"Single Wife" Episode 8 recap

Once again Ra-hee tries my patience with more unnecessary antagonism. Min-hong straight up explicitly offers to finalize the divorce right away in exchange for a temporary, meaningless concession on Ra-hee's part and what does she do? Act all huffy and offended. Even bearing in mind that Min-hong has to finalize the divorce eventually, behavior like this is why he is in no hurry to do so. Who knows if Ra-hee will just be fickle and change her mind again.
Elsewhere, Ra-hee, Min-hong, and Hyo-rim all go on out on a work trip in the middle of nowhere to see an important person related to the furniture business. While this all sort of relates to their job, aside from the scene where Min-hong builds a chair I'm not counting this as interesting work discussion. It's just one of those usual, guy is mean and doesn't want to see them, softens up slightly, but is ultimately largely inscrutable. The lack of defined consequences for the trip's success or failure is no help to the weak dramatic tension.
Although really, the whole trip was mostly just an excuse to get Hyo-rim into a position that she could contrive to hug Min-hong, in sheer gleeful girlish crush mode. Counterintuitive though it seems, Hyo-rim is actually a significantly less annoying character when crushing on Min-hong. She's always making this sincere effort to be pleasant. It helps that the clothes she's wearing here are super cute, but then Yuna probably looks good in anything.
The other secondary couple also gets a powerful endorsement in the form of Jae-min's huge romantic scene at the end. I admit that Jae-min has never really had much in the way of charm, but it's hard not to feel all melty in the face of all that sincere effort. That kind of public statement means a lot more from Jae-min than jewlery, which he can afford easily. It shows that no matter what happens, he will always be there for Ra-hee.
...And yet Ra-hee could not bring herself to just have breakfast with Min-hong, and ended the former marriage cloud hanging over everyone's head once and for all. She's even making Min-hong less likable by association. Look at how Min-hong has to very awkwardly explain his grandmother why he won't be able to come around as much anymore. Even assuming the best of his motives, it's hard to feel at all sympathetic to Min-hong in that moment.
Review by William Schwartz
"Single Wife" is directed by Jeong Yoon-soo, written by Lee In-hye-I, and features Eom Hyeon-kyeong, Sung Hyuk, Kwak Hee-sung, and Yuna.

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