Durian’s Affair Ep 16 finale earns HIGHEST ratings of entire series – international viewers HATE the ending
Michelle Topham 
The cast and crew of the K-drama Durian’s Affair must be thrilled with last night’s ratings for its finale episode in South Korea.
That’s because, according to Nielsen Korea, Durian’s Affair, Episode 16 earned the highest ratings of the entire series with an 8.10 percent audience share nationwide, which is up from its previous episode‘s 7.38 percent.
In Seoul, Episode 16 of the fantasy drama had similar results garnering 7.81 percent of the audience, up from the 6.80 percent of Episode 15.
Now that the final Durian’s Affair episode ratings are in, we can also tell you the average rating for the entire series was 5.58 percent nationwide and 5.00 percent in Seoul.
Extremely strong ratings for the TV Chosun drama.
International viewers’ reaction to Durian’s Affair, Episode 16
Many international viewers using the My Drama List website were not happy with the ending of Durian’s Affair, with some complaining it ruined the entire series for them.
Some felt Episode 16 was rushed, and others said they felt incredibly depressed after watching the season finale as the final 20 minutes made little sense.
Comments on the site where the drama is only rated a low 7.5 out of 10 range from:
I didn’t expect this ending. I feel like I lost my time watching this series. For real the ending is not worth it.
with others complained the ending was too vague:
I’m not sure if they ran out of time to properly complete the episode or if this was an artistic ending demonstrating the randomness and messy endings we have in real life.
Whatever the case, I would have preferred an ending with more clarity. I think I understand how the various stories continued, but I feel unsatisfied. It’s unfortunate because I thought it was entertaining, rather unique, and dealt with some interesting aspects of life.
There was also much speculation about the series originally being intended to be 20 episodes, as everything about the last couple of episodes seemed as though too many plot points had been shoved into a fast ending, with the ending itself being badly written:
I have 2 theories about the finale episode and they both appear equally plausible…
theory 1 – the writer was on magic mushrooms when writing the episode or
theory 2 – a new writer was brought on to write this episode who had never seen the show and was given a brief synopsis on what it was about…and a few hours to come up with the episode.
Nothing else makes sense…what on earth was that about….Just state there will be a season 2 and we will not take to the streets in protest.
The Korean drama comprises a large main cast — Park Joo Mi, Choi Myung Gil, Kim Min Jun, Han Da Gam, Jeon No Min, Yoon Hae Young, Ji Young San, Yoo Jung Hoo, and Lee Da Yeon.
If you missed Durian’s Affair, Episode 16 (and yes, it does have a vague, unsatisfying ending unfortunately, so let’s hope there is a Season 2 on its way), you can watch it now via Viki where the rating has already dropped from yesterday’s 9.3 to 9.0 out of 10 after Episode 16 streamed.
Well, a wonky ending will do that to a drama, won’t it?!
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Rachel M. Reeves 