Santa Arrives
Episode 8 of Love (ft. Marriage and Divorce) Season 3 starts with Hye-Ryung spooked and hurrying out the house.
After seeing Song-Won’s ghost, she’s not hanging about. The ghost does though, and even sits with Sa-Hyeon while he’s in the living room. Later on, we see the ghost eating doughnuts, because why not I guess?
Meanwhile, Dong-Mi heads home after the Ki-Rim ghost episode and hands over some gifts to give to Ji-A. She even praises Pi-Young and gives her a hug. It’s pretty bizarre behaviour and something that immediately sees Pi-Young ring A-Mi, telling her she was was acting strangely.
A-Mi opens up and admits to Pi-Young that Ji-A was there at the bookstore and left, with her reciting the words about not wanting to see Yu-Shin again. Although Yu-Shin is understandably not happy, they’re both interrupted by Dong-Mi showing up with gifts for them both, doing her best to be sympathetic to her needs.
Yu-Shin is called away by Hae-Ryun who takes him out for drinks. The pair gossip about Si-Eun’s marriage, with Hae-Ryun worried about the man her ex is dating.
With the wedding coming up next month, he tasks Yu-Shin with looking into this in more detail for him.
Meanwhile, Seo-Ban’s father shows up to see his son, although they’re clearly estranged. He asks a number of questions about Si-Eun but Seo-Ban is cold and standoffish, knowing that he probably won’t approve of her.
Seo-Ban’s father is not happy with his choice, given the possibility of having kids is very low and eventually admits that he’s speechless, unhappy with Seo-Ban dating someone like Si-Eun.
Getting nowhere with Seo-Ban, he turns toward his other son, the creepy stalker Dong-Ma. He’s obviously unhappy and tries to come up with a way of dissuading them from getting married.
Dong-Ma admits that he’s already tried talking to his brother but that hasn’t worked. However, it’s fair to say he’s going to probably keep up this charade and mess up the wedding in some way.
Si-Eun gets packed up with Seo-Ban as they head out for their scheduled trip. With the pair getting along well with U-Ram and Hyang-Ki, Ji-A is not taking the news about her father well.
Ji-A sits at dinner with Pi-Young and starts crying, dumbfounded over what Yu-Shin has done. Pi-Young gently reassures her, even deciding they should forgive Yu-Shin and move past this. She admits to Ji-A that you can’t control your heart and who you love, so in that respect she doesn’t blame A-Mi.
Yu-Shin heads over to try and patch things up with Ji-A, even bringing a gift for her too. However, he has an ulterior motive – he’s there to ask about Seo-Ban. Through Pi-Young, he learns who he is and eventually stops with the questioning.
When Yu-Shin leaves, creepy Dong-Ma arrives dressed as Santa Claus to her door. He hugs Pi-Young tightly, who admits that she missed him.
Dong-Ma drops off a whole stack of gifts for her and Ji-A, including cakes, socks and a massive teddy. As they message one another later, Ji-A has been invited along to go to a hotel with Dong-Mi. After what happened to Pi-Young’s mum, she’s taking no chances and decides to go.
So off she goes, on a road-trip with happy Dong-Mi, Yu-Shin and A-Mi. The gang start skiing together, with Ji-A deciding to be open to this new relationship.
Pi-Young messages Dong-Ma while she’s in the bath, sending a picture of her leg across to him. He’s obviously very fond of this, as Pi-Young continues to express interest in the creep (Sorry readers, this whole “romance” is icky.)
With the whole family gone, Pi-Young meets with Dong-Ma and the pair head out together to go and try on rings and necklaces. Money is no problem for Dong-Ma, who ends up buying her some jewellery.
Dong-Ma admits that he wants to get married quickly, deciding to rush through everything and admitting he doesn’t want to hang about and wait. He even *checks notes* admits that he likes hearing her scream. Right then.
After their night together, Dong-Ma drive her home, giving her a kiss and promising to buy her a cake the following day. He also tells her to stop moving her mouth how she is, hugging her as she’s about to shut the door.
Meanwhile, Dong-Mi grabs a pair of scissors and begins cutting her hair off in the middle of the night.
The Episode Review
After watching Pi-Young fall for Dong-Ma, I now understand why so many people were swooning for Ted Bundy. The man is a straight-up creep.
Dong-Ma barely knows Pi-Young, wants to rush through dating and getting to know her, stalks her all over a fairground, makes her visibly uncomfortable until her defences are shattered and then decides they’re going to get married immediately, and that she’s the love of his life.
Pi-Young has now decided she likes Dong-Ma after their kiss, a kiss she didn’t actually ask for and could be construed as assault, especially if she didn’t like it.
Compared to the natural chemistry between Seo-Ban and Si-Eun, which is really sweet, these two are just straight up awful. Sorry guys, I’m not seeing it and it feels like it’s been picked up from the rejected pile of teenage romance novels.
Si-Eun and Seo-Ban’s story does fare a little better which is good, but even then the show has issues balancing that with more interesting drama and a consistent storyline right the way through.
For now though, everything is falling into place for another train wreck of a season. But yet, somehow, it’s watchable enough to keep going. So who knows! We’ll have to wait and see what next week has in store for us.
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Episode Rating
(2)
Not worth of your time! I thought they have come this far only to mess up the whole drama series….very disappointing
I love Seo Ban and Lee Se-Eun. Please do not kill the characters. Both of them deserve happiness and their children.
Korea is a culture with different perspectivesof course and often we think they ‘should’ do things our way. The alpha male is still popular (versus the Beta male in the women-centric dramas we see now) and so our perspective of the man that ‘won’t give up’ might come off as stalkerish, but I like his forthrightness. He says what he likes without any smarminess…just states it as a fact. HE LIKES HER. I totally get and cheer on the fact that Pi-young won him over with her ‘scream’. Weird…but then so are many of the small things that someone does in the moment that completely topples our hearts. As for getting your parents’ blessing to marry, there’s still a thread of Confucianism running through their culture…a respect for the hierarchy of the family. There are three different levels of speech that koreans use, depending on whether they’re elders, someone older (either in age or seniority at work) or younger than you. Five years ago, a young korean-canadian fellow I work with, flew back to Seoul to introduce his fiancée to his grandparents and ask for their blessing. Nowadays it’s more of a courtesy, but back in the day, when marriages weren’t about love but more like alliances formed to protect and grow the future & status of the couple’s family, it was critical to know the background of the new partner’s family as well as their ages to ensure there would be children going forward. I travelled every month to Seoul on business for about 7 years, and found such amazing politeness everywhere. Truly admire them.
What guy would take you for dinner then propose to you there and then the first time meeting you this doesn’t happen in the real world and she just goes along with it her character is so slow like a robot there actions are untrue no wonder there are lots of divorces going on when they don’t get to know each other before accepting there gesture wrong wrong wrong ladies there is no guilt that the girlfriends have just been dumped so coldly and now she thinks she’s queen bee because he asked her to marry him we reap what we sow you’ll get yours and since when do You need permission of the in laws like one massive interview so if mommy or daddy don’t agree you wouldn’t go through marrying the person you love come on now!! Also how dare the husband who cheated and left the family disagree with her that she shouldn’t marry and try her make her feel guilty no no no do one!! The first second you cheat on your partner is the time you’ve kissed goodbye to your marriage right? If only marriage was that easy I don’t think so!! Maybe show the stresses and struggles people go through to put food on the table to keep a roof over our heads and food in cupboards spending our last pennies wisely then this would be realistic.
I thought that season 3’s storyline and plots couldn’t be worse than season 2, but I was totally wrong. The chemistry between Seo-Ban and Si-Eun gave me hope that this season was the writer’s redemption, but then you discovered that their relationship and pending marriage isn’t going to happen. Not with Seo-Ban’s father disapproval, and he had the nerve to say that she looked older than Seo-Ban; and Doug-Ma’s backstabbing. Now, the writer could have written that Si-Eun was going to be pregnant by using donor eggs (this method is used by some couples with wealth), so that Seo-Ban could experience fatherhood and his father would get his wish to have a biological grandchild from his first born.
Then the storyline between Doug-Ma and Pi-Young makes no sense. Why would Pi-Young be interested in a man who just dumped his fiance not once but twice, considering what she had experienced with her ex-husband. Unless it’s the writer’s plan to make women seem like fools who don’t learn from their previous experiences.
Also, why would Song-Won’s ghost enter Hye-Ryung who is conniving and selfish? Why couldn’t her ghost enter her friend’s Ga-Bin who is a loving person? At the very least Hye-Ryung should have been allowed to show some growth, so that she could meet someone she could love instead of looking at wealth and appearing to be a gold digger.
This drama is so badly written that I wouldn’t be surprised if the writer ends this drama with these ladies going back with their ex-husband which would hammer the nails in the coffin. What a pity this could have been a good drama, instead I have to leave the thumbs down on Netflix.
Season 1 & 2 held my interest. Season 3 is absolutely ridiculous! l usually enjoy K-dramas because they usually have a great story line. Better than some dramas in the US, but this one has taken a drastic change. Pi-young and Dong-Ma’s storyline is crazy. He come across as childish and I thought of her as being a strong character, but she’s falling for it like a school girl. As you said, CREEPY!!
The ghost storyline with hime invading peoples bodies is just weird to me. If he’s trying to get back at his wife for letting him die, why use other people to do that???
The relationship with A-mi and Pi-Young is a bit far fetched to me. All of a sudden you seem to be besties with the woman that had an affair with your husband. STOP!
Not sure if I’ll be able to watch much more of this drama, due to the unpredictable storyline changes. I feel stupid, thinking why do I keep watching this?? Some real changes need to be made with this drama, from the acting, the story and the plot
Am most grateful to priest ADU who has given me a new outlook in my relationship. I have been experiencing difficulty in my relationship for a few months now, but just last week I heard about solution temple who I contacted at (solution- temple.webnode. com), he has been wonderful and kind with all his reunion love spell. My lover has totally change for better. Thanks so much for being there for me, and clearing the air for be the most wonderful and dream man I ever want to be with, He has totally changed for the best ever since the spell was done. to make him stop cheating and misbehaving around other women.
Also wanted to say,the character of Dong-ma looks like a dummy,actually a dummy could probably do better
Spot on review, says it all for me
The ghosts are a joke, so is the Dong-ma/Pi-young thing. Admit writing is poor
Just watching the part of him ‘forcing’ a ring on her,what a total creep
boo hye hrung character is just a limbo…She supposed to be one of the lead character but somehow not given her enough exposure.. I hope that there’s another new actor that played as her man instead of going back to her ex….I’ m drastically rooting for her to have a new man..
@Vanessa, agree with your forecast. Bear in mind this is a Korean drama, for them this is not stalker / creepy behaviour, but a way to persuade the other party that your feelings are worth considering. I can’t wait until next week-end !!!
Who is the actor playing Seo Ban’s father?
Pi-young is a bit out of character but I like this new opportunity for her, she is lonely and alone, while his former husband has reconstructed his life. Dong Ma will for sure fall in love with her and she will reject him before marrying. Dong Ma will suffer himself all what he did to other women. BUT ….. in the end … they will be together.