bloomingtide

Oh sure but further down the line they pretty much would have ended up resenting each other, especially when there would have been a kid involved. Hence why he probs wanted out before this happened. In a really crappy way at that, but desperation is not the wisest company when making decisions, but it is human.

Yes, but there it was mutual agreement, which is needed for divorce and if one party does not agree you are out of luck. (FL already confessed that she most likely would not have agreed) The lack of communication was just one problem of many in their marriage for which failing *both* are to blame, however. So given Korea's fault based judicial system faking an affair was his surefire way out of it, since adultery is a grave reason for divorce. Was it wrong? Yes certainly, but as the show said you are not making the wisest most informed decisions as a human always, It makes it all more realistic than giving us any bullshit reason for faking it.

I mean just like GBC and in Familiar Wife, this is the point of the show... them learning from their mistakes, growing emotionally before attempting a reunion. So it will be a longer way till that but i love this sort of reflecting/character development if done in a sensible/organic way.

He should have tried but at this point he had already given up to bc she had never listened to him anyway. And tbf the korean law system does not make it easy to get a divorce if only one side wants it: (which the show already depicted in the second case btw)

"There is no provision for a no-fault divorce (except for a divorce by agreement between the parties). The Korean judicial divorce process is a fault-based contest between a wrongdoer and the wronged. The courts reason that a guiltless spouse should not be forced into an unwanted divorce."

The point is, even if he loves children, it was really a bad idea to bring a child into their already very suffocating relationship situation, with years of unequal give and take and lack of honest communication. It would have been like Familiar Wife or Go Back Couple the sequel... with them ending up hating each other and no time travel to do it over.

This has big Familiar Wife/Go Back Couple vibes, just without the time travel. Which honestly i like more. No magical do over, just living with the consequences of your actions and mistakes made in the past in the here and now.

At first i was really pissed at ML for just wanting out of marriage without a big life-altering reason, however, in the end i like it better this way. More realistic, bc often in relationships (married or not) it is the little things over time that accumulate to a big unbearable whole when there is no give and take in equal measures and insufficient communication in general. (Ngl, when Hara asked him if there is some big reason as we speculated here in the comments, i laughed. I felt so called out by the writer regarding that haha. So i am glad they did not go there)

Sure the lie and lack of communication rankles, but as she said she very likely would not have listened and agreed to a divorce, which was her flaw during their marriage all along (ML''s was not communicating and compromising too much to accommodate her to a degree of giving up/discomfort) And you gotta remember that divorcing in SK is not as easy as it maybe is in other countries due to its fault-based judicial system with roots in Confucianism. So it if no reasons/faults like desertion, adultery etc and one side disagrees with getting divorced there is nothing the other side can do. (which the drama already explained so yeah)

The custody case turns out to be one big lesson of reflection of the past for both of them, which is most likely why they were so emotionally occupied and involved in it, especially in the end. Lot of food for thoughts here, which of course is not to be processed completely at the current time and point. That will happen gradually, with more time. Hara's wish to date SML as a quasi reaction to it all is very human too as are her fears to screw up. Is it way too hasty and the wrong thing to do right now seeing how emotionally unstable she is? Yeah sure, but understandable. So is SFL trying her luck with Eun Beom and perhaps it's not the worst idea to date other people to break out of the box they are in atm, just as the characters did in the other dramas i compared it with. They are still in a phase of reflection, unsure where to go from there so new impulses are kinda needed to see what they had, if you know what i mean?

Lol, anyway, this drama took an u-turn into seriousness big time (hence why i think it is a lot like FW and GBC which also had humor mixed with serious topics of adult relationships and flawed characters trying to figure things out and actually SEE their own mistakes made, instead to only play the blame game) but i really like it and i hope they build on upon it. I am intrigued, more than i was when he was still lying about having an affair tbh. Going into the depth of human relationships, their failings and where to go from there is a much more interesting, relatable story than just having one party at fault for everything.

Thoughts on episode 4 (spoilers):

The brat was annoying but just a spoiled child throwing temper tantrums. The froggy is the real problem here tbh

All characters are assholes, the kdrama. Okay maybe not the leads, they are cool and the reason i am still watching. Everything else is an exercise in frustration at the sheer amount of dumbness and assholery of characters. The apartment complex should have the motto "Abandon all sense of logic to those who enter here." And even as a person not working in a medical field the science/medical explanation for the existence etc of the virus used here is waaaaaaay too ridiculous, but suits the equally nonsense plot, tbh. Action scenes are nice, but i find myself rooting more and more for the not-zombies to kill them all off. Minus the leads, of course. But they are inconsistent as hell too with decisions made that are either super-smart or super stupid. There is no between here. Love their teamwork here tho and appreciate a real badass FL (and not in name only) and caring ML. A true, well done power couple dynamic of equal partnership between them which is also cool and sadly all too rare in kdramaleand.

I am at episode 8 now and four more episodes of this feels like an eternity. I get what the narrative is doing here aka "Humans are the real monsters" in face of crisis it will show your real face etc etc etc Yes, great. it is sadly missing its mark, because I could not care less for all the characters, outside the leads, I mean sure it is a decent, high quality produced kdrama watch to pass some time but (for me) not the top rated must watch MDL has made it to be. No wonder it took me half a year to progress in it any further than the fourth episode, lol. Meh.

Oh agreed but I think this episode served as a prime example to illustrate not only ML has a lot of growing left to do emotionally but FL too, and to show to the viewers how flawed both of them actually are.

Oh i could not agree more to everything (especially the flipping table thing haha. It was just a wild guess from my side because atm it feels a bit (or rather a looooot) like as though the writer has written herself in a corner here. Aka damned if you do, damned if you not. Because what exactly is a good enough reason for him to weasel himself out of a long-time marriage like that??? (and he obviously still loves her) so it is very ?????? right now, tbh and makes it hard to root for ML.

Comedic tones under it or not, it is a shit thing to do to your spouse and is giving ML a bad look no matter what. Particularly when it ends up being some weak-ass noble idiocy that could have been solved with open communication instead. But we will see.

Only one more daaaaaay to gooooo 👀 (okay and a half, lol)

If it is sickness, then infertility, maybe? Either way, ML sucks in communicating which probably was the real problem in their marriage/relationship, especially given he took such a convoluted way out of it. Instead to, you know, be honest with his then wife of ten years.

Yeeeeah but honestly i do enjoy how very flawed every one of these weirdos is. FL has many emotional blindspots and anger and impulse issues, ML cannot communicate for his dear life and him faking an affair to get out of marriage instead to talk to his then-wife illustrates this so well. Then there are the clients at each other's throats and their co-workers in the office, and they are all whack in their own ways. But that makes the drama so amusing, honestly😂

Same here, i enjoy the more mature approach to romance and its failings, the many undercurrents of emotions, the comedy/characters, and bickering. Plot is a bit whack atm, but u just gotta handwave and roll with it for now, since there are only three episodes out yet, after all. Plus it engages me much more than a lot of the airing dramas lately tbh.

I should add to the post above me leaving out that ML indeed faked the affair because he wanted a divorce. So i guess it is not cheating but peak noble idiocy? There will be more details and reasons given in the eps tomorrow.

HE SAID IT AT LAST. What a spicy ending hahaaha 🔥. I am so glad they don't drag this worst kept secret out to episode 6 or longer, because even without the whole cheating thing both leads have SO MUCH emotional work, reflecting and growth to do that it will fill up the rest of the running time. Lots of quiet, subtle moments in this episode which was surprising but I quite liked it. There are many undercurrents to this story and i feel it just now has really started to drag them to light, heh. The flashback was also cute af, hope we see more of their background and time together since this will help to root for their reunion. (which i have no doubt will happen, but the way toward it will be wonderfully complicated 😁)

Nah, the second bickering couple did, however hahaha

Ikr? And the thing is, PHS is not fat. Not even chubby. He is grown ass man who is tall and buff/muscular after military service (and kept it up), that's it. Which is healthy btw, unlike the distorted view on bodytypes some people have here, wishing all k-actors to be super skinny flower boy idols to fit in their very narrow standards of "beauty" 🙄

Fat bulk, thin bulk... WUT? Wow, tell me you never have lifted a weight in your life without telling me you never lifted a weight in your life. You have zero idea how this all works, nor that every human has a different body type, and spew (bodyshaming) nonsense here. For starters, repeat after me: MUSCLE MASS IS NOT FAT. LEAN MUSCLE TISSUE IS NOT FAT TISSUE. BEING BUFF IS NOT BEING FAT.

THEY ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.