Holorence

Love Scout is an interesting one. At one point during my watching I was fully convinced I'd give the show an 8.5 or a 9 score. The middle section was very strong and had quite a few powerful moments. Not to mention it showcases female lead's character the best and showed some really progressive writing decisions but at some point after the leads get together that strength just kind of fades away and we're left with a decent but unremarkable romance story. Don't get me wrong, the leads were lovely and the chemistry was undoubtedly there but the show was clearly trying to do more but fumbled a lot of it in my opion.

For starters Byeol, male lead's daughter, carries with her a mountain of plotholes. If you watch this show through the lens of being a single parent you start to realize many of the things that are happening should not be happening. Male lead is perpetually at work untill it's dark outside which means he's staying ATLEAST untill 6 pm, many times much later than that. The show tries to cover this up by making a single mom look after Byeol because she brings her to kindergarten and also takes her home. But if we actually try and take a moment to process that if this were real life, Byeol would be spending FAR more time with this person than her actual dad. The amount of times I was thinking; please dude, just go home you have a daughter. Was far too often for me to ignore. Byeol as a character is also empty. Has nothing to her other than being in love with her dad and is written the exact same way as every single child in a kdrama. Meaning unnatural dialogue and acting twice, if not thrice her age. I seriously hope kdrama's start figuring out how to write children because the dialogue they come up with is always laughable and unfortunately Love Scout is no different. A perfect example of how disposable her character was and how she creates plotholes by existing is when in the final episode male lead and all the company employees are at female leads house for dinner, including Byeol. After the dinner we transition to a scene of male and female lead on the couch together while it's pitch dark outside with Byeol nowhere to be seen, nor sleeping in female leads house somewhere. So... where did Byeol go? Did one of the employees take her home even though they don't really know her and DEFINITELY don't know where male lead lives? Even if I were to stomach that extremely flimsy logic why is male lead staying? His daughter goes home but he stays? AND he sleeps over? Where is Byeol? Did a 6 year old just get left behind at home alone for the entire evening and following night? What a baffling sequence of events.

Byeol is such a perfect example of a character included for the sake of having the audience go Awhh, she's so cute! whenever she's on screen. The show doesn't even really explore what being a single father is like whatsoever so why does Byeol exist?
We only hear verbally that it's hard but we see none of it. For the record, I don't doubt that it's incredibly hard to be a single father but I want to SEE this and experience it with the male lead. If you're going to include this story beat then do something with it. It just exists to immediately make you sympathetic towards the male lead but it's honestly just a cheap trick. He does everything flawlessly yet we're meant to believe he thinks he might be a bad father? Alright sure, impostor syndrome is a thing, but this also isn't explored whatsoever so can I really use that to defend it?

Why did we need to do a redemption for Jeong Hun's father at the very end? It falls flat completely as I don't believe for one second this man would act like that. Why was Hye Jin's downfall so incredibly unsatisfying? She got betrayed by the guy who was obviously going to betray her? Just... ugh, so lame. This entire Hye Jin/Ji Yun backstory thing was flimsy as well honestly. It just existed so Hye Jin's character could exist but as with many things in this show it only exists but is not utilised all that much.
Why the whole firefighter thing with male and female lead? It was resolved so easily and quickly. If anything, I was happy about that. If we did the whole breakup arc in this one I'd have lowered the score by another 0.5. That aside if we're just going to resolve it super quickly and effortlessly why even bother to include it to begin with? Love Scout does this multiple times where seemingly important things just get resolved rapidly and moved on from leaving you left to wonder what purpose it served.

If my review seems overly negative for what is ultimately a passing grade then you'd be very correct. I'm always far more negative in reviews for shows that disappointed me than the ones that surprised me positively because a show that goes from great to average is more frustrating than one that goes from average to great. Progression and regression basically.

For the sake of not having this review be mostly negative I'll quickly summarize what I did like.
The lead's romance. It was acted well, they had clear chemistry and I enjoyed this thoroughly.
Ji Yun's character writing. The line that really sold me on her character is when male lead steps inbetween her and the director, sensing her discomfort. It's the classic ''saving the damsel in distress'' scene. After they leave together Ji Yun asks male lead if he looks down on her and whether he doesn't trust her to handle it. I thought this scene perfectly showcases why I liked her character so much. This definitely wasn't a situation where he needed to butt in. If you wanted to show comfort do it afterwards but this only paints her to be weaker. Her character is strong but not impenetrable. She's jaded and pessimistic due to her past and this was acted out fantastically. Han Ji Min is not an actress I look out for particularly but while her acting was good and serviceable in all the other drama's I saw her in she really came into her own for this one.
Side characters were cool. None of them were really annoying. Although it's definitely a drama cliche to have your quirky office squad this was a decent one. Although their switch in attitude towards female lead and the company was a little jarring it wasn't overly egregious so I won't really make an issue out of it.
Lastly, Seo Mi Ae, Ji Yun's friend. Lovely character and the frustration in not knowing how to deal with early Ji Yun was well acted out and very convincing. You could tell she cared but was mostly at her wit's end. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped after all.

All in all Love Scout was a show I don't regret watching as it had it's moments but unfortunately had far too many issues to be considered anything but slightly above average.