1
greenteaberry
I hate long rom coms. They tend to drag out within the last few episodes in a long list of misunderstandings / "will they won't they"s. So when I saw this was 24 episodes, I was quite hesitant. The title wasn't that appealing either, since we all know what jealousy brings into a drama... right?
WRONG.
Thanks to the top review here about this drama being messy in a good way, I decided to give this a shot. And I'm so glad I did or I would have missed out on this wonderful piece of work.
Yes, you have the typical tropes of someone getting cancer, a rich chaebol's mother playing dirty to ruin her son's middle class girlfriend, rich mother offering a girl money to leave her son, a female lead being caught between two men, etc. But instead of these being the source of draggy-ness, what the scriptwriters gave us was this whole feels trip of "oh, typical trope appears, sigh" and "holy crap did this really just solve the problem?!?!" within 1-2 episodes of each other. The drama is filled with unexpected (and hilarious) resolutions to things, and the fact that all the lead characters are mature adults who make reasonable choices makes it so much better than your typical rom com.
The flashback way of presenting new information also fits perfectly in terms of helping the audience understand what happened that led to the characters making these decisions (without being confusing or repetitive). The emotions also flow very well because of this style.
Let's talk about the two male leads. Second male lead is pretty much a perfect man, but second male lead syndrome didn't happen for me. We see very clearly how *despite the second male lead is, on paper, so much better than the first male lead,* the female lead struggles in between them. We see very early on how the first male lead is flawed -- but he is flawed not in the jerk-y manner, but instead in a way that we can't help but love. So by midway I was rooting 100% for the first male lead (and this says a lot because I'm a chronic warm/nice second male lead syndrome patient). The scriptwriter gave all our lead characters -- as well as the supporting characters -- multidimensional personalities and growth lines. Character development in this drama was superb -- both romantically and professionally. The 24-episode format, and the fact that the script doesn't waste time on unnecessary trope-dwelling, gave the writers time to do that.
The word "jealousy" makes a beautiful appearance in the drama, over and over again. It underlies the answer to one of the biggest questions in the drama. Also, you will not only see one love triangle, but (at least) three -- and a lot of the characters' choices are indeed made based on jealousy. However, the relationships aren't really messy in a bad way (again, 24-episode format helped give things more time to develop) and how things get resolved is also super worth looking forward to.
Now to comment on the acting-- both Jo Jung-suk and Gong Hyo-jin are extremely seasoned actors in the industry, and they really brought the lead characters to life. Second male lead Go Kyung-pyo may be young compared to the two leads, but his mature acting gave perfect chemistry to his relationship with the female lead (11 years older) as well as his bromance with the male lead (10 years older). The casting of other characters is also perfect -- Park Jin-joo (Nurse Oh) is legit best supporting cast in all the dramas she's in! I also especially love Seo Ji-hye (announcer Hong Hye-won). This is my third drama of hers (Crash Landing On You, Dinner Mate, now this), and every time I see her on the screen she is a completely different character. Her character here is super cool -- I thought she'd be a typical second female lead who plays dirty (again, typical rom com expectation), but the way she handled things is so lovable. It's just a shame how she never got any screen time with our Kim Jung-hyun (who plays female lead's younger brother) -- Crash Landing On You fans would understand why this is sad.
Kind reminder to stay for the epilogues in ep 16 and 22 -- you won't regret it :) The high rewatch value is for the comedic scenes and for the epilogues omg I can't get over ep 22~~
WRONG.
Thanks to the top review here about this drama being messy in a good way, I decided to give this a shot. And I'm so glad I did or I would have missed out on this wonderful piece of work.
Yes, you have the typical tropes of someone getting cancer, a rich chaebol's mother playing dirty to ruin her son's middle class girlfriend, rich mother offering a girl money to leave her son, a female lead being caught between two men, etc. But instead of these being the source of draggy-ness, what the scriptwriters gave us was this whole feels trip of "oh, typical trope appears, sigh" and "holy crap did this really just solve the problem?!?!" within 1-2 episodes of each other. The drama is filled with unexpected (and hilarious) resolutions to things, and the fact that all the lead characters are mature adults who make reasonable choices makes it so much better than your typical rom com.
The flashback way of presenting new information also fits perfectly in terms of helping the audience understand what happened that led to the characters making these decisions (without being confusing or repetitive). The emotions also flow very well because of this style.
Let's talk about the two male leads. Second male lead is pretty much a perfect man, but second male lead syndrome didn't happen for me. We see very clearly how *despite the second male lead is, on paper, so much better than the first male lead,* the female lead struggles in between them. We see very early on how the first male lead is flawed -- but he is flawed not in the jerk-y manner, but instead in a way that we can't help but love. So by midway I was rooting 100% for the first male lead (and this says a lot because I'm a chronic warm/nice second male lead syndrome patient). The scriptwriter gave all our lead characters -- as well as the supporting characters -- multidimensional personalities and growth lines. Character development in this drama was superb -- both romantically and professionally. The 24-episode format, and the fact that the script doesn't waste time on unnecessary trope-dwelling, gave the writers time to do that.
The word "jealousy" makes a beautiful appearance in the drama, over and over again. It underlies the answer to one of the biggest questions in the drama. Also, you will not only see one love triangle, but (at least) three -- and a lot of the characters' choices are indeed made based on jealousy. However, the relationships aren't really messy in a bad way (again, 24-episode format helped give things more time to develop) and how things get resolved is also super worth looking forward to.
Now to comment on the acting-- both Jo Jung-suk and Gong Hyo-jin are extremely seasoned actors in the industry, and they really brought the lead characters to life. Second male lead Go Kyung-pyo may be young compared to the two leads, but his mature acting gave perfect chemistry to his relationship with the female lead (11 years older) as well as his bromance with the male lead (10 years older). The casting of other characters is also perfect -- Park Jin-joo (Nurse Oh) is legit best supporting cast in all the dramas she's in! I also especially love Seo Ji-hye (announcer Hong Hye-won). This is my third drama of hers (Crash Landing On You, Dinner Mate, now this), and every time I see her on the screen she is a completely different character. Her character here is super cool -- I thought she'd be a typical second female lead who plays dirty (again, typical rom com expectation), but the way she handled things is so lovable. It's just a shame how she never got any screen time with our Kim Jung-hyun (who plays female lead's younger brother) -- Crash Landing On You fans would understand why this is sad.
Kind reminder to stay for the epilogues in ep 16 and 22 -- you won't regret it :) The high rewatch value is for the comedic scenes and for the epilogues omg I can't get over ep 22~~
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