Love in Contract: Episodes 15-16 (Final)
by Unit
At last, our contractual tale comes to an end this week – but not without the usual last minute tropes. They’re accompanied by laughter and a few sprinkles of tears, as each of our characters come to a resolution of their arcs and plot their way to happily ever after.
EPISODES 15-16 WEECAP
In our finale, the source of drama comes from the peanut-sized brain that is Hae-jin’s brother. First, he threatens to expose the Jamie Project to the public if the Eena Group’s chairman doesn’t give him 20% of the company’s stocks. Then he sends some lazy men in black to break into Sang-eun’s house looking for proof, but in this day and age, who still keeps things like that at home? Pfft. Honestly, if he put in this much dedication and effort into his work at Kangjin Group, he might at least have made some decent achievements for himself.
The downside to all of this is that Gwang-nam starts to rethink his Canada move in order to stay behind and protect Sang-eun. Aish! Ji-ho, Hae-jin, and Mi-ho also want to protect Sang-eun, and you’d think she’s a minor who can’t handle her business by herself the way they try to withhold information from her — against her wishes — all in the name of protection.
Ji-ho even risks his career by attempting to weasel Mi-ho out of prison time in Operation Take Down Eena Group just because Sang-eun cares about the woman. Tsk. This isn’t the romantic or caring gesture he thinks it is, it’s just very reckless — and unexpected too, because it’s neither a judge nor a Ji-ho thing to be this biased.
Thankfully, in one of the smartest and most selfless moves Ji-eun has ever made, she lets Sang-eun in on Ji-ho’s plans, and Sang-eun shuts the whole thing down. Mi-ho already plans to take responsibility for her actions, and she has made peace with the fact that she’s not likely to go scot-free herself. And if Ji-ho won’t listen to her request to stay away from the case, at least he will listen to Sang-eun when she tells him hands-off the matter.
But Sang-eun is also not in support of Mi-ho’s self-sacrificing plans because as it turns out, she has known for years that Mi-ho is her mother. As she begs her mother not to abandon her again, Mi-ho breaks down. And I’m sorry, but her crying is just really funny — both the visuals and the sounds lol.
Taking matters into her own hands, Sang-eun waltzes into a board meeting at Kangjin Group as the Eena Group’s daughter, and exposes Hae-jin’s brother as the sleazy pervert he is. From the recording she plays, it turns out he not only made the moves on her at the arranged marriage meeting 13 years ago, but he also vowed to kick the rest of his family out of the company. Of course, in the present, his father has him thrown out of the meeting and sent abroad on exile in the usual chaebol style. Good riddance!
Unfortunately, we are not done with the drama just yet because they throw in a last minute noble idiocy trope from Sang-eun, and make my Ji-ho cry. *Cusses in alien languages.* Just when I thought we’d finally get a drama where the lead couple doesn’t break up at all, they had to manufacture this extra contrived and unnecessary conflict which does nothing but make everybody miserable. Ugh!
The couple eventually gets back together after Sang-eun returns to her good senses, and wedding plans get underway. (Park Min-young is a beauty in wedding dresses!) But as it turns out, neither of them actually wants a wedding ceremony — after spending so much time fussing over the details — they just assumed the other person wanted the wedding. Heh.
But our couple aren’t the only ones chasing after their happiness. Sang-eun draws parallels between her relationship with her mother and Hae-jin with his mum, in advising the mum to allow Hae-jin to live the way he wants. Thankfully, his mum takes this to heart and finally stands up to his dad to release their son from the shackles of chaebol duty. Thus, Hae-jin returns to acting with a plan of learning directing as well, and he actually looks happier.
As for Gwang-nam, his reluctance to debut as a singer in Korea stems from the fear of losing everything if his sexuality is outed like what happened at his former job. His concern is valid, but so is Jung-hwan’s determination to debut him and stay by his side as a manager. Gwang-nam’s family hasn’t fully accepted his sexuality yet, but they cut him some major slack after hearing that he’s going to be a singer under Kang Hae-jin’s agency.
Hae-jin and Ji-eun go on a date which isn’t a date, but there’s some possibility here, yunno. Mi-ho and Sang-eun now have a proper mother–daughter relationship and Eena Group’s chairman decides to donate his assets and retire. And we’re supposed to just forgive them so easily, right? Anyway, there’s no end to a rom-com without the proposal — which Ji-ho characteristically doesn’t even think about until his colleagues bring it to his attention.
Sang-eun ends up doing the proposing in her usual flashy style, accompanied by Gwang-nam singing in the background. (He sings the main OST of the drama, and I chuckled at the meta. Heh.) Ji-ho also has his own more intimate proposal planned for later on, and Sang-eun is only too happy to say yes! They move in together celebrated by the people they love, and this is such a lovely note to end the drama on.
As much as I enjoyed the ride, I have to say this drama was nothing close to perfect. It had some major flaws, from the writing which was kinda all over the place, to the genre which kept dancing between the lines of rom-com and makjang. Like many a drama I have watched, there was a gap between my initial expectations and the reality of what I eventually got.
Still, I remained very much willfully blinded to the faults of this drama till the end, and perhaps that’s why I enjoyed it as much as I did. More than the plot itself, I was more invested in the characters. Especially Ji-ho, who is arguably the best thing to come out of the drama, and made sitting through the show worth it.
Jung Ji-ho is a classic example of the right character meeting the right actor, because while Ji-ho was lovable on his own, Go Kyung-pyo made the character even more charming and easy to root for. Ji-ho bewitched me and I gladly gave in to his enchantment because there were a number of things I’d overlook in other male leads, but I squealed whenever Ji-ho did them. Like dialogue delivery, for instance, as even the most mundane lines sounded very sexy coming out of his mouth. Heh.
Ji-ho came a long way from his early days in the Timid People Anonymous, and it was really interesting to watch the slow evolution of his character. While he still remained his slightly curt and reserved self, he grew out of the standoffishness and I love that his transformation from antisocial to social was not a total 180° change. A lot of his charm resides in his “interacting with people (except Sang-eun) is stressful” nature, and a drastic change in that would have messed up his character.
Sang-eun was basically Park Min-young as we’ve seen her in many a rom-com, and the character wasn’t that special enough to leave as much of an impression. She has spunk (and great hair), I’ll give her that, but I liked her more for the actress than the character herself.
As for Hae-jin, bless his heart, but the only attractive part about him was that he was played by Kim Jae-young. He didn’t even stand a chance as a worthy competition, and they did him no favors by making him come across as a whiny, annoying child more than half the time. But he ended up happy with himself and his family, so I guess all’s well that ends well.
Will I miss the drama? Honestly, not really. Ji-ho just being his amazing self, and his interactions with Sang-eun, are probably the only things I’ll miss about it. But did I have fun both watching and weecaptaining the show? Abso-freaking-lutely! Overall, it was an entertaining mess, and sometimes that’s not such a bad thing.
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Love in Contract: Episodes 15-16 (Final)
Source: Buzz Pinay Daily
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