ElBee

First, I’ll give an overall impression/recommendation then warn you clearly when spoilers will be scattered about.

I think this is another case where some see Kim Young Dae and “romance” after comedy on here and get very mislead given how very slow burn the romances in this are and how they kept it on the side, most everything viewed through the three females’ perspectives (including monologues that I would have liked quite a few less of but am not bothered by long-term, just that they aren’t my preference with a story that is this dynamic visually only to suddenly get reflective and quiet, often solemn-ish in tone. If romance is your primary wish, this might not be for you. If you want character growth and friendship that spans from young 20s-mid-40s, that is really lovely here. People who are all the “weak links” in terms of job stability becoming the support for each other and growing immensely, healing in the case of the older female lead and the male lead… it was really lovely to watch unfold (but the people all felt quite relatable or familiar, good and bad, so I could get immersed in the dynamics that I thought were really strong, the acting solid across the board.

It was always about personal growth, ambition, finding happiness and stability, friendship, and healing. The ML’s story is one of healing just as Eun Sang’s is. The other two main female characters were primarily growing into who they wanted to become through financial security that afforded them the ability to dream of bigger or at least better things for themselves after years of hopeless off-season contract hire BS where they were desperate to stay afloat. In any case, this is essentially a business comedy with romance as a sub-genre. It centers around the underdogs in this company, the three female leads off-season contract hires who are desperate to survive, the male lead verrrry successful and well-off but dissatisfied with the work he does even though he is the ace and paid as such. The friendship feels organic—all the relationships are painfully and gleefully either relatable or familiar or both for me in my advanced age, so I appreciated them blending in believable humor with quite a quirky cast of characters. One of the suitors had me totally confused early on at who I was even watching because they glowed him down into gopher town then showed him making some … choices… to improve how he is seen by the woman he just cannot help but be smitten with. I’ll leave it there. He is charming, really, in the most awkward little ducky kind of way 🐣.

The depiction of romance here is far healthier than most kdramas. More on that below. Last thing before plot stuff: the OST is great. I LOVE when cast members sing for their own dramas, and this lot is great at it. It made the warm cozy healing shine more through harmonies and storytelling sung through the characters that wasn’t just shallow random songs but lyrically solid/relevant. The last episode especially got us a heaping dose of music, fitting as the ML’s dream was in fact to be a musician.

(Spoiler warnings here on out!)

Even though Ji Song was initially all about the flutters from her beautiful, sweet-cute Chinese BF, as she grew, so did her ability to be part of a mature romance, not just a puppy love swooning type that was sure to make her miserable because she couldn’t afford that kind of luxury fixation on the shiny shiny things like both she and her young BF wanted at the start. Once she actually could afford the bling, she had grown up enough courtesy of the earworms that were Eun Sang’s motherly nagging!

I like the romance because it doesn’t take over the central friendship theme and even gets sidelined intentionally which is a comedic way of showing the reality many face, that romance, at least adult romance with ideas of being a long-lasting partnership, is a luxury you can only *healthily* approach after you yourself are in “good working order” and self-sufficient enough to not have your financial unease destroy both people. No need for equal pay mess, but equality does demand equitable distribution, something that requires both to be happy enough and not having to give up so much of what they value that they end up miserable (like soooo many who follow a spouse with a better paying job only to go from a career to being a part timer as if it’s cool to drop a career you steadily built and want to thrive in to instead have teen-appropriate jobs to go home to the one who is living their dream out, work and love alike. I appreciated a grounded romance on that front AND with the baby growing up and developing flutters for the steady presence of the one devoted to her because of who she is, not just because she’s pretty.

(Doesn’t hurt that they ARE really pretty people. I felt like hiding early on with how much they nerdified and literally alienated, green contacts and nose alterations and all, the guy who was always pretty attractive under all the layers of pretty convincing deformities, especially his poor mouth lol. At the beginning, I was genuinely like, “Wait, but Eum Moon Suk is the annoying manager here, right? So who let them do this to his face?” It is totally something EMS would do and has done. He is a comedic blast when his character is a goofball or weirdo (ok, most characters we ever get more than brief blips of here are kind of eccentric, but he is extra capable of bringing wild characterizations thanks to theatre experience, hence me second guessing who they dorkified!)

The one thing I was never sure about was them diving into cryptocurrency. It DOES tell you every episode that this is set in 2020 before any regulatory actions were talked about, but I just trust that viewers can separate this from the vast majority of investments that lose money, lots of it. It both has naysayers and the evangelist for it, this time the evangelist barely proving right. It is realistic in showing how many lost lots of money, but in this case it is showing a rags to stability story of hope that was facilitated by putting their spare money into a cryptocurrency we have to trust the sharp, savvy evangelist did actually research thoroughly and had insight into (it is definitely not actually rags to riches here—paying off student loan and similar debts isn’t riches, just not drowning with no ability to do leave the miserable job they put up with crappy treatment at for potentially brighter options).

This show is quite similar in aim and end result to Brewing Love… if you watched and enjoyed that, this might work for you, especially if sismance is something you love!

——-Rant warning on why this got blasted early on——-

I need to rant somewhere (here-why not?) about the rating (not because I think 7.5 or whatever it is now equals terrible but solely because it was in a pit of doom for ages and turned all kinds of people away who saw none of it, ratings blasting it before the episode actually aired the day the pilot dropped… It is a pity this got blasted with 1* reviews by people who came, reacted negatively, and disappeared, rating a show based on something that has nothing to do with the story or characters of the show at all… it was all because of a dorky commercial the three actresses threw out (which was just an homage to an advertisement from decades ago that mostly became popular because of the catchy song and goofy cartoon with a twisty popsicle rising up from the head of a chubby little middle aged man’s minimally detailed outline… for context, people got up in arms about the CLOTHING worn that people swear is “supposed to be” one thing but is showing as another. Those people swear it must be Aladdin but omono are they wearing Indian clothes? Nevermind that Aladdin was NOT part of the original Arabian Nights story collection but was added later by a European who heard a traveling storyteller talk about it… and THAT Aladdin was supposedly Chinese according to many sources, so…

Yeah, Aladdin… not a real person, not part of the original folklore, and never even given, in the MANY versions of it that basically spread and adapted everywhere along the Silk Road (India included, Disney’s problematic versions having a whole lot of India mixed in, the point being they are along a route often traveled, no real strong identity except a princess that also has no precise identity but is in many accounts South Asian, not Middle Eastern, so… yeah, the story moved as far and wide as the camels that traversed their ways all the way from the Old World to the “newest” New World. Last note on all that rage: I looked at sources hard-embedding screenshots of rage posts, and NONE OF THE POSTS ARE STILL UP. Loads of the accounts “enraged” seem to have been made JUST for quick rage followed by deletion so they can later craft another online identity and rage out again. It’s just so weird. They aren’t even using traditional red or black bindi that have immense symbolism. They were shiny little glued on sparkly bits, mostly gold like their head decorations. It isn’t just Indians, anyway, who decorate their heads and faces, and it never has been. No matter how long it was done here or there, Africa did it first, so why are Asians freaking about other Asians showcasing a bit of their beautiful attire anyway? I don’t think they have cultural/spiritual opposition to (vegan) fruit popsicles. I may be the only person outside SK who actually saw the originals, though. I know the trolls didn’t go digging up the VHS rips of those commercials! 😂

Why is SK the place suddenly attacked for featuring something from another part of the world? Shakespeare’s dust would form back into a leg and foot just to go kick the grave of Gandhi for waging such a senseless war over one place daring to wear clothes or perform art from somewhere else in the world. Don’t tell me every bit of Bollywood is 100% original content, none inspired by or remakes of works from elsewhere… it’d be one thing if they depicted Jainism with glaring errors, but Aladdin is a fictional character from “everywhere and nowhere” representing a rags to riches fantasy of sorts. I wish they’d leave it as such and let the drama stand on its own regardless of a popsicle commercial. 🤦🏻‍♀️🫤