LA_Drama Fan

At the risk of offending some, I won’t try to excuse the Dolt’s behavior but I’d like to offer an explanation for what is going on with them, specifically her. I think that some of the criticism is justified and others not so much. These are not perfect people. And I don’t understand Korean Culture or norms, so I’ll keep it as generic as possible. I don’t expect anyone to agree, but I feel compelled to try….

"She’s pushy". Yes, she is. She’s a successful lawyer, who is a woman, no less. She runs her own law firm. She projects a strong, competent persona on her TV appearances. You need to be pushy to accomplish those things. And lawyers ARE pushy. Look at HyunJae. He’s equally pushy and yet I don’t see anyone condemning it (see his behavior on the double-date on the beach in Ep 23). Why is it accepted for him?

"She’s too pushy with YJ." See above. What is she supposed to do with a broke, emotionally-immature, nerdy 40-year old bookworm who lives with his parents and would rather study than start dating? Look how far YJ’s come. She has dragged him out of his shell and has worked hard to make him live up to his potential as a man. No, it hasn't been pretty, and she did some dumb stuff too. But if she wasn’t pushy and just gave up on him after the 2nd dental appointment, he’d be living in his parent’s home until he’s 60. Do you really think the blind-date girl in her 20s was the right match for him? Or that he’d find someone from a TV-dating-show match-up willing to invest her time and emotional capital in him ? I don’t. I don’t know if moving to a more centralized apartment is a good idea or even possible in Seoul. She DID ask him if that is what he wanted, but he knows that she needs some stability at the start of their marriage and let’s face it, it IS a nice apartment.

"She shouldn’t have tagged along with HJ’s lunch with his mom." This is true. So why did she insist? She is becoming increasingly afraid that something is going to go wrong. She correctly feels the unease KA has regarding her after she met them. She knows the elevator incident is a factor here and the WHOLE POINT of tagging along was for her to try to explain, one-on-one, that to KA. So she grabbed the opportunity. Otherwise, what chances would she have to do so? She is desperate to try to clear that up so KA would accept her. Remember she has trouble with impulse-control (see my review of Ep30) and her insecurity and desire to feel accepted exceeded what she normally should have done (see next paragraph). The problem here is that she isn’t aware of how deeply KA is against her. YJ has done a poor job of being honest about that. The 4 of them (Min Ho, KA, YJ, HJun) need to sit down and open up to each other. I’m not even sure that will work though, as KA isn’t quite right, mentally. HJun could cure cancer and KA would ask her “What took so long?” Barring a plot-twist, HJun needs to accept that KA will never like her or support the marriage. That will be very, very hard for her, because she will have no mother figure at all to lean on.

Try to understand that HJun is a single woman in her 40s trying to navigate the emotional minefield of falling in love. Her situation is exceedingly difficult, as we are not built for that. While we are physically capable of it; emotionally, it’s a completely different story. Love is for young and innocent couples who can handle the intensity of the blizzard of emotions that come from pair-bonding. But after your late-30s, things change for us. We become disillusioned by seeing our married friends divorce and the stress they endure. We become skeptical when friends and family tell us how lucky we were to never marry. I’ve lived thru this, so has she. Add to this that she is a DIVORCE LAWYER. She’s handled probably hundreds of divorce cases and as she told MiRae, “romantic feelings can easily be blown away” (Ep20). Talk about being gun-shy! And that blizzard of emotions does not diminish with age, she's being hit by the same feelings YuNa & MiRae are. She has become increasingly fearful that something will happen to screw up her chance with YJ, and has asked him twice in recent episodes if he’s changed his mind or doesn’t want to marry after all. Add to this a hostile prospective mother in law and unsupportive (at best) family. Her insecurity is getting the better of her now, and it’s going to dictate where this takes their chances of getting married (again, think “impulse-control”). YJ needs to take the lead now, can he do it?

Food Issues. Really? OK, so let’s look at this. She works long hours, comes home late regularly and has to work from home in the evenings and weekends too. Her mother didn’t teach her cooking (for whatever reason) and she had no time to learn in college/law school. So she eats out virtually all the time. As a result she has a cholesterol problem (Episode 1). YJ was raised in a home with an expert cook but couldn’t be bothered to learn even a fraction of what HJ did? YJ didn’t have to worry about food, as he just came home and had home-cooking every night, and take-out lunches with the staff. So there is no food history between them. PERIOD. The answer is for them to take cooking classes in the evenings/weekends. They need to be able to prepare healthy meals on their own without the crutch of raiding refrigerators. But until they are self-sufficient, they need a helping hand on occasion.

Finally, KA vs HJun. KA is drawn to YuNa types that she can identify with, and easily mould/manipulate. She must be the Alpha-Female in any relationship with her son’s girlfriends. In MiRae (poor MiRae) she sees another bright young face she can manipulate - the first thing she says on seeing MiRae? “she seems sensible (Ep30)”. HJun does certainly NOT fill that bill for her. Another Alpha-Female in her own right, who is powerful, attractive, successful and intelligent and is not someone KA can identify with or manipulate. KA is intimidated by her, elevator incident or not. Did HJun lie to her about casual dating during their meeting? I guess? (This was a key scene in Ep 32 and I'll go into it in depth, in a review later this week) But remember where the relationship was going at that time: NOWHERE. He told her he had no feelings for her and out of desperation to save things, she offered it up. Also remember that YJ knew all about what was going on with her regarding the lie to Ms. Sun....was he playing with her feelings? She yelled in the elevator "why doesn't he like me", not "why are we casual dating?". If she were honest with KA, she should have told her how much time and effort she spent in the relationship with her Dolty Son. But doing so may have offended KA, so she had to bring it down a notch.

So, take a high-strung, increasingly frantic, single woman in her 40s, add in a dolt of a boyfriend, a hostile mother in law, a brother who is trying to sabotage their marriage, and a co-worker who can't understand why she's trying to date his brother. Given all this, are you expecting everything to go OK?

And I will end with this: for KA to bring up, to YJ’s face about HJun’s mom not being alive (as a criticism) completely crosses the line for me. He knows how HJun hides the pain from her mother’s premature death deep inside her, so this must have shocked him. Add to this, is that KA has lots of other issues with all her son’s behaviors as evidenced by her talk with MinHo after she and YJ got into it. What a mess!

I don’t expect to convince anyone that the Dolts are saints or HJun is flawless. We all see the same show and process it differently depending on our experiences. I understand and appreciate how the writers are trying to show the different ways love affects us, no matter how old you are. They have realistically showed us the challenges each of the couples face and how they struggle to handle them.

Thanks for your time.

I have a feeling we are in for some cast changes coming up.

So, my cuestion is you can empathize with a person you dislike or that you hate?

That's a really good question. I would hope that one could have some sliver of humanity to feel the slightest empathy. But maybe not. At least not in her case.

Didn't KyungAe lose her mother at a young age too? And yet she was grateful to be accepted into the Lee family by Grandpa despite being broke and with nothing to offer? And now, she holds HJun's lack of a surviving mother against her? Pot, meet Kettle.

KA's lack of empathy is appalling.

Auntie has served her purpose. They needed an external force to trigger the adoption reaction. Guest characters don't last many episodes on this show (see the drama writer, HJ's ex etc). They'll write her out shortly, I think.

Unfortunately, I don't think Grandma Mi_young will last long either. Alzheimer's + Broken Hip = a fatal combo, if they keep this realistic. Been there, done that. She'd probably survive the surgery, but not the rehab.

THIS

what the heck was THAT all about, anyways? LOL

SooJae and YuNa's story is not done yet. He will be there to pick up the pieces when her emotions are crushed again in the next disaster to befall her.

I've got to believe now that she's done her damage, Auntie Gold-digger will be written out soon?

My reviews are getting too long to post here, I will move them to the "comment on current episodes" section of the discussions, starting with Ep 30 tonight. Thanks for indulging me in the comments section.

Episode 29, “I don't think your mother likes me”

Well it figures. Just last week I give the writer bouquets and this week she tosses us this clunker of an episode.

My main takeaway from this depressing episode was the continuing (and increasing) decline of Kyung-Ae’s mental state. Realizing she was kept in the dark, she is no longer able to control her anger at her entire family with the wack-a-mole game, now even frightening her upstairs relative. She is going ‘scorched earth’ on the other 2 sons relationships as well. I cannot imagine, in ANY culture where a rational mother would say “I’ll speak my mind even if it costs our relationship”. And MinHo just stands there saying ‘my goodness’ ‘unbelievable’, etc. I see these scenes and they leave me shaking my head. I mean geez, MihHo, does she need to go around wearing a hat that says “IM NUTS, HELP ME”? Instead, he concedes she is the most powerful person in the house!

History shows us putting crazy people in charge generally doesn’t work well. Just sayin……

By the way….Aunt Home-Wrecker? Not anymore, she’s Aunt Gold-digger and I think we know what Aunt Gold-digger is all about now. Enough said. The Hyun’s have their own problems and she is making things worse rapidly as well. MiRae’s mom’s house of cards is on the verge of collapsing.

And for goodness’ sake, YJ, DON’T BUY ANY MORE STOCK!

So 29 is not a lucky number for the Lee or Hyun families.

Rather than present a long, overblown review that discusses several key scenes, I’ll give a long, overblown review that focuses on ONE scene: Meet the Lee Family.

Instead of giving the Dolts an early green light for marriage, they are going to drag it out, and make them fight for their love until, probably marriage comes somewhere in the mid-40 episode count. UNLESS….YJ finally has his fill of this abuse, takes the lead, and tells HJun they are going to elope (with Grandpa’s approval of course), the rest of the families be darned. (Is elopement a thing in S. Korea?) I would have preferred an early marriage with the rest of their story focused on the challenges these two face trying to balance career, love, finances, and maybe children. Oh well, I just work here.

What is most frustrating for me is that the whole Elevator Issue is so completely and easily resolved by the foreshadowing earlier in the series. I’m no screenwriter but here are 3 alternatives off the top of my head:

-YJ pulls Mom into the kitchen and tells her that HJun screamed in the elevator because he had driven her nuts. And reminds Mom that is the same reaction she gives to him, so she and HJun have something in common, right? Situation defused.

-Grandpa pulls Mom into the kitchen and reminds her of how appreciative she was that he welcomed a frightened and broke young KyungAe into the family. Shouldn’t she show the same courtesy and compassion to HJun? Situation defused, provided KyungAe’s mind is capable of empathy at this point.

-MinHo tells Mom BEFORE the luncheon: “If you do ANYTHING to drive a wedge between our sons and their women, I will never forgive you and our marriage will change forever. I will be colder to you than you can imagine. You have a right to an opinion. You do not have a right to ruin everyone else’s lives with it. I expect you to be charming and on your best behavior. You have been warned.”

(my preference is #2, above, although I think #3 would be more effective).

So this would leave (in KA’s mind), HJun’s age & children as remaining issues. She seems to be the only one at this point for whom her age is a factor. Children are a legitimate concern but since YJ isn’t focused on it, she should shut up too (good luck with that). There may be something going on, given HJun’s response when he mentioned it on the phone, but it’s too early to tell if it’s health-related or career-related. But, she’s right…it really is a topic to be discussed in person.

Was HJun nervous? Darn right. Was she clumsy? Yes she was and is. And although embarrassing and awkward, the combination of the two can be can be forgiven. I once dropped a full glass of red wine on the white carpet at my future in-laws Christmas party. Can you image how well THAT went over? Here is a woman who deals with stressful situations in her work life and who now has to deal with them in her once-boring personal life too. She is SUPER STRESSED-OUT FOLKS. You would be too.

And finally, I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking, “KyungAe, your 40-yr old introvert of a son finally brings home a beautiful, intelligent and successful woman; one who loves him despite his quirkiness, financial situation AND she will help resolve his debts….and you’re going TO FORCE THEM APART? ARE YOU CRAZY?”

And the answer my friends is: Yes, she is crazy. And that’s the problem. For the Lee’s, this entire episode was based on the decline of Han Kyung Ae.

Thank you for listening tonight from a balmy Southern California.

Ep 30 looks like more white water ahead. Hang on tight, it probably gets uglier for both families. I’m not sure I want to watch it, if I believe the previews.

That's an interesting take. Thank you for explaining. ;-)

Bad temper? How so?

I watched ep 27 again last night (thanks, insomnia).
If you get a chance, re-watch the scene where he suggests they marry. OMS is such a good actor. He was so honest and earnest (shown in his expressions, not words) in not understanding why what he suggested was not the right approach, that HJun had to fumble for the words to say, so not to hurt his feelings. You can tell she is trying to make him understand while not being critical. Her telling him to put in more effort and playfully walking away showed she used the right touch. As Mina said before, this is how a mature couple communicates. That scene was so subtle yet so realistic.

have a good weekend, everyone!

I would GLADLY PAY for a subbed compilation DVD of the Dolts story once the show ends. But I dont hold out much hope, as KBS YouTube page doesn't sub (which I don't get at all, given the big international audience) and the KBS World Facebook page doesn't even mention the show!

MIn, I took her comment about "come this far..." was referring to the time she drove there to drop off Grandpa, and I'm guessing there were other times too?

SooJae is 'stuck' right now. He's too proud to come to his parents for help in paying off the loan, but he doesn't realize that he'll never be able to work enough part-time jobs to pay it off. I feel like he's using the part time work as an excuse to avoid his family as much as possible. I don't see much of a role for him to play in family matters in sharing his brother's happiness with their girlfriends. Until he humbles himself and asks for help, he won't develop any further.

Episode 28 – “History Happens Overnight”

Well. That was unexpected.
If they cancelled the series now, I would have no problem. I couldn’t be happier with how the Dolts story is turning out.

Firstly, other news:
The Lees: I wasn’t prepared for MinHo’s crestfallen look when he found out about MiRae’s prior case. She WASN’T married, lighten up Dad. Your son needs your support for when your train-wreck of a wife finds out. JEEZ.

The Hyuns: I’m just cringing at Aunt Homewrecker’s arrival (love that nickname from posts below). As if this family wasn’t dysfunctional enough, why not pour some MORE gasoline onto this dumpster fire? What could possibly go wrong? At least MiRae’s dad grabbed the car keys and drove his wife to the hospital; it’s the first time I’ve seen him being proactive about anything. The part about dealing with Grandma’s broken hip was realistically done…I’m sure many of us have faced this news about one of our elder’s falling. I’ve been thru it twice and hats off to the Doctor’s frankness and honesty with MiRae’s parents.

OK, onto the Dolts…there was so much happening, this post would be unreadable if I covered everything, so lets concentrate on 3 segments:

THE PROPOSAL. This was the most unusual proposal I’ve seen on TV. And yet, all things considered, it works. Proposing at her office did seem like a good idea, his reasoning was sound. Unfortunately, it became a zoo with all the others interfering (HJun’s desperately flicking SungSoo away was great). MiRae’s constant craning her neck around to see the flowers was sweet, and HJ’s “are you kidding me” attitude was spot on. I’m not sure where their ‘usual spot’ is? Outside of the law firm building?

His speech was so touching, honest, and true to his character. And flowers instead of a ring makes sense, given his financial situation, as long as she accepted it. Her “but…I won’t say it” was presumably about why he didn’t say “will you marry me?”, but when she looked at his face, and how proud he was and how hard he must have worked, SIGH…. Words fail me. And kudos for the background song “Thank You” from the OST, which is usually played during celebratory moments (the last time we heard it for them was when he hugged her on the bridge after she confessed about being the tipster).

Do you get the feeling I’m paying WAY TOO MUCH attention to this show? It's after 10pm, am I allowed a drink?

The cherry on top for this scene was the immediate cut to them walking into her condo, with such pretty background music. When she looked at him and said ‘you can stay here forever’ that was it for me. I had to pause the show and collect myself, I was so happy for these make-believe people who speak a language I can't understand, on a TV series from the other side of the planet. His surprising her with breakfast the next morning (GOOD MAN, YJ) and telling her she’d have it everyday was a wonderful preview of their life together. Uhhhh…..I may have re-played this series of scenes several times today.
Several.
Like, you know, a lot.

INFORMING HJ. Shot over 2 locations (His office & the Bistro), I think this may have been my 2nd most anticipated follow-on scene (behind meeting the parents). HJun's and HJ’s banter at the beginning left me thinking: come on Girl, TELL HIM. Her nerves were starting to get the better of her (constantly fiddling with her skirt) but we got the payoff we wanted and as satisfying as his disbelief was, it was even better at the bistro, as he had to sit there and watch his brother and prospective sister in law acting romantically in front of him. Best part – his biting hard on a French fry (?) while watching this. LOL. I only wish MiRae could have been there. I so badly want to see her happiness to the news. Uh yeah, I probably replayed these scenes a few times over, as well.

MEET THE PARENTS. I’ll keep this short, as we’ll see this reprised next week I’d guess. Her nerves at this point are shot, and it looked as if she had been crying when she got off the elevator at her condo to meet YJ. I’m glad he drove, she was in no condition. Her dress was fantastic, BTW and their encounter with SoRa & SungSoo was perfect. “I’ve come this far a few times but have never gone in….” I could certainly feel her dread and anxiety. SDM has so nailed this character, it’s unbelievable. I did appreciate Grandpa wearing the shirt she got him.

And I’ll leave it at that.

I’m considerably older than most of you reading this. I’ve been watching TV since the 1960s here in LA and grew up alongside the entertainment industry. And I have NEVER been so touched emotionally by a TV series as I have by this one. I can’t explain it, other than the Dolt’s story hits a nerve with me, as it parallels much of my life as well. The acting by the cast is just terrific, their chemistry works, the writer (so far) has not disappointed, and the pace of the show is just right. Because I can’t point to one specific thing, I can only say the synergy of the show is off the charts. Thank you, KBS. Please don’t screw it up.

Well it’s late again. Goodnight and thanks for listening from Southern California

I think there is another angle that could be very interesting: Should KyungAe reject MiRae, how would HJun react? She is a professional advocate, MiRae is presumably her best-friend, and HJ is her 'little brother'. I'd guess, although un-mentioned, they envision each other as sisters-in-law. I can't see HJun just sitting by and not doing anything, especially seeing how hurt they would be.

Thank you, Mina. I'll try to watch 28 tonight and update before midnight, this time. This should be an easy ep to watch, if they stick to pattern, they'll give the Dolts a break and something big will happen in 29, or maybe a cliffhanger at the end of 28.

He keeps asking SoRa because she is the only other female in his life (other than Mom). If I were her, that advice would come at a cost: Admit you're dating her, and I'll be more than happy to advise you LOL.