The contract marriage trope is one of my favorites. However this one doesn’t work as well as others I’ve seen. Despite the reason for the contract making some sense, how they got to that point made little sense.

Some how the female lead’s BFF manage to get control of the deed to the FL’s home and then sells the house behind the FL’s back. First off I’d think that’d be fraud. What’s worse is the FL continues to be friends with this girl who committed such a betrayal and continues to do questionable things to her throughout the series. Though I liked the interaction between the leads, their relationship was more like a friendship at best or a very innocent puppy love at worst. It was not believable that they fell in love or could have a real marriage. They never kissed, hardly hugged and there was no sexual tension between them. I know this is an Asian drama and therefore sexual tension can sometimes be scarce, but the director did nothing to play up a potential romance brewing between the two. The relationship really came off as two people who were kind of lonely, especially the male lead, and as result, they developed a friendship and really liked living together. I didn’t see a love story.

There were many missed opportunities though to build a believable love story, specifically on their “honeymoon” and when the female lead lost her memory. There were opportunities missed to really create some romantic moments that had an air of sexual tension. But it just didn’t happen. Also, I was confused as to whether the agent who was managing the male lead’s career wanted him for herself or just didn’t like the fact that she was no longer the only woman in his life. Moreover, her “romance”, if that’s what you want to call it, with the female lead’s male BFF was awful. They had zero chemistry. He looked like a kid standing next to her. They weren’t even close to being compatible considering their vastly different lifestyles. The relationship was completely forced.

The second male lead was annoying in that he fell into that trope of having met the female lead when they were kids. He was being bullied, but she was the only kid out of all the kids he knew who was nice to him. So from that he has decided she is the love of his life and he must reignite a relationship with her. RME. SMH. Very ridiculous trope and childish for a grown man, or woman, to be living their life by such an idea.

The acting was it the best. The female lead had pretty much the same facial expression throughout the series. Even when something dramatic was happening like the male lead confessing his love, she had no response. Or when she was supposed to be crying or upset. There was no emotion in her eyes. She just stood their blank and looking pretty. The male lead sometimes made the right acting choices, but at other times was too over the top, especially when angry, which made his character seem as if he could potentially become abusive. The second female lead, and the male lead’s family, were the strongest actors in this and thus the most believable. Everyone else were not very good.

The only thing that I consistently enjoyed about this was the home the leads lived in. It was a beautiful unique design. I liked the airiness of it, all the natural light, and that it was on the water. Everything else about this show was just okay.