5
1
This review may contain spoilers
50 Episodes, Yet It Skips the Story
I’m dropping Love on the Menu, and not because it has fifty episodes or because the leads lack chemistry. I’m dropping it because I simply cannot tolerate the stupidity of its narrative anymore.
Episode 2 ends with the female lead finally considering giving love a chance despite carrying the financial and emotional burden of her entire family.
Episode 3 suddenly jumps one year forward.
They are now a couple, yet he is apparently still trying to win over the twins as if he barely knows them. More importantly, their lives remain virtually unchanged. She still wakes up at 4:30 a.m., works all day and gets home around 10 p.m., while he continues living comfortably and working as a chef.
So what exactly happened during that year?
When did they see each other? How did they build a relationship? How did two people with radically different lifestyles learn to coexist? Did he never try to help her improve her working conditions?
That was precisely the interesting part of the story — and the series skipped it.
Even more absurdly, he manages to hide for an entire year that he comes from an extremely wealthy family, despite several people around them knowing both his identity and their relationship.
Then his mother forces him to choose between his privileged life and his girlfriend. He chooses his girlfriend and, almost immediately, this educated man with professional experience as a chef is suddenly working construction.
Why? Because the plot needs him to have an accident.
Meanwhile, the female lead’s sister, who previously struggled just to afford medical school, reappears after the same time jump with a successful professional career.
Time apparently moves only when the screenplay needs it to.
There is, however, an interesting gender reversal underneath all this nonsense. The women work, survive, progress and control their own lives, while several of the men depend on them financially or choose submission to preserve their comfortable lifestyles.
Most revealing is the male lead himself. As long as he has family money behind him, he appears independent. The moment that privilege disappears, he cannot function without it.
The women learned how to survive. The privileged men never had to.
I originally thought the problem with a fifty-episode drama would be how long it would take to tell its story.
Instead, Love on the Menu has fifty episodes and somehow still skips the parts of the story actually worth telling.
Dropped after Episode 4.
Episode 2 ends with the female lead finally considering giving love a chance despite carrying the financial and emotional burden of her entire family.
Episode 3 suddenly jumps one year forward.
They are now a couple, yet he is apparently still trying to win over the twins as if he barely knows them. More importantly, their lives remain virtually unchanged. She still wakes up at 4:30 a.m., works all day and gets home around 10 p.m., while he continues living comfortably and working as a chef.
So what exactly happened during that year?
When did they see each other? How did they build a relationship? How did two people with radically different lifestyles learn to coexist? Did he never try to help her improve her working conditions?
That was precisely the interesting part of the story — and the series skipped it.
Even more absurdly, he manages to hide for an entire year that he comes from an extremely wealthy family, despite several people around them knowing both his identity and their relationship.
Then his mother forces him to choose between his privileged life and his girlfriend. He chooses his girlfriend and, almost immediately, this educated man with professional experience as a chef is suddenly working construction.
Why? Because the plot needs him to have an accident.
Meanwhile, the female lead’s sister, who previously struggled just to afford medical school, reappears after the same time jump with a successful professional career.
Time apparently moves only when the screenplay needs it to.
There is, however, an interesting gender reversal underneath all this nonsense. The women work, survive, progress and control their own lives, while several of the men depend on them financially or choose submission to preserve their comfortable lifestyles.
Most revealing is the male lead himself. As long as he has family money behind him, he appears independent. The moment that privilege disappears, he cannot function without it.
The women learned how to survive. The privileged men never had to.
I originally thought the problem with a fifty-episode drama would be how long it would take to tell its story.
Instead, Love on the Menu has fifty episodes and somehow still skips the parts of the story actually worth telling.
Dropped after Episode 4.
Was this review helpful to you?
