Romance in the House opens its doors and welcomes us to a habitation of second chance romances, family drama, neighborhood hijinks, and a whole lot of chaos. If this premiere week is anything to go by, we are in for a fun and heartwarming show — maybe with a few tears here and there, but nothing too serious.
EPISODES 1-2
Our show wastes no time introducing us to its main character, Family Villa, which is the titular house that everyone and everything in the drama revolves around. Family Villa is a seemingly ordinary apartment building where the overworked food merchandiser, BYUN MI-RAE (Sohn Na-eun), resides. Mi-rae is Commander in Chief of Tteokbokki Affairs at J Plus, and her mom, GEUM AE-YEON (Kim Ji-soo), is the tteokbokki salesperson at the company’s mart. Mi-rae survives a random mart inspection by the CEO, impressing him, even. But she soon faints from exhaustion, and has to be rushed to the ER on an ambulance the warm and sturdy back of NAM TAE-PYEONG (Minho), a security guard at J Plus. Must be nice.
At the emergency room, Mi-rae gets an emergency call informing her that Family Villa is on fire. And on arrival, Mi-rae and Ae-yeon do an Olympic sprint to claim their medal — as in Medal, their dog. The one they refer to as their “youngest” over their actual lastborn, BYUN HYUN-JAE (Yoon San-ha). Lol. The semi-good news is: the fire only affected the landlord’s apartment. The bad news is: Landlord died in the fire. The worse news is: the fire might have been arson, not an accident. Welp! So much for a light family drama.
The tenants at Family Villa expect the landlord’s daughter to inherit the building, so they’re shocked to hear that: 1) the building has been sold; 2) Mr. New Landlord plans to move into the building; 3) since the old landlord’s apartment is burnt, he will be moving into one of the three apartments with soon-to-be expired contracts. But the three apartments plan to renew their contracts, and they each set out to convince Mr. New Landlord on why they should be the ones to remain at Family Villa. Hairdresser Tenant uses the sympathetic single lady card, Grandmother Tenant plays the cute grandson card, and Ae-yeon goes with the widowed mother of two card. It’s left to see which card the landlord will toss out of the pile.
Ae-yeon and Hyun-jae do not disclose this new development to Mi-rae because she’s paying rent alongside Hyun-jae’s college tuition, and they don’t want to burden her with more. It’s evident that love, not duty, is the driving force for everything Mi-rae does for her family. Still, we get a sense that she places the family above herself and her own needs. Interestingly, Mi-rae is firmly on team anti-marriage, and I’m curious to see how this sentiment will play out in the light of her upcoming romance arc. Will the drama dare to be different by giving us a romance without marriage as its end goal? Or will it succumb to the pressure of a happily ever after involving a white dress and a suit?
The first death anniversary for Mi-rae’s dad comes around, and Mi-rae is not onboard with Ae-yeon’s plan to hold a memorial for him. I mean, why should they? They kicked Dad out ten years ago, and he was a stranger to them until they heard of his death a year ago. But Ae-yeon feels that helping her children bid their last farewell properly is her duty as a mom. “We are living well, let him go his way in peace,” she says. Holding a little memorial won’t hurt, so Mi-rae reluctantly agrees. Everything is fine as long as her family of three continues living exactly the way they currently live.
The family leaves the front door open for Dad’s ghost to come in for his memorial, and Ae-yeon dramatically wails to soothe his spirit. “We are living much better than we lived with you. Let go of your resentment and rest in peace.” Just then, a man in a black suit appears at their doorstep, and the family is shocked to see their husband and father, BYUN MOO-JIN (Ji Jin-hee), in the flesh! Y-you are supposed to be dead, sir. What’s even more shocking than the fact that Moo-jin is still alive is that he’s the infamous new landlord! Welp! I hope he likes his memorial food because it’s not every day a person gets to attend their own memorial. Heh.
A quick flashback to eleven years ago reveals that Ae-yeon got full custody of the kids after the divorce, and despite Moo-jin’s plea for her to rethink her decision, she was determined to never see him again. According to her, the kids are the best thing that ever happened to her and the worst was meeting him. Ouch! That’s some serious hurt right there. But what could he have done to cause that much damage?
We soon learn that Moo-jin became a father at a young age and he quit sports to make money and take care of his family. However, entrepreneurship was not his calling and all his businesses went under — earning him the nickname: Moo-ron. Ae-yeon eventually invested her life savings to open a tteokbokki diner that did pretty well until Moo-jin tanked it, no thanks to some loan sharks that were after him. That was Ae-yeon’s last straw, and high schooler Mi-rae warned Moo-jin to stay away from the family until he dies. Eleven years later, Moo-jin is back from the dead as a successful man and their landlord, no less. Oh dear! That’s one turnaround for the books.
Moo-jin decides to renovate and move into the burnt apartment instead of kicking his ex-family out of the villa, but Mi-rae decides that they will move out regardless even if they have to take out a loan. Mi-rae is pretty much the head of the family, so the others have no choice but to agree with her decision — even though Hyun-jae doesn’t share her anti-dad sentiments. Probably because he was too young back then to understand why Moo-jin was kicked out of the family.
While the new head of the family has a headache finding a good place to move into, the former head makes a rather swift headway in renovating his new apartment. This begs the question as to how the moo-ron made so much money that he could drop 3 billion won in cash to buy Family Villa, renovate his apartment in less than a week and make a one-time payment for all the expensive furnishings. Something smells here, and it’s not a burnt apartment. Or maybe it is, considering Moo-jin smokes, and he prefers to light his cigarettes with matchsticks as opposed to lighters.
It’s probably a coincidence that we saw matchsticks outside the apartment building on the day of the fire. And that the fire happened shortly after a man in black forced his way into the late landlord’s apartment after Landlord insisted on not selling the building. But is it also a coincidence that Moo-jin’s business partner, OH JAE-GEOL (Kim Young-jae), reports back to him that some matter regarding the previous landlord will be taken care of quietly? In any case, the tenants at Family Villa place bets on how Moo-jin made his money: stocks, crypto, lottery… but I see he’s got a full tattoo on one arm, so imma assume that he’s in a gang until it’s proven otherwise.
To compound Mi-rae’s apartment hunting woes, her clingy ex (hilarious cameo by Choi Daniel) makes a scene outside the office, and she scrapes her knee in her haste to hurry away from the embarrassment. Tae-pyeong offers her a ride on his bicycle, and they bike away into the romantic sunset. I wish! Loool. But it is sweet how he gives her a bandaid for her knee, and graciously offers a repayment extension on her hospital bill from the other day. Awww. After the ER and two run-ins in the elevator, these two finally had a conversation that lasted more than a few sentences.
Now that we’re dipping our toes into the romance waters, news spreads that Moo-jin and Ae-yeon used to be married, and the tenants at Family Villa begin the “will they or will they not get back together” speculation. Ae-yeon couldn’t care less about the gossip, but things take a turn when Moo-jin offers her a rent-free stay so that she won’t move out. Must be nice. Ae-yeon demands to know the reason Moo-jin bought the building, and he replies that he wanted to live with her. “You don’t know what I’ve done to come this far. Must you leave me once more?” He asks, with a firm grip on her hands. Omo!
Mi-rae spots her parents in that position, and orders Moo-jin to get his hands off her mom. But taekwondo master, Tae-pyeong, beats her to the punch and sends Moo-jin to the ground with a flying kick. Ouch! Not Tae-pyeong defending his future mother-in-law from his future father-in-law at the non-behest of his future girlfriend. What a fun story for the future grandkids! Heh. Ae-yeon rushes to her ex-husband’s side, and an upset Mi-rae pushes her dad to the floor again. Hehe. Peace was never an option with this family, so let the chaos begin!
What a fun first week! Romance in the House had a pretty enjoyable start, and my only major complaint is that Ji Jin-hee showed up 57 minutes into the show. That’s 57 minutes too late! But I guess better late than never, especially since the quality of the show went up after his appearance. Okay, there’s a little bit of bias here, but Mr. Best in Husband is my primary reason for watching this drama and I’m not even sorry about it. I came here for Ji Jin-hee and the everlasting longing in his eyes, and boy has that gaze been firing on all cylinders whenever he’s with Ae-yeon. Young love and first loves are cute and all, but I’ve always had a thing for middle-aged romance. And now you give me a second chance at love story? I’m sat!
Fangirling aside, I love the loving family dynamics of Mi-rae and her family, especially her relationship with her mom. How fateful is it that Mi-rae used to wait tables at Ae-yeon’s tteokbokki diner, and now mom and daughter are the terrific tteokbokki duo at J Plus? In the coming weeks, I look forward to seeing how the mom-daughter relationship weathers the storm that is Moo-jin’s arrival into the mix. Because Ae-yeon might be wavering, but Mi-rae’s resentment for her father is as solid as it gets, and it’s going to take more than free rent to thaw the ice between father and daughter.
I also look forward to more fun interactions with the quirky tenants at Family Villa. And for the love of simple and easy storylines, I hope the fire at the landlord’s was a simple accident and we do not get sucked into any mischievous or dark or thriller side plots.