We are at the end!  After 16 episodes of Mi Mo’s ups and downs, we will finally have our Happily Ever After. Sadly, it takes a lot more to get there than expected for someone who had previously flitted into relationships like a hummingbird searching for nectar. But get there we do.  So please join me as I discuss the five things that we learned from this episode and my thoughts on the drama as a whole. 

#5 Just Say No to Happiness

Just as I feared, Mi Mo has decided she is not ready for marriage and calls a halt to all future wedding plans with Soo Hyuk.  She just wants to date and maybe live together.  UGH!  OK, let me clarify that I am not the type of person that feels that a girl has to accept just because she is purposed to.  But the fact that these two have never really worked out the details of their future together really bugs me.  COMMUNICATION PEOPLE

In my culture when you were at a marriageable age and dating you would have what we called the DTR (Define The Relationship) talk a couple weeks after you were official.  That is when we would discuss whether we could see this going towards marriage someday, just casual, or if we needed more time to decide.  Then we would go on with the relationship accordingly.   We also would share our expectation on where our lives would go forward in the areas of family, jobs, school, etc.  We didn’t just randomly wait with a huge bombshell like “I don’t want to get married” til the guy purposes.  So I think that is why I am really feeling annoyed with this scene.

So here we have Mi Mo who KNOWS that Soo Hyuk is going to be really serious and thinking of marriage right away.  She also has worked all through her own issues (supposedly) about her love for Soo Hyuk and taking on Min Woo as a child.  So we get down to D-Day and suddenly ……… “I need time.”  Nope.  I am calling plot fail.  This is just another awkward way the writer is trying to show a woman’s power over her life and I am not buying it.

At this point, I have given up caring about Mi Mo’s happily ever after since she seems intent on sabotaging it, no matter the man, but Soo Hyuk definitely deserves his.  If anyone deserves the fairy tale, it is him.

#4 Why Does This Character Still Exist?

She came too late into the plot to have any real purpose and she lingers like a pouting shadow over our OTP.  I compare her to a zit.  Not fatal, but annoying to a person none the less.

#3 Soo Hyuk is so cute.

The rest of the episode is devoted to the push and pull between Mi Mo and Soo Hyuk.  He tries to convince her to get married and she continues to resist.  There were actually a lot of cute scenes which showed the ups and downs of dating.  I admit I really enjoyed them and I also admit that if I had not been so cranky over the “sister” episodes I  would be a lot more invested in the cuteness.  I think a lot of my anger with the before proposal can be attributed to the odd pacing of the show (will discuss more of this later). As it is, come and stare at the beauty that is Soo Hyuk and let this be the reminder why so many of us continued with the drama.

 

#2 The Real OTP

I officially declare that  Da Jeong & Geon Hak are this drama’s real OTP (one true pairing).  I loved how real their story and trials felt from start to finish.  They had the most realistic romance (what I think the writer was truly going for from the start with her various couples.) and I was just so happy when they worked through their problems.

#1 The Proposal

I am so thankful that we did get the proposal/engagement of Mi Mo and Soo Hyuk that we had all been waiting for. Surprisingly, it felt so much more their style than the over the top flowers and wine version earlier.  Was I happy that Soo Hyuk got his Happily Ever After?  Abso @&*#@ lutely!

My Thoughts:

This was a roller coaster ride of a drama for me.  It had some hilarious highs and some really deep lows but we have emerged at the end and for the most part, I am surprisingly satisfied.  When all is said and done, I did enjoy a lot of the drama (especially anything Soo Hyuk) and while it was marred by way too much crying Mi Mo, it was still watchable.

The problem came from the dual personalities of the writing.  At times, it felt like we got so much great character depth and I felt that it was coming across very realistic. For example.. the cancer couple and the issues of Dong Mi and her younger man.  But then we would get shallow moments that just showed up out of nowhere.  I am specifically thinking of Mi Mo’s ex and the wannabe girlfriend.  They felt like they were just thrown in as filler plot and it ruined the pace of the narrative and just pissed me off.

I think for those watching in the future, it will be a lot more entertaining.  This is definitely one of those dramas that would benefit from a person being able to just marathon.  Without the weekly stewing over certain plot points, I would have been a lot more satisfied with the drama as a whole.  This will never be the great rom-com I was hoping for, but if you want a glimpse into real problems about love and marriage it isn’t that bad.