Let’s start with calling things by their right name: Netflix has this marked as “Soaps - Drama - Dysfunctional family", and that is what it is, in other words: makjang. It is in many ways a melodramatic and exaggerated drama about family, friendship, motherhood, and obsession. It also has a mystery, but it is not too heavy on the suspense and I would not call this a thriller at all. In my opinion, that is not a bad thing! As I wasn’t expecting it, I wasn’t disappointed.

This being said, I guess I can understand where the “nothing happens” reactions come from, because there must for sure be more thrilling dramas than this one. I however, found the plot interesting enough and I cared about most of the characters. The things that happened were often related to family matters, even though the starting point of the drama is that someone (it remains to find out who) is found dead.

When I was halfway through it, it amused me to compare it to a palace drama, because the main characters are crazy rich and live in huge houses with servants, and some of them act like royalties from another century. (I was half expecting the old woman to demand to have servants flogged at some point…) People who like those dramas might also enjoy Mine! In the beginning of the first episode, the patriarch of the family falls into a coma (how many emperors in a coma have you seen yet??), and the family is stressed out by the fact that they don’t know who’ll inherit the company (become crown prince). The oldest son is kind of a slacker (sounds familiar?), but the youngest and very ambitious one is the son of a mistress (since long dead noble consort) and the matriarch (empress) doesn’t like him.

This whole “father in a coma, who will get the company” part is just the background, though. The main character is Hee Soo, wife of the younger son. It is interesting to compare her to her mother-in-law. The old lady screams and shouts a lot, and she was never able to love the son she didn’t give birth to. We’ve seen this in many dramas. Hee Soo, however, is also a stepmother, but she loves her little boy just as much as any mother could ever love her child! This drama is about different kind of mother-child relationships. Hee Soo appears very gentle and warm, “just” a sweet, motherly woman… but this drama will show that she has claws just like any “tiger mom”. Something starts to happen when the family hire a new tutor for their little son, and Hee Soo soon feels that something is not right with her.

Hee Soo and the teacher, Miss Kang, are two of the important women in the drama. The third one is Seo Hyun, wife of the older son. She is everything he is not: elegant, smart, in control, fully capable of leading a very big company. She is born to be a queen! But of course she has a secret… She doesn’t have a very good relationship with her husband and stepson, but she is close to her sister-in-law, and in the end, female friendship and support is one of the main points of this drama. If Hee Soo and Seo Hyun had been male characters, people on the MDL feeds would be talking about the amazing, beautiful “bromance” all day! I adored the two of them. There are also many more important characters, like the nun, Mother Emma, who is close to Hee Soo, among others.

This drama has a few mysteries, like who is the teacher really, who is the one who dies and who did it, and there are secrets that are revealed throughout the drama, for example connections between characters. This drama also has pretty much every cliché in the book… but that is to be expected from a makjang, right?! Some characters are also pretty boring (like the older grandson and his rich man/poor woman romance, but maybe the idol actor is there to attract younger viewers?), but even if there is some “filler”, I didn’t find the drama draggy and there were also a few (unexpectedly) hilarious moments. Many of the characters did their best to grow and change for the better.

I almost never rewatch dramas (once in seven years), so the “rewatch value” category doesn’t mean anything to me… but if I imagine that I have to rewatch this (I could maybe convince some friend to watch, and the friend demands company..?) I don’t think I would mind, because there is a lot to look at in this drama. The houses are big and shiny with nice art, the women are beautiful and their clothes are gorgeous most of the time. Sometimes they wear pretty jewelry and the peacock in the garden (mother-in-law’s pet; expect something funny related to the friendship theme I mentioned in the later episodes!) is beautiful. Everything was really nice to look at. Rewatching Seo Hyun and Hee Soo really wouldn’t hurt me.

The music is just background to me, unless there is something annoying or something that is very good. This was okay.

So, to sum it up: don’t expect something dark and thrilling, but lots of motherly love, sibling rivalry, screaming women and sisterly affection. This drama was enjoyable to me – and I was pleasantly surprised by the actual LBGTQ-content that wasn’t just subtext!* -- and I’m very glad I watched it. But I wouldn’t recommend it to someone like my grandmother who is disgusted by crazy rich main characters (“so unrealistic!”), or to anyone who hates makjang.

* I don’t mean that this drama has everything from lesbians to queer, I just included all letters to avoid spoiling too much!