RamenKingAndI

Just curious, if you don't mind answering, which boundaries are you referring to and what culture do you identify with?

I sympathize with Jae Shin in that he has a crappy, parasitic father, but my sympathy doesn't carry over to his dating life. He's definitely trash in that regard, and no amount of daddy issues is going to make me feel like he's redeemable after what he's done/doing to those two women.

I don't find Hyun Seung clingy/stalkerish at all, but I think that's largely in part because he and Song Ah had an established comradery prior to the start of the drama. They were such good friends/coworkers that supposedly when he first started working there people thought that they were dating. Song Ah clearly likes his companionship and has given him permission to act on friendly terms with her outside of work. While him having a crush on her may make his motives seem questionable, the fact is he hasn't done anything a platonic friend wouldn't do.

I agree with you. There are a lot of Asian dramas out there that try to romanticize controlling behavior, but this isn't one of them. I think a lot of people are viewing the ML's actions as controlling because, initially, the FL was upset that he "interfered." People are misinterpreting her anger as a sign of a lack of consent, so to speak, but in reality her anger wasn't because he took it upon himself to expose her cheating ex. She was embarrassed and ashamed that another man and coworker had to be the one to tell her, that she didn't figure it out herself. She's upset and lashing out at the ML because she cannot be mad at herself for being ignorant and oblivious to the fact that her boyfriend of two years was cheating on her and about to get married to someone else.

Essentially, she was shooting the messenger. Not because he delivered the message, but because she wasn't happy with what it said.

Oh snap! I was wrong. He lied to his daughter about the other guy releasing the photo and was the one who did it.

Yeah, I'm not sure I would have sat on that information for as long as she did either, but I think she was also partially curious to see how long he planned to get away with it, which is why she initially asked him those probing questions, like wanting to know when they would go public, to see how he would respond and dodge the issue.

Given the father's health and the fact that her parting words to Young Hwa were about parents, I'm thinking (hoping) her father died, which will likely lead the younger brother to use his shares of the company to vote for his sister over his older brother to run the company. The younger brother's company shares have been brought up too many times now for them to not be relevant to the plot, and they are pretty much useless to the story if the father lives and continues to run the company.

The father didn't leak the picture. It was stated during his conversation with his daughter that the guy in the photograph with her leaked the photo because having a rumored affair with a pro-golfer put him in the news and made him a household name.

The father is feeling guilty for having metaphorically pimped out his daughter, making her play golf with his "friends" to further his political career. If he hadn't done that, his daughter wouldn't have been around that man to have had those misleading photos taken and leaked to the media.

On another level, I think the father is tired of having to play games and appease others in order to win a political seat. Unclear if this is supposedly how he has felt for some time or if he is having a sudden change of heart now that he/his family is the ones being used rather than him using others. It's hard to fully sympathize with him, though, when he's essentially run over his family in the process of ass-kissing the people powerful enough to win him his elections, but maybe he will have a small redemption arc in the final episode.

The whole second half of this drama has been the writers deciding, "Oh, let's follow the webtoon now because we don't know how to give it an original ending." After initially deviating from from the source material, I had hope that the drama would end strong, but first they did Soo Jin wrong and now they are trying to milk the love triangle one last time. It's all one massive eye roll. I'm still here for the over-the-top comedy scenes, but I'm over the romance plot.

Someone just give Seo Jun a spin-off show set further into the future, when he's an established singer, and give him a sarcastic badass for his love interest.

Haha. Glad to give you hope! Like I said, the brother's company shares have been brought up too many times now for them to not be relevant to the plot, and they are pretty much useless to the plot if the father lives. I guess they could have the younger brother die and the father retire, but that's too convoluted with only one episode left.

Given the father's health and the fact that her parting words to Young Hwa were about parents, I'm thinking (hoping) her father died, which will likely lead the younger brother to use his shares of the company to vote for his sister over his older brother to run the company. They've mentioned those shares twice now, and if he died and left them to his sister, we wouldn't be able to see anything come of his "sacrifice" with only one episode left because the father would then still be alive to head the company.

Hair dresser in episode 6: I'm going to spray a ton of crap on your hair and do absolutely nothing because you already look like a snack.

In the first episode when all the company employees are discussing office romances, they mention how when secret romances are exposed and the couple breaks up, the woman always takes the majority of the criticism and gossip. Even though her ex is a cheating asshole, she will be painted the "other woman" because she's not the one he's marrying, so she is taking the high road. Not to mention, he's getting married to the boss's daughter/sister. So, if she goes all nuclear and exposes him, she will lose her job, which is far more important than her ex.

Being a bad ass isn't always about being loud and dramatic. There is strength in silence, too.

Haha. You do bring up a valid point about the mom, but after watching 12 episodes of characters acting as though she was Quasimodo because of bad skin--something well within her reach to fix--that scene just made me facepalm. I know South Korea is the land of plastic surgery, but they are also known for their 12-step skin care routine. You'd think someone, even if just one of the beauty bloggers that Joo Gyung watched, would have mentioned products for combating acne to her. lol

We don't know the condition of Su Ho's father, but he is being cared for in the USA. Su Ho is--literally--a teenager taking care of his only family member in a foreign country with a 10-13 hour time difference. In the real world, a long-distance romance where the couple has only been dating, at most, a few months isn't likely to survive that, not even between adults, not to mention two immature teenagers. It is entirely believable that they would break up in that instance because Su Ho cannot give to the relationship the time and energy needed to foster it and help it grow. Them staying together during those two years is more of a fantasy than them breaking up.

As for Seo Joon being a " forever alone virgin," the 2-year time skip puts them at 19 (20 in Korean birth years since they were able to drink). Pretty normal to be a virgin at that age in South Korea, and if Su Ho has chosen to pursue a career as a singer, it's entirely possible that his company won't allow him to date even if he wanted to because Korean pop stars are supposed to stay single in order to "date" their fanbase. If he's not allowed to go out and meet other women, it makes sense that he would not have moved on and would still have lingering feelings for Joo Gyung.

"Go to a dermatologist," said Choi Soo Ah, the only person in this drama with any sense.

Seriously, her mom took her to a plastic surgeon over a dermatologist?!

I don't really get controlling or possessive from him because, despite his crush, his actions have been in line with what any friend would do. Initially, he was going to bow out when he discovered she had a boyfriend and respect what she had told him about looking the other way if he spotted an office romance, thus demonstrating he does listen to her and respect her wishes. Then, when he discovered that her boyfriend was cheating, he waited a month to see if the situation would resolve itself before stepping in. If anything, I think he hesitated to be the one to tell her because he knew his crush made his actions partially selfish despite his genuine concern for her. Being a fake boyfriend might be a step further than what a normal friend would do, but he was honest about his feelings for her and, in the end, she was the one who grabbed his hand, thus agreeing to fake a relationship with him.

I'm thinking SG is biding his time now. He knows he lost that battle, but the preview made it seem like he's going to gather all the "children" and overthrow the parents. Mommy will likely have a role in it all in that she will get divorced.

When your father is such a horndog that you have to get a DNA test to make sure your boyfriend isn't your half-brother...Day-um.

I think Dan Ah might be bisexual, and I've thought so for some time now. Her brother saying she "came out of the closet" might have been a rumor started either by him to undermine her or by her to discourage her father from matchmaking attempts, but in that scene early on where she was teasing Mi Joo about having proposed to Seon Gyeom, it felt like she was flirting with Mi Joo indirectly, like she knew Mi Joo was straight but wanted to tease her because she found her reactions cute.

Even people who do dumb stuff because of a crush do dumb stuff that aligns with their personality.