You know how someone might sweep you breathlessly off your feet in the early stages of your courtship – it’s all gloriously giddy and everything seems quite perfect – until you actually start dating seriously, and then, slowly but surely, the illusion of perfection cracks to reveal his or her flaws?
Heh. SO MUCH like my experience with this show y’all. I loved this show in the beginning, but as the episodes progressed, the initial giddy shine wore off, and Show’s flaws came to the fore and made it a pretty uneven watch, overall.
BUT. Like that dating/relationship analogy, just because something’s not as perfect as it first seems, doesn’t discount the possibility of finding nuggets of substance, in the midst of the flaws, right?
OST ALBUM: FOR YOUR LISTENING PLEASURE
Here’s the OST album in case you’d like to listen to it while you read the review.
STUFF I LIKED
To be honest, I started this drama while feeling like I was in a mild drama slump. I was watching shows, but none of them were really grabbing me. And then I dipped my toes into this one. Ahh.
Just 10 minutes in, I was surprised by how quickly I was feeling engaged with these characters and this drama world.
It’s too bad that Show didn’t manage to sustain its initial fabulous streak, but in spite of the flaws that surfaced later in the show, there were definitely things that I liked about this show. Here’s a quick list.
1. The fabulous early stretch
I freaking loved the early stretch of this show.
It was a pitch-perfect mix of nonsensical screwball comedic cheesy, capably anchored by emotions that felt real, raw and poignant.
Which means that even though there was a whole lotta blithe comedy on our screens, that emotional weightiness balanced it all out really nicely, and worked to ground the show and make it heart-hitting instead of purely fluffy.
Our characters felt like real people instead of clowny caricatures, and that made them easy to root for. In a very good way, this reminded me of Marriage Not Dating, a show that is full of wacky, and full of heart.
The best part is, I actually found the Intended Funny genuinely amusing. Which, if you’ve known me for a while, doesn’t happen all that often, given k-ent’s tendency for broad comedy and my usual difficulty in appreciating it.
What a promising, fabulous combination of good stuff, right?
[SPOILER ALERT]
I loved the whole drunken marriage thing, which was flagrantly outrageous and very, very funny.
Post-wedding, I love that the flashbacks to the happy-drunk wedding were sprinkled nicely among OMG-what-did-I-do-when-I-was-drunk current timeline freakouts, coz both leads are equally awesome at both drunken, liberated glee and horrified panic.
That combination just amped up the funny to a whole new level, and I was very tickled indeed.
At the same time, Show did well teasing out the underlying emotions. When Mi Mo (Jang Na Ra) teared up at having been humiliated by the man she’d loved, I felt for her, so much. And Soo Hyuk’s (Jung Kyung Ho) quiet pensiveness when watching said humiliation felt very real too.
Show was consistent in grounding The Funny with somber touches, like when each of our leads was deep in thought, over the states of their lives, or over painful memories of the past.
Because Show did so well on this front, both Mi Mo and Soo Hyuk had me genuinely feeling for them and rooting for them, from the get-go.
Very impressive indeed.
[END SPOILER]
2. Jung Kyung Ho & Jang Na Ra
I honestly think that Jung Kyung Ho and Jang Na Ra lifted this show.
When the writing was awesome, these two lifted the awesome to a whole other level, with their fantastic deliveries.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Whether they were acting all drunk and desperate to get married, or freaking out at the drunken marriage, once sober, or having quiet, honest conversations, they were equally compelling.
[END SPOILERS]
They just made everything extra good, basically.
When the writing faltered and eventually started to sometimes not make a lot of sense, Jung Kyung Ho and Jang Na Ra still sold it.
Their heartfelt deliveries made me feel like their characters believed in the moment, even if many things about the moment might not have made sense to me.
Separately or together, Jung Kyung Ho and Jang Na Ra were wonderful on my screen – I loved their sparky chemistry, so much – and I loved the depth of emotion that each of them brought to their characters.
3. The Angel friends
This band of ex-Angels totally grew on me, over the course of the show.
First of all, I find it kitschy and hilarious that they’re friends from their 90s girl-group days; extra points to everyone, for even going so far as to make a real MV featuring them actually singing their hit song (featured at the end of the review, coz it’s so awesome).
Secondly, I like that each of the ex-Angels – minus Seul Ah (Sandara Park), who’s no longer on speaking terms with these 4 – are all so different, and that each of them gets a different plotline representing a love-related dilemma different from the rest.
Finally, I like that the friendship between the girls gets screen time; that they talk to one another and listen to and console and challenge one another – all despite their very different personalities and situations.
That unity in the midst of diversity – even if it was sometimes grudging – appealed to me a lot.
4. Da Jung & Geun Hak’s arc
Among the various secondary plotlines, my favorite was the one between Da Jung (Yoo Da In) and her estranged husband Geun Hak (Kim Tae Hoon). Depending on where we were in the show, sometimes, I felt more engaged with these two, than I did with the OTP.
I found the story of this estranged couple, sincerely working to rekindle their connection, and willing to fight for it – whether it was fighting external demands or their own doubts – very moving indeed.
Every little step they made in the right direction felt worthy of celebration, particularly since they were up against a pretty monumental amount of emotional baggage.
I love how writer-nim treated this couple; their nervous, awkward interactions and their little progress milestones all felt meaningful and true, and very organic.
I very much enjoyed rooting for this couple to find their way back into each other’s arms, and reach their well-earned happy ending.
5. Soo Hyuk & Min Woo
Pretty much every scene between Soo Hyuk and son Min Woo (Kim Dan Yool) was sweet to watch.
Soo Hyuk’s such a loving father, and Min Woo’s such a well-adjusted, understanding and supportive son, that I can’t help but love these two together.
In particular, I love the running joke with these two, of Soo Hyuk wanting hugs, but Min Woo rebuffing Dad’s advances. Coz mostly, Min Woo ends up giving Dad the hugs anyway.
[SPOILER ALERT]
The most touching scene for me, with this sweet father-son pair, is in episode 11.
When Soo Hyuk admits to Min Woo that he’s having a really hard time, Min Woo offers Dad a hug, and agrees immediately to go to the US with Dad, with no thought to what leaving Korea would mean to him personally. So much love. Oof.
[END SPOILER]
Special shout-out to: Ppoppo the Pug
If you’ve known me for a while, or poked around the site a bit, you’ll know that I have a super soft spot for pugs.
I was bummed that Ppoppo was relegated to mostly being a prop, and I was also disappointed that Show started dubbing him over so that we couldn’t hear the adorable signature pug heavy-breathing in later episodes.
I also felt sorry for him coz he looked rather stunned and uncomfortable in almost every scene.
But still. PUGGGG! He gets all the points just for being a pug. Seriously. ❤️
STUFF I DIDN’T LIKE SO MUCH
Even though I’ve divvied up this section into just 2 main items, I felt it was important to point out that this section carries just as much weight as the previous section – and, in the later stretch of the show, a little more, even.
1. Kwon Yool as Hae Joon
Show does an odd thing, in positioning second male lead Hae Joon (Kwon Yool) as an extraordinarily handsome and charming man, who’s always had no lack of female attention – and then making Hae Joon quite unlikable and far from charming.
Putting aside the fact that I personally don’t find Hae Joon all that handsome, I found his characterization strangely cold. It just didn’t make sense to me, that a character this cold and this unlikable would supposedly attract a lot of female attention.
[SPOILER ALERT]
Right away, I disliked Hae Joon’s roundabout way of reaching out to Mi Mo to date her. Essentially, he plays her – to the extent of confusing and even insulting her – to get her attention, which I found very aggravating.
When they do start dating, he consistently toys with her for his own amusement, without taking her feelings into account.
It’s sadistic and cruel, and I really don’t care for Hae Joon’s manipulative amusement. I don’t like that he finds Mi Mo’s discomfort &/or discombobulation &/or efforts to turn the tide amusing. Plus, he appears so condescending, through it all. Ugh.
Through most of the show, Hae Joon consistently shows himself to be completely lacking in empathy and consideration, to the extent that he doesn’t even seem fully engaged in his own life and relationship.
He doesn’t seem to actually like Mi Mo all that much, considering his general lack of interest in her. When he does get jealous-angry about Mi Mo showing interest in Soo Hyuk, it always feels more like his pride is hurt rather than his feelings.
[END SPOILER]
Whether it was about Mi Mo, or about bestie Soo Hyuk, or about ex-wife Yeon Soo (Hwang Sun Hee), Hae Joon remained consistently self-centered almost all the way through to Show’s end.
It’s true that Show makes efforts to give Hae Joon more self-awareness and compassion in its later episodes, but that “growth” didn’t feel very organic nor convincing to me.
In spite of Show’s efforts, Hae Joon never endeared himself to me, and by Show’s end, I felt indifferent towards him, at best.
2. Show seems to lose its footing [SPOILERS]
I think the problem is – and I do feel this is Show’s major downfall – Show stopped making consistently good decisions around how to split its time. There are 4 main areas I want to highlight.
1. Mi Mo spends more time dating Hae Joon than with Soo Hyuk, period. Show spends way too much time (literally half the show!) on Mi Mo trying to make things work with a disinterested Hae Joon. Which is problematic, when Mi Mo’s supposed to be half of the OTP – with Soo Hyuk.
2. With this big thing in the way of our OTP actually getting together, things eventually started getting weepy. Gone was the sparkling, wacky, fun rom-com that greeted us in episode 1.
Instead, we spend far too much time watching either or both sides of our OTP being sad. Tonally, this shift was relatively slow, in the sense that we didn’t just jump from wacky to weepy, and I could still understand (mostly, anyway) why the characters behaved in the way they did.
But it didn’t make it any less of a drag when we got to Cryalot City. We should’ve totally spent less time on crying and angst, and more time on bringing back Show’s initial fizz.
3. As we got deeper into the show, I became more interested in the stories of our secondary characters, and sometimes, I found myself wishing that we could spend more time with these characters.
In this respect, I feel like Show could have spent more time developing our secondary characters’ arcs, since each of them represented a different path to a happy ending and all.
4. Towards the end of the show, we get a whole lot of manufactured angst, which feels like a complete waste of time. Episode 15, for example, was an entire episode dedicated to a tiny molehill that was talked up as if it was some kind of insurmountable mountain.
Clearly, this was to fill screen time before the finale.
My point is, though, couldn’t we have spent the time more meaningfully, instead of stringing Mi Mo along for an entire episode, and having her in the throes of consternation and heartbreak, believing that her ex-husband (Kim Sa Kwon) was about to marry Soo Hyuk’s “sister” Si Ah (Jang Joon Yoo)?
We could’ve spent that time on the secondary characters instead, no?
A quick tangent on logic
While we’re on the subject, let me just say that narrative logic became pretty weak, particularly during the angsty stretch. Like this example in episode 15.
When Soo Hyuk sees that Mi Mo is in a great deal of turmoil over her Ex dating Soo Hyuk’s sister, Soo Hyuk chooses not to tell her the truth, but instead just comforts her and tells her not to cry, and then goes to confront said Ex.
I mean, really. If he cared so deeply about Mi Mo’s feelings, surely he would’ve chosen to ‘fess up, to save her several more hours of heartbreak? It just seemed like such an odd choice, to me.
The combined effect on me
The silver lining to all of this is, Jung Kyung Ho and Jang Na Ra continued to deliver their roles with so much heart that even in the most frustrating stretches, when I didn’t agree with the direction the story was taking, I believed how distraught or conflicted either of them was feeling.
On the other hand, with the watch becoming increasingly less fun and more problematic, I did start to give Show the side-eye.
The fun and silly that Show did try to introduce in several of the later episodes now felt oddly out of place after all that crying and angst, rather than organic to this drama world.
By the end of episode 15, I was actually looking forward to getting to the end of the show – not a good sign.
THOUGHTS ON THE ENDING [SPOILERS]
Considering that Show felt so flawed in its second half, I’d say that it didn’t do too bad of a job with the finale.
The upside
Show remembers that there is a lesson to be learned from each of the girls’ arcs, and I liked those lessons quite well.
Dong Mi (Yoo In Na) and her younger boyfriend show us that there needs to be some kind of balance between loving in the moment, and planning for the future. Da Jung and Geun Hak show us that love is a decision, not just a feeling.
And that with effort, perseverance and open minds and hearts, even a wilted love can be rekindled and given a fresh start. Ae Ran (Seo In Young) and Dong Bae (Park Eun Suk) show us that it’s possible to put past mistakes behind you, and start over.
Ae Ran also shows us that holding onto the past isn’t sustainable, and it’s important to nurture yourself for your happiness, satisfaction, and your future.
As a bonus, Hae Joon and Yeon Soo show us that it’s possible to move on from a lingering past relationship, and start over. And that it’s possible to stay cordial with your Ex, while you do that.
All good stuff.
The downside
I didn’t like the treatment of our OTP’s arc. Essentially, Mi Mo realizes that it’s important for Soo Hyuk and her to spend time getting to really know each other, before getting married.
And Show turns this into its stab at reintroducing the outrageous sort of funny from its early episodes, by making Soo Hyuk comically adamant about marrying Mi Mo.
This didn’t work for me, on so many levels.
First of all, the shift between sweetly meaningful to Strongly Comic was very sudden and therefore quite jarring, to me.
Secondly, Soo Hyuk’s behavior felt out of character, to me. From someone who consistently put Mi Mo first, he was suddenly acting like he was going to marry Mi Mo, whether she liked it or not.
Which felt really weird and dissonant to me, coz the Soo Hyuk that I’d come to know was the caring, loving sort of guy who would understand where Mi Mo was coming from with this request, and respect it.
Which made all the Intended Funny feel forced, rather than blithely outrageous, like it was in the earlier episodes.
Thirdly and possibly most importantly, the so-called friendly competition between Soo Hyuk and Mi Mo felt all wrong. It made them feel like they were on opposite sides, which was exactly what they shouldn’t be, going into a marriage.
Even though it was played for laughs, it just didn’t work for me. It made Soo Hyuk look childish and unreasonable for belligerently not respecting Mi Mo’s wishes to take more time, and it made the whole path to marriage feel like a petty competition rather than a heartfelt co-journey.
I feel like the entire thing about making Soo Hyuk so antsy about getting Mi Mo to say yes, is so that we could have that finale moment where Soo Hyuk was surprised by Mi Mo’s proposal, and got to reprise his line of “Abso-f***ing-lutely!” from their drunk wedding.
While I get that this is a nice callback, I don’t think Soo Hyuk’s arc necessarily had to be treated that way, in order to get us here.
I would’ve much rather seen Soo Hyuk agree to Mi Mo’s request for some time to get to know each other better, since Mi Mo’s request was consistently well-articulated and very reasonable, and then have the screwball comedy ensue around their everyday annoyances at each other, as they spent that extra time.
That way, we’d get the screwball comedy touches, while having them on the same side.
And at the end of it all, Mi Mo could still propose, when she was good and ready, and Soo Hyuk could still deliver that line – with joy, with tenderness, and conviction.
That would’ve worked much better, dontcha think?
CLOSING THOUGHTS
When all is said and done, it’s hard not to mourn the could’ve beens, since this show started off so promisingly. It’s also hard to ignore Show’s missteps, since those missteps resulted in so much angst and narrative drag.
In the end, though, Show did deliver a heartwarming message about second chances and how it’s never too late to love yourself and others, and that’s not a bad note to go out on.
THE FINAL VERDICT:
Uneven in tone, & draggy in spots, but heartfelt at its core.
FINAL GRADE: B-
TEASER:
MV:
Just happened to watch this and stopped at Ep4. As you said it started well and then saw what I believe is one of the most ruinous scripting stupidities ever, when Soo Hyuk tells Hae Joon that he doesn’t have feelings for Mi Mo, but then shortly thereafter realizes that he does(?)!
This is one of the things I dislike most about kdramas, where they make their characters stupid beyond all reality for no good reasons, except at best, expediency.
Anyway, from your review, I see that I saved valuable time.
Thank you.
[cultur is not exactly same as culture.]
I agree with your review 100000%. This is by far the worst Kdrama I’ve watched so far. I started off loving it and then felt bewildered most of the time. I only watched because I really liked the two main leads and the heartbreaking but very real storyline of her friend, friend’s husband and IVF. The struggle to have a child and the disastrous fallout of infertility were brilliantly captured and very, very real. I cried at their reconciliation, and honestly it was my only reason for sticking with the show.
The second lead (you can tell how unbothered I am by this show as I cba to scroll up and get his name), was every example of how boyfriends shouldn’t be. I really disliked how they didn’t make more of the fact he was only dating Mi Mo because he wants to take a girl from his mate. Some friendship that is.
And we never got an actual explanation on friend’s philandering husband! I found that pairing completely bizarre. BUT I did enjoy the nine-year age gap relationship of the elementary teacher and her boyfriend. I’m glad they made that happen and tackled an ageist topic.
Really liked Mi Mo, she was a fave. The pug stole the show. But your B- I reckon is pretty generous 😀 😀
Heh. I have a huge soft spot for pugs, and I do have similarly large soft spots for this show’s leads, so that might explain the generous grade. This was wonderful when it good. It’s too bad that Show didn’t sustain it past the initial episodes. This could’ve been SO much better! 😭 On the upside, if this is the worst kdrama you’ve seen to date, that means that you’ve managed to avoid the REALLY bad ones? 😉
oh crap, did I watch the whole drama without releasing it was Sandara Park that did Seul-A and I’m a huge 2NE1 fan…. I think I must go into hidding… haha.
I
Lol. Patrik, you are so funny! XD I’m glad you did eventually realize that it was Sandara Park.. henceforth, you can make reference to that, and no one will be the wiser. Your secret is safe with me. *seals lips* 😉
I guess when you see people at places where you don’t expect too see them, you don’t always recognize them 🙂
Well she had a small part, I always thought Seul-A would come back in more episodes of the drama, but she never did.
Good point – I’ve missed spotting people I know, just because I didn’t expect to see them where I saw them 😉 I’m sure Sandara Park would forgive you for not spotting her in this show! In fact, she might take it as a compliment; ie, she was so in character that you didn’t recognize her stage self! ^^
i liked this show coz it’s the only drama that i was watching with my friends in real-time. usually we have different tastes but somehow we liked how the women friendship was presented, very realistic and they were supportive of each other, which is very rare in kdrama. so really enjoyed the highs and got frustrated with the lows but since i was able to rant with friends it became a bonding moment, hahahhahaaa…
i propose that rom-com kdramas should be shortened to 8-10 episodes so we get less angst, perhaps? this happened to PMAI also, it started out well & good then turned to melodrama halfway:(
thank you for your review, well-written as always! but i can’t write an unbiased review, JNR & JHK were comedy gold:)
Oh yes, JNR and JKH were absolutely comedy gold. I loved the initial zany so much largely because of their deliveries. They are a large part of the reason that I watched this one to the end. They made the angst feel like it had depth, even when my brain was saying that the angst was manufactured. They definitely lifted this show for me. It’s too bad the writing faltered in the second half.
I do agree that watching with friends makes a big difference – how cool, that you got to bond with your friends on this one, bugs_bunny! 🙂
i was surprised also! but it’s also good that we don’t like the same kind of dramas, coz i can ask them for their recommendations before starting a new one each time, also need precious sleep, hahahaha…
more often than not kdramas are good on the 1st half, falter midway, and lose its way in the end. so i tend to stick w/ dramas based on the writer’s previous work, then work my way thru reviews from bloggers. Although recommendation from a friend takes precedence coz atleast I know what they personally like/dislike, I would be forewarned…
With so many drama offerings to choose from, some kind of filtering system is absolutely necessary, even if one doesn’t require ANY sleep! XD It’s so true that many kdramas tend to falter midway or towards the end. It makes the ones which stay good all the way through all the more precious ^^
Nodnodnodnod. 😀 I was so into it, and was all hyping it up, but then it died a slow death, though there were enough warm bits to keep me hoping, but just barely. Tis just as you wrote. Terrific review as always 🙂
Aw, thanks lyricalpeach, I’m glad you enjoyed this review, even though the show itself turned out to be somewhat underwhelming overall. You’re so right, there were just enough warm bits to keep me going – which is how I ended up finishing this show. Maybe if they’d outright sucked in the second half, it would’ve saved us some drama hours? XD Still, I’m glad I got to enjoy the last episode. That really was pretty solid. 🙂
I agree with your review wholeheartedly! I’ve always been a fan of Jang Na Ra, and now I love Jang Kyung Ho … great together. Also wish much more time could have been focused on their deepening relationship together and with his son! And forget about Kwon Yool’s character – agree he was so unlikeable, so not handsome..I kept thinking, “Just go away!” The other girls’ lovelines were very good, and ended well. I am glad I watched the entire drama for the very good parts.
YES, Jang Na Ra and Jung Kyung Ho are just so good together!! I LOVED the drunken marriage thing in the beginning of the show, coz they both played it so well! So flagrantly gung-ho about it while drunk, and then so deeply horrified when sober. LOVE. They really ought to work together again – this time in a better written drama 😉
B- here too … mainly because i really wanted something entertaining, the show started to disappoint me pretty early too and that made the k-drama tropes stand even more out … turning the viewing experience into some sort of a guessing game with predictable answers. oh well, another show wasting it’s initial potential/promise …
High five, INTJ.. I think I felt the same way about this show. It had such a promising start that I thought I was in for a fun, zany ride, and then, Show brought on the angst and completely lost its grip on its initially zippy fun tone. I feel it’s a waste as well, but at least the ending was able to mitigate the show’s flaws enough for me to give it a B- 😉
My title would be: Another Bait and Switch. It starts out breezy and funny and turns angsty and melo. Like Timescout said, it happens all the time and is so frustrating. I also didn’t finish this. I got too busy and had to drop a drama and between Madame Antoine (much flawed as well and probably unwatchable if you have a psychology background), I chose to drop this one. I also loved the fun at the beginning and was so looking forward to more of an ensemble drama with the four gals. I actually liked that the 2nd male lead at least asked his friend if he was in a relationship with MiMo because he didn’t want involved in some weird love triangle. I thought maybe they wouldn’t go that way. I really dislike that trope a lot but then they went there. I love the leads so much but this is one I won’t pick up again.
I do have a thought on why the doc was written the way he was. I follow a few k-drama news sites and apparently the Korean audience liked the doc. I mean you have a single dad who is a paparatzi versus a successful doctor so on paper I guess the doc seemed a better option regardless of personality flaws. So perhaps a victim of the live shoot system.
For those that liked it, I’m glad. I did You Tube the Conan O’Brien cameo. Overall, just feel like they had a good concept that they couldn’t deliver on. I know the Hong Sisters don’t get it right all the time, but I’m coming to appreciate what they do a bit more.
Ah, thanks for shedding light on that, Kat! I hadn’t considered the Korean emphasis on qualifications. Put that way, it’s true that Hae Joon is much better qualified on paper, and I can see how many Korean women would want to pursue a “catch” like him. I still don’t get the whole emphasis on how charming he is, since Hae Joon is a cold, unfeeling fish through pretty much the entire show, but at least I can now rationalize his popularity among the ladies in some way.
I tried E1 of Madame Antoine but couldn’t get into it, even without a psychology background. I picked this one coz I have a lot of affection for Jung Kyung Ho and Jang Na Ra, who were a pleasure to watch, if just for their acting delivery. The story WAS a letdown with the manufactured angst, so you’re not missing much at all, in not picking this one back up. Hmm.. Maybe if the team that did Marriage Not Dating had done this one, it could’ve been awesome. 🙂
I’ve never been able to understand kdramas’ need to turn fun stories into sobfests at some point. It’s like they just can’t leave manufactured aaaannnngst out, no matter what. Which is why I haven’t finished many Korean romcoms, this one included. 🙂
You didn’t miss all that much, Timescout.. I found the ending warm and feel-good, if somewhat illogical in spots, but not in a Must Not Miss sort of way. Manufactured angst really is a problem with lots of kdramas.. I am game for well-thought-out, organic-to-the-story sort of angst, but with so many dramas, it’s almost like they’re aiming to fill some sort of angst quota. “Don’t have any solid reason for angst? Make up something – anything!” And that’s really annoying, from where I’m sitting. 😛
SPOILER ALERT……………………………..
For the one scene – when he is washing her injured foot and she pats him on the head and tells him what a good job he has done as a single father and he grabs her hand and says don’t touch me – it makes me want to grab on to you. I am glad I watched that show. I had never seen his appeal before even in the noir drama he did but it that scene I finally got it. Rawr.
Omigosh, YES. That scene was intense indeed. I had to rewind and rewatch, it made me so giddy <3 I took awhile to come around to the Jung Kyung Ho awesome too, but now that I've seen it, I just un-see it. I now find him awesome in just about everything, and he really brought nuance and depth to Soo Hyuk in this show, even when I didn't care for Show's unnecessary angst. Have you seen Falling For Innocence? It's illogical a lot of the time, but I found it a more enjoyable watch than I'd expected, and Jung Kyung Ho is wonderful in it. 🙂
You are highly generous with your review on this drama that started out awesomely funny to downright ridiculous angst and early on for that matter. So the charm of the show fell quickly. I stayed for the main actors, but it was an overall snooze ans waste of potential good script
Hee. You know what made me more generous with the rating? It was the final episode. To be honest, I found a large chunk of the second half a snooze-fest, even though I could rationalize the actions and decisions of most of the characters, and even though I really did feel drawn to Da Jung’s arc of self-discovery and reconciliation with her estranged husband. The angst between Mi Mo and Soo Hyuk unnecessarily long-drawn-out especially. But the last episode brought back a lot of Show’s initial appeal. Even though I didn’t agree with the way Mi Mo and Soo Hyuk’s arc was handled, it was enough to leave me with a feel-good sort of aftertaste, and I gave Show a better final grade as a result. Without that final uptick, I would’ve probably rated Show a C. ^^
I really enjoyed One More Happy Ending overall. I guess I’m the only one in Dramaland, but I liked it all the way through and didn’t mind the latter half at all. Of course, I tend to not mind angsty shifts in general. I usually expect it with most dramas anyway. And I still enjoyed the comedy a lot 🙂
I never did care for Hae Joon though. I agree 100% with your thoughts on him. I was always just ready for him to get off my screen, lol.
i liked this drama as well for personal reasons, you’re not the only one!
Yea! Good to know someone else really enjoyed it 🙂
one of my girlfriends actually watched the drama 2x, from beginning to end, hahhahahaa… i did the same thing also, but from episodes 1-6 only! another friend liked the doctor character, she even defended him, but we’re like, whyyyy??? so this drama is a win-win for us, we ranted on the bad parts but really enjoyed the funny moments.
this is the most honest, caring, supportive friendship between women that i’ve seen in kdrama.
Haha, she must have really liked it! Yeah, the doctor was my main dislike. I guess your other friend must have saw something in him that we didn’t, lol. I really enjoyed the friendship between the women too. You don’t see that a lot, and I thought they portrayed the friendships in a such a genuine way 🙂
Sorry for the insanely late reply, Kay! 😛 Real Life has been extra demanding since I posted this review, and I’ve basically had to give all my attention to work for the last several weeks.
You probably are one of the rare few who enjoyed OMHE all the way to the end without feeling at all thrown by the angst. Dramaland ought to be grateful for forgiving viewers like you ^^ I feel like I’m reasonably able to appreciate angst, but somehow, it just didn’t feel very natural to me in this show. And YES, Hae Joon was SO unappealing, in pretty much every way. I didn’t like him as a character at all, and Kwon Yul’s relatively flat interpretation of his character didn’t help either. Still, I’m glad that I stayed till the end, since the last episode was solid, and did a lot to mitigate Show’s faults. 🙂