Love To Hate You (2023) Season 1 Review – A thoroughly enjoyable romantic drama

14 thoughts on “Love To Hate You (2023) Season 1 Review – A thoroughly enjoyable romantic drama”

1. Overall, a very nice drama

2. All things considered, I do think that the video that resolved the controversy could have very well been avoided. I don’t really like seeing the cheating ex-bf getting to play the hero and save the day (and damsel in distress?), like the rest of her colleagues, and everyone having a kubaya moment, sweeping all the issues under the rug. I wouldn’t have considered everyone aligning behind her a realistic outcome, but if they had chosen to stay together and stick it out, I think that there could have been a realistic scenario where public opinion shifted enough that ML could have a career (also considering that his viewers are likely to be in the younger segment of the population who was more supportive of FL).

3. If I reflect on this, I do tend to agree that the situation with the scandal would have been probably better resolved by them sticking it out, staying together, and the public slowly shifting opinion enough once they realized that the ML and FL couldn’t be bullied into submission, to allow him to carry on with his career. Not a magical realignment of everyone’s opinion, more like a gradual shift of the younger generation (which are likely the main consumers of his works), and so on. I didn’t really like the cheating ex-bf and the colleagues getting kinda of a redemption arc, happy ending, kumbaya moment: in that respect, I do thin it shouldn’t have been about her settling and “forgetting” bad behavior and everyone having a group hug, that does sound like cope, etc.

4. To be perfectly honest, I was not really a fan of how the controversy was resolved with the video either… I didn’t really like the cheating ex-boyfriend getting some sort of redemption arc? And being the one that “saves the day”. I think that the public starting to change their minds a little at a time and them choosing to stay together would have been a better approach. Equally realistic (with no major sudden alignment of the public), but avoiding that whole thing with her colleagues, redeemed in extremis and all ends in kumbaya… not a fan.

5. I do think that, overall, this romantic comedy managed to raise a bunch of issues, and probably was more effective in conveying certain messages to people than if it had been a non-comedic show, taking itself way too seriously, putting the viewer though some sort of lecture about all that is wrong with society. Frankly, I have seen other dramas in the past that attempted to make a point and kind of overplayed their hands, with one sided dialogues or situations with plenty of non-sequiturs and interlocutors unable to come up with a convincing and nuanced case or rebuttal despite pretty glaring flaws, or society suddenly and inexplicably changing and unbelievably aligning behind a message (note that in reality we have people disagreeing even about the most obvious fact, such as the fact that we went to the moon). In other words, picking a winner and pushing ahead with plot armor or just pretending that the situation or dialogue made sense. All in all, I felt that this was largely avoided in this drama, which was a romantic comedy, and therefore using a different tone which requires adjusting one’s expectations for some over the top situations. So, I would have maybe appreciated more nuance in what was the truth and what was PR, but I chose to go with the most charitable interpretation and give the drama the benefit of the doubts: she liked sex, she was sincere when she told people that there was nothing wrong with a long dating history and she doesn’t feel the need to go steady with the first person she ever dated, and the bit about her being some sort of “avenger” only going after scumbags was only a part of the story. We see for example that she certainly didn’t get a boyfriend or sleep with the guy she slept with in the first episode because she was trying to teach them a lesson: she didn’t think that her boyfriend would cheat when she begun dating him six months ago, and when he did, she slept with other men as well (which I thought was perfectly fair: he didn’t show her any loyalty or honesty, so he shouldn’t expect any in return: loved that she made that point when he incredibly tried to take her to task for her behavior). As for the guy she sleeps in the first episode, she obviously wanted to have a one night stand, she had met him only two hours before, so she clearly didn’t intend to punish him (for that matter, she discovers he is a romantic type, and it’s not as if she has some strange thought that she should only sleep with scumbags for revenge… no, he was someone she was attracted to, and she had a one night stand with him: this was something she enjoyed doing, not about her proving a point or wanting to hurt the guy). So in terms of her enjoying sex, etc., I don’t think it was invalidated by the video in the last episode.

6. I did find a lot of points of agreement with this take, and some where I have a slightly different perspective. Off the top of my head, as an incomplete list:

   1. I do agree that there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying sex or having a long dating history, and that it would be good to see it framed like that, rather than as an expression of her misandry. I would in fact say that being sex positive is incompatible with misandry -or misogyny-, in a heterosexual context, because she would, after all, sleep with men, and if she wanted to have casual sex, her partner would be someone that also enjoys causal sex, and sleeping with them while looking down on them as womanizers for sharing her same attitude and behavior does seem hypocritical and unhealthy, just as it would be for them to look for casual sex and them slut-shame her. In defense of her characterization, while it was not consistent, it was not clear to me that she was insincere in enjoying the sex and dating and it was all due to hatred of men.

   2. I do think that an irrational prejudice is by definition not a rational reaction. In that sense, I don’t really think that misandry is any more rational than misogyny. In the end, it all comes down to taking single episodes or even trends and generalizing to an entire population, and pre-judging single individuals of that population based on such societal stereotypes (the philandering actor, the gold digger, etc.).

   I guess that I would come closer to consider this a rational reaction if 1) she lived in a society which was so oppressive that she could safely assume that any male she encountered would be actively working against her, and 2) she lived in such a state of isolation that made it impossible for her to imagine the existence of societies where men could be on her side. I don’t think that either is true of modern Korea, with all its problems, and in fact she was shown to have at least one male acquaintance she considered decent enough to present to her friend (which turned out to be a scumbag).

   To be honest, though, she didn’t hate the guy before learning about his bad behavior, so it’s not as if her behavior in his respects, as shown in the drama, was irrational. Had she hated him because he was a man despite considering him a good guy -had he been one-, that would have been irrational. So this is more of an argument against this person completely blinded by misandry that is not actually how she was characterized in the drama. That would have been completely irrational. She was simply prejudiced, I guess, meaning by this that maybe she had a low opinion of men by default, but could change her mind once she got to know them.

   Misogyny is obviously a bigger problem in society, but I wouldn’t say that this makes one prejudice better than the other on principle, in the same way that obviously racism is a bigger problem in society than, say, discriminating red headed individuals, but if one hated another person with equal intensity based on one’s hair rather than skin color, conceptually it would be equally irrational, it would just not be something that society should prioritize discussing and addressing, given that it is not a massive societal problem, and racism is.

   I guess that what I am saying is that there are various levels, a personal level where being hated for something outside of your control, without you personally doing anything wrong, is hurtful, a conceptual level where indiscriminately hating someone over an unchangeable characteristic is irrational, and a societal level where, given the history, culture and prevalence of a phenomenon, one thing could be just personally irritating, and another a massive societal problem that society should actually focus on.

   I did find it impressive that they would bring out the topic of ageism/sexism in terms of relationships with age gaps, and point out how irrational it is to celebrate it or criticize it based on who is the younger party. I agree that this double standard is logically indefensible if the baseline not to deny adults of either gender their agency.

   3. I think that, if anything, in principle having a personal trauma as an explanation for such an extreme outlook does make more sense and is more realistic than simply existing in a society where there is injustice. Factually speaking, most people living in the same far from perfect society do not start indiscriminately hating the opposite gender as a response to prejudice and injustice.

   This is just an empirical question: I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that adopting such an extreme outlook would be more likely had there been some personal trauma in one’s life (up to extreme cases such as parental or spousal abuse, or sexual violence) than it would be just existing in a society and being exposed to the same injustices everyone is, but developing an irrational hatred of a whole group where most other people in the same circumstances do not.

   I think that it would undeniably be more understandable: there is some specific event or trauma that caused you to adopt an extreme outlook which is not shared by the majority of people in the same circumstances, while if you had simply lived through the same things as other people that don’t share your extreme worldview, it would beg the question of why you have chosen to adopt said worldview while almost everyone else that had been exposed to similar experiences did not.

   I think that in FL’s case, though, we are a bit in the “personal circumstances” case as well, because of some of the experiences shown in the drama. Nothing as extreme as any sort of physical abuse, etc., but she apparently didn’t have a lot of positive experiences with men, given that she had exactly one male friend that turned out to be a lying scumbag.

   4. I did think that the reasons given for ML’s trauma didn’t really explain him adopting such an extreme outlook and developing such a physical reaction. I also felt that these should really be treated as two different things, because on one hand we have ideas and beliefs that could be argued against and changed, on the other what is essentially an illness that ought to be treated with therapy and medication (and I think he got some medication for the symptoms).

   5. I do tend to share Kfangurl’s opinion that ML does seem to have changed his outlook towards women in general by the end of the drama, rather than just make FL a special case, and the same seems to be the case for her. He does not have adverse physical reactions anymore, and generally seems to have started relating to and treating women better.

   I would say that the same goes for FL, who seems to have also changed her outlook in general, though in her case the situation seemed to have started off in a less serious place, as she did have the one male colleague at the beginning of the drama, and she never did have an adverse physical reaction to having contact with men.

   6. Plus she did have a boyfriend in the beginning, though he cheated on her and she slept with other men in return, which in my eyes was perfectly fine -he was not going to show her any loyalty and honesty, and should therefore not have expected any in return-. I don’t think that falls into the “two wrongs don’t make one right” category. I see it quite different from responding to irrational hatred and prejudice with irrational hatred and prejudice.

   The latter would be more akin to her starting to hate all people sharing the same characteristic as the person that wronged her, such as having black hair, or being of a certain age (in as far as one want to argue for an irrational hatred for a whole group based on convictions about their belief and worldview that they acquired in part through socialization in an unjust society, I guess that the same argument could apply to age or social class as well: for example, older people likely to have more conservative social beliefs… this, of course, ignores the fact that individual differences are such that two people will differ more from each other much more than they any similarity they might have because of common background or characteristics).

   7. I would say that, on ML not cheating not being a choice, I do think that the implication was that he wouldn’t have cheated regardless, and in the end when he solves his issue with physical contact, she doesn’t suspect him of being a philanderer. Point is, he clearly was not going to be physically or emotionally close with other people, so that simply made the chance of him cheating a moot point there, had this been a concern for her, but of course, if he couldn’t get past this block, he couldn’t have a relationship with her either.

   8. In general, I don’t really think that art should be a lecture from the pulpit, so I don’t think that the drama would have been improved if it had turned more preachy. I think it’s a fine line to strike, to convey a message and showcase a theme, but not to become too pedantic and didascalic. The viewer doesn’t want to feel lectured to (let alone shamed). I did think that the drama touched on a lot of important topics, including public people’s right to date who they want without needing to involve their fans in the decision.

   That said, I do agree that it would have been nice to see the characterization put more emphasis on things such as enjoying sex and not dating only the one person you were going to marry not being “right” just because men do it too. I mean, it’s not as if deceiving one’s partner is right because men do it too and society is more lenient towards them -though I guess that there is really no society where the uniform opinion is that that kind of deception is right-.

   The point that should have been made is that men (and more generally people) should not get a free pass for bad behavior, while she shouldn’t be shamed for things that do not hurt anyone else, such as enjoying sex (or, if I can make a small modification, not hurt anyone that doesn’t deserve it… her cheating boyfriend doesn’t really have any room to complain: he didn’t show her any loyalty, and has no right to expect any in return).

7. I have to say that I think that the final video of her being a sort of “fixer” for bad boyfriends was not really meant to be taken as the whole truth -I do think she was sincere when she talked about wanting to date multiple people to find the correct one-.

   I had absolutely no problem with her sleeping with the other guy while she was with her boyfriend, because he was disloyal to her and therefore shouldn’t have expected anything better in return.

   One thing I was a bit disturbed about during the final segment, where she is presented as a vigilante, was her “seducing” a guy that was two-timing his fiancee, and breaking up their engagement.. not sure what that entailed, but frankly I wondered if it was really okay and if it wouldn’t have been less hurtful and more realistic for her to simply go and tell the girl about her boyfriend two-timing her, rather than seducing him and breaking up the engagement.. seems easier for everyone. But that’s in line with the rest of the show where I think that you are not really supposed to micro-analyze these situations.

8. I really think that I was probably wrong… the “cheating” was towards someone that had been disloyal first. I have no problem with her liking sex and wanting to sleep with other people, as long as she is not hurting other women. I must say that I would have to look at it again, but I don’t think she did.

9. I do agree with some of the points raised above, and disagree with the assessment of some of the characterizations.

   On her loving to have sex and having a long dating history, I do think it would not have been the right approach to present this as a mere revenge on males. For things like deceiving one’s partner, the mere fact that males do it and are treated more leniently -though I don’t know of any society where lying to one’s partner is considered right-, does not mean that the behavior should be emulated. The standard should be about whether the behavior hurts innocent people: betraying one’s partner’s trust does, while her having sex with or dating casually other consenting adults does not. I did wish they dealt it differently in the “only dating scumbags for revenge” final bit.

   However, I disagree with the characterization somewhat, in that I think that she did genuinely enjoy the sex/dating as well. I see this similarly to her law degree, in that yes, this was all in the context of wanting to prove her father wrong, but it was not only about that -I don’t see it as a dichotomy-.

   Incidentally, I don’t really think one can be genuinely sex-positive when sleeping with people they feel contempt for on account of them feeling and behaving in the same way they do: this happens to her, and it happens to any male that would sleep with her and then s**t-shame her: it’s clearly hypocritical and unhealthy.

   In terms of misogyny vs misandry, I will state the obvious and note that, factually speaking, irrational hatred for someone based not on that person’s specific actions or ideas, but on some immutable characteristic they have no control over, is by definition irrational. Whether the motivation between the prejudice is one’s personal traumas, or general injustices in society, it doesn’t really make the prejudice itself any more or less irrational.

   I think that the point here is that there is a distinction between the personal and even conceptual level, and the societal level. If we take racism and discriminating redheads, on principle there hating someone for their hair color is no more irrational than hating them for their skin color, but obviously racism is a grievous societal problem and deserves society’s focus in terms of discussing the issue and dealing with it.

   So, the prejudice itself is conceptually no better or worse, but its impact on society, its history, the surrounding cultural context and the number of incidents all determine its relevancy in society and how much collective brain space should be put towards addressing the problem.

   Be it the womanizing male actor or the gold digging social climber, they are society’s stereotypes that they are both buying into and regurgitating. Misogyny is obviously a much bigger societal problem, but is in no way more irrational than other forms of discrimination.

   Empirically speaking, I do think that personal trauma (up to extreme examples such as parental or spousal abuse, or sexual violence) would make a more realistic explanation for adopting an extreme world view than merely being subjected to the same societal injustices that everybody in the same situation is subjected to. Because if they don’t similarly adopt an extreme viewpoint, it would beg the question of why, apparently, most people in the same condition do not, in fact, start hating an entire gender.

   And I think that in the case of the drama, they did show how her hatred of men was driven by experiences with his father, her job, and her relationships. And even then, it is clear to me that she was not entirely prejudiced: while ML couldn’t even physically stand in the proximity of women because of his trauma, she was able to be intimate with men, had a boyfriend and a male friend (who unfortunately turned out to be scumbags), and in her job interacted with male clients.

   As for ML, I must say that frankly, I didn’t really think that his experiences were traumatic enough to lead him towards this sort of extreme world view or cause him such a physical reaction. I do think that the physical reaction should be treated as an illness quite separate from his beliefs: the illness needs to be dealt with by a medical professional, the beliefs ought to be challenged.

   I was impressed by the call-out of the double standards in the perception of age gap relationships, being either celebrated or criticized based on who happens to be the older partner. If the goal is to respect people’s agency and not patronize them, then it does make very little sense to concern-troll from a position of faux moral superiority. Without a rant on ageism and sexism, the only position that makes sense is that what happens between consenting adults is their own business, and no, a random hick from some backwater that feels entitled to opine from a position of authority about a relationship that doesn’t hurt anybody as if they knew better than the people involved in in no way credible.

   On ML, I do think that in the end he truly changed his mind about his beliefs -I think the lack of symptoms, him defending his girlfriend from slut shaming and apologizing to the other actresses, really altered his perception-.

   On the characterization of some of the female characters as flawed, I must say that I didn’t think that this was really the case of repeating stereotypes (if that was the case, basically all male characters are depicted as misogynistic, deceiving scumbags). It’s simply part of the drama’s comedic setting, and I didn’t think the female characters were that bad in the first place -you didn’t get the feeling they deserved to be mistreated because they were not like the FL, or at least that was not what I took away from the drama-.

   I feel that people mistake their personal biases and preferences for a rational assessment of what is ethically relevant. If it’s a relationship between consenting adults, the only question is whether it is hurting anyone (barring gossip-monger with too much time on their hands, or people that would like to be with them instead, or anyone else whose opinion shouldn’t really matter and that have no right to object to what consenting adults choose to do with their lives). If not, then there is objectively speaking nothing immoral about it (the two consenting adults in the relationship being the ultimate authority on their own thoughts and feelings). If yes, that that is the problem to deal with, not their age.

   I do think that people feel, for some reason, much more entitled to opine on topics like this than they would in any other situation… they wouldn’t turn the fact that they don’t feel attracted to people of the same sex, or someone above a certain weight (I actually am not sure I would feel comfortable expressing that opinion in public, and certainly shaming someone else for being in a relationship with a much heavier person seems appalling), into a moral issue.

   Actually, I must say that reviewing that part of the drama, it’s not clear to me how he thought the double standard ought to have been resolved. Obviously, I would only support the message if it was resolved in the direction of letting consenting adults make their own decisions about their personal lives -it’s not up to us to decide who their date or sleep with-. And personally, I absolutely adore Noona romances, and like how lately some show started not even commenting on the Noona age gap -that’s the world we want to more towards-. Even Noona romances that dealt with the age gap as an issue did so in order to ultimately conclude that it would be absolutely foolish to deprive themselves of happiness on account of someone else’s arbitrary standards about the ages of partners in a couple. The message of such dramas is precisely against the narrow minded societal prejudices about what a couple is supposed to look like.

   I think that, in terms of the foolishness of hating on or discriminating against someone based on arbitrary characteristics, it would be equally as foolish as if she had started blaming every black haired person for what her boyfriend did, or every person of the same age (actually, if one wanted to -absolutely irrationally- attempt to rationalize hatred of an entire group based on what could be thought of as typical ideas shared by members of the groups based on some process of socialization, the same could be applied to age: for example, older people tend to be more socially conservative… now, it should be perfectly clear to anyone that discriminating on someone based on age -or gender, for that matter-, on account of an argument such as this, would be utterly foolish, because it would ignore the fact that both age and gender groups are not monolithic and people different between each other much more than they are similar to each other based on some common characteristic or belonging to the same group-).

10. Okay, I was pretty wrong about the setting, I feel… FL basically only “cheated” on her cheating boyfriend, which I felt was perfectly a-okay. I feel 100% okay about everything else, it was meant to be comedic.

11. To be honest, I think that making the ML be an cold or insensitive or abrasive, etc. is not really a change from the typical old school kdrama (take ML in Coffe Prince, etc., basically an adult behaving like a kid that bullied the girl he had a crush on). In that respect, I think that it’s a nice change that they at least attempt to provide a reason in the trauma/illness he suffers to explain his behavior. I do think that this has to be put in the context of the comedic tone of the show, accounting for some over the top behavior ramped up for comedic purposes, or to create additional drama. Plus, playing on the old trope -not that I mean it in a bad way, it is a trope for a reason- of her being the one to “change him” and heal his wounds and change his mind (I guess, though, that in this case it was reciprocal).

    I don’t really completely agree with the assessment of their characterization in terms of their respective misogyny and misandry, to me there was some nuance in how these were represented.

    On one hand, there is a difference between ones’ beliefs and ideas and what is essentially a medical problem. His trauma and the physical symptoms he experiences are things to be dealt with via therapy and medication. That’s a medical issue, not merely a matter of his outlook. In that respect, FL didn’t really even show similar issues: she could be intimate with men, she could even date them (she had a boyfriend in the first episode), or be friendly with them (though her colleague turned out to fit the societal stereotype she usually judged men by).

    I do think that this also means that FL was not totally blinded by irrational hatred of an entire gender, otherwise she would have hated her colleague from the get go, and wouldn’t have thought he was a good guy and presented him to her friend (unfortunately, again, he turned out to fit the stereotype). So, while she was prejudiced, it was not to the point where she was so irrational that she would hate someone on account of his gender even if she thought he was otherwise a good person (again, in this specific case she was unfortunately mistaken about his good character).

    I do think that her responding to societal pressures by hating men with such a passion that she wouldn’t be willing to give them a chance even if they appeared to be good people would not have been a rational reaction. I could imagine a situation where it could be, for example had she lived in a society so oppressive and at the same time isolated that the only reality she knew was one where men were uniformly her enemies and she couldn’t trust them at all. I don’t think that this would be a realistic depiction of modern day Korea, no matter its problems. I also don’t think that this description fit her characterization in the show, however, otherwise it would have been impossible for her to have a boyfriend or a male friend in the first place.

    To be clear, obviously any level of dislike, even if milder, that was based on prejudice, would have been by definition irrational, and therefore, if one was inclined to address it, it would have been something to be corrected, not encouraged. But I don’t think that her hatred of men for simply being men was absolute (in fact I guess that had either of their issues in that regard been that pronounced, it would have been impossible for her and ML to ever enter a relationship).

    All in all, I do think that at the end the drama meant to show that they both realized their outlook, pre-judging people of the opposite gender based on society’s stereotypes (the womanizing male celebrity, the so called “gold digger” or social climber, etc.), was wrong. He doesn’t appear to be suffering from any physical symptoms anymore, so his illness is apparently cured. He is also shown saying nice things and apologizing for his past behavior to the women he had been mean to in the past. At the end of the drama we are also shown how he doesn’t mind FL loving sex and having had multiple relationships in the past (not saying that he should have minded, but a misogynist would definitely have), and defends her from s**t-shaming. I must say that the scene did work for me, just like the transphobic parents in Sense8 finally seeing sense and defending his daughter.

    All in all, I do think that this is indicative that he has essentially become a normal person, and FL is past her hatred and distrust of men as well (just like I assume that at the end of Sense8 the previously transphobic parents have turned a new leaf). All in all, I do wish the show had depicted certain things differently or dived deeper into some nuances, but I choose to give it the benefit of the doubt and read it in the most positive light/interpretation. I do appreciate that the show never turns preachy, pedantic or didascalic, or give the impression to be giving a one-sided lecture from the pulpit of its moral superiority, with an inflated sense of self importance, and I think that it is not a mistake that the drama doesn’t take itself too seriously.

12. > hurting a woman she didn’t even know by sleeping with her husband/boyfriend, being an enabler in a behavior she claims to hate

    I mean, like in episode 1… obviously it depends on whether the person they cheated with knew they were in a relationship or not. If they did not they were obviously guilt-less, if they did then plainly it mean that they didn’t care about being the ones that would do something that would hurt another person that had never done anything against them (if they didn’t even know them, by definition they couldn’t have had anything against them).

13. Actually, my take was not entirely correct, to be honest. Basically, her boyfriend had already been sleeping around behind her back and she knew about it, so she chose to sleep with other people as well. I have absolutely zero problem with that, and in fact support it fully, because if he is not going to show here any loyalty, she obviously doesn’t deserve any in return. Only minor peeve was that it would have been quite horrific had he been sincere and had the phone thing that kinda tipped her off been something she had been mistaken about, I would have been happier had she bothered to double check. But to be honest, I don’t consider her doing this to someone that she knew had been cheating (and she was pretty sure about it, she was not taken aback at all) to be a problem at all -turnabout is fair play-. The other disturbing thing would have been womanizer type 3, the guy that is in a long term relationship. In both cases, the issue being hurting someone that didn’t deserve it (i.e. lying to a long term partner that was loyal to you, or hurting a woman she didn’t even know by sleeping with her husband/boyfriend, being an enabler in a behavior she claims to hate). But I have literally zero problems with her not showing loyalty to someone that didn’t show her any.

14. To be honest, I wasn’t really impressed by FL’s attitude with regards to cheating. I wholly support being free spirited and enjoying sex, but that is quite a different matter from lying to your partner about it if you are in a monogamous relationship, but the show tries to mix these two together. It’s also a complete non sequitur to then point to a societal double standard -setting aside that one should really double check whether this is really an universally accepted attitude, because even while differentially indulgent, I don’t think there are societies that think that deceiving one’s partner is right-. The fact is, if she think it is wrong when it happens in reverse (and absolutely hypocritically she has a vengeance against male philanderers -and I got the feeling it extended to enjoying sex as well, not only to lying to their partners… so she can do it, but others can’t? And who she would be doing it with, be it the casual sex or the cheating? If she couldn’t find a partner to do it with, in the latter case someone willing to sleep with a person in a relationship with someone else, which, again, should have been kept as a separate matter: being willing to have casual sex versus lying to one’s partner or being willing to sleep with someone in a relationship with someone else-) then it’s hard to understand why she would think it would be okay as long as the tables are turned.