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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "It's Okay, That's Love" Episode 13

Pretty much the entirity of this episode is devoted to the seriousness of Jae-yeol's mental condition, and I have to admit I was actually fairly surprised at how tastefully this was handled. So far the drama's exploration of psychiatric conditions has been pretty superficial. I guess that since Jae-yeol's a main character, though, there's a sort of gravity to what he's experiencing that for once requires everyone to actually act like a serious professional and calmly discuss the best way of getting him treatment.

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Hae-soo undergoes a lot of conflict here, since it quickly becomes obvious that she will have to betray Jae-yeol's trust in the short term in order to get him long term treatment. There's a maturity at play here that's so far from the bickering banter from earlier in the drama that I'm frankly having trouble processing this is the same person. I guess love makes you a more considerate morally conflicted person? Well, whatever. Works for me.

Even Jae-yeol's other relationships come off in a much better light. He never actually seemed to get along with Soo-gwang- they were always just sort of mean to each other, and they're mean to each other here, too, but I think it's the context that really changes the situation. Before, everybody was indulging Jae-yeol's obnoxious whims for no reason. Here, though, the sense is that everybody's avoiding fighting with Jae-yeol because they realize he needs sympathy at this point, since things are about to get really bad.

The internal logic is also very good. We're treated to a lot of flashbacks that go into the various facets and clues of Jae-yeol's condition, and there were actually quite a few more of these than I'd originally noticed. Admittedly, this is at least partially because a lot of the time it's difficult to tell the difference between Jae-yeol's mental illness and his actual personality. Which is probably part of the point here. It's why people don't like taking their meds. In many ways it turns them into a different person.

After everything this drama's tossed up so far I definitely wasn't expecting that kind of depth in regards to mental issues here, which actually make me fairly interested in what's going to happen next episode, and how the characters and Jae-yeol himself are going to deal with his getting committed. Even repeated scenes like Jae-yeol's street fight against no one take on an emotional legitimacy here that brings out some decent performances from the cast.

Review by William Schwartz

"It's Okay, That's Love" is directed by Kim Kyoo-tae, written by Noh Hee-kyeong and features Zo In-sung, Kong Hyo-jin, Sung Dong-il and Lee Kwang-soo.

 

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