"Jugglers" Episode 8 recap

After his humiliation at the Best Boss Awards, Chi-won is understandably upset and not in the mood to talk to Yoon-i about information she should never have known about in the first place. Unfortunately Chi-won is so understandably upset I had a very hard time empathizing with Yoon-i's position. Chi-won is Yoon-i's boss. If he doesn't want to talk to her, that's it. As a professional I would expect Yoon-i to know better.
But then again there's the more obvious reason Yoon-i should know better. Yoon-i lost her last position because of fake news about a romantic relationship between her and Mr. Bong. Even granting that Mr. Bong is married, and Chi-won is not, I would expect Yoon-i to be cautious about this stuff in general. I'm sure I've discussed this before but that's such an obvious logical flaw in the whole premise I can't help but be reminded of it during more traditionally romantic moments.
Turning the drama into a straight romance also further undermines any commentary about sexual harassment when it comes to Mr. Bong and Chang-soo. Especially in the latter case- no one can actually say that Chang-soo should back off of Yoon-i because dating co-workers is verboten because everyone is probably going to be happy when Chi-won and Yoon-i get together publically. Whether that's in the next episode or the ending is hard to say because the timing in "Jugglers" is completely off kilter.
I still like Bo-yool and Jeong-ae at least. Really, Jo-yool is a lot of fun in general. Jo-yool is not as dumb as he looks, and I really like those moments of awareness Lee Won-geun gives where we can tell he's scheming about some minor new fact, we just don't know what the pay-off is yet. Whereas Bo-yool has this great vibe of eager friendliness that is always getting her in trouble. The worst of it is, Bo-yool is way too nice to actually tell anyone about it.
Bo-yool and Jeong-ae are much more well-drawn and intresting characters than the actual leads in this drama. At first blush better chemistry between the relevant actors is the main obvious explanation, although really, Yoon-i and Chi-won are just too generic for their own good is the real problem. With the Best Boss Awards out of the way neither of them has any motivation anymore, so all there's left to do is wait for the big kiss.
Review by William Schwartz
"Jugglers" is directed by Kim Jeong-hyeon-I, written by Jo Yong and features Baek Jin-hee, Choi Daniel, Kang Hye-jeong, and Lee Won-geun.

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