It's Okay, It's Love

I'm clearly going to fail at this weekly update thing. Fine. WHATEVER.

But let's do some quick thoughts about this drama.



I admit, I was, if not entranced, then at least intrigued, for the first quarter of the show. There was a great mystery vibe, I liked the frank talk about sex, I fell (very quickly) in love with Jo In Sung and his charming-yet-vulnerable Jang Jae Yeol. I love roommate stories! Anything found family gets me *clenches heart* right here. Hae Soo had potential--prickly, hot-tempered, with real hang-ups but a genuine heart. A complex female character who's not soft and cuddly but still very much our heroine? Are my eyes showing hearts yet?

Like those eyes, right there.

                           
If they'd followed through with that, I might have thrown the occasional logical lapses of this drama to the wind and gone all in. But Hae Soo was a disappointment. By turns illogical and hypocritical, her choices sometimes didn't make all that much sense to me--especially for someone who, as a trained psychiatrist, should have been able to handle certain problems in an adult fashion. I'm all for female characters getting to be selfish, but this was a bit ridiculous, because when your boyfriend wants time to get a handle on his mental health issues and asks for some time apart, you, as a loving/supportive girlfriend (let alone a trained mental health professional) accept it without making it some big thing. Let alone the rest of it. Her lack of empathy could be really jarring, considering the context.

And gah! The medical aspect! Let's just cure an intense intimacy phobia with a night of sex! That will make it all better! SNARL. Ditto for the 'thinking your way out of schizophrenia' approach to medicine.

The fact that it was hot as hell does not excuse the bad logic.

                           
The soundtrack confused the hell out of me, too. I liked the music pieces individually. There were some great songs in there. But the way were used left me never sure what I was supposed to be feeling. When you overlay cheerful songs with fight scenes, or images of battered children fleeing their abusers, or serious conversations, I never know what to take away from the show. It felt like they thought it was too serious, and they had to lighten it. Which is so odd, because it usually feels like the exact opposite desire drives most dramas.

One final complaint, and I'm done. The last quarter was by far the best part of this show, with meaningful plot momentum and some great acting. Why they didn't use this section of the story more I didn't know--they could easily have spent most of the show exploring the ramifications of Jae Yeol's illness effectively.

Now, you'd think with all these issues, I would have dragged through this one like with Oh My Ghostess. Nope. I mainlined this thing through an IV. Four episodes a night at least, and last night, seven. I have schoolwork, for heaven's sake. So despite all my whining, I still enjoyed the hell out of it. I must have. Else why the compulsive watching?

I nearly cried during this scene. Let's be honest, I'm just a giant marshmallow.

                         
Anyway, I've got to give this show props for showing aspects of society that don't always get airtime--transphobia, domestic violence, rape, mental illness and the stigma attached to it. They did their best, and all things considered, it could have been much worse. They gave us some very endearing characters (even Hae Soo could be great, which made the lapses all the more bizarre) and some delightful moments of support and understanding. I particularly enjoyed the two senior psychologists' relationship, not because it made me swoon or anything, but because it was realistic in a great way--a divorced couple working through the fact there will always be residual feelings there, but acknowledging it's better to be apart and friends than together and miserable. There was also Yeon Cheol/Hye Jin, which was honest about being in a relationship with a schizophrenic--you've got the love, but it's going to be hard, and maybe it won't work in the end...but it's still worth trying, hoping, and praying. The candle thing really got  me. And if Jae Yeol and Hae Soo didn't always make sense to me (with the senseless bickering that went on and on and on), they had the chemistry at least!

It's Okay, It's Love spent so much time telling us there was hope--mental illness is a sickness like any other, treatable, and that it doesn't describe the whole sum of a person's existence. Everyone is so much more than the sum of their problems.

Now that's a message I can get behind.



(photos courtesy of Dramabeans)