When Life Gives You Tangerines Ending Explained: Ae-sun and Gwan-sik are finally getting the stable life that they have been waiting for after all the chaos they went through. But life isn’t as perfect as it seems when a blood test shakes their lives again. Will the two be able to get through this ordeal, or will it be the end of their road together?
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When Life Gives You Tangerines Finale Runtime
Approximately 65 minutes each
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When Life Gives You Tangerines Kdrama Director
Kim Won-suk
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When Life Gives You Tangerines Netflix Cast
IU, Park Bo-gum, Moon So-ri, Park Hae-joon, Kim Tae-yeon, Lee Chun-moo
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When Life Gives You Tangerines Release Date
7 March, 2025
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AKA
폭싹 속았수다
When Life Gives You Tangerines (폭싹 속았수다) follows a rebellious girl with a dream and a boy ready to give his all to fulfil her wishes. A story of endless love, this show takes us to the 1950s.
When Life Gives You Tangerines Ending Explained
The final week begins the new journey of the next generation as Geum-myeong and Eun-myeong finally set into building their families and growing up. Meanwhile, Ae-sun and Gwan-sik also see a new hope entering their lives as traffic in their secluded restaurant begins increasing and liberating them of their difficulties after celebrities begin visiting the store. With the IMF crisis getting over and becoming a bonus to them, happier days are arriving in the Yang family.
Meanwhile, their responsibilities as parents never seem to end as Ae-sun makes her way to the city to take care of her beloved daughter, who has become a mother herself. Filled with gratitude, Geum-myeong arranges a health check-up for her parents, and the two arrive in Seoul for the same. But during the check-up and under the influence of anesthesia, Ae-sun finds out the hidden pain lying deep in Gwan-sik’s heart- the death of their song Dong-myeon.
She finds out how he hid the pain all these years, and upon returning home, she gathers the courage to confront him about the same by visiting Dong-myeon’s grave, where Gwan-sik is surprised to see her. Finally, we know that all these years, he secretly looked after Ae-sun every time she visited their son’s grave to ensure that she didn’t harm herself. However, he also wept with her in the hiding for all these years. Unfortunately, this led to them never talking about their son ever until now when Ae-sun finally talk about their son and the pain they have carried all these years.
As this chapter, filled with pain, finally comes to a peaceful end and leaves them with happy memories of their son, a new battle awaits them.
What New Problems Do the Yang Family See?
Days later, the test results from the hospital arrive, and it is found that Gwan-sik is suffering from a type of blood cancer that requires immediate treatment. Soon, the treatments begin and Ae-sun solely takes care of the tests he has to go through and the treatment. However, what Gwan-sik sees is a lonely Ae-sun who has no one to take care of her like he has done all his life, which breaks his heart and leads him to scream at Geum-myeong. Later, he sends Ae-sun to rest at Geum-myeong’s house while their daughter stays with him. He then narrates stories from their lives to Geum-myeong and tells her how amazing his mother has been all her life.
He then asks her to take care of Ae-sun after him, which leaves his daughter in tears. Soon after, he goes back home, where his family begins to work on doing whatever they can to make him happy, proud and give him a happy goodbye. Geum-myeong appears on television as a bright-minded CEO and mentions her parents, who have been her motivation in life. Meanwhile, Ae-sun finally has one of her poems published in a book for Gwan-sik and tells him that he has made one of his three wishes come true. She is now a poet as she wanted to be because of him, and the two rejoice in the moment filled with happiness and pride.
However, the happiness doesn’t last long as Gwan-sik’s encouraging pat loses its strength, and he wishes them his final farewell. In the ICU, we see a younger Gwan-sik asking a younger Ae-sun, who is waiting outside the glass door, if life was good with him. Ae-sun, filled with tears, tells him that life was perfect with him. As their faces turn old again, we see Ae-sun pulling down her mask as she smiles at Gwan-sik just as he wished to see before leaving this world.
What Does Ae-sun Do After Gwan-sik’s Departure?
Soon after Gwan-sik’s death, Ae-sun decides to not live with any of her children and continues to live in the small apartment where she shared her most precious moments with her husband. What’s more, the place is filled with Gwan-sik’s memories, which only become all the more powerful when we see how Gwan-sik arranged everything for his wife after he leaves. Ae-sun’s drawers are filled with hairpins as she keeps losing them, the door is fixed by him, and all the items from the top shelves in the kitchen are moved down so that Ae-sun can reach them and more. He prepared everything for Ae-sun which makes her adamant about not leaving their home.
With this decision in place, Ae-sun picks up her pen and continues writing their story in her book and fulfills the promise to her husband by completing the whole book. She then begins to pick up her life and teaches senior citizens to read and write in the nursing school nearby. Later, we see that she has moved into the house that once belonged to her mother, which was sold to support Geum-myeong’s studies.
What Happens to Ae-sun’s Collection of Poems?
After the completion of Ae-sun’s book, Geum-myeong sends it to a publisher for publishing the book. The editor is moved by the pictures, memories and words in the book and decides to go ahead and publish the book. Finally, Ae-sun has a book of her own and is happy to be able to make her husband happy with what she has accomplished.
On the other side, we see the editor who published the book was someone who has crossed paths with Ae-sun on many occasions. She is the girl who almost dug up Ae-sun’s ring, and she is the girl who chose to go to Ae-sun in the seafood market, but what surprises us the most is how similar she looks to Ae-sun’s mother. Almost giving us the feeling of Ae-sun’s mother reincarnating and giving some happiness to her daughter’s life, she too lives a better life this time.
How Does When Life Gives You Tangerines End?
Finally, we see Ae-sun smiling and reflecting back at her fulfilling life, which has been a myriad of spring because of Gwan-sik who has been with her since the age of 9. As she thanks him for all the springs he has brought into her life, she continues to live as a happy young girl in the days to come with the memories of her loved ones.
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Also Read: All Our When Life Gives You Tangerines Review!
