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My Happy Ending korean drama review
Completed
My Happy Ending
0 people found this review helpful
by Beatrice
Jul 8, 2024
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 6.0
Story 6.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 7.0
Rewatch Value 5.0
This review may contain spoilers

Mostly serviceable ending after a drag of a journey

Jang Nara does a great job as Seo Jae Won, bringing sympathy for a character who makes a lot of frustrating decisions. They're not all explained away by her condition like others try to posit, which is a pretty ableist view. The only times it's applicable is when she's having episodes, other times it's really her own variable decisions. As to whether it's good representation of the particular mental health issues that her character experiences, it's up to those of that community.

The strongest parts of the series is Jae Won's relationship with her loving father who the show indirectly reveals in flashback when she calls him ahjusshi and directly much later at the court and Te Oh's ride or die unconditional life long love for her. As soon as he took a whole car hit for her to save her that's LOVE. He's happy to see her happy with her family, always supports her, has fairly good smarts, and gives her space as needed. They aren't officially together at the end, but they've been flirting every day, and she cleared the air about how he feels about her condition. She says she needs time and it's portrayed in the way that things have settled in a way that she's about ready to open her heart again. Jae Won and Te Oh get along well, have chemistry, and look good together.

Her daughter Ah Rin is one of those uncannily precocious kids that act like little adults, which is not cute at all. (The only exception is Evan from Fresh Off The Boat.) The fact that Soon Young's reaction to finding out Ah Rin is not biologically his daughter is not directly confronting Jae Won, but immediately hatching a ridiculously convoluted fan of seducing his wife's best friend and playing mind games with Jae Won and ultimately taking full custody of Ah Rin is really unhinged and evil. Yoon Jin is the worst though, she projects her entire life's insecurities into blind hatred for Jae Won, even to the point of twisting Jae Won's sexual assault by her rapist ex-boyfriend as Jae Won seducing him and causing her miscarriage and a happy life with him. Her character's story ending with sudden death by truck sama in the last episode was extremely anti-climactic. She deserved to face the consequences of her actions, especially for her ruthless murder of Seung Kyu. It's also weird that Tae Joo basically gets away with a slap on the wrist and a happy ending with Soo Jin as a potential love interest, he was literally involved in murder.

I'm glad I didn't have to watch the drama a week at a time because it just drags and drags before the cheap sudden ending with the aforementioned truck sama and awkward product placements in the final episode. Another really dumb thing was Te Oh not warning his sister Rachael that there is an unhinged woman obsessed with Ah Rin and to not publicly broadcast the itinerary of this child traveling alone and Jae Won not warning Ah Rin not to go with anyone that's a designated adult like herself, grandpa, Te Oh, or Soo Kyung. Grandpa didn't warn Ah Rin that Yoon Jin doesn't have good intentions and not to talk to her hat time she appeared either. It's such a fail to not teach Ah Rin to recognize danger. Aside from all that, it's nice that Jae Won gets a fresh start with her dad and Te Oh in her life.
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