Diksha Sundriyal
Netflix’s action-comedy series, ‘The Brothers Sun’ delivers the dramatic twists and turns in the lives of the Sun family, who are already dysfunctional enough. The story begins with an event that should have brought them closer, but as the events unravel, secrets, lies, and old grudges come to light, and it becomes clear that there is too much history between them for things to settle easily. By the end, everything becomes even more complicated than it was at the beginning. SPOILERS AHEAD
The Brothers Sun Plot Synopsis
Charles Sun is the son of Big Sun, the Red Pole of the Jade Dragons, a feared leader of the Triad. So, when Big Sun is shot down and falls comatose, it falls on Charles to find out who is audacious enough to challenge their authority. At the same time, he must also protect his mother and his younger brother from danger, for which he has to travel to Los Angeles.
In reuniting with his family, Charles also puts them in danger, as their enemies now know where to find them. This puts his mother, Eileen, on a path that will change everything about her life. Meanwhile, for Charles’ younger brother Bruce, things get more and more chaotic as he discovers the truth about his father and their family business and how surprisingly apt he is at everything.
The Brothers Sun Ending: What Happens to Big Sun?
‘The Brothers Sun’ begins with an outside threat that the Sun family has to survive. By the end, however, so much has happened that the tension exists solely out of their complicated relationships, and the epicenter of all the trouble turns out to be Big Sun. He is revealed to be cruel and manipulative and only seems to care about power with no concern for his family, even though he drills it into Charles that protecting family comes before anything else.
The problems between Big Sun and Eileen also surface, especially after she discovers that he never told her about her sister’s death. Fed up with his lies, Eileen decides to do away with him once and for all and decides to get herself voted as Dragon Head. But, of course, Big Sun doesn’t make it so easy. He uses Charles as the shield to attack Eileen, and even though she comes up with a new plan, everything is spoiled when the cops and the Boxers show up at the Triad meeting at the same time.
In the end, the Boxers are defeated, and the cops get the Triad heads, who were not killed in the chaos. They have Frank Ma, who agrees to help them, but only if Big Sun is in prison. For this, Alexis turns toward Charles, but when he is no help, Bruce steps in to save his family. He shoots his father, which means Big Sun would have to go to an ER, which would alert the police and lead to his arrest. According to Bruce, everything should return to normal with him out of the picture. But it doesn’t.
Due to his wound, Big Sun ends up in the hospital and not directly in prison. Eileen pays him a visit there not just to gloat about her victory but also to tell him how she is going to punish him for all his injustices over the year. She marks it in his chart that he is diabetic, so any doctor who reads it will think that Big Sun really is diabetic and needs insulin. Even if Big Sun wanted to tell anyone about it, he wouldn’t be able to because the insulin would make him too weak to talk but keep him sane enough to experience the pain. This way, Eileen leaves him in a state of constant torture, getting her revenge.
Why do Eileen and Charles Go Back to Taipei?
Ever since Bruce finds out the truth about his family, the only thing he yearns for is to go back to normal. He thinks all the damage can be reversed if only he removes the Boxers and Big Sun from the picture. However, he doesn’t realize that his mother might want different things. He doesn’t know how she has been holding herself back all these years, and now that she finally has the chance, she wants to jump at the opportunity to become the leader of not only the Jade Dragons but of all the Triads. For this, however, she’ll have to go back to Taipei.
Throughout the season, Eileen proves herself to be more cunning than everyone expects her to be and displays her aptitude and enthusiasm for the job. Knowing that Bruce can take care of himself and there is no danger from the Boxers, she decides to use her newfound freedom to pursue her lifelong dream and return to Taipei. Before going back, she tells Charles he can stay back if that’s what he wants. She even buys him a bakery where he can bake to his heart’s content and focus on what he wants.
No matter how much Charles wants that life, he knows he cannot have it until he knows his family is safe. While his mother is an extremely resourceful woman, he knows that she would require everyone and everything at her disposal to execute the plan she has for the future. While she might have a past in Taipei, she hasn’t been there for the past fifteen years, and things have changed a lot. Charles, on the other hand, has spent the past decade and a half building his reputation as Chairleg Sun, one of the deadliest and most feared killers around. If he stands by his mother, her opponents will have to think twice about making a move against her.
It’s clear that Charles craves a life where he can run a bakery, marry the girl he loves, and have a family of his own. However, he is bound by honor to protect the family he actually has, and if that means delaying (if not giving up on) his dreams, then so be it. When he expresses the prospect of following his mother to Taipei, she says he must do it only if that’s what he wants. It’s not what he wants, but it is what he must do, and even though things might have changed considerably since he came to Los Angeles, Charles knows that some things will never change, and his responsibility to protect his family at all costs is one of those things.
Will Eileen Become Dragon Head?
‘The Brothers Sun’ begins with an outside attack, but that turns out to be only an appetizer before we are taken to the root of the conflict. The Boxers take a back seat as the Sun family fights amongst themselves to become the Dragon Head. The rivalry between Big Sun and Eileen, with Charles as his father’s proxy, becomes quite tense. She makes it clear how much she wants to be Dragon Head and how much she is up to the task. Her path has many obstacles, but most of them are removed by the end of the season.
The meeting where the heads of the Triads were supposed to vote for the next Dragon Head is infiltrated by the Boxers, followed by the cops. By the end, almost all the Triad Heads are either killed or arrested. This leaves an immense power vacuum, and Eileen intends to make use of that, turning the situation in her favor. She has already proved herself quite adept at the job. All she needs to do now is go and get what is hers. However, things won’t be so simple.
The power vacuum in the Triads is not a secret to anyone, and just like Eileen, a bunch of other people, all of them from one Triad gang or another, will try to get their hands on that power. It could be the rivals trying to get hold of each other’s business or just someone succeeding the head of their gang and becoming more ambitious after taking over that role. To reiterate, Eileen has no idea what she is walking into, or at least not as good of an idea as she’d like to have. She has Charles by her side, but even he might have to face some unexpected changes following the situation.
Moreover, by now, Eileen has been away for so long that she might be considered an outsider by the new leaders of the Triads, all of whom would want the power of the Dragon Head for themselves. This already puts a lot of trouble in her path, but that’s not even the worst of it. Considering that Big Sun isn’t dead yet, it is fair to say that he is not exactly out of the game. If anything, there is a good chance that he will return. The post-credits scene focuses on his right-hand man coming to LA and inquiring about Frank Ma. It makes sense that he is there to get Big Sun out of prison/ hospital and remove Frank Ma, the only witness for the prosecution.
To incite more conflict, the show would lean towards ruining Ma’s testimony and the release of Big Sun from prison. Once that happens, he’d be back in the game, which means he can stir up all sorts of trouble for Eileen, making it even more difficult for her to become Dragon Head. So, no matter how much we root for her, it’s clear that she won’t become Dragon Head so easily.
