Having mostly watched for the Jae Hoon and Han Joo storyline, I am somewhat disappointed in their ending. Perhaps, rewatching this drama when I am in my late 20s or 30s will bring about a more enlightening perspective to fully understand and relate to the drama’s issues. While I understand the creative intention of the way their storyline was ultimately concluded, I find myself struggling to accept it due to some issues I have, but this could be to biases and my inherent desire to escape from reality by watching idealistic rom-com shows. From what I gathered, Jae Hoon’s implied reconciliation with his ex-girlfriend somewhat rubs me the wrong way (wanky) in that it fails to understand the true nature of alcoholism and toxic relationships. The depiction of Jae Hoon’s contribution to the decay of his relationship with his ex-girlfriend was not executed that well in my opinion. Having just watched 500 days of summer with its themes fresh in mind and similarities to this, the execution wasn’t done as well. My honest opinion of this drama is that on the outer surface, it claims and portrays itself as a fresh and groundbreaking drama with the issues it tackles, when in reality it’s execution of these important and significant issues are subpar. However, this is specifically what I gathered from mainly being invested in the Jae Hoon-Han Joo storyline. Going beyond my focus of that storyline, it fails to really go deep into the struggles of Hyo Bong and being an openly gay male in modern-day Korea. The exploration of same-sex relationships and homosexuality made only a speck of the plot, but in a very outer-perspective and outer surface manner. Another thing is being a young, single mother. These issues that go beyond my initial reasoning for watching this drama were barely explored and poorly executed. I’m not so much upset that Jae Hoon and Han Joo didn’t end up together even though I was rooting for them, but it was more the disappointment of the endings they were given, more so Jae Hoon, and the final conclusion of the nature of their friendship in an attempt to subvert typical kdrama tropes and expectations.

The drama seems to only scratch the surface of the serious issues it intends to explore. While I have rated dumber dramas higher, the distinction is that this drama intends to be groundbreaking and so I must rate it on that basis - on how it executes their intention. As opposed to dumb and exaggerated rom-coms, those should be taken as what they are as their intention isn't to spark some sort of relatability like this drama attempts to. However, I do give it a relatively high rating despite my dissatisfaction with the ending because I love the refreshing characters it presents us with. This really distinguishes itself from other dramas and made it an enjoyable watch.