul begins with a flashback involving Ro-sa. She's chased by some kids that are bullying her, but she's going by the name of Sang-wol. We'll see more of these later on, given the show is book-ended by this story!
For now, the Ro-sa article spreads like wildwife online. She's branded a murderer and even worse, her shop windows are smashed up by local thugs (off-screen, mind you).
Tae-gwan is concerned when he finds out what Chung-gu has done, but the latter explains he's using this as a way of rocking the boat and passing guardian ownership to her son's uncle. An official investigation will begin soon, as there's due to be TV coverage too, which includes her brother-in-law giving a statement.
Ro-sa receives a call from Inspector Im, who wants her to come in for questioning regarding a 'criminal allegation'. This stems from a false death report being filed to seize assets. Just like Mi-rae did when things got too hard, Ro-sa decides to hang up the call and turn her phone off, running from the problem.
Meanwhile, Sang-yeong packs up his things and leaves the branch, turning the entire workforce against her. They all shoot daggers at her but Mi-rae, this time, actually scoffs at them. She's not going to take paid leave or shy away from this either, which throws doubts for some of the workers.
When Tae-i finds out about her pressing charges, he offers to help her. She confirms that she's going to fight back but do so on her terms and at her pace. She's not going to lose this time, so she needs to be thorough.
As for Wol-sun, she's not eating given Mi-ji isn't around as much. Ok-hui puts her foot down and doesn't want to bring Mi-ji back, given it's not her responsibility.
Over in Seoul, Mi-rae and Se-jin start to spend more time together. As business partners, they visit a whole bunch of different establishments with owners that know Se-jin. He admits they've become friends over time and he wanted her to see some nice people in Seoul.
When they arrive at the observatory, Se-jin has made his mind up and he's heading off to the States after all. Mi-rae thinks this is the right call and he even offers her the chance to come join him when she finishes up with her current cases.
Meanwhile, Mi-ji heads over to see Ho-su. She does some digging into the Ro-sa situation and finds a letter from the prosecution office, and decides to jump in and help no matter what. Ho-su isn't sure this is a good idea, until he finds out Chung-gu was the one filing the lawsuit against Ro-sa.
Ho-su is shocked when he hears Chung-gu so flippant and blasé about the whole ordeal. Chung-gu shrugs it off, arrogantly claiming he sees each client the same and they should all be treated accordingly. When Chung-gu keeps calling Ro-sa by the name of Sang-wol, Ho-su eventually leaves.
Ho-su rings Mi-ji next and explains that KFMC are the ones behind this, alongside Chung-gu.
Outside, Mi-ji convinces Ro-sa to come clean about what happened and not give up. She eventually does, and we learn the truth about the past.
Ro-sa is Sang-wol and she grew up alongside her friend at the orphanage. She couldn't read after high school so she ended up doing various jobs but found herself constantly berated and assaulted by the staff and management due to her poor education.
Only Ro-sa was there for her and read to Sang-wol whenever she could. Ro-sa wrote numerous poems during this time and even called Sang-wol her twin. The pair have an inseparable bond and lived together when they left the orphanage.
When others moved in with them, Sang-wol started to feel how different she really was to everyone else, ostracised for being uneducated, while Ro-sa started to flourish.
Realizing this, Sang-wol decided to leave the house and run away, not telling Ro-sa the real reason. She ended up working in a restaurant and after some time, rang Ro-sa only to find out she's married to a guy called Jong-du.
Years passed and Sang-wol ran into Ro-sa by chance in Seoul. However, she's got a small child and she's been badly beaten by her husband. Ro-sa has blamed herself, thinking her child's condition was her fault, but it was never reported and all of their friends took his side. Sang-wol took Ro-sa and the child and fled.
Things were okay for a while but Jong-du caught up to them and looked set to kill Ro-sa… until Sang-wol smacks him in the back of the head and kills him. Sang-wol took the fall for the man's death, but while she was in prison, people judged Ro-sa even worse.
Ro-sa sold her poems for next to nothing to try and get by but with word out that Sang-wol is a murderer, very few people would take her on to work. She decided to use Ro-sa's name to try and hide her own past.
After a few years of scraping by, they bought the house together. Ro-sa came up with the name of Rosa Restaurant but unfortunately, Ro-sa passed away from cancer after admitting her son to psychiatric care. Ro-sa also hands over the death report and pleads with Sang-wol to adopt her name and pretend Sang-wol is dead.
Now, if ownership passes to Jong-du's family, Sang-wol is well aware that they would just seize the money and leave the poor kid to rot. This also explains why the house is so important and why she hasn't sold up yet.
When Ho-su checks over the official documents that Sang-wol has, there's a letter in here from Ro-sa. She willingly hands everything over to Sang-wol and has the official documents to confirm this.
Ho-su excitedly tells Sang-wol what he's found, explaining that they need to admit to the identity theft charges but the Will confirms that everything is legit, and all money has been passed to her son too, which gets her completely off the hook.
As a result of all this, Chung-gu is left with egg on his face, while Mi-ji hands over a whole ton of petitions from students that received the Kim Ro-sa Scholarship. Sang-wol gets off with a suspended indictment, which is good news and it means that the case is effectively kept on hold and then later dismissed if she complies with what the court ask of her. For now, we don't actually know what those terms are.
However, there's a bigger problem. Ho-su loses his hearing completely, cutting short any celebrations. He turns and walks away, with Mi-ji and Sang-wol unaware.
The Episode Review
This episode is by far the most emotional in the entire run of Our Unwritten Seoul. It's hard not to shed a tear when Sang-wol is reflecting on Ro-sa's words about meeting good people. Everything that's happened to her, and how she's been acting toward the redevelopment plan now makes a lot more sense with context around the past.
It really is so sad to see how badly Ro-sa and Sang-wol had it growing up. It feels a little similar to Pachinko in the sense of having to deal with sexism, domestic violence and overwhelming prejudice, and it's amazing that the pair survived as long as they did.
However, the big twist here comes from Ho-su losing his hearing completely, which has been foreshadowed but it's another bitter blow for our characters to handle. Just when we think things are turning a corner, our boy gets levelled with another low blow!
We do get some nice moments though, like Mi-rae smirking at her manager, her ties with Se-jin and the development for Ok-hui too which are all nice inclusions.
With two episodes left, this emotionally charged K-drama has left everything wide open and it's anyone's guess what will happen next.
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Expect A Full Season Write-Up When This Season Concludes!