Unlock Your Love Episode 1

So-so start; more confusing than needs to be

The series starts with some commonplace observations about love before introducing Rain, who is a project manager at some PR firm – but her subordinates apparently take the job not a serious as her. She’s also tightly-wound and even scolds the talent she is representing for changing her mind several times. That is why her boss takes her off the project – or outright fires her, because all through the episode everyone – including herself – considers her unemployed.


She goes home, only to catch her boyfriend Arm “in flagranti” – with her (former?) subordinate, Fern. She immediately breaks up with him. He seems more concerned with his loss the monetary aspect of that breakup that with actually losing her – so good riddance to him!


Meanwhile, we meet Love and Deane who are apparently friends. Deane is a tattoo artist who apparently doesn’t like relationships and prefer casual acquaintances. She seems to flirt with anyone, though, as we can see her with two girls within ten minutes. Apparently, she was hurt before though we don’t get into details. They’re meeting Wawa and Bowie, Love’s friends from high school; they talk a little, and Deane reveals that she’s actually bi (or pan).


At apparently the same bar, there is Rain drowning her sorrows. This is not the first relationship that ended in heartbreak for her, as some quick flashbacks to a high school romance with a boy (Toh) who was betting he could get her to fall for him with a friend. Later she is with Toei, who apparently cheated on her. Then, we flash forward to Arm getting money from her with some lame excuse, before we repeat the encounter of earlier today. It looks like Rain hasn’t the best taste in men or women.


That night she swears never to fall in love again, just as a thunderstorm is starting. The next day, she wakes up with a hangover – only to realize she doesn’t have a job to get to. She gets a call from her sister (who apparently returned from abroad) who has a job offer for her. They don’t talk details, though. Then, Love meets the sister – who is called Pat; apparently, they know each other (and Love also knows Rain) though we don’t get any details on that, either. Pat in interested in Deane, and won’t hear any caveats; then Deane calls and they agree to meet up.


Pat enters Deane’s tattoo studio alone causing Deane to tell hear that the shop is closed today (why did she leave the door open, then?) before Love appears and explains that Pat’s actually her friend – who has frozen smitten with Deane and needs a little nudge before she functions again. She continues to be was too forward with Deane – for someone she just met at least. We get a flashback explaining that Pat used to court Love, who let her down easy and wanted to be friends instead. We get back to the project, but don’t get any details, except that Rain likes punctuality.


The next day, everyone arrives too late (even though the clock clearly says 9:13 who the meeting was supposed to start at 10:00), Pat arrives first and meets the already annoyed Rain. Then Lave and Pat come in – they were stuck in traffic – and Rain is annoyed that Love is smiling all the time. This in turn annoys Deane. Pat quickly defuses the situation by ordering drinks. Love is happy to meet Rain again – have they met before? Rain is adamant that she will not work with them until they apologize for their tardiness which Deane reluctantly does, hoping that Rain is as good at her work as she is at nagging. We then get a flashback revealing that Love actually saw Rain at the bar sulking over her drink, but did not dare talk to her. But she made photos of her before, apparently, she has been interested in rain for quite some time.


And that’s where we end; we have learned that Love is tightly-wound, whereas the other three are more laid-back, though Love seems to be a little more reserved that her friends. Other than that, we have learned nothing about the project, and the show has been fuzzy on establishing anything more clearly, as could be seen with Rain’s job status. We know that Love carries a torch for Rain, and that Pat is smitten with Deane, but we don’t yet know how these crushes came about or whether they will be reciprocated. I hope the show improves their narrative over the next episodes, so far it was more confusing that entertaining, and especially Pat is only enjoyable in small doses.


The version on Gogaoolala is roughly a minute longer; the only scene that was obviously cut from the Broadcast version was Rain getting asked for money in her flashback; perhaps they shortened some other scenes, though I didn’t notice.

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