Overall Rating: A-
Subtitles: I’ll make my normal Netflix remark: overall strong subs, I hate the name order reversing.
Brief Synopsis: A woman falls in love with her best friend’s little brother. Watch it on Netflix here.
**Full show spoilers below the image. If you do not wish to be spoiled, do not proceed**
Ending Type: We’ll call this a happy ending, even though I felt like the conflicts in the show were not addressed/resolved so I did not have a lot of confidence that these two would actually be OK.
Characters:
Yoon Jin Ah (Son Ye Jin)
Seo Joon Hee (Jung Hae In)
Seo Kyung Sun (Jang So Yeon)
Kim Mi Yeon (Gil Hae Yoon)
Yoon Sang Ki (Oh Man Seok)
Full review:
So overall I’d say this was a good drama. It tackled a couple social taboos (older woman with younger man, orphan, falling in love with a friend’s sibling) and included a very strong and more realistic relationship (our couple got together early, had a lot of normal skinship, even slept together, etc). I was deeply, deeply invested in Jin Ah and Joon Hee’s relationship (wow great chemistry between these actors, and great acting by both Ye Jin and Hae In, as always). I loved that the conflicts were personal– her family disapproving of the relationship, and the complication of her best friend/ Joon Hee’s older sister and the impact of their relationship on that.
There was a lot that was extraneous/ highly forgettable about this one though. Jin Ah’s ex, for example– I remember that he was unwilling to let her go to the extent of almost killing her at one point. I remember hating him and wishing he wasn’t around. But I don’t feel that he was necessary to the story or even felt like part of it.
There was also the whole plot about Jin Ah’s office and the sexual harassment and that whole scandal– stuff I am generally very interested in, but it felt like just something else happening in a world that was about Jin Ah and Joon Hee and their love for each other.
I will say this– if you want a very relationship heavy drama where the couple gets together early and explores their relationship and has just a whole lot of love for each other with plenty of wonderful romantic moments, this is for you.
However they do break up due to how overwhelmingly shitty her parents are about their relationship and how, in many ways, the world is against them. I’d like to roundhouse kick Jin Ah’s mom, who is by far the worst mom I’ve ever seen in a K Drama (and y’all I watched Boys Over Flowers and SKY Castle!). Like wow I had a visceral reaction of HATRED every time she graced the screen and just… uh.
The hug towards the end between Jin Ah and her mom that was supposed to signal a truce and that everything was OK was absolutely NOT enough for me given the way mom absolutely tortured her daughter and the kid she’d affectionately thought of as a son. Like wow. It also in no way indicated that her parents would be accepting of their relationship a second time around.
This is my biggest complaint with this show– the extent to which her mom opposed their relationship, and the cruelty that ensued, and the intense damage that caused in so many relationships, was not resolved at the end. By any stretch. One hug and good luck as Jin Ah goes off to Jeju Island is nothing compared to the harm that she caused. It really felt like all the issues would just arise again when Ji Ah and Joon Hee got back together. But I guess who knows, they hid their relationship for like a really long time from everyone they knew and loved despite living with and seeing them regularly. Maybe they’ll run off to America and no one will ever know.
High Points: The main relationship. The intensity of it was engaging and wonderful. The chemistry between the leads and their acting was top notch.
Low Points: The lack of resolution compared to the intensity of the conflict. The lack-luster side stories.
K Drama Kween 