Ep 50 "I want to live as long as possible"
Well, after 24 weekends of faithfully viewing this series, we wind up at the finale. However, things aren’t what they seem, because we still have yet to resolve the liver cancer melodrama before the series can tie up all its loose ends. And unfortunately, this has been so poorly planned, that it will take over half of this episode to move beyond the melodrama and finally close out the various story-lines. Contrast this with “Bravo My Life (2022)” a KBS daily series that aired concurrently with IBN. That series used the last 3 episodes to give its viewers a structured end of the show, and spread the storyline closeouts over 60 minutes. It gave its viewers an orderly and satisfying end to its 120-episode run. IBN gives us a mish-mash of an end, where things are thrown together and story close-outs are glossed-over and come out of the blue with little logic (see Mr. Choi’s family story-line). We also don’t get a look to the future to see JY & HJ’s kids being born, just a silly scene where both ladies go into labor simultaneously.
I’ll have more to say at the end of this recap, so let’s get it over with:
The show opens with a weakened SooJung unable to get out of bed, and she’s rushed the hospital where her doctor tells the family her liver is beginning to shut down and time is of the essence for the transplant. But HJ still can’t get his parents blessing (much less SooJung’s). MiRae rushes to her parents’ house to comfort her grandmother who is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. In the middle of this melodrama, the Dolts are home, having lunch in a seeming out of place scene before they head to his folks house, where HaeJun comforts KA and we continue to see the bonding between these 2 characters.
With her husband, half-brother and son in law urging her, SooJung stands firm and still refuses to allow the transplant, despite her hospitalization. Finally, KA relents and calls HJ while he and MiRae are dining at the Dolts and gives her blessing and tells him that she’ll convince SooJung too. And she does in a scene that shows another side of KA we haven’t seen in one of the series most touching scenes between these 2 veteran actresses. Once that’s settled the show tries to refocus on the other storylines: Mr Choi gets a bit part on the TV drama he’s been pining for; YuNa & SJ go to visit HJ at the hospital the day before the surgery and they run into KA, who is glad to see them all there (MiRae & JungHoo is also there and he’s NOT that glad to see them). He tells MiRae that SJ & YuNa once dated, and she tells him, the past-tense doesn’t seem to apply – they still look like a couple. Grandpa goes to visit SooJung at he hospital and sees HJ too, but he’s at a loss for words for his grandson’s sacrifice.
In the midst of all this…YuNa and SJ talk out side the hospital, and she confesses her love for him too…and just like that, they are back together! JungHoo realizes this too, and his relegation to the Friend Zone is permanent.
The next day, the surgery happens with the families gathered at the hospital to see their loved ones (MiRae seems to have spent the night there with HJ).
So, it takes 43 of the 72 minutes of this episode to deal with this (the transplant was successful, of course).
Now, we have less than a half-hour to wrap up the loose ends and this happens at a break-neck speed, including a time-jump ahead of several months: HaeJun and MiRae are both heavily pregnant, and HaeJun is on the eve of maternity leave, a prospect that leaves her unsettled (MiRae shuts down her business for the duration as well). SJ has a cleaning job from JungHoo at what looks like Bong Foods HQ and they plan to have dinner later. YJ’s stocks continue to stink/shrink/sink, but at least he’s realized that his wife will kill him if he takes any action, so instead he gives an ecstatic SoRa a raise as business is doing well at the clinic. As his children plan an 80th birthday party Grandpa there is finally no drama in any of the families whatsoever. Mr Choi and his family see the positive reviews for the TV show he’s on and that seems to be the wrap up for them. YJ comes to pick up HaeJun for her last day at work, and the Dolts have to listen to HJ’s tales of his experiences from the surgery. And YuNa, SJ and JungHoo have dinner out, and he’s again reminded of his status as the 3rd wheel. The reality of having a son has begun to hit HaeJun who begins to wonder how she’s going to cope with having 2 dolts in the house, while HJ grapples with how he will raise a daughter.
The series ends at Grandpa’s 80th party at a venue selected by Jin Heon, with the entire cast in attendance. However, just when his grandchildren are paying tribute (oddly, JungHoo was not included), both HaeJun and MiRae go into labor, creating the expected havoc and chaos.
Bouquets and Bricks:
First off, a big shout out to Ms. Kim Hye Ok, who gave us a marvelous performance as Kyung Ae. KA and HaeJun were the most interesting and compelling female characters in the show and she just chewed up every scene she was in. One of the few things this show did right in this episode was to show how she was central to resolving the transplant surgery standoff. She portrayed a character with PLENTY of issues of her own, who struggled to understand the men in her family, and her role in it. She was just incredible.
Let’s toss bricks to the writers for leaving JungHoo as the odd-man-out in his relationship with YuNa & SJ. To top this off, this was pointed out deliberately in the last scene at Grandpa’s party. YuNa’s boss, Syet Byul, seems like an obvious choice for him, and it’s hard to imagine YuNa not trying to set them up: she’s the right age, presumably single, and they both work in the food industry. She’s a self-made woman at this point, which should help her standings with his parents. To leave him stag at the party, sitting next to YuNa was pretty mean-spirited.
And I’ll go out on a limb here and toss a bouquet to Bae DaBin, for her portrayal of MiRae. I’ve gone back and watched the series from the beginning, and she did a fine job as MiRae, as she had a lot of material to work with. MiRae was an interesting, complex character (who DID dress well at the series beginning) who the writers abandoned once she became HJ’s girlfriend. Her character was essentially ignored and she was simply a girlfriend…an accessory to HJ. The writers did her no favors.
And finally, one last brick the writers AND producers: We deserved better than this for a series finale. This series was unique in its resistance to using time-jumps, except for the this episode – so why not give us one last time jump ahead to the babies being born so we can see the grandparents/great-grandparents playing with them, which is what the whole first 2 episodes were all about? Of course, they couldn’t do this as there was no time left in the episode due to the poor execution and planning of the cancer storyline, which should have been resolved in the 49th episode. That would have given us the full 72 minutes of this to include a few time-jumps ahead to see the future life of the families. How dumb!
Final Conclusion
In retrospect, I think that once the story got around to marrying YJ & HaeJun, thus officially ending the moribund “marriage race”, the writers didn’t know what to do. Part of the original premise of the show was now done. The story line seemed to wander around and it felt like they were killing time by focusing on MiRae’s mom and her issues (adoption, cancer, etc). MiRae’s mom was originally a foil for HJ’s affections for her daughter and this was kind of amusing as well in the early episodes. But changing focus to her spoiled it for me, as the series transitioned from a study of how couples in different generations handled falling in love, to a more predictable TV melodrama. If they could return to the original concept, I would gladly watch a sequel to this series, especially focusing on how two middle-age couples would handle child-raising when they all have established careers. Are you listening KBS?
bohee:
Nandini:
