L13

So… what was Togo’s stepmother trying to achieve by giving money to Ayaka’s parents? I get that it was a subtle attempt to insult or control them, but why exactly? Why did she tell them not to return it?

Just one correction: she was supposed to meet Hee-seop's older brother, but in the altered timeline the drama takes place in he reached the entrance of the teahouse and saw the teacher wasn't there, so he left and put his hat on BHS, who went inside to meet the creep in glasses.

I also think the teahouse proprietress is potentially sus, but then again, I always see possible culprits among the tertiary and bit characters when watching mystery dramas. In reality, TV writers tend to avoid getting too clever and making someone with such limited screentime the villain, so assuming she doesn't get more scenes in future episodes, I don't think it's her.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Oh, interesting!

My only complaint about this drama is that Suying is basically an emotionless Nazi who hates all spirits and ruthlessly manipulated Tianyao without ever wavering in her plan to strip him for parts. I think her character would be more interesting if she had, at any point, felt something for Tianyao and there was still some lingering sense of familiarity between them alongside the hatred and resentment. The betrayal would hurt more too, if there was real emotion mixed in.

As it is, she's this Terminator-like character who just pursues TY and the magical heart scale relentlessly but doesn't have any personal stake in whether he's dead or alive, or his relationship with Yanhui. So, like, why is she the third lead after the main couple or the main villain? Good villains need to have a psychologically complex relationship with the good guys to be interesting IMO.

That said, I love that the guy she's obsessed with hates her now.

Aaah, right, thanks for the reminder! Yeah, that’s also a possibility.

Bullied by whom? I did notice there was something sus about his character, but I don't remember a bullying flashback. I thought he would turn out to be the biological child of Togo's mother, since he asked Togo about her?

Two underrated actors I like maximising their joint slay! I just hope the drama doesn't suck.

I wish the drama had taken a more realistic approach to the situation it put the main couple in when Xin Qi found out he has a 4-year-old child. He could have come to terms with it slowly and approached Quanquan more tentatively, without knowing immediately exactly how close a relationship he wanted (because most men would take a while to figure that out on an emotional level even if they were decent people and decided to take responsibility! it's a life-changing revelation!) or how to go about achieving it (because it's a very delicate situation to negotiate with your ex, who says she doesn't want you in her life). Xin Qi should have given more deference to Min Hui as well, given that she has all the power from a legal perspective, and also been much angrier about her massive lie/decision not to tell him about Quanquan, and then to deny the truth when asked point blank, which was a much bigger betrayal of trust than whatever stupid argument they had five years ago.

Moving into her apartment out of nowhere and deciding to play house with her and QQ is insane. Min Hui not kicking him out immediately, as is her right for multiple reasons (it's her kid, her house... he has zero leverage!), is also insane.

But then again, what can I expect when XQ has been extremely childish and unprofessional since day one (his jealousy and mood swings dictating important decisions at work and him using work to punish MH for leaving him in the past—after he dumped her?!—would be such a red flag IRL) and MH keeps making stupid decisions that make no sense.

Basically this is not an adult drama, but it puts the main couple in adult situations. I wish it was more psychologically complex and took its time to show how XQ adjusted to the knowledge that he's a parent, how he decided he wanted to know QQ and slowly came to want a closer relationship with him, how he and MH negotiated the minefield of him wanting some kind of relationship with QQ and eventually co-parenting when they're not romantically involved (but clearly still have feelings for each other) and actually have an unresolved conflict and the fact they've led completely separate lives standing between them... This is a melo setup, not a romcom setup. The characters are so flat and childish compared to what I want them to be.

OK, I have to say Shiyeol is sleeping on the job. Yooha and Yookho both know who San is and aren't happy about it, Ban Ya suspects and is stupid enough to expose him by accident, the Left State Councillor is planning to steal San's identity and/or kill him...

If I was the Watchman, I'd just kill all these people, honestly. I know we still have 6 episodes to go and Shiyeol eliminating all of San's enemies at once would fast-track the story to its conclusion, but that's what he should be doing! Yooha and his patron at least are absolutely a threat to San at the moment. Just kill them off! They're both annoying anyway.

Because he's a spineless tool! I don't care how much he loves her; he's allowed his mother to treat his wife like shit for decades and not taken any steps to shield his wife by moving out of the family home at least. He's objectively horrible. But they love each other, I guess, so we're supposed to care...

What scheming? The baby trap thing? The grandma wouldn’t care? She’s okay with SJ treating TG like shit and manipulating him, wanting to get married for the money, not really liking TG, etc. That’s all great for the grandma.

The only revelation that could shake her support for SJ is that SJ was in a relationship with that other guy until recently, because that would make SJ look bad to outsiders in the mega conservative universe of Korean family dramas and thus harm the reputation of the family when she marries in. That’s why SJ kept it a secret. But TG doesn’t know about it either.

TG went along with it because he thought it was better for his mother and if he upset the grandma she’d take it out on his mother, no? Even though she was ready to get a divorce and leave the house with him, which would have been 10x better for both of them. But he thought she needed to stay in that awful family because she really loves his stepdad, so he didn’t respect her own decision… It was a very stupid and childish thought process, but the writers needed it to happen that way for plot-related reasons.

Ban Ya seems nice but clueless. I also think she'll end up as the catalyst for some shady stuff, but it won't be on purpose. She has 'wretched prostitute who is a pawn in the hands of powerful men, gets used against the man she loves (who's much too good for her and only has eyes for the pure virginal FL) and ends up sacrificing herself for him at the end of the drama to atone for her sins' written all over her. That's a pretty misogynistic character type, but it's still a sympathetic one.

The madame, however, yep, that bitch is crazy. She and the Left State Councillor think they're the good guys even as they do twisted shit. That's never a good sign! But it makes them more compelling villains, IMO. In some ways I dislike these two (and increasingly Yooha) even more than the king.

I don't even want San to be king because that's actually a super miserable job, but Yooha's shameless identity theft is getting on my last nerve. Someone expose that bitch! I need the fact he's not Lee Seol to come out so his bid for the throne goes down in flames.

The grandma knows Sejin is greedy and doesn't love Taegyeong and she's fine with it. She *wants* TG to have a miserable marriage because she hates him, and she's fine with SJ being a gold-digger (I hate this term, but that's how they're writing her character) because the grandma thinks she can control her. She sees SJ as her creature and trusts SJ to be on her side, not on TG's, after the wedding.

That said, I still don't understand why she's so set against Yeondoo. Her whole reason for setting up TG with SJ in the first place is that SJ comes from a modest background compared to TG and won't be able to aid him in a potential corporate power grab, which is an irrational fear the grandma is obsessed with. Well, YD is even less useful to him as a spouse, so the grandma should love her! Poor, got knocked up by accident, currently unemployed, what's not to love!

I guess she's concerned about the family's reputation because of the prejudice against accidental pregnancies and other kinds of sexual impropriety in South Korea, and also just hates it when things don't go her way.

Seeing Sejin and her mother lose their shit is just too satisfying. I only wish the grandmother was humiliated worse. What a repulsive trio! I know SJ’s dad has to be on her side because she’s his child, but he’s got to realise the marriage to TG isn’t a love match and she’s better off without him in the long run as well as that when he has impregnated another woman and wants to marry her it’s game over. That whole family needs to move on.

Right, I already know exactly what's going to happen in every episode, but I'm still gonna watch and enjoy.

When there's an ongoing daily drama I sometimes watch the first several episodes to get a sense for the main characters and then dip in and out as the mood strikes me because it's easy to get back into this type of story even if you've missed a chunk of episodes.

So I skimmed ep. 18 to see where this drama is at and whether it's a good time to get into it, but it doesn't seem like the two leads have any special feelings for each other or even share any scenes? When do you guys think the main romantic subplot will start to pick up? Because the FL seems to be in love with some scumbag she views through rose-coloured glasses and their relationship hasn't even started yet, but everyone is already talking about it; this doesn't seem like a roadblock that will be overcome quickly.

There seems to be very little to keep my interest at the moment.

Don't worry, you'll be asked to sympathise with her husband too.