Breaking Down the Emotional Ending of Resident Playbook

Time​ Magazine

19-05-2025

R esident Playbook, the Netflix spin-off of beloved K-drama Hospital Playlist, has wrapped its first season. The slice-of-life medical series is set in the understaffed obstetric and gynecology department at the Seoul Jongno branch of the fictional Yulje Medical Center, and follows four first-year OB-GYN residents as they fail, learn, and grow.
The series stars Alchemy of Soul 's Go Youn-jung as Oh Yi-young, a junior doctor who only takes a job at Yulje to pay off her crippling credit card debt. Yi-young secures the job despite getting fired from her previous position because the OB-GYN department is so desperate for new recruits. She is joined by three other junior doctors: the high-strung, status-conscious Pyo Nam-kyung (The Witch Part 2 's Shin Shi-ah); warm-hearted former K-pop idol Um Jae-il (When Life Gives You Tangerine 's Kang Yoo-seok); and emotionally distant top student Kim Sa-bi (Han Ye-ji, in her debut role).
When Yi-young, Nam-kyung, Jae-il, and Sa-bi first start working together, they are in over their heads. Lacking confidence and hands-on experience, they fail at basic medical tasks, creating more work for the already over-taxed doctors and nurses who guide them. Like the recent hit medical drama The Pitt, Resident Playbook is interested in how the hospital's more experienced staff go about teaching the relative newbies.
Unlike The Pitt, Resident Playbook 's scope expands far beyond one shift. The first season begins with Yi-young, Nam-kyung, Jae-il, and Sa-bi's first day as residents and ends with their first day as second-year residents. Let's break down the emotionally resonant ending of Resident Playbook 's first season.
Why was Oh Yi-young fired from her previous job?
There are many rumors about what happened at Yi-young's former hospital that led to her firing. In Episode 11, we learn the truth about what happened when a new nurse, Lee Chae-ryeong (Choi Yoon-ji), begins working at Yulje Medical Center.
Previously, Yi-young and Chae-ryeong both worked at a dermatology clinic. When Yi-young saw a doctor sexually harassing Chae-ryeong, she bit his hand. She was fired, and the clinic eventually went under, a fate Yi-young half-jokingly takes credit for when she and Chae-ryeong discuss the incident at Yulje. Chae-ryeong thanks Yi-young for standing up for her.
Does Yi-young pay back her debt?
Yi-young begins the series 50 million won or more than $35,000, in debt. She takes the job at Yulje not only for the salary, but because she needs proof of employment to extend the loan.
By the end of the season, Yi-young has only 16 million won, or roughly $11,400, left to pay off. When she finds an old, winning lottery ticket for 33 million won, or roughly $23,500, she plans to quit her job. However, a particularly busy New Year's Eve at the hospital distracts her from cashing in the ticket. When she goes to show her friends that she has won, the claim period for the ticket has expired. Yi-young has to keep her job to continue paying off her debt, though it is strongly implied that she has begun to truly value her work.
Do Yi-young and Do-won end up together?
When Resident Playbook starts, Yi-young is already crushing on her sister's brother-in-law Do-won (Jung Joon-won). Do-won, however, doesn't start to recognize his feelings for Yi-young until mid-way through the season, when he witnesses another doctor trying to woo Yi-young. By the end of the season, the two are together and happy. While they don't have a lot of time for dating, they see each other as often as they can.
In Episode 12, they meet in Do-won's car in the Yulje parking lot. Do-won congratulates his girlfriend on completing her first-year residency, and gives her some rings he picked out. He is planning on moving out of the apartment they share with their siblings in order to get his own place where they can be alone. He opens a one-year savings account, hoping that he can use the savings for his eventual wedding with Yi-young. They are smitten.
Do Jae-il and Sa-bi end up together?
In Episode 12, which is set at the beginning of the new year, Jae-il admits that he likes Sa-bi. Sa-bi says she likes him back, but one of her 'rules of dating' is that she must know someone for a year before they can date. Given that she met Jae-il in March, they will have to wait another few months before dating. Jae-il teasingly pushes back, and may have a chance at wearing her down before March.
What happened to HI-BOYZ, Jae-il's former K-pop group?
One of the more delightful backstories in Resident Playbook is Jae-il's former life as a K-pop idol. Prior to going to medical school, Jae-il was a member of a fictional K-pop group called HI-BOYZ. Jae-il has their hit song, 'When the Day Comes,' as his ringtone throughout the show. When the first-year residents go to karaoke in Episode 9, we see snippets of a HI-BOYZ music video, and get to watch Jae-il do some of the choreography. A drunk Sa-bi even joins in at one point, outing herself as a HI-BOYZ fan.
Jae-il's former bandmates are played by real-life K-pop stars, Sooboin and Yeonjun, both of mega-popular group TXT. They will be performing with Jae-il actor Kang You-seok on Korean music show M Countdown later this week. The live performance will happen on Thursday, May 22nd at 6pm KST, and will likely be available on the Mnet K-pop YouTube channel following its broadcast. In the meantime, you can watch the official HI-BOYZ performance video and dance practice videos for 'When the Day Comes.'
Does Yi-young's sister get pregnant?
In one of the most unexpectedly moving moments of the season finale, I-young's sister, Oh Joo-young (Jung Woon-sun) decides not to move forward with another fertility treatment aftershe and husband Ku Seung-won (Jung Soon-won) find out that, following their 10th time going through the IVF process, they have failed to become pregnant. While the doctor encourages them, saying some women are able to get pregnant after trying so many times, Joo-young decides not to try again.
'People say a baby completes a family and wonder how you can live without that happiness,' Joo-young says to the doctor. 'But I'll give that life a shot. My family may be incomplete to some, but I am happy with it. The joy a baby brings is something I'll try to find elsewhere on my own. I won't resent myself anymore. I'll love myself, and try to live a happy life.'
Joo-young loves her husband, her sister, and her brother-in-law. She has close friends. Though she is sad at the prospect of not having a child, which was something she wanted, she doesn't believe it is the only path to a purposeful, happy life. It's a powerful moment in a show that celebrates the wonder of childbirth and in a country where so many women are choosing not to have children.
Does Myeong Eun-won get the new professor job?
Professor Seo (Lee Bong-ryun) is tasked with selecting a new professor to help lead the education of the department's junior doctors. Myeong Eun-won (Kim Hye-in), a Hospital Playlist alum who has proven herself to care more about her reputation than her patients or her colleagues, has put herself in for the job. However, after speaking to the Yulje nurses and interns, Seo chooses instead to give the job to Chu Min-ha (Ahn Eun-jin), a doctor who first appeared as an OB-GYN resident on Hospital Playlist. There is some justice in this world.
Yi-young met Chu Min-ha in Episode 2 of Resident Playbook, when Yi-young accompanied a patient to Songdo Yulje Hospital, where Min-ha was working. Min-ha praised Yi-young for her handling of the journey. She bought her a cup of coffee, and told her about her own first-year resident experiences. The episode demonstrated how good Min-ha would be at guiding younger doctors in their careers.
In Episode 12, Min-ha arrives at Jongno Yulje to begin her new job, and is warmly welcomed by everyone besides Eun-won, who is furious she has not earned the job herself. Min-ha gets a visit from Hospital Playlist main character Yang Seok-hyung (Kim Dae-myung), who is confirmed to be her husband. Earlier in the episode, Seok-hyung, who is an OB-GYN himself, steps in to help Nam-kyung deliver a baby before disappearing into the ward.
Will there be any new first-year OB-GYN residents?
One of the tensions hanging over the characters in the second half of the season is recruitment of new first-year residents for the OB-GYN department. If the understaffed department can't recruit any interns to join their department, the second-years will have to do the first-year work on top of their new tasks.
It seems dire, until intern Tak Gi-on (Cha Kang-yoon) informs Nam-kyung that he has decided to join the OB-GYN department next year. While seemingly indifferent, like Yi-young, Gi-on actually finds the department exciting and wants to stay. When he shakes Nam-kyung's hand, he holds on, implying that he also has romantic feelings for the doctor who has been his mentor the past few months.
Will there be a Resident Playbook Season 2?
As of right now, a second season of Resident Playbook has not been greenlit. The series has earned high broadcast ratings and streaming numbers since its premiere, but Netflix marked the show as a 'limited series' after the fourth episode, implying there will not be a second season.
The series has the reality of an ongoing Korean medical crisis working against it. As TIME wrote about following the show's April premiere, Resident Playbook 's broadcast on tvN and release on Netflix was delayed more than a year when a crisis in the Korean medical system broke out, making the show's setting and subject matter particularly politically charged.
From a narrative perspective, it would be a shame if Resident Playbook doesn't get a second season. The finale, though satisfying, leaves many storylines unresolved. Though Yi-young obviously cares about her work as a doctor, we don't get to see her admit that to herself or others. Her friends are skeptical she will actually quit in February, as she states confidently to them, and the viewer is meant to be skeptical too, but the loss of the lottery money means we don't get to see Yi-young forced to make that choice for herself.
Meanwhile, Joo-young and Seung-won still don't realize their siblings are happily dating. Despite having caught Yi-young and Do-won exhibiting romantic behavior on multiple occasions, the married couple continues to think they don't get along. We have also yet to see how Yi-young and Do-won's workplace romance might make their jobs more complicated. While the secret has started to get out at Yulje, most of the senior staff does not yet know they are dating.
How does Resident Playbook Season 1 end?
As a slice-of-life drama, Resident Playbook doesn't come to some huge, dramatic climax. Patients die, babies are born, and life goes on for some.
This is perhaps best demonstrated by Nam-kyung's finale storyline. Yeom Mi-so (Hyun Jin), Nam-kyung's first patient at Yulje, dies in the Yulje Hospital ward on New Year's Eve. Mi-so was the patient who convinced Nam-kyung not to run away during her first month in the job. Before Mi-so's brother arrives at the hospital, Nam-kyung speaks to a dying Mi-so, confirming a DNR order. She puts on Mi-so's favorite hymn and holds her hand as she slips from consciousness. When Nam-kyung goes to fill out Mi-so's death certificate, she breaks down in the well-lit ward, collapsing into a crouch. Before she can finish crying, a patient in active labor comes in and she must pull herself together to do her job.
At the beginning of the series, Nam-kyung, Jae-il, Sa-bi, and Yi-young were literally running away from their duties, understandably terrified at the commitment they all made to try their very best to sustain, save, and welcome human life. In the finale, they all turn toward that terror in different ways. For Nam-kyung, it means accepting that sometimes all you can do is hold a patient's hand as they die. It's this acceptance of duty that the first-year's seniors have been trying to support them to do all season. As the retiring Im Dong-ju (Kang Shin-il) puts it in his retirement speech, they have learned to fail with grace and to let go with courage.