beesknees

My sympathy level:
Totally appreciate your perspective. Here's mine, for what it's worth :-)

Ji Hyeok: A billion percent. He is trying so darn hard to do the right thing.

Ha Yeong (SFL): 80%. Ji Hyeok said in epi 6 that he found her spoiled/selfish behavior kind of cute initially and I have a feeling that she knew that and acted it out. She seems very competent professionally and is not well treated in her own family, so I imagine this was something that only comes out when she feels it will advance her cause. I like her because she is great with Jun (Seon U's son), something I haven't seen from Da Rim and because she pursued an artist for his skill, not fame. I'm a sucker for people who appreciate the arts.

Seon U: 60% He's acting like a complete putz over Da Rim but he genuinely cares for Da Rim's mom and offered to make a big sacrifice for the family (sell his studio). He wasn't just giving out of his excess but genuinely digging deep to help. He is a good dad to Jun. I have some empathy for his dilema with Da Rim because it is obvious that a)he's a good friend to her and b) the fact that she wanted him to play her husband led him to believe she was finally seeing him as a man. They are a good fit for each other (the mother TF groups thinks so), so I get that not knowing what happened between Ji Hyeok and Da Rim on JeJu has convinced him that this is his moment.

Da Rim: 50% and falling with each episode. She is oblivious to how her actions affect others. It's not just that she didn't think her initial lie through (consequences to other team members, Ji Hyeok an Seon U) but that she doesn't see how Ji Hyeok is struggling with his attraction to her or notice how Seon U treats her. She also loses points for not knowing how to change a diaper, which tells us that she never helped Seon U with Jun when he was a baby. I mean, dang.

Ji Hye [Ji Hyeok's older sister]: 40% It wasn't her fault she was born and both Ji Hyeok and his mom treat her like it was. Add in the fact that the dad clearly wants to give his son the job his daughter has worked so hard for and that this latest episode shows how she was mistreated in a past relationship and she went from dislikable to a little sympathetic for me.

It ticks me off that the writers have taken an excellent SML - handsome, thoughtful, creative, talented - and turned him into an annoyance. All of this could have been handled without turning him into a jealous freak. Although I am surprised people are giving him hate and not Da Rim the FL. She's messing with everyone's lives and her only excuse is her sick mother.

I do NOT want that jerk to have a happy ending with the sister. She's a witch but at least she has some cause. He's just a jerk.

I agree with much of what you said. With every episode, I like Da Rim less because she is making things hard on everybody. In ep 6 she was teasing Seon U about maybe liking someone and it never even occurred to her that the situation she put him in, of making him her fake husband, would put him in a tough spot to move forward if he did have a crush. She asked for 6 months of his life for her lie like it was nothing. And now she hasn't just lied on an application but has kept up the lie to people whom she supposedly befriended. And honestly, she could have just as easily pretended to be a divorced mom. It would have added a nice diversity to their team (two married moms, a widowed mom, a divorced mom). I, too, feel the most sorry for feel mostly sorry for Ji Hyeok and the SFL. Da Rim is freaking torturing them at this point.

I have been wishing for them to get together. Kang Gyeong Min (secretary) is just a great guy and she seems super sweet. Love them together.

I feel the same in terms of loving the chemistry between the leads, the initial premise, and the fun mix of comedy and drama, but feeling that they are stretching it out too long for ML not to know the truth. It is entering iffy territory by depicting characters caught in an affair rather than just two people kept apart by circumstance. I actually like the 2FL, though. I think she is precisely what the 2ML needs. He is too passive by far, and like she said, why has Seon U (2ML) done nothing with his feelings for the FL for YEARS?

Jun is at school during the day while they are working but aside from appearing in that short meal scene in episode six, he does dissappear when he is inconvenient. Unlike real kids, lol.

I agree that ML should have found out by now. It is reaching the point where rather than being a relief to learn he's in love with a single woman who can love him back, he will be furious at what she put him through by not being honest.

I like 2FL better than FL. I hope Seon U gives her a chance soon. She'll make a great mom for Jun.

Hope it happens soon. The situation is definitely more complicated at this point.

Looks like the 2FL will keep the secret BUT as the old saying goes, two can only keep a secret if one of them is dead. :-) So many people know now it is bound to come out.

Guess I'm alone in having really mixed feelings about this one. I love the mix of comedy and drama, and I feel like all the actors are doing fantastic jobs of portraying the emotions people would feel in this situation. BUT I want the ML to find out what is going on soon. At this point, if she tells the truth, I think it would be an easy thing to forgive. He'd probably even feel relieved. But if she keeps this bigger, more painful lie going on much longer, I'm not sure how easy it would be to let it go.

I completely agree. As a child in the modern era she was a thief who put things in her little sister's backpack to hide her crime. She put that 9 yr. old in a truck and sent her off. I have no doubt both parents mourned like crazy. In the Joseon era, the psycho scarred her younger sister to take her place. Throughout the drama she stole and cheated. In Joseon, she attempted to poison the crown prince. In modern era, she lured him to Tae Mu. That she quibbled at direct murder of her sister - which given the circumstances, she was at the very least an accessory, doesn't show goodness. It shows she maybe has a smidgen of conscience - or maybe just realized that she better do a few good things to offset the bad before a jury.

It was ridiculous.

Thanks so much for sharing that with us. I had read up on the real king, who sounds like he maybe suffered from a mental illness, of some kind. But since the plot of this one diverged so much from his life - this king didn't kill his grandmother, didn't have kids, and most importantly did have a time traveller for a chef - I wondered if they had given us a clearer picture of why the fictional Queen had died. One that differed from the historical queen's history. I also think this whole story was a missed opportunity. The fact that he grew up believing that he was "the son of Queen Jeonghyeon, his father's third wife. and during his early reign was a wise and able administrator who strengthened the national defense and aided the poor" (per Wikipedia) would have made a great evil twin plot. Like the first twin really was the benevolent and wise son of Queen Jeonghyeon and he was the gourmet but big change came during a fight where an evil alternate reality twin takes over. The chef would, of course, had been the first guy's cook and they would have travelled back to the future together during the fight :0

I'm a bit stunned by the high rating on this one. I get that everyone has different tastes. I also understand that all fiction requires a certain degree of suspension of disbelief. If it had just been accepting that the brother and sister swapped roles, in spite of the intense scrutiny the prince would have been under and the likelihood that it would have been discovered, I think I could have accepted it. But the heroine lacked the intelligence to pull it off. Even having firsthand knowledge that her grandfather would kill to see her as the Crown Prince, she did nothing to deal with him—she made no allies among his numerous enemies. She did not utilize the allies she did have, such as Court Lady Kim or Eunuch Hong except to have their aid to hide her identity. When an ally presented himself, such as Hyun, her erstwhile lover Jung or her body guard, she didn't coax their aid at all. They served her grandfather more than her, since they could be used as hostages. She had no dang exit plan, simply planned to play the role into perpetuity, even though she knew (or should have known) the danger she presented to her younger brother. I like watching a smart character pull off the impossible. This is not that. Only on episode14 but even if she finally pulls it together , i will be too late to save this for me. Probably going to give it a four for its train wreck appeal.

Also, the romance is goofy as heck. It's disjointed and silly and lacks the gravitas the rest of the plot calls for.

Thanks. I appreciate these answers. The story did mention those things, but from my understanding, she was framed for all of it. That's why when the consorts were in the Queen Dowager's room after the cooking competition, they were talking about fearing the King had learned the truth. I think even if the former queen had done all those things, that would have explained being deposed, but not being poisoned.

The Dowager Queen's relative discussed their family in episode 10 or 11, mentioning that the King couldn't be trusted to protect them and needed to be deposed. He's one of the people Jesan winds up killing, and I think he was involved with Jesan in the original plot to depose the king. That's why I thought it might have something to do with the Dowager's family. Additionally, AI stated that it was part of a political power play orchestrated by the Dowager, which makes sense. I just wondered if I had somehow missed a big confession scene because I have to read it all in English and don't speak Korean.

I didn't quite understand why the queen (his mom) was killed. I guessed it was because she stood in the way of something the Queen Dowager wanted, but does anybody know for sure?

People like to blame the screenwriter for everything, but they are often directed to make changes that sabotage their work

.This is so true. I recall an actor telling a magazine that his popular 90s show had been ruined by producers who all wanted to be a part of it and changed the direction. Meg Ryan had changed a script and the movie turned out to be a flop, and the company blamed her. So yes, I agree, it is not always the writer who is to blame.

I can beliee that they were jerks but this just seemed like sloppy writing to me. But maybe that was the point?! Lol.