Just don't even bother, save yourself the headache.

This deserves a much lower score - but I did enjoy the first 15 episodes, and she did write some damn lovable children, but holy hell was this a disaster, and this writer has been officially blacklisted by me, lol. First of all, not a family drama. Especially if you go in after watching some great ones like Once Again, Never Twice, Five Enough, etc. Definitely more a makjang disguising itself as a family drama. But not even a good makjang. You've got multiple amnesia plots, beyond awful parenting, schemes, a lady who screamed most of the series, a weak ass ML, a female lead that literally never got a break and was always in tears, traumatized children, Sa Ra (she's a whole thing herself), and it goes on. Not a cute healing drama about a older widowed man finding love with his children's teacher.

As many have pointed out in the comments a better title would have been a Gentlemen and a Witch, because somehow Sa Ra was the female lead in this. So much of the narrative was wasted on her and her awful self. The amount of terrible things she did disguised as love, were not love. She was basically an obsessed stalker who wanted a rich husband. If you thought she'd get a fitting end - no, she just left. After everything she did she could just walk away. And the male lead was pretty damn pathetic because he fell for literally everyone of her schemes, even when everyone around him was telling him it was suspicious, which of course hurt the female lead every damn time. At first I was shipping him with Dan Dan but by the end I - along with many others were wondering why she would keep running after this man. And then there's Cha Gun, who was in love with Sa Ra for what? She used him and dumped him every damn time, and he still thought she was a good person?

Literally everyone of the parents were terrible, one trying to sell her daughter off for money and would always play the victim, another one (Dan Dan's dad) who seem liked a timid man but was really a controlling POS still obsessed with his ex who treated his daughter like a child and reacted very hostile anytime she disobeyed him and was consistently disrespectful to his wife's feeling because of his stupid pride. Another mom who just went along with her daughters nonsense specially when her child clearly need professional help who was also a thief. Another who thought she could make up for her mistakes by tricking her daughter and and ex into moving back to the states with her.

Sure there was a happy ending but it felt pretty bitter after everything you suffered through for 52 episodes. Well, less for me since I either skipped through or just flat out didn't watch at least twenty of them, thanks to other people recapping the episodes, lol. Sure I ran the range of emotions from loving it to, eh whats this? to the wtf? to angry to just a complete lack of empathy to eh I guess the ending is cute? But what was the point. All the nonsense in between was just nonsense.

The kids? I give them all the props. Literally more mature than all the adults. The boys themselves were freaking little angels who deserved so much more. I'd keep a eye out for the actors, they were better than some of the rest of the cast. But I guess I should be fair - I think most the cast are better in other dramas.

But yeah, just don't watch it and go watch a lakorn instead. At least you'd be more entertained.

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Frustrating....

There were times while I was watching this drama I was wondering why I was still watching it, that is how frustrating it made me feel.

I think the main problem was with the writing. I know Jae Won and Eun Oh were the main characters, but they went around in circles with their story, (I was really getting tired of hearing about those damn cameras) and a bit more of that time could have been spent on the other two couples stories, especially that of Rin Yi and Gyung Joon. I felt like I never fully understood the two of them, and while their story was the most realistic - there were things about Rin Yi's personality and past I wished they had discussed instead of throwing it out towards the end of the drama.

The second problem came with the characters. They drove me crazy. Jae Won spent most the drama as a complete mess (at least they addressed his alcoholism), and while I understood Eun Oh's insecurities she kept refusing to admit to her mistakes and hurt others in the process. Rin Yi was not developed enough. She could be seen as carefree, but there a few moments were I felt like she was using her lifestyle as a excuse to ignore things she didn't want to address in her life and they never really went past the surface with her. And Gyung Joon was so blindly in love her he didn't want rock the boat. Sun Young came off as cool in the beginning but her behavior towards the guys she dated was not okay at all. Gun is the only character I have nothing bad to say about, he was mostly just chill the whole time, and I think he got lost in everyone else's chaos.

The acting was one of the few positives, especially from Ji Chang Wook, who was in top form here (along with the OST). I enjoyed the "introduction" to Dong Shik, if they do make a second season I might tune in to find out more about them, but I won't be rewatching this mess again.

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Is this going to tug at your heartstrings and leave you emotionally compromised. No.

Is this a quick drama to watch between shows? Maybe. It's okay.

I still wonder if adding a few more episodes (especially with how much they squeezed into the last episode) would have helped with the plot development, and pacing. I'm not saying this was a total waste of time, but I honestly don't know if I'd ever watch it again. I do enjoy Sung Hoon, but it seems he has some bad luck when it comes to the roles he's getting. There were a bunch of fun characters, but Ahn Dan Te and his brother's interactions probably the best parts of this drama, there were times I just burst out in laughter because of the two. The pacing between the leads made sense to me, but I think there needed to be a little more development between the two before they added that ending scene.

What I really disliked, and I mean disliked was Bae Ya Chae. I'm tired of watching these types of characters, aren't drama writers tired of writing them? I mean she has all the making of being a strongly written female character, but nope, she needs to be THAT type of female character.

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This started out entertaining but not something I needed to see right away to something I was impatiently waiting for every week. It was mostly about Noh Go Jin (or "Mr Noh Manners" as he's called by almost everyone ) but there is a mystery surrounding it.

Noh Go Jin is a nightmare boss. He's cruel, has no manners, no patience, narcissistic, and cares about money more than people. No wonder someone wants him dead, and the list of suspects is very long (former securities, instructors,, his ex boss from a rival company, his ex girlfriend, a stalker, and even someone very close to him). He's a flawed human, and the drama never is not shy about making this known, or doesn't forgets it towards the end (the opposite actually his behavior becomes a much bigger issue in the end) . But he's still a person and is okay for him to receive death threats and or to even destroy him for revenge? After realizing how much he hurt Shina he slowly begins to change but the rest of the work comes later when he realizes how much pain he caused.

While the drama focuses more on his development, I really liked the writing around Shina. She starts off as a bit of mousey character that had decided to put up with Noh Go Jin's abuse until she had a chance to achieve her dreams but after thinking she was going to die let her crazy side out (although her revenge was more on the petty-annoying side compared to the rest), and it begins to change her attitude towards life. She begins to find more confidence in herself, and doesn't compromise on her dreams or the things she cares about, and decides to do it all on her own, even to the end. That said she's still empathic and honest. Also she never lets Noh Go Jin's delusion ex get to her, instead deciding to to trust him and to wait for him share things when ready.

That's probably why they work so well together and seemed so believable, they decide to trust and support each other without letting jealousy or petty drama get in the way (well he does act petty at times, but she knows how to shut him down, lol).

My slight criticism comes with the "villain" reveal after all that time building up to it, and how the drama wraps up everything so nicely at the end (well except the last minute of the last episode, I loved that so much), with some people getting let off easy after everything they did. But when it comes down to it or maybe it was to show that Noh Go Jin was such a easy target to blame for their own faults on (expect Shina who realizes pretty early on he was a human and getting revenge wouldn't really make her feel better). Some more development with Baek Soo Young would have been nice. Why happened to her over the last 12 years that caused her to hold on to the memory of him so tight? But maybe I'm biased I hate that 'ex who comes back' cliche.

Kim Jae Wook is great in general, but when Noh Go Jin is emotional (happy, sad, angry hurt, concerned, and especially in his heart eyes towards Shina), that he really shines. While I think Oh Segi wasn't written that constantly I think that Ha Joon did the best with what he had.

I still feel like there was something missing from the final episode, maybe because there wasn't a scene with Shina's dad and his grandchildren, lol, but I don't know. It was still a enjoyable ride that I'll rewatch again for sure.

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A little on the dreary side,

I really wanted to give this a higher rating but it did drag a bit in the middle, and I wish they gave us more of the 'fluffy romance' between the leads since the latter half became so blogged down with the problems in their life that you wondered why they even started it. I didn't see it as a lack of chemistry between the leads - more of a missed opportunity to let it shine.

While some of the issues in the drama did make me lose interest at times - they were important, mainly on the side of how hard it is for a woman in a field like this. How getting married and having children could destroy your fledging career, how woman are still expected to be the primary caregiver even when working full time, how its always harder for the woman in the the case of a office break up, or how it's still okay for a man to talk down even when they are on the same level. Even with the FL mom's obsession with marriage to the point her own daughters couldn't stand her most of the time. She was annoying - but I think, also the in the case of Si Woo's dad (who was a complete POS for most of the drama and caused his son so much pain) was to showcase how their behavior wasn't okay. The discussion of marriage itself was important - and is it really the most important thing in a relationship? Is it okay to burden someone you love?

(Also please don't treat civil servants like your own personal punching bags because they got the forecast wrong. I can't imagine how hard is to predict these things, especially where I live where this winter it was 60 degrees one day, snowing the next, cold, hot, snow, rain. It made no sense).

Some writing for some characters was better than others - Lee Si Woo and Ki Joon probably stood out the most. Si Woo seeming so positive despite the demons in his past and Ki Joon, who was just such a flat out jerk (dumping his girlfriend of 10 years who he was planning a wedding with only to marry the woman he was sleeping with on the side instead, trying to scam his ex out of money, at one point stalking her, trying to blame her for his problems, etc) who had relied so much on his ex he couldn't function and had a wife that was expecting to lean on him. Ha Kyung, herself, was just so difficult to read, so it was hard to judge if it was PMY's acting or just the character in general. They showed us moments of her growth only for her to do nothing with them.

As for the cheating aspect - what they did was terrible, but I don't think they deserve a life sentence, because the drama did show us the aftereffects of the hasty decision to get married so quickly, and the lack of trust in the relationship. I think I was just more mad they didn't really seem to understand or care about how selfish they were being, or the pain they caused.

I'm not mad I invested time into watching it, or disappointed, but I'm not left with that usual finished drama high either. It's just kind of there.

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