We’re at the moment for piggybacks, trip-and-fall catches (not to mention almost-kisses), and even more confessions. With so many feelings swirling the air, you’d think our leads would take a hint. But when there’s so much play-acting involved, nobody can believe a word anyone else says.
EPISODES 5-6
This drama is packin’ a lot of cute, even if most everything surrounding it rests on paper-thin motivations. Case in point? We start with a drunken piggyback ride that ends in a face plant on the sidewalk — but this is only the setup to get our heart-aching hero under our heroine’s roof (and, actually, under her covers).
Ji-han wakes up in the morning to a flower-print comforter and unfamiliar walls, but he doesn’t remember how he got to Ah-jung’s house (i.e., drinking, confessing, and then forgetting his door code so she couldn’t take him home). He accuses her of kidnapping him until she whips out the humiliating video of all his antics from the night before — and there’s nothing like spitting up on your clothes in front of your crush’s entire family.
Ah-jung will delete the video if Ji-han acknowledges that she’ll never fall for him. But fall for each other they do when he’s chasing her around, trying to grab her phone, and lands atop her on the couch. They exchange blazing looks until she flips him off her onto the floor — only to fall on top of him this time! (Thank you, trope gods. This is adorable.)
While she’s got him pinned, she reminds him that he confessed to her, so can’t he just acknowledge her relationship with Do-han? I mean, since he likes her and all? Then she adds, “I think I might like you a little bit too.” Whatever might come next is cut off by the doorbell and our tangled twosome shoots up from their compromising position to find Do-han a-knockin’.
Do-han is worried sick about Ah-jung since he found his studio in shambles and couldn’t get ahold of her all night. Ah-jung meets him in the front yard and tries to assuage him without letting on to the fact that his brother is — at this very moment — still with bed head inside her house.
But the jig is up when Ji-han storms outside wanting to know what’s all this talk about securing a marriage license and then running off to New York. Do-han is confused and upset to see Ji-han there and a brotherly confrontation ensues. It escalates until Do-han tells his dongsaeng to stay away from Ah-jung or else he’ll cut him off as a brother. Ji-han tears up, unable to believe that Do-han would rather cut ties with him than stop seeing Ah-jung.
Most of the movement this week runs on Ah-jung and Do-han trying tirelessly to get Ji-han to accept their marriage. But Ji-han’s reasons for not accepting it are getting more complicated by the second. Primarily, he’s turned into a lovesick puppy who can’t get Ah-jung off the brain. Of course, he fights this feeling tooth and nail, telling himself (and Chae-won) about how awful Ah-jung is.
Lucky for Ah-jung she’s there to hear it and bats Ji-han in the head with the bag of now-clean clothes that he left at her house. (Gah, girl crush.) Okay, if he wants her to be the villain, then she’ll act like one, she tells him. Maybe she was confused before but now she sees how he “really” feels. Yeah, well, if there’s one thing we learned about our leads early on, it’s that they’re all pretending, all around.
Things heat up when Do-han brings Ah-jung along to his mother’s memorial service. After confirming Ji-han’s rain trauma through flashbacks of their mother’s death (rainy night, overzealous reporter, flipped-over car with Ji-han as a witness), Ah-jung and Ji-han find themselves alone, having an honest moment. Ji-han feels dismissed by Grandpa and Ah-jung observes that he’s hurt. She offers to listen to anything he wants to tell her, and he’s lapping up the demo of love.
Afterward, he watches from afar as Ah-jung privately speaks to his dead mother. And the boy is a goner. He’s waiting outside in the rain for her, umbrella overhead, and what looks like it will be a cutesy shared umbrella scene ends up being a trip-and-fall catch. The umbrella hits the ground as Ji-han stops Ah-jung from doing the same — and then she covers his head with her hand: “I thought you didn’t like the rain.” Oh man, will these two quit playin’ and get on with it already?
Well, no, they won’t. Not before some unbearable brooding on the part of our male lead because he likes his brother’s soon-to-be fake wife. Ji-han’s inner turmoil is so strong, he develops a Better Life Project to stop thinking about Ah-jung, which includes everything from religious practice to new hobbies to occupy his time. Too bad Ah-jung has had so many side gigs as an actress, though, because everywhere he turns, she’s there. Language lessons to distract from love? Not when the object of your affection is the textbook cover model. Lol.
My favorite bit in this running gag is when Ji-han searches “how to forget about someone you like.” And the first answer that pops up is: just confess — you’ll forget all about them when you’re humiliated with rejection (hehe sage advice).
Meanwhile, Ah-jung is texting him, but he refuses to reply, and Do-han apologizes for not being a good hyung, worsening Ji-han’s sense of self-loathing. True to character, when Ah-jung gets a chance to corner Ji-han at his home, she asks straight up why he’s ignoring her. He’s defensive, and in another act of refusal, he vows not to attend the pre-wedding meeting of families that’ll take place soon.
But when the meeting happens, Ji-han is there. It goes as smooth as can be expected between two families from such different social strata, and Ji-han is the one who stands up for Ah-jung when the moment arises. Later, Ah-jung asks why he decided to attend after all, since he didn’t want to see her. He answers that he felt like he had to see her. And, to show his care, he agrees to accept her marriage to Do-han: “Try your best to be happy with my hyung.” Then he walks away, with a secret wish to get over her.
That’s where our episodes close for the week, but we still have to talk about Chae-won. Her character is tossed in here to add complexity to the dynamic (dare I say a love square?), but there’s not enough meat for her to do anything interesting. That is, until the moment she confesses to Ji-han.
In one of the most honest scenes so far, Chae-won asks Ji-han if she was his first love. He’s embarrassed, acting like she’s out of his league, until she asks if it would be possible to rekindle those feelings. She admits that she attached herself to the shopping mall project in order to get closer to him, and when he still looks confused, she flat out says she likes him.
While I like the squirmy vulnerability of this moment, there’s one thing she’s not telling him: she already asked Grandpa to “give Ji-han” to her. Yeah, that’s right. She had a private meeting with the LJ patriarch and asked for the man she supposedly loves to be handed over like an extra set of keys. Worse, Grandpa seems to be on board with it.
After the upward motion of Episode 5, Episode 6 was a bit of snoozefest. The fun part was watching the leads get their feelings out in the open verbally, only to be confused by each other’s actions and not take their words seriously. But the story and motivations are running so thin that all the enjoyment rests on humor, dialogue, and witty interactions between our leads — which in Episode 6 was almost non-existent with our pouty hero separated from Ah-jung.
And the in-between times aren’t that pleasant. The Choi siblings are increasingly unbearable in their stage-set boringness. We’ve been introduced to Do-han’s ex-boyfriend briefly, but I’m terrified of where the story is going with him (please, Show, do not make this character a villain!). And Ji-han’s grieving got old pretty quickly (partly because Moon Sang-min doesn’t have a lot of range in emoting).
On the upside, Do-han and Ah-jung are believable together as long-time friends. And I continue to live for the moments when the female lead gets to be herself: honest, sharp, and ready with a snappy comeback (or a bag of clothes) to thwap the male lead upside the head. He, though, is most interesting when he’s around her — a little clueless, but cute nonetheless — and I’m ready for the story’s second half, when our two pretenders can get back under the same spotlight, but this time without so much acting involved.