Looking ahead in the distance to 2025, MBC makes an early start in promos to welcome us to Motel California, reuniting Lee Se-young (What Comes After Love) with another past love Na In-woo (Marry My Husband) in the first script reading stills.
With the story adapted from the popular novel Home, Bitter Home by Shim Yoon-seo, the drama takes us to a rustic countryside where our title’s motel is also home for our interior designer heroine Ji Kang-hee (Lee Se-young). This is where Kang-hee was born and raised, but her childhood was inflicted by emotional struggles due to her unconventional upbringing as well as her mixed heritage. Kang-hee thus ran away once she became an adult and now 12 years later, for reasons yet unknown, she’s back in her hometown.
Kang-hee’s return is, of course, big news for her old friend and first love Chun Yeon-soo (Na In-woo), the town’s local veterinarian. As our stalwart, noble, and shining knight who has always cherished Kang-hee, the romance will be following our main pair as love sparks between them once again.
I imagine, though, that reconciliation with Kang-hee’s dad Choi Min-soo (Numbers) will be an important story arc too. The life-long romanticist and free-spirited Ji Choon-pil (Choi Min-soo) once dreamed of making a Hotel California (cue the Eagles), but ended up settling for a small motel. As a bit of a busybody, Choon-pil likes to involve himself to help with all the villagers’ affairs. However, he’s oddly cautious with his family and couldn’t bring himself to protest when his daughter left town.
Filling out the drama’s love square, fancy hotel heir Kim Tae-hyung (a.k.a. Goo-won)(Bait) takes up one corner, while Choi Hee-jin (The Impossible Heir) sits on the other as a fellow veterinarian and Yeon-soo’s college hoobae.
The supporting cast lineup also includes Woo Mi-hwa (Jeongnyeon – The Star is Born), Jung Yong-joo (Knight Flower), Gu Ja-sung (Sponsor), and Lee So-yi (The Matchmakers) among others.
Directed by PD Kim Hyung-min with writing by Lee Seo-yoon (365 – Repeat the Year), the check-in time for MBC’s Motel California is set to begin in January 2025.
