"My Sassy Girl - Drama" Episodes 17-18 recap

Prince Darhan (played by Chris) is the main dominant presence here, and the man's bad news. He's really nice. Really, I just can't get enough of the guy smiling good-naturedly and engaging Princess Hyeomhyeong with all these corny pick-up lines. Best of all, Prince Darhan tends to just ignore Gi-joon, and doesn't especially care about the pomp and circumstances of royalty. Prince Darhan is quite the charming guy, save for the problem of Woo being Princess Hyeomhyeong's actual love interest.
And that's most of what the conflict is about. Woo is also acting as Princess Hyeomhyeong's personal translator, and struggles with admitting that he's jealous of the cool and powerful Prince Darhan. Woo wants Princess Hyeomhyeong all to himself, and she...isn't really that sure, because Woo isn't putting up much of a fight. This is all pretty standard romantic genre material, which works mainly because the main couple is appealing.
More dramatically interesting conflict comes up in the form of Gi-joon's reaction to being snubbed. It's the main ironic highlight. In terms of getting rid of Princess Hyeomhyeong to put a stop into any more investigation of his conspiracy, Gi-joon's plan is working perfectly. But because Gi-joon is not personally calling the play by play on Prince Darhan and Princess Hyeomhyeong's date, he gets grumpy and paranoid that something might be going terribly wrong.
Also note that for all Gi-joon's obsession over Princess Hyeomhyeong, he evidently has not noticed that Woo is an important part of her investigations. For further irony, note how Da-yeon's request to Gi-joon actually furthers his own goals, yet Gi-joon refuses it anyway out of personal petty spite. We've learned that for all his bravado, it's actually surprisingly easy to shake Gi-joon's confidence. That, and Woo's late discovery as to who actually initiated Prince Darhan's visit, will hopefully be enough to restart Princess Hyeomhyeong's investigations.
...But yeah, while the royal conspiracy remains the most dramatically interesting part of the story in "My Sassy Girl - Drama", for now we're just stuck with the generic romantic comedy/drama setpeices of the main couple being forced to think about each other when they don't want to. The way the date with Prince Darhan ends up replaying how Woo and Princess Hyeomhyeong first met was a nice touch. Really, the main immediate mystery is how Prince Darhan is going to leave the story on good terms. I'll be very sad if his feelings end up getting hurt.
Review by William Schwartz
"My Sassy Girl - Drama" is directed by Oh Jin-seok, written by Yoon Hyo-je and features Joo Won, Oh Yeon-seo, Lee Jung-shin, Kim Yoon-hye, Son Chang-min, and Yoon Se-ah.
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