"Shall We Kiss First" Episodes 33-34 recap

There's an interesting moment in the thirty-fourth episode where reference is made to the candlelight rallies. For most of the candy company plot in "Shall We Kiss First" I'd actually been thinking the same thing. The superpowered corporation that can obliterate obstacles by waving a magic public relations wand is a dinosaur of a trope at this point, and calls attention to just how corny the story in "Shall We Kiss First" really is. Especially since Moo-han himself was their public relations wand and knows all their secrets.

"Shall We Kiss First" itself seems to recognize how horribly jarring this plotline is tonally, by simply having Soon-jin and Moo-han ignore it and choose to do other things in their spare time that have nothing to do with anything. I kept wondering where the parents of those two little moppets had gone off to. I also wondered why Soon-jin and Moo-han themselves did not ask about this, although that scene was mainly just an excuse to show how good the leads are with kids.

That's very cheap character sympathy, and it's annoying. I liked Moo-han better as a man who had seriously looked back at his life as a father and decided that he simply wasn't up to the job. Twisted though it was, Moo-han's morbid reflection was what made him so intriguing as a character. Moo-han used to be the antagonist of a previous drama, who won, and has since realized that his past victories were meaningless farces that needlessly crushed innocent people.

Kyeong-soo also worked better as a petty man who cheated on his ex-wife and remarried his mistress, feeling guilty all the while, then he does as the father of a martyred daughter turned martyr himself. Everything about the jail is just dumb. Are the police on the payroll of the evil candy company? You'd think vindictively jailing a guy who publically punched your CEO in the face for mocking his dead daughter would be a bigger public relations problem then the trial but again. Magic wand.

But then Kyeong-soo is just a messenger to deliver yet more distressing news to Soon-jin. Nothing new at this point. It's still weird to think that, in-continuity, Moo-han is supposed to die in maybe like a week. There's just too much distracting plot. It's impossible to properly focus on the mortality aspect of the story, which is infinitely more interesting than the all powerful candy company.

Review by William Schwartz

"Shall We Kiss First" is directed by Son Jeong-hyeon, written by Bae Yoo-mi and features Kam Woo-sung, Kim Sun-ah, Oh Ji-ho, and Park Si-yeon.