Eps 13 to 16

[Knov1]

Warning: Post contains spoilers!

Do Hee explains that she wants to stop being dinner mates because Hae Kyung has learned more about her personal life than she originally intended and thus breaking one of their rules. Since Do Hee has shared a lot with him, Hae Kyung confides that the writer Lee Mun Jeong is his mother. Do Hee and Hae Kyung run into Jae Hyuk back at her place. Do Hee tells Jae Hyuk that Hae Kyung is her boyfriend. Do Hee goes ahead with No Eul's show. While eating with No Eul, Do Hee sees a photo of Hae Kyung on No Eul's phone and learns Hae Kyung is her ex-boyfriend. Do Hee meets with Hae Kyung and reiterates that she wants to stop being dinner mates. Their both strangers that don't know anything about each other. She doesn't see the point on continuing to eat together. Do Hee confesses to Ah Young that Hae Kyung was her dinner mate and she has feelings for him. Hae Kyung notices that Do Hee left their chat and waits for her by her house. When Do Hee gets home from a wedding, Hae Kyung hands her his card and introduces himself as Kim Hae Kyung.

Do Hee tells Hae Kyung that doesn't change anything. She doesn't want to get to know him or vice versa. Eating together became uncomfortable for her. Jae Hyuk schedules an appointment with Hae Kyung. Jae Hyuk doesn't believe Hae Kyung is really Do Hee's boyfriend. He warns Hae Kyung to stay away from Do Hee. From their conversation, Hae Kyung learns that Do Hee was his dinner mate. Hae Kyung then confirms this when Geon Woo show him a photo of Do Hee. Homeless doctor pays Hae Kyung a visit. He warns Hae Kyung that Jae Hyuk is a dangerous man. Jae Hyuk sabotages equipment during a shoot for No Eul's show. No Eul, Do Hee and Jae Hyuk are all hurt when equipment falls on No Eul, Do Hee tries to save her and Jae Hyuk covers Do Hee. Hae Kyung runs into Do hee at the hospital while going to see No Eul. He tries to warn Do Hee about Jae Hyuk but she doesn't think he's dangerous. Do Hee drives for Jae Hyuk and he wants to have dinner with her as a "thank you" for him saving her. Hae Kyung stays with No Eul. While eating with Hae Kyung, No Eul says she wants to marry him. In the car, Hae Kyung tells No Eul that he has no feelings left for her. Despite this, No Eul isn't ready to give up. Hae Kyung thinks about his feelings and rushes to 2NBox. He agrees to be on the show. Hae Kyung talks to Do Hee alone and confesses to liking her.

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I like that Hae Kyung and Do Hee's feelings are being revealed after they learned who each other are. That's assuming Do Hee tells Hae Kyung she feels the same way. I thought they might question their feelings once they learned about each other and was pleasantly surprised when it didn't matter to either of them. I didn't like that they learned about each other from other people. Not sure why Do Hee and Hae Kyung needed to have the "let's stop being dinner mates" talk twice in the same episode.

I don't like characters like Jae Hyuk. They're obsessive and creepy. It's safe to assume Jae Hyuk has been inside Do Hee's home since he has Hae Kyung's card and the one she got from Hae Kyung went missing. If homeless doctor was going to warn Hae Kyung about Jae Hyuk, I wish he would have said more. Cryptic warnings don't help.

I don't like No Eul either but I'm more sympathetic to her plight. She loves someone who doesn't love her back. That hurts. I'm just not sure what she expects at this point. She should know Hae Kyung better than anyone. Hae Kyung has been clear with her and yet, for some reason, she expects a different result this time around.

[ajk]

The angry Pizza Hut rant is coming. But not at the moment.


Hour 7 started kind of wobbly. They didn’t go straight to the endgame, which was good...but the opening scenes were sort of awkward. Fortunately things picked up pretty quickly and it got back to the strong level of hour 6. “We crossed the 38th Parallel.” Totally cracked me up. And the way her friend went nuts and didn’t see through it, that was funny too.

My prediction 3: That mysterious phone call that the ex made, the message he left, he was calling his therapist and in a wild coincidence his therapist is Doc.  WRONG. Oh well. But frankly that would have been a better plot twist than the sad tough-guy confrontation they had on the sidewalk there about Dohee’s wrist. That was really weak. The metrosexual ex (metroExual?) pushing Doc in the chest, I mean, would you really feel the least bit worried if that guy tried to start something with you? Please.

So we got half of the big reveal. Totally out of the blue and totally not the way it seemed like it would inevitably happen. knov didn’t care for it, fair enough, but the totally random shock of it, I loved it just for being brave. You figured it would be something conventional like they’d walk into a meeting and see each other and the lights would go on in their heads and that would be it. Nope! Although, her reaction to hit should have lasted longer—the sequence in the bathroom was too short for the depth of her feelings for the guy.

Geez they sure stirred up the homeless-guy angle in a big way. Too much too soon? Seemed like Boss Lady got too into him based on too little. But we’ll see.

Speaking of Boss Lady, her coffee cup was empty. This is really starting to annoy me. If you have a scene with an actor drinking from a cup, put some liquid in the cup. You can totally tell when it’s empty—the person doesn’t hold or move the cup in the same way, and when they sip they don’t swallow. We keep seeing this in historicals and it never works there either, and it’s distracting.

So Dohee sits down with Doc and she dusts him. But that was totally unlike her. I wouldn’t have bought it if I were Doc. She’s not that cold and he’s too smart to buy it.

Liked the fridge-cam!

Don’t like all the shoulder pads. Stop dressing SJH in shoulder pads. We went through a shoulder pad phase in this country, didn’t we? Back in the 80s? Blecch. She's not a football player.

The music choices in this one were excellent. Over and over again, just the right touch at the right time.

And the ending was terrific. No more need be said. Well done.


Hour 8, not nearly as good, for exactly knov’s reason. Now the ex has become dangerous. Willing to commit crimes (yes he clearly broke into her apartment and found the business card) and get people seriously injured to get what he wants. This doesn’t belong in this story at all and it’s thrown a pall over everything. How are you supposed to appreciate the gentler, subtler main storyline with the fear of great bodily harm hovering everywhere? This was a huge mistake. Huge.

I liked the opening, shooting the ending of Hour 7 from Doc’s point of view. And he looked for cars before he crossed the street to her. That kind of momentary little thing can make all the difference in selling a scene.

But dude, seriously, put some damned socks on. Seriously.

Okay now hang on though. He hands her the business card and it’s bright and sunny outside. Then we cut away for a minute, and when we get back to them it’s nighttime! Ugh! What a continuity error. How could nobody catch that.

Again in the grocery store with the series theme song on the PA. Even funnier the second time.

So score two for surprise reveals. But you couldn’t enjoy this one because it was creepy dangerous Ex doing it. We didn’t even get to see Doc process it because the nut job in his office took all of his attention. Mistake, mistake.

Hey do I get partial credit for #3? Technically Ex is doc’s patient! Sort of? Okay maybe not...But from what we saw on Ex’s computer screen, and a couple of clues from the homeless guy, #2 is going to be right on the money because he did #2 to the homeless guy already.

Then we get that scene with the falling light and it was ridiculous. It wasn’t a giant heavy mounted theater light fifty feet up in the ceiling, it was a little portable studio light on a stand and I didn’t get the impression that it even hit anybody directly, it was all just people falling down to avoid it. And Barbie is so seriously injured? And the Ex “risked his life” over it, and so did Dohee? UGH. With the budget this series has, for goodness sakes pay the stunt people and do something believable.

And then later Ex says he can’t drive because he has some stitches in his arm? And Dohee buys that? This is shades of Hour 1 idiocy. Very, very weak stuff here. Somebody on the production team needed to step up and demand something better. Yecch.

Barbie has gotten kind of sad. You do feel for her just a little bit at this point. Mainly because she seems to be a little more mature than the shallow entitled golddigger she seemed to be in the beginning. You can still see the immature frustration that she can’t get what she wants, but it’s mixing with legitimate feelings and cutting deeply. And maybe realizing how badly she messed up before, that’s gotta sting too.

So Hour 8 ends and it looks like they’re turning over all the cards to get to the endgame (assuming Dohee agrees, which isn’t a sure thing). I don’t like this. It’s only the halfway point. What now, for eight more hours? Is Ex going to start cutting brake lines? The friction that’s being set up between Dohee and Barbie, do we really need or want that? The book had such a nice ending and it looks like we may have completely tapped the book out, with half of the series left. I’ll look forward to the next episode but not nearly as much as I looked forward to the previous two.

[Knov1]

It does seem early for Hae Kyung and Do Hee, in terms of their own relationship, but this is the point in most Kdramas when you start to get love confessions. From there, it's all about the obstacles and angst. Viewers love the angst.

Jun 17, 2020 0:36:41 GMT -5 ajk said:

I liked the opening, shooting the ending of Hour 7 from Doc’s point of view. And he looked for cars before he crossed the street to her. That kind of momentary little thing can make all the difference in selling a scene.

Yes. I noticed that as well. Small detail but added to the scene.

Jun 17, 2020 0:36:41 GMT -5 ajk said:

But dude, seriously, put some damned socks on. Seriously.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that feels this way. I don't get the no socks look.

[ajk]

Yeah and not only the look of it, he's a doctor so he ought to know how gross it would get to keep putting sweaty bare feet in the same shoes over and over.

But speaking of gross...We’re cruising along in a very good Episode 13, and all of a sudden it turns into a horror story. I thought I was watching Kingdom again. Why? They went to eat at Pizza Hut. EEEEEWWWWW That stuff is the saddest, sorriest, gross-est excuse for pizza that I’ve ever eaten. I would rather watch zombies eat human flesh then watch anybody eat at Pizza Hut. You could even see it looking at the stuff—-that isn’t real proper pizza, it’s some sort of bizarre mutation. Those poor women, thinking they were eating real pizza. Somebody please give them plane tickets to Chicago so we can save their souls. When Dohee snuck out of there and claimed she got a stomach ache, well give her credit for coming up with a totally believable excuse. Oh the humanity.

And you know what, between the generous camera shots of the company logo, and Barbie talking about the cheese in the crust, and the nice long look at Dohee slurping in the cheese and enjoying it, that totally looked and sounded like a paid product placement setup. What the heck. And it opened my eyes because that’s exactly what’s going on. The end credits are full of logos of companies with products seen in the episode. Doc drives a Lincoln and Ex drives a Ford, and sure enough the Ford Motor Company has a sponsor credit. I have a Ford; do I need to upgrade it to a Lincoln so when I meet SJH she’ll like me? Sheesh. And there also have been brief moments where it’s seemed like something has been pixelated or blurred on the screen so we can’t see it clearly. I thought I was crazy, but no those must have been company logos or designs that they decided during post-production shouldn’t be seen by the viewers.

But at least most of that is limited to what we see on the screen. The Pizza Hut scene was so far over the line, shame on the producers.

And anybody who works at Pizza Hut, my apologies, nothing personal, not your fault. If people buy better pizza from other places then you can go work there and everybody wins.

[bird11]

I read this before I watch the whole thing and was wondering "What the heck does ajk have against Pizza Hut (beside it is not good pizza) and then I got to the Pizza Hut scene and I litterly could not watch it-- gross! It reminds me of when people chew gum and have to "play" with it.....just gross all around.... no reason to show the details of them eating the pizza..... . Oh well, hopefully onto bigger and better scenes.

[Knov1]

Jun 19, 2020 15:57:43 GMT -5 ajk said:

And you know what, between the generous camera shots of the company logo, and Barbie talking about the cheese in the crust, and the nice long look at Dohee slurping in the cheese and enjoying it, that totally looked and sounded like a paid product placement setup. What the heck. And it opened my eyes because that’s exactly what’s going on.

Yeah, product placement is a common thing in contemporary dramas. Everything from places to eat, food & drinks in the fridge, electronics, etc. Subway is a common sponsor in a lot of these shows. There was one series that had a Subway scene in like every episode.

[ajk]

That is awful. I'm surprised the viewing public accepts it. I mean, to some extent you can't really escape it these days, but the scene of them eating there was like weaving a commercial into the story, it was so crass and blatant. Complaning about artistic integrity can sound sort of snobbish and elitist sometimes but that really is the issue here and it's a fair complaint.

But let's see how much of this we can spot in the second half, and keep track.

bird I actually toned it down before I posted, took out a few words that might rile up the evil Pizza Hut corporate empire and get Proboards on our case ("swill" was one of the milder ones). But if SJH was really enjoying eating that stuff and not just acting and doing her job, then I'm calling off the wedding.

[Knov1]

I wasn't sure where to post this but this seems like the appropriate place since we were talking about product placement in Kdramas while watching Dinner Mate.

John Oliver talked about Subway as a franchise and their tv ads even in Kdramas. He even did his own Subway themed Kdrama parody. I recommend watching the whole thing.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - Subway

[ajk]

That is definitely more obnoxious than what we got in Dinner Mate. Surprising because I thought the one in Dinner Mate was pretty awful.

Funny you should post this because just the other day I had a flashback about watching Seo Ji Hye slurping up that Pizza Hut and gushing over it. Whatever she got paid to do that, it wasn't enough.