While Squid Game continues to occupy first place in the top of the most viewed series in France, another series from South Korea was particularly anticipated this weekend. Netflix released the last two episodes of When the phone ringsthe fiction between thriller and romance, which has been a surprise hit since its release in November 2024. Fans were eager to know the end of the story of Paik Sa-eon (Yoo Yeon-seok) and Hong Hee-joo (Chae Soo-bin) after the cliffhanger of episode 10. If the new penultimate chapter, posted online Friday January 3, seemed to keep all its promises, things changed with the episode 12, the last in the series, available since Saturday January 4 on Netflix.
When the phone rings (Netflix): when the plot of the last episode goes wrong
Not to mention the last six minutes and the controversial scene that we reveal to you a little further down in this article, episode 12 of When the phone rings was already enough to make us roll our eyes. After the confrontation between the real Paik Sa-eon and the hero of the series, the latter disappeared, leaving Hee-joo alone and without news. The latter ended up tracking him down six months later and went to the (fictitious) country of Argan to try to see him again. Except that in a single scene, the romantic series became an action series since Hee-joo was kidnapped by rebels who took control of the country. It’s not over: it was ultimately Sa-eon who ended up saving her from the hands of her captors. This plot was present in the novel from which the Korean series is adapted, which did not prevent Internet users from criticizing it. “Looking back on it, this episode was funny, I was wondering what I was watching the whole time.” ; “This ending is ridiculous“, or even “It was so boring“, we can read on the Reddit forum.
When the phone rings (Netflix): this scene 6 minutes from the end ruined the entire series according to fans
Afterwards, everything ended well as Hee-joo and Sa-eon decided to remarry. Hee-joo returned to her job as a television interpreter while Sa-eon (who has changed his first name in the meantime) became a negotiator. But in the last six minutes of episode 12, a scene enraged fans. Following an announcement made by presenter Yu-ri, the series evoked in a barely disguised way the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, by replacing the names of the countries with “Paltima” and “Izmail” and reversing the roles, the first bombing the second. If it is only a sentence that lasts a few seconds, Internet users have not failed to react on social networks. “When the Phone Rings goes down in history with the shittiest ending” ; “When the Phone Rings is a perfect example of how a final episode can ruin an entire series“, or even “My heart is broken by the inclusion of this scene about Paltima and Izmael. Are you kidding me?”, can we read on X (formerly Twitter).
Faced with this scene, many Internet users called for a boycott, despite the end of the series. Some Internet users have also taken action to lower the rating of the series, such as on the American reference site IMDb, where more than 14,000 of them gave a rating of “1”, the lowest possible rating. The MBC channel, which broadcasts the series in South Korea, has not yet commented on this subject. After getting off to a bad start with a controversy in one of his first scenes, When the phone rings therefore seems to have missed its release, to the great despair of fans.
