The rich family conflict between Jin-myeong and
Hong-ran finally comes to a head. Their differences have become so
irreconcilable that divorce would appear to be inevitable. The irony of
the situation is rather obvious- all this time we've had families
arguing over divorce and whether or not this should be the proper basis
for long term decisions. And yet here, Hong-ran is treated like the bad
guy because...well, as far as I can tell because she's not a blood
relative.
One might think that Eun-soo, who also married into this family and
is not a blood relative, would be sympathetic in some way. To the
contrary- she revels in sheer spitefulness, on account of the fact that
Eun-soo never much liked Hong-ran anyway. There's just one problem- now
that Eun-soo can't be vindictive toward her sister-in-law, she takes out
her petty aggressions on other people who deserve it even less.
Eun-soo's a complete fool if she seriously believes that anyone's going
to put up with this behavior from her for very long- she might be able
to kowtow her son but not her older in-laws.
Elsewhere, in the main plotline, Jin-woo continues to mull about
ineffectually, not really sure what to do with his information regarding
Deok-in's son. Deok-in finds Jin-woo's behavior a little odd, but
beyond that she manages to get wrapped up in some new problems that
mostly put her mind off of all that. That much was predictable enough-
from the beginning of the drama Deok-in has usually avoided her problems
by trying to solve someone else's.
This time, though, she might have gone in a bit too far. And that
about does it for all the actual stuff that happened this episode. "Let the Girl Cry"
tends to be more interesting from a character angle rather than a plot
one but most of that material is just a retread. Kyeong-cheol is still a
sympathetic jerk who's barely able to contain his disgust at the
blatant hypocrisy he's feeling from his family.
I do hope we're supposed to be seeing Kyeong-cheol as sympathetic.
His character just doesn't work as a villain at this point. Eun-soo acts
spiteful just for the sake of acting spiteful. Kyeong-cheol really just
wants to marry his girlfriend. It's not a particularly noble goal, but
it's not an ignoble one either and it's getting to be painful watch this
situation simply not resolve due to personality clash.
Review by William Schwartz
