50FiftillidideeBrain
Because This Is My First Life
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by 50FiftillidideeBrain
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Family Marriage & Sex In The City Seoul °7.7° °VG°
Boo-hoo, Ji-hoo❕
We meet her when she's face-to-face with complete failure; a bona fide low point.
Raised by a patri-to❌ic father & a sympathetic-on-the-sly mom, she needs relief now. What she getz is this: Though she's a talented script writer, the TV station wants to credit her work to a known entity, in order to boost viewership. She needs fair recognition NW.
She lives with her brother. /She/ paid the depo$it / mainten-cent$ / expen$e$ / replaced appliance$ & more↗. While she was mandatorily sequestered at writer #1's office crunchin a deadline, her brother married his preggos GF. Nobody told Ji-hoo that GF-now-the-Mrs has moved in. Upon her return, when she innocently poked her head into her brother's room to say 'hi', Ji-hoo found ☢ut the hard-☹-way. Given that ?Dad? is thrilled that Ji-hoo is about to be an aunt - the aunt of a #nephew (IT'S A B✨Y!!), she knows it's Game Over. There will be no getting that won back. She needs =equality=]> RIGHT N✴W.
Even after she'd been sexually harassed at work, she was asked to "Just work with us." They won't give her equal rights N⏱W. "Your time will come. We promise." She needs a new J.O.B. N⭕W.
She quits. N✴W❗
now she can't afford her rent
She.needs.aff⚙rdable.h⚙using.n⏱w#
$he absolutely, most direly needs affordable housing tonight
Engineer Se-hee is a self-isolated loner who has trapped himself in a rigid life, devoid of joy. His only goals are to maintain his strict schedule, save up $, and pay off his home mortgage asap. Nothing is going to work out for him without a roommate, though. He ran those calculations years back. The rental income is required in order to keep his journey to financial Buelah Land on track. ⭕ of his roommates ever work out, though. He even had to call the police on the last. He needs a compatible roommate N☹W…
Right on time, here come their bands of buddies. Se-hee's friends & Ji-hoo's friends are linked thru Ho-rang (Rang) & Won-seok, who have been dating the better part of a decade. None of the women have met the men yet. Based on names alone, each gang assumes they have a perfect landlord-tenant match-up for their bud. They weren't /trying/ to create a coed dorm, which is not as acceptable in conservative K-country . Well, didn't /they/ stumble onto something??
Thus is the show's opening. Ji-hoo & Se-hee are planted within 15ft of eachother with the cat going back and forth between them as a fluffy emissary. It grows from there. As it turns out, they are very✨compatible. Se-hee's ex-roomies never came close to the competence of Ji-hoo-roomie. It's several days of co-habbing before they even meet, due to conflicting schedules. When they discover the "setup", they plan to separate. But... well… things are working out so well...
So well, in fact, that Se-hee, who works for the App: ‘Don't 'Marry, Date', pulls a reverse play & proposes! They should get married! ? !WAIT! That's wrong. He PR⛔-Posed. He wants to marry for 'Not Love'. No one will question their living situation if they do. That way, his parents won't continue nag him about marriage, plus his dad has offered to pay off his mortgage when he marries. Ji-hoo benefits as she'll have the affordable housing she needs to stay in Seoul, rather than go home to live with M&D. CEO Ma always says that 2 are better than 1. Coincidentally, Ji-hoo had just finished writing: A Dork's Love. Is she about to marry a dork?
This writer is a clever devil. Going into the real-but-fake ceremony, Jihoo's mom talks to her about love & marriage in the bridal chamber and causes Ji-hoo to S⛈B. The unfeeling, ever practical Se-hee comes looking for his missing bride and finds her in that state. He says these words to Ji-hoo: "You can't stop crying? Then, we'll go together. It's all right if you cry. Come with me. I'll stay by your side. I will be with you." Sounds like a vow; an intimate vow between the 2 of them, alone in the bride's chambers. It's not yet ♥️. It's genuine friendship & comraderie + a promise of loyalty. It's not a fake marriage. Not really.
BTIMFL sets out with a light-hearted tone~>> a couple's friends eventually meet & interest sparks. The characters are rounded off nicely. There's a generous amount of Mars & Venus (man/woman) misunderstandings. No relationship in the series is w/o static. The romance between Soo-ji and Ceo Ma is the most fun. He's a catch - he even does a musical number! She finally comes to see who he is. The side characters greatly enhance the series.
Like ♥️, BTIMFL hurts sometimes. What's unnecessarily ♥️-rending is how Ji-hoo leaves and stays away - for what looks like weeks, maybe more. While the cutting with the snappy sounds is generally a fun touch, this later sadness is resoundingly out of sync with the quirky elements. Why would she cause such unnecessary pain to Se-hee? There's a clip of her having a good old time with her friends, while his world falls apart. She knows she's returning to him, while at the same time, he's demolished by heartbreak. The viewer feels his pain.
The show became so sad that the ending didn't lift me back up. It comes close to ruining the series, and it didn't even make sense! It's an example of awful Kdrama MSS (Mandatory Separation Syndrome: An overused Kdrama device in which the couple is separated by distance after professing love, but prior to their Happily Ever After). MSS is routinely awful. While there are times it's for the best, usually, MSS is detrimental to a series. How could a couple that has just come together, often after many struggles, bear to be apart? Why, oh why, are they compelled to write it in? Furthermore, in the emotionally wrenching letter Ji-hoo's mom wrote to Se-hee, she asked him to stay by Ji-hoo's side when she cries. Ji-hoo dumps him cold, allowing him to despair alone. What ugly irony.
The primary theme of BTIMFL is equality for women in a hyper-patriarchal society. Ha-rang wears a shirt that says "Raise girls and boys the same." We'll see a 2nd woman sexually harassed while trying to build her career. BTIMFL addresses this tired out, but still "what's happening now" indignity competently - 1 flagrant scene is like a horrible sexual harassment training video that the cubicle overlords foist on their employees. {If that's what's still going on in SK, they definitely need to tweak the power balance somehow. Women's rights were stalled there due to a military dictatorship (1961-1979) that solely focused on maintaining power, giving no thought to protecting the vulnerable.}
BTIMFL features The Disease: Good Daughter i/l Disease, in which dtr i/l's are
treated as slaves by the in-laws. That ain't healthy. Ji-hoo's mom is able to read it between the teas when the family's meet. She didn't want her daughter living her life as a slave to the In-laws. Still, the show is a little cynical about family life. It is entirely appropriate to prevent a mother i/l from bullying a young wife, but it's usually not a reason to withdraw from all family interactions. Their agreement to holiday separately is highly questionable. If a set of their parents is not respectful of them or their marriage, separation is appropriate. Apparently i/l's abusing their kid’s spouse is a pro-sport in K-country, so the writer is proposing a viable solution. We can hope that the separate holidays will rejoin if they have children. That all serves to drag down the production, which is outstanding through 13 episodes.
No show is without flaws. Besides MSS, the last three episodes end the show on a more sour / less sweet note. BTIMFL is amusing until around Ep14, where long, overdone, and wearisome shots framing Ji-hoo's pain-gripped face keep the series from continuing forward. The pacing is otherwise steady. Without that drag, the show's easily an 8+.
The poetry in BTIMFL, the discussions of literature, and "Room 19" add depth. "Room 19" is now part of my consciousness and vocab. This series tricks us into thinking it will be a lite piece, only to punch us later with surprising depth. Some notables are:
▶"We don't even know ourselves, so how could we know the dark sides of others?" 5✨
▶"When a person comes, it is in fact a tremendous thing. That person's entire life comes with them - Because it's fragile, so it may have been broken before - the heart that's close."✨
▶"A heart isn't something that is taken or grabbed. It comes to you." ✨
We can all applaud that, can't we?
Overall this is a VG view. One of the best things can can be said is that it leaves plenty for discussion. Spare us the mindless pap, which this show is not. My favorite FAVORITE takeaway from watching this is when Soo-ji declares: "I'd rather be a crazy bℹtch than a pathetic wench." Amen.
QUOTES⚜️
If I were to tell the 20 old me, would that punk believe me?
Ji-hoo! You should go out and get pregnant tonight. We're going to a club! (Soo-ji. Woman of action.)
Perhaps, if you have some time, would you marry me?
〰 IMHO 〰
Directing 7
Writing 8
Acting 7.5
Romance 7
Flutters 5
Warmth 5
Art 6
Excitement 5
Laughs 5
Thought provocation 8
Ending 4
Age 14+
Watch again? ✅ twice and counting…
We meet her when she's face-to-face with complete failure; a bona fide low point.
Raised by a patri-to❌ic father & a sympathetic-on-the-sly mom, she needs relief now. What she getz is this: Though she's a talented script writer, the TV station wants to credit her work to a known entity, in order to boost viewership. She needs fair recognition NW.
She lives with her brother. /She/ paid the depo$it / mainten-cent$ / expen$e$ / replaced appliance$ & more↗. While she was mandatorily sequestered at writer #1's office crunchin a deadline, her brother married his preggos GF. Nobody told Ji-hoo that GF-now-the-Mrs has moved in. Upon her return, when she innocently poked her head into her brother's room to say 'hi', Ji-hoo found ☢ut the hard-☹-way. Given that ?Dad? is thrilled that Ji-hoo is about to be an aunt - the aunt of a #nephew (IT'S A B✨Y!!), she knows it's Game Over. There will be no getting that won back. She needs =equality=]> RIGHT N✴W.
Even after she'd been sexually harassed at work, she was asked to "Just work with us." They won't give her equal rights N⏱W. "Your time will come. We promise." She needs a new J.O.B. N⭕W.
She quits. N✴W❗
now she can't afford her rent
She.needs.aff⚙rdable.h⚙using.n⏱w#
$he absolutely, most direly needs affordable housing tonight
Engineer Se-hee is a self-isolated loner who has trapped himself in a rigid life, devoid of joy. His only goals are to maintain his strict schedule, save up $, and pay off his home mortgage asap. Nothing is going to work out for him without a roommate, though. He ran those calculations years back. The rental income is required in order to keep his journey to financial Buelah Land on track. ⭕ of his roommates ever work out, though. He even had to call the police on the last. He needs a compatible roommate N☹W…
Right on time, here come their bands of buddies. Se-hee's friends & Ji-hoo's friends are linked thru Ho-rang (Rang) & Won-seok, who have been dating the better part of a decade. None of the women have met the men yet. Based on names alone, each gang assumes they have a perfect landlord-tenant match-up for their bud. They weren't /trying/ to create a coed dorm, which is not as acceptable in conservative K-country . Well, didn't /they/ stumble onto something??
Thus is the show's opening. Ji-hoo & Se-hee are planted within 15ft of eachother with the cat going back and forth between them as a fluffy emissary. It grows from there. As it turns out, they are very✨compatible. Se-hee's ex-roomies never came close to the competence of Ji-hoo-roomie. It's several days of co-habbing before they even meet, due to conflicting schedules. When they discover the "setup", they plan to separate. But... well… things are working out so well...
So well, in fact, that Se-hee, who works for the App: ‘Don't 'Marry, Date', pulls a reverse play & proposes! They should get married! ? !WAIT! That's wrong. He PR⛔-Posed. He wants to marry for 'Not Love'. No one will question their living situation if they do. That way, his parents won't continue nag him about marriage, plus his dad has offered to pay off his mortgage when he marries. Ji-hoo benefits as she'll have the affordable housing she needs to stay in Seoul, rather than go home to live with M&D. CEO Ma always says that 2 are better than 1. Coincidentally, Ji-hoo had just finished writing: A Dork's Love. Is she about to marry a dork?
This writer is a clever devil. Going into the real-but-fake ceremony, Jihoo's mom talks to her about love & marriage in the bridal chamber and causes Ji-hoo to S⛈B. The unfeeling, ever practical Se-hee comes looking for his missing bride and finds her in that state. He says these words to Ji-hoo: "You can't stop crying? Then, we'll go together. It's all right if you cry. Come with me. I'll stay by your side. I will be with you." Sounds like a vow; an intimate vow between the 2 of them, alone in the bride's chambers. It's not yet ♥️. It's genuine friendship & comraderie + a promise of loyalty. It's not a fake marriage. Not really.
BTIMFL sets out with a light-hearted tone~>> a couple's friends eventually meet & interest sparks. The characters are rounded off nicely. There's a generous amount of Mars & Venus (man/woman) misunderstandings. No relationship in the series is w/o static. The romance between Soo-ji and Ceo Ma is the most fun. He's a catch - he even does a musical number! She finally comes to see who he is. The side characters greatly enhance the series.
Like ♥️, BTIMFL hurts sometimes. What's unnecessarily ♥️-rending is how Ji-hoo leaves and stays away - for what looks like weeks, maybe more. While the cutting with the snappy sounds is generally a fun touch, this later sadness is resoundingly out of sync with the quirky elements. Why would she cause such unnecessary pain to Se-hee? There's a clip of her having a good old time with her friends, while his world falls apart. She knows she's returning to him, while at the same time, he's demolished by heartbreak. The viewer feels his pain.
The show became so sad that the ending didn't lift me back up. It comes close to ruining the series, and it didn't even make sense! It's an example of awful Kdrama MSS (Mandatory Separation Syndrome: An overused Kdrama device in which the couple is separated by distance after professing love, but prior to their Happily Ever After). MSS is routinely awful. While there are times it's for the best, usually, MSS is detrimental to a series. How could a couple that has just come together, often after many struggles, bear to be apart? Why, oh why, are they compelled to write it in? Furthermore, in the emotionally wrenching letter Ji-hoo's mom wrote to Se-hee, she asked him to stay by Ji-hoo's side when she cries. Ji-hoo dumps him cold, allowing him to despair alone. What ugly irony.
The primary theme of BTIMFL is equality for women in a hyper-patriarchal society. Ha-rang wears a shirt that says "Raise girls and boys the same." We'll see a 2nd woman sexually harassed while trying to build her career. BTIMFL addresses this tired out, but still "what's happening now" indignity competently - 1 flagrant scene is like a horrible sexual harassment training video that the cubicle overlords foist on their employees. {If that's what's still going on in SK, they definitely need to tweak the power balance somehow. Women's rights were stalled there due to a military dictatorship (1961-1979) that solely focused on maintaining power, giving no thought to protecting the vulnerable.}
BTIMFL features The Disease: Good Daughter i/l Disease, in which dtr i/l's are
treated as slaves by the in-laws. That ain't healthy. Ji-hoo's mom is able to read it between the teas when the family's meet. She didn't want her daughter living her life as a slave to the In-laws. Still, the show is a little cynical about family life. It is entirely appropriate to prevent a mother i/l from bullying a young wife, but it's usually not a reason to withdraw from all family interactions. Their agreement to holiday separately is highly questionable. If a set of their parents is not respectful of them or their marriage, separation is appropriate. Apparently i/l's abusing their kid’s spouse is a pro-sport in K-country, so the writer is proposing a viable solution. We can hope that the separate holidays will rejoin if they have children. That all serves to drag down the production, which is outstanding through 13 episodes.
No show is without flaws. Besides MSS, the last three episodes end the show on a more sour / less sweet note. BTIMFL is amusing until around Ep14, where long, overdone, and wearisome shots framing Ji-hoo's pain-gripped face keep the series from continuing forward. The pacing is otherwise steady. Without that drag, the show's easily an 8+.
The poetry in BTIMFL, the discussions of literature, and "Room 19" add depth. "Room 19" is now part of my consciousness and vocab. This series tricks us into thinking it will be a lite piece, only to punch us later with surprising depth. Some notables are:
▶"We don't even know ourselves, so how could we know the dark sides of others?" 5✨
▶"When a person comes, it is in fact a tremendous thing. That person's entire life comes with them - Because it's fragile, so it may have been broken before - the heart that's close."✨
▶"A heart isn't something that is taken or grabbed. It comes to you." ✨
We can all applaud that, can't we?
Overall this is a VG view. One of the best things can can be said is that it leaves plenty for discussion. Spare us the mindless pap, which this show is not. My favorite FAVORITE takeaway from watching this is when Soo-ji declares: "I'd rather be a crazy bℹtch than a pathetic wench." Amen.
QUOTES⚜️
If I were to tell the 20 old me, would that punk believe me?
Ji-hoo! You should go out and get pregnant tonight. We're going to a club! (Soo-ji. Woman of action.)
Perhaps, if you have some time, would you marry me?
〰 IMHO 〰
Directing 7
Writing 8
Acting 7.5
Romance 7
Flutters 5
Warmth 5
Art 6
Excitement 5
Laughs 5
Thought provocation 8
Ending 4
Age 14+
Watch again? ✅ twice and counting…
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