Luna123

One Spring Night had around 7% ratings which is just OK on a terrestrial channel (a similar rating for Something in the Rain was considered good because it was on a cable channel)
Don't get me wrong, I love OSN very much, but it wasn't a ratings hit either. Too subtle and real to be truly popular...

I really hope for the first, but afraid it's more likely the second. If we are lucky it could still end up as a decent fluffy romance from here on, but the interesting questions about the ethical and legal greyzone of AI will be gone. After all, that was what the audience found confusing and/or creepy... even though it was the unique selling point of the drama.

Me too, I very much prefer dramas that are subtle and trust their viewers will connect the dots, rather than hammer home the message.

Because a large part of kdrama audience prefers predictable, cliche-filled dramas that have the emotional depth of a teaspoon and can be watched without actually paying attention?

The time jump was (almost) 3 years - they broke up on 2015.05.19 (date is on the promotion announcement which happened the same day), and met again at the wedding on 2018.04.28 (date on the invitation sent for Bo Ra). This show is subtle and trusts viewers to pick up on details like this on their own, which I personally love. :)

As the boss mentions in the elevator, Jin Ah won the harassment case eventually, I guess after years of legal battle. No idea what exactly the punishment was for the scumbag, possibly he was fired as he is nowhere to be seen. And the female vice president (or whatever her rank was) has a new office, which looks a lot like what used to be the harasser's. The other guy that recorded the apology rather than take the case to court still works at the coffee company.
I know lots of people find the resolution disappointing, but in reality this is how such cases usually work out, especially in South Korea. Jin Ah is actually lucky that it didn't end up with a ruling against her. And in such cases anywhere, by the time they are over, winning is at most relief that it's over rather than a sweet feeling of victory...

It is on viki. :)

I hope he will keep choosing relevant and thought-provoking dramas, and roles where he can show off his acting talent. Also, if he continues to never play a character that is a jerk, that will be a bonus.

Funny that never letting go of your first love is usually considered beautiful in kdramas. Like in Moon embracing the sun where the king can't move on from his childhood crush for eight years and that's very romantic. But apparently it's only romatic if the subject of love is dead, if they are otherwise unreachable then it's just dumb to keep loving them... I wonder though, if one's first love is unrequired, but later on the subject becomes available because they are widowed/divorced, and eventually reciprocate the feelings, does that also change the pathetic undying love into romantic undying love?

She has been mostly used as comic relief and occasionally to forward the plot, there's not a lot to her character so far. Hope her role will be fleshed out in the upcoming episodes...

Hey, people write academic papers on drama characters! Sure they thend to be by dude called Shakespeare some 500 years ago, but he was pop culture back in the day. :)

You were the one who brought the husband into the discussion... and yeah I do have strong feelings about the guy, because so often possessive behavior is mistaken for love, and many women end up paying a high price for it.

Whether husband knew if Ha Won felt love or friendship for Ji Soo doesn't matter, because he did know the two of them were very close and thought he didn't measure up to their bond. (this is not an assumption, he told so himself) That tells everything about his deep insecurity, and about how little he trusted her love. If he always felt his wife loved the other guy more, why marry her in the first place? And more importantly, when Ji Soo was having serious mental health issues, why was he still being a jealous idiot and denying what might have eased her mind? Love is not like that.

Why does it matter if what the third person feels is a crush, or love, or purely physical attraction? As long as the object of those feelings is only feeling friendship, nothing will happen (unless we are talking about a rapist, which is not something to drag in here). If I trust my partner, I trust them not to waver whether they encounter true undying love or a passing fancy.

Back to the original topic, again I don't think that it is pathetic to hold on to a one-sided love, be it a year or ten or even a lifetime. It only becomes pathetic if they keep whining and moaning about how unfair it is, or if their hurt feelings turn them into a jerk. But as long as they avoid self-pity and get on with life, hey it is 2020 and it's not a shame to be single. Whether someone is on their own because their love is unrequited, or because their one true love died, or because they are asexual/have other priorities in life, it is nobody's business.

If I hang out with someone who has a crush on me, but I only like them as a friend, why on earth would we inevitably end up in bed? Of course if I felt uncomfortable with the situation, I could end up avoiding the person, but I sure as hell wouldn't let my partner tell me whom I can meet. I won't live in a bloody harem because my spouse thinks I wouldn't be able to resist temptation.

Sure, Ha Won's actions are questionable, but aside from ethical concerns they are harmless. The husband though? He is the one who is pathetic imo. He did something that ended in the death of Ha Won's mother. (I'm sure he didn't mean to kill her, but I suspect whatever he did was to separate the two friends) Then when Ha Won left and Ji Soo was lonely, he befriended her and eventually got her falling in love with him. (without telling her that it was him who caused the separation with her friend) Yet he could never fully trust her love, even though she became the perfect little wife with no life outside her husband. (her bonding so quickly with Seo Woo makes it likely that she had no close friends) And when he finally told her the truth about what he did, he wouldn't let her talk it out with Ha Won. Even though the weight of the secret was killing her, he'd rather watch his wife sink into depression than allow her to come clean to her friend and apologize and maybe start healing... That is some seriously f***ed up love.

I guess we have to agree to disagree about which guy is the real creep. :)

No, the husband was not smart at all. He was stupidly insecure to forbid his wife meeting her best friend, whis is very much NOT COOL. (Probably also because he felt guilty for whatever he did to cause the death of Ha Won's mother.) But if you can't trust your spouse, why marry in the first place? That's more like how domestic abuse starts...

Do you think Ha Won had no idea where to find Ji Soo all those years? We are in the internet age, it should took like an hour for anyone half competent. He must have known, but he kept his distance like he had promised her. Didn't try to push her into meeting him. Until he heard from Seo Woo that Ji Soo is depressed - and he had told her he would be there for her, should she ever become unhappy and need his support.

Sure, the plan to get the voice recording might not have been a very ethical one. But the text he wanted Ji Soo to record was one that he knew she would recognise, like she did, and yet she didn't ask for it to be deleted. If it wasn't for the accident, would he have used her voice for the AI device? Maybe yes. But maybe he would have kept just the recording as a memory, like Seo Woo listening to her mother's voice. Or maybe it would have sat on the computer of the studio, forgotten, since Ha Won's real goal was to send Ji Soo a remainder that he is still there, still caring for her. After all, he didn't immediately go for the recording when she died, which suggests to me that it wasn't his plan originally.

I wouldn't call him pathetic - it's not like he has been just sitting in a corner, pining for his first love and feeling sorry for himself. In 10 or so years, he has built large a company that't leading in AI research. His broken heart didn't make him hate JiSoo/women/people/the world, if anything it made him more empathetic towards others. He is working on inventions that can help or protect people, like the app or whatever they made after the fire in SeoWoo's home town. So what if he is not interested in moving on and searching for a new love interest? Romance might still find him one day, and until then there is plenty to keep him busy.

So often kdramas spell out everything from plot to the characters' inner toughts and feelings (and frankly those are often obvious and predictable anyway). This show has a different kind of storytelling that is more subtle and also takes its time to explain things - it might feel either confusing, or very rewarding.

I feel the same about these two shows! I'm a sucker for slice-of-life dramas that are generally considered slow, but WtWIF was just boring, to me. APoYM on the other hand is intriguing and I'm already rooting for the characters.