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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "It's Okay, That's Love" Episode 15

This episode is all about false reassurance. Jae-yeol takes minor recovery in his condition as justification for early release with...well, not bad consequences exactly. There's no significant disaster this episode that forces another serious reevaluation. It's more a matter of Jae-yeol just taking a hard look at himself and discovering the situation is exactly as dire as the doctors say. Everything is meticulously scripted and shot to lead to this shining moment of self-discovery.

It's a huge building moment of humility for him. Remember that this is the same Jae-yeol who has an unimpeachable reputation as a dreamboat. His aggressive borderline illegal behavior has, to date, only ever gotten him good things in regards to his relationship with Hae-soo. And now he discovers that this arrogance is quite literally killing him. Jae-yeol's lucky he has Hae-soo now, since it's hard to imagine him utilizing this same bravado in the future.

The only reason Jae-yeol is able to maintain this tough facade for as long as he does is due to his habit of ignoring other people. It's especially significant that his moment of humility comes at the prompting of Hae-soo, who uses Jae-yeol's own understanding of logic to force him to see the truth from his own perspective. The general sense of defeat in his tone is palpable and heartbreaking. There have certainly been antagonistic characters in the drama up until this point, but none this forcefully portrayed. Jae-yeol has met the enemy, and it is him.

This is another mostly predictable melodramatic episode, but that's a good thing. Jae-yeol is coming to terms with reality, and it's the responsibility of the people who care about him to help with this. Even before Jae-yeol's big moment of insight simply having gone to the hospital at all has clearly changed the man in terms of the humility in his interpersonal reactions. This makes the overall transition that much easier.

All of this goes a long way to rehabilitating Jae-yeol's character. It does not, naturally, do much for anyone else in this drama, and the little side plots are mostly irrelevant to the overall proceedings. I still really dislike this drama's unwarranted sense of optimism, but at least in the context of the current main storyline, the pervading attitude of how things can get better is a persuasive one. There isn't really anything here that could reasonably be called a fantasy at this point, even if that's what so much of the drama has been up until point.

Review by William Schwartz

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"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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