Rain, hail, and cheating fiancés, oh my! Forecasting Love and Weather gets off to a dramatic start as we meet the characters in our love square and learn about their place of work. It’s likely already one of the weirdest and most uncomfortable love squares around, and we’re only two episodes in.
EPISODES 1-2 WEECAP
Where to start? I’m not sure how I feel about this drama yet. While watching the premiere, I’d go from enjoying a moment or a scene and thinking that I liked the drama, to disliking a scene and thinking that maybe I disliked the drama. This went on for both episodes, so we’ll have to see if the drama can win me over after another week or so with these characters. But in the meantime, here’s what our premiere was like.
To the backdrop of the weather reports and other weathery things we meet our heroine JIN HA-KYUNG (Park Min-young). She’s long been working at the Korea Meteorological Administration, at HQ, and seems to be very focused on, and serious about, her career. Except she’s also distracted, because she’s getting married soon to HAN KI-JOON (Yoon Park). He also works for the Korea Meteorological Administration, interacting with the press. And though their marriage is coming up soon, things are starting to come apart at the seams.
To start, Ha-kyung’s mom (Kim Mi-kyung, yessss) can’t stand him, and the shaman they go to doesn’t have anything good to say either. Then, little cracks in the narrative start to appear — certain wedding expenses weren’t paid for, or things they booked in advance are strangely being canceled.
Then, one rainy night, Ha-kyung catches her fiancé in the act with another woman. She’s as disgusted and horrified and heartbroken as can be expected (great acting here!), and it’s only made worse because this woman also works at the Korea Meteorological Administration: she’s CHAE YOO-JIN (Yura). Just like that, the life Ha-kyung expected to live is turned upside down.
There’s no way we can’t sympathize with Ha-kyung since the story is hers, and even though she later acknowledges that maybe she’s also at fault with the failure of their 10-year relationship, the drama doesn’t hold back an inch while making Ki-joon the sort of scoundrel that viewers should love to hate. He’s cheap, unscrupulous, and just a shameless jerk. Oh, and after canceling his marriage to Ha-kyung, promptly marries Yoo-jin instead.
As the backdrop to all of this romantic drama, there’s also lots of weather-y drama too, and though I’m sure it’s all very accurate and impressive (gosh I feel for the assistant writers that probably had to do all the research to make this weather dialogue legit), it was also kinda dull. Which is why they try to make it exciting. So in the space of the first episode, there’s not only a rogue hail storm, but severe rainfall — both not a part of the official forecast. Gasp!
There’s also a lot of other people and personalities to meet at Headquarters (as well as the many regional offices), from Ha-kyung’s boss who retires early after an on-the-job heart attack, to the other forecasters on the team.
There’s also a young upstart that works at one of the regional offices at the start — he’s LEE SHI-WOO (Song Kang), and he’s bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and correct about every damn blip he sees on the screen. He saw the signals that both the hail and the severe rain were coming when no one else did. Annnnd he’s also connected to our love square — when the drama first opens he’s dating (and living with) Yoo-jin, though she can’t seem to stand being in his presence.
Shi-woo is clearly meant to cross paths with Ha-kyung, and while they meet briefly in Seoul in the first episode, they don’t understand their interpersonal connection until later on after Ha-kyung’s breakup.
After the horrible affair reveal, we jump forward two months to when Ha-kyung is over the initial heartbreak but still in the middle of the ugly aftermath. While I’m glad we got to skip over the worst parts, it’s clear that Ha-kyung isn’t through the woods yet. It seems like every day Ki-joon stoops to new lows, or she learns how he’s cheated her in a new way (financially, emotionally, you name it). It sucks, and so does he.
Understandably, I want to feel for Ha-kyung. Scratch that… I do feel for Ha-kyung, but she’s a pretty lifeless character so far. All the Park Min-young sparkle is buried, and I find I don’t really like a dull and serious Park Min-young much at all. Granted, this is all intentional on the drama’s part, since she’s the rigid, rule-following, data-driven, by-the-books director that needs some sunshine and intuition back in her life.
And that, of course, is where our hero Shi-woo comes in. He’s everything that Ha-kyung isn’t — impetuous, intuitive, gut-driven, happy-go-lucky — and they make (or will eventually learn that they make) the perfect pair in work and love alike.
At work, we are beginning to see hints of how well these two will complement each other (once they get over the clash of their world views). And speaking of love (or maybe just sexual attraction at this point), by the end of Episode 2, they’ve already had a drunken one-night stand.
It’s satisfying to see the narrative come together towards the end of Episode 2: we learn that Shi-woo found out that the man that broke Ha-kyung’s heart is also the one that stole his girlfriend. And then Shi-woo not only helps her out of the office awkwardness (of which there’s tons), but is there to witness Ha-kyung’s killer moment when she finally tells Ki-joon off (to an audience of office workers) and storms off like a queen.
We can tell Shi-woo likes her, but there’s so much that complicates this, not only in the story, but on screen. For the story awkwardness, they’re both two months out of bad breakups, and Ha-kyung is the new leader of Team Two, while Shi-woo is newly assigned to the same team. They go out for drinks to talk about their exes, have a couple of sakes too many, and Ha-kyung wakes up in bed with him the next morning wigging out. I guess it’s fine, and the story will have fun with this, but I expected them to take a different approach to this love line. Personally, I prefer the slow burn and tension-filled relationship over the post one-night stand awkwardness we’ll be getting instead.
But in terms of the other level of awkwardness here, it’s how these two intersect as characters and as actors. I don’t really know what Song Kang has done to make himself come off as such a happy-go-lucky nerd. He looks suuuuper young and innocent, and his passion for the weather forecast relies on this childlike energy that just radiates off of him. It’s a 180 from his character in Nevertheless (which is a good thing), but, at least right now, I can’t buy him as a viable partner for our heroine. Pair this flavor of Song Kang with a drab, unhappy Park Min-young, and I don’t know exactly what you get. Right now it’s some weird boss/noona hookup that calls to mind Witch’s Romance, but without any of the fizz and fun.
I’m at risk of sounding too negative, though, because the drama did create realistic characters, scenes that were satisfying, and some tensions that culminated quite well. It’s not that it’s a bad start, but it’s one that has me in a holding pattern, withholding judgment until I see a little bit more of where the story is actually headed.
In the meantime, I’m just going to leave a burnt offering to the drama gods to make sure that Yoon Park’s next role is one where his talents can be put to use as more than a romantic foil or love-to-hate antagonist.