No. of Episodes: 16
Released Year: 2016
Main Plot:
“W: Two Worlds” is a fantasy romance where doctor Oh Yeon-joo is pulled into her father’s webtoon. There, she meets Kang Chul, the hero of the story. As they cross between the real world and the comic world, love grows while dangerous twists threaten both worlds.
Main Cast:
Lee Jong-suk as Kang Chul
Han Hyo-joo as Oh Yeon-joo
Jung Yoo-jin as Yoon So-hee
Lee Tae-hwan as Seo Do-yoon
Episodes summary:
Episode 1: Pulled Into the Webtoon
The episode begins with “W,” Korea’s most popular webtoon. The main character, Kang Chul, is shown for the first time during a newscast. As a teenager, he won a gold medal in shooting at the Olympics, but his entire family was brutally murdered, his life was destroyed. He was accused of crime, but was later found not guilty due to lack of evidence. Years later, Kang Chul is depicted as a rich and influential businessman, but the Central Story Center of the Comic remains the mystery of his family murders.
The situation then becomes more plausible. Oh Yeon-joo, a young resident in cardiothoresic surgery, is shown running through the duties of her rigid hospital. Famous artist Oh Seong-Moo’s daughter, who created a webtoon, often asks her about “W”. For information, despite her frequent arguments, especially rumors that Kang Chul will die soon, Yeon-joo claims that she is unaware of her father’s intentions.
When Yeon-joo receives a necessary call in her father’s studio, her routine is disturbed. Park Soo-Bong, a long-a-time accessory of Seong-Moo, who helps with webtoon artwork, welcomes her on arrival. After claiming that he intended to kill off Kang Chul in the upcoming chapter, Soo-bong is pale and nervous as he explains that Seong-moo has vanished. Unfinished paintings of Kang Chul laying in a pool of blood and with severe injuries are on Seong-moo’s desk.
A remarkable event occurs while Yeon-joo looks at the tablet screen. She is abruptly drawn farther into the webtoon’s world. Before she knows this, she is standing on a roof behind the Kang Chul, who has been stabbed and severely bleeding. While surprised, Yeon-joo puts pressure on the cut, rips the fabric to make bandages, and makes a brave effort to save him under the guidance of her medical knowledge. When her calls for assistance are not heard, she observes the odd silence of the surroundings, as though time had stopped.
Despite his weakness, Kang Chul is capable of seizing her wrist. Her sudden appearance clearly disturbs him, and his penetrating staring suspiciously. The scene abruptly ends as Yeon-joo is starting to worry, and she is dragged back to reality, resurfacing in her father’s workshop as though nothing had happened. Yeon-joo is shocked by the stark reality of what she went through, while Soo-bong, shocked, maintains she never left.
When Seong-moo eventually makes a comeback, she appears scared and unkempt. He cautions his daughter that Kang Chul has started to move and behave independently and is no longer merely a humorous figure.Yeon-joo finds it difficult to believe him, but she cannot help, but think of the time when she saved Kang Chul from herself.
Meanwhile, Kang Chul Webtoon is being hospitalized within the universe. He remembers the esoteric woman who came to help him unexpectedly. He explains that she is an answer to unresolved mysteries in his life, so he goes out to find it because he is certain that she is not in his reality.
As Kang Chul comes out of the hospital, he stands on one roof and looks closely at Seoul’s horizon. Yeon-joo is still absorbed in her thoughts on the bizarre event, as she lies in her room. The image accumulates on the firm eyes of Kang Chul.
Episode 2: A Mysterious Connection
After the rooftop rescue, Kang Chul has once again ended up in the hospital a second time. Now after having survived the vicious stabbing, he could not rest easy. He was always haunted by that stranger who came out of nowhere to rescue him: her face, her voice, her strange words. Who could she be and where could she have come from?
However, Oh Yeon-joo’s bizarre experience inside the webtoon bothers him in the real world. Even though she tries to tell herself that it was only a vivid dream, it is very real to ignore the image of Kang Chul’s blood and her grip on her wrist. She finds it difficult to focus on work and even make mistakes during surgery, which criticizes her seniors. Although she does not know about her covert involvement in events, her colleagues still make fun of her for the webtoon.
Kang Chul is visited in the hospital by his bodyguards and associates back in the webtoon. Despite their relief that he lived, they are nevertheless worried about the attack’s unclear circumstances. However, Kang Chul does not share his opinion with others. The woman who saved him is what she worries the most, not the attacker.
When Yeon-joo is suddenly pulled back into the world of comic books, its uncertainty only intensifies. This time, she shows correctly in Kang Chul’s hospital room. He is surprised to see her waking up and looking at her. He starts questioning her right once, demanding to know her identity and the reason she saved his life. Yeon-joo provides awkward responses out of nervousness and flusteredness, which only heightens his mistrust. She is uneasy because Kang Chul’s piercing look makes her feel as though she does not belong in his universe.
The “chapter” of the webtoon stops before she can elaborate, and she is suddenly thrust back into reality. While Park Soo-bong, her father’s assistant, watches her abrupt homecoming and becomes alarmed, she collapses in shock. As he sees it now, Yeon-joo is being pulled into the narrative much like her father.
Even after leaving the hospital, Kang Chul still thinks about Yeon-joo. At a formal press conference, he comes before the media. He responds to the attempt to murder with composition and assurance, saying that he would not close until he identifies the culprit. The reporters are influenced by his attraction, and his public personality is strongly reinforced. But behind closed doors, he keeps thinking about the enigmatic woman.
Yeon-joo is torn between incredulity and dread in the actual world. She is aware that each time she has entered the comic book industry, she has impacted the plot. When her father, Oh Seong-moo, briefly emerges, she tries to ask him questions. Seong-moo cautions her that Kang Chul is no longer merely a fictional character but rather a self-existent individual, acknowledging that the plot has gotten out of his grasp.
Kang Chul, who has totally recovered, walks outside and faces the future with determination. His intent drive to learn the truth and track down the enigmatic woman who saved his life is evident in his keen eyes.
Episode 3: The Mystery Deepens
In Episode 3, we see that after kissing Kang Chul, Oh Yeon-joo disappears, leaving Kang Chul baffled by yet another woman who has evanesced from his life, as a consequence of his inability to forget her.
After disappearing, Yeon-joo finds herself in Kang Chul’s webtoon in his luxurious penthouse. Upon finding her, Kang Chul demands answers to her questions, beginning with who she is and where she came from, and finally ending with how much she knows about him. Frozen in the face of Kang Chul’s unyielding questioning, Yeon-joo chooses to stay silent and not reveal her secret, which is that she is a comic book character.
Trusting his instincts that she is hiding something, Kang Chul gets increasingly suspicious and even considers shooting her, to see whether or not she could injure him. Horrified, and knowing he is deluding himself, Yeon-joo assures Kang Chul that she has no intention of hurting him and that she only wants to help him.
Coming to know Yeon-joo better, Kang Chul begins to see that he is closer to knowing the answer to his suspicions, but she vanishes yet again, returning to the real world.
This episode ends with Kang Chul’s frustrations and symptoms of obsession toward finding Yeon-joo running high, and with the realization of the existence of a stronger, more perilous connection between Kang Chul and Yeon-joo’s worlds.
Episode 4: The Shocking Confession
At the beginning of Episode 4, Oh Yeon-joo is under enormous stress. She becomes the prime focus of an investigation and is arrested based on a police report filed by Yoon So-hee. As she has no identification, no known address, no records from Kang Chul’s world, and no explanation as to why she suddenly appeared, she is unable to respond to the questions the investigators ask her. In this specific case, silence does not mean consent because the investigators assume that she has something to conceal. Therefore, she is sent to prison.
Kang Chul does not comprehend how Yeon-joo gets arrested after his business trip. He goes to the prison immediately afterward and gets furious about the situation and Yeon-joo’s treatment. Seeing that she is scared and extremely tired, he tells her to relax and explain everything because you what you say is what explains the situation.
Yeon-joo has the challenge of speaking about what you and I know is the fact of the unbelievable. It’s where she says that her world is actually a webtoon. Yeon-joo’s explanation totally shocks Kang Chul. But before he can continue his questioning, Yeon-joo vanishes in front of him and returns to her world.
Kang Chul has trouble removing what Yeon-joo said from his memory, and closes his eyes to what he wants to believe. Kang Chul sees strange events occurring and begins to realize that he is surrounded by contradictions that he is unable to explain.
Episode 5: The Truth Behind W
Kang Chul enters the real world at the start of Episode 5 after learning the startling truth about his existence. Curious and determined, he looks for answers and is astounded to discover that every moment of his life has already been recorded in a webtoon called W. He discovers as he reads the chapters that his success, his tragic past, and even the people in his immediate vicinity were all products of someone else.
When Kang Chul unexpectedly enters Oh Yeon-joo’s world, she is left dumbfounded. She tries to explain how the real world functions while swiftly transporting him to a safe location. Kang Chul understands everything Yeon-joo said was actually correct, even if accepting it isn’t easy for him. The bond between them strengthens and their investment in one another grows when they spend more time together.
Kang Chul gets to meet Oh Seong-moo, who is the man responsible for his life. Seong-moo admits to him he created his traumatic life story in order for Kang Chul to become a better and more interesting hero, which enrages Kang Chul as he realizes his life was played with like a fairy tale, and that it is unacceptable to him.
As Kang Chul becomes more emotionally unstable, a confrontation ensues. He shoots Oh Seong-moo in a shocking twist of events, confounding Yeon-joo who cannot believe what has just happened. The episode ends with her making every effort to help her father while Kang Chul has to deal with the aftermath of his act.
Episode 6: The Story Refuses to End
The episode kicks off with Oh Yeon-joo desperately trying to save her father, Oh Seong-moo, after Kang Chul’s attack. Although Seong-moo survives his surgery, he realizes that Kang Chul has escaped from the storyline and is no longer controlled by the creator of the webtoon.
Upon learning that his life has only been a fiction, Kang Chul is saddened and goes back to his own world. Before he takes the tragic decision of terminating himself, he writes a letter to Yeon-joo telling her goodbyes since he believes that he has lost the meaning of life.
Yeon-joo has a hard time accepting the truth that Kang Chul’s story has really come to an end after watching “The End” at the last part of W, but possibly, the audience has not expected such a resolution of the story. Following this, Seong-moo comments that Yeon-joo is now the central character in the webcomic and nothing could have happened without her.
While on a blind date and trying to have a normal life, Yeon-joo unexpectedly sees Kang Chul in the depths of the water. Simultaneously, the story of the comic changes its end from “The End” to “To Be Continued” meaning that Kang Chul is alive.
Yeon-joo and Soo-bong are preparing to go back to the webtoon in order to save Kang Chul.
The last part of the episode shows Yeon-joo’s grim prospects and her return to Kang Chul’s world while those helping her approach the river.
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