[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

Beautiful beautiful insights. Another reason I've loved this drama and why I will rewatch it, to catch the things I missed but you all illuminated so well.

 

Gu had the grace to forgive his hyung because in his heart he knows that hyung will probably die at the hands of the next loan sharks he screws over. Gambling is almost a worse addiction than alcohol and Gu knows the grips that take hold of you and how difficult it is to beat (if you try, at least). I think he realizes that his hyung was driven to do what he did because of the gambling and he has been running away from things because of his drinking. As MJ said, time to face those things and laugh at them, with them. Work on five minutes a day of happiness - this is such an incredible insight and something I will definitely carry with me.

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I feel like either I'm misunderstanding what happened at the club or y'all are. That was one of the clubs that Gu oversees and the manager had been using the money for his gambling debts. Those guys that were at the club were the loan sharks that he had borrowed for gambling. They closed that club that day so they could kick some gangster booty but the whole organization isn't shut down. Gu got the money back and Sam Sik was still alive when he left, just a bit banged up.

 

We saw Chairman Shin telling Gu to get hold of his drinking and maybe knowing that his boss is supportive of him doing what he needed to do to get that under control with the help of MJ was part of his path to healing/liberation.

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I loved every minute of this drama. It really was so well-written, well-acted, well-filmed, well-put together. I started crying when Mi Jung told Gu "when you wake up in the morning and think of those people, laugh like you just did". For some reason, this moved me more than anything else. Their smiles were radiant. I even left feeling happy for Gi Jung - I think Tae Hun resolved to make it work and to make her less insecure. And I love that Chang Hee has decided to become a funeral director. With my recent experience, I find that to be a job that takes a special brand of person to be both comforting and a sales person and he's got both qualities.

 

So well done. I will be rewatching this drama over and over again.

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

Maybe it's a scenario where he has to send her away from him for her own good, similar to when he left Sanpo so her family wouldn't be tormented by Chairman Shin's men. It worries me that even though he is working and in the middle of a date in that preview clip, that he still has to take a shot of something alcoholic just to get through it. No human being, even a fictional one, can survive this sort of stress/lifestyle/damage. I'm not seeing a happy ending for Gu but this could actually liberate MJ because even though their relationship helped release her a bit, it is still holding her back from being with a more functional man who doesn't have 80 pounds of luggage to carry on his back and into their relationship, no matter how much they like each other. 

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I finally caught up and was very impressed with how they handled the mom's death, the different levels of grief and its expression and the very empty feelings in the aftermath. As most of you know, I literally have been experiencing my own mom's very sudden death almost parallel to the airing of this drama so it's really sunk it's claws into me deeply. I am very much like MJ - I don't express my emotions very easily and am not even really that in touch with them. I haven't yet had that cathartic sorrow at all. I have experienced the need to keep moving and to keep busy to not think about it and the discomfort that others felt around me after the first week or so. This show handles it all so beautifully and realistically. I'm so impressed and moved by it.

 

Episode 14 could so easily be a happy ending. Of course I'm both looking forward to and dreading the last two eps because I think ep 14 was really perfect in a lot of ways. We got an MJ-Gu reunion, we got GJ showing her truest colors to Tae Hun's daughter (I still cannot with this woman and her neediest need of needs and selfishness that is mirrored almost exactly by Tae Hun's more nasty sister), and CH finding some sort of understanding of his own needs and maybe the insight that his dad has done the best he could. We got a little insight into Dad and Mom. 

 

Predictions? I couldn't even begin. IRL, Gu would absolutely bleed out from alcohol-induced ulcers with MJ trying to tear them out of him with her bare hands. In the drama, I think his fall-back to alcohol when things get rough are more symbolic of the emptiness he has when the women in his life are absent. He stopped drinking as heavily when he and MJ were in the middle of their flirtation. Since he went back to Seoul, he's barely been living without alcohol. I'm hoping their reunion sees him turning it around. (IRL I have an ex-boyfriend who died from alcoholism and he was pretty young, so, yes, it can be a long, slow death, but if you're real committed you can absolutely kill yourself very quickly with it).

 

I know a lot of people don't really care about Gu's life in the underworld but I would honestly watch a pre-quel of how Gu got to this point. Former athlete-turned-host-turned-head-honcho-turned-alcoholic-runaway-carpenter-farmhand? From Seoul to Sanpo and Back Again. Would watch.

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I'm so thankful for this show and this forum. When I started watching the first five eps, my own mom passed away (week after Easter, right before her birthday and Mother's Day here in the States), so thank you for the warning as to what's coming in this weeks eps. I still haven't finished last week's because even though I find this show extremely soothing, it's also pretty heavy so I appreciate being spoiled. I'm only halfway through ep 11 and I still can't stand GJ. She is a real turn-off.

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

Yeah I think Gu is sexier in his sweaty work clothes than in slick suits as well but he is a handsome man. "Ruggedly handsome" as opposed to pretty. That means the actor can play the good/bad thing with the change of a furrowed brow to a smile or a glower in half a second - that's a lucky thing for an actor. In D.P., he kind of played a good/bad character or a character whose intentions you question - is he playing? does he have ulterior motives?

 

The thing I'm loving about this drama is that it's unpredictable but in a non-makjang way. In the very first episode, I thought maybe MJ would be paired with Tae Hun. Visually, they make the most sense in a traditional k-romance sense (though this isn't a k-romance). Some terrible writer would make a really big deal about him being a single dad and divorced like he's garbage. GJ is called out for insulting Tae Hun's status instead so that's an interesting twist to the normal scenario where a parent doesn't want their child marrying a divorced single parent. Hopefully that means that attitudes are moving on in Korea.

 

I can't even begin to imagine where we're going with MJ-Gu, GJ-TH or CH and the Rolls-Royce. I hope CH's endgame isn't Areum. I don't need her to be redeemed. I think some people are awful their entire lives and get away with it.

 

 

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I'm seriously picturing MJ as queen bee of that giant nightclub/gambling establishment/whatever-the-heck-it-is and being the enforcer mama. If anyone could handle being around a bunch of thuggish rogues, it would be her.

 

I'm wondering if that 2022 scene is right before Gu decides that this isn't what he wanted after all and before he runs back, with all his might, on foot, to Sanpo, or gets back on that train, and they reunite in the snow as MJ is dragging a drunk CH off the train again in 2022. I'm fantasizing that the scene on the beach is the flash-forward of my dreams.

 

BTW I don't think GJ's boss is married. He's dating the young girl that scolded GJ in the break room about using him as a sounding board. I think his main crime is that he's a flirt and has "toyed" with the emotions of all of the women and the one who seems to be taking it the worst is the one who keeps making snarky remarks towards GJ's age, clothes, way of speaking, etc. I can't wait to see her get her comeuppance.

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I'm not sure if Gu loves MJ or if he mostly is in awe of her. They don't know each other well enough to "love" but I think there's a mutual admiration of two people who recognize similar qualities in each other and are intrigued. I think he's more scared of her than she is of him. She is kind of blindly walking towards him, mainly with her own agenda. I haven't watched the last 15 minutes of ep 10 yet as I had to go to sleep but I still really like them together and the weird way they kind of express themselves to each other.

 

Gi Jeong: this girl is so frustrating. I hate how girly she starts speaking to Tae Hun because she's still trying to impress him or be sorry towards him. He's 100% seen her at her worst. If she just acted semi-normal around him, they could get somewhere. But now that his older sister is being so mean and possessive, I want them to get together. I agree though that GJ would be better suited to her co-worker, even though in my American work harassment brain, I'm like, "not a good idea to date co-workers!"

 

CH: He is such a man-child. The hero worship of Gu is unbelievable and hilarious. Gu has to be a saint because if somebody barged into my house in the middle of the night to poop in my bathroom instead of their own house about 500 yards away, I would stab him to death. Yet CH has somehow matured at work into trying to accept the unacceptable Areum. 

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I've rewatched the last two episodes and I love how they are playing with the MJ-Gu relationship in that it isn't necessarily defined as romantic. It is much deeper than that. Somebody above said that it is two people meeting each other where they are and not trying to actively change them but letting them meet where each feels comfortable. It's so ambiguous that I feel like it could just stay this really beautiful "friendship" (for lack of a better word) or two people who "worship" each other for right now so that each can carry that into the rest of their lives. 

 

But when they were sitting there looking at the rainbow together, and she said she wanted to see what he was like when he was younger and he basically replied that when he's 90, she will be sitting next to this version of him now - does he think they will still be sitting by each other's sides? He might be fantasizing about being with her long-term. That gave me chills.

 

Gi Jeong: I am so annoyed by her. She seems the most selfish of the three siblings. She doesn't really do anything to help anybody else. Even her friend was dully looking off into the distance as she was just going on and on about herself. I don't want her to get with the nice quiet single dad, even though she would probably bring some spark into his dull life. But she doesn't even really know him. As her brother said, the person who gets your heart rate up isn't the person who belongs to you. It's the person who lets you feel comfortable and whole. 

 

I'm coming around on the brother. His facial expressions are so hilarious. His constant money-making schemes that backfire are probably the reason his dad doesn't trust him. I get that. I also get his frustration that his dad won't help him but his approach doesn't really match where his dad is, does it? But Areum is the worst. And so is MJ's supervisor, who finally got his comeuppance.

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I feel like Gu might be revealed as some sort of chaebol. He wouldn't accept pay for farm work because he said he "enjoys" it. Any person who needs money and has grown up poor isn't going to turn down money for work completed, no matter what it is. That signals a sense of some sort of entitlement, at least from his past. The noble work of using your hands.

 

He has the build of a laborer but we've seen how athletic he is. Maybe he trained as an athlete, was forced into the family business reluctantly, took off with somebody else's money or screwed up somehow, and had to make a run for it.

 

I feel like the "chairman" was an older family figure - father, stepfather, grandfather, uncle.

 

Didn't the guy who saw him at the gas station just call him "Gu" and not "Gu-shii or Gu-nim"? Doesn't that signal some sort of closeness and not a formal distance? They were like, "there's no way he would be driving a laborer's truck" as if to say he was of a higher status and wouldn't be seen doing something so blue collar. This is my current working theory.

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

I haven't watched the final episode yet and judging by the comments, maybe I won't. SPY and LSE firing the maids was great and the ladies playing golf with their husbands, looking fabulous, pre-snake, these are fine final memories for me of this stupid drama. 

 

The characters and scenarios, as written by Phoebe, aren't interesting enough to bring me back. As was pointed out several times, the new actors they got for Yu Shin and 30s husband are so different from their predecessors that I couldn't even remember which character they were playing at the beginning of this season. And they were never really given much to do except be over-the-top jealous of their ex-wives' new husbands. 

 

The fact that she introduced the whole ghost concept and continued on that path, particularly with Song Won, who we barely knew when she was alive, is completely puzzling - mostly because it's not that interesting! And it doesn't make up for the wooden characters she wrote for the mistresses, specifically. I was relieved when Song Won died because I was happy we wouldn't have to watch her boring character any more but she was not only a ghost but possessed BHR too, our most dynamic of the ex-wives. Why? Why? Why?

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

The main strength that Gu and Mi Jeong would have as a couple is that they are both very direct when they do speak, even though they are both normally not that talkative. The main weakness is that they are both repressing some deep stuff that both seem to be running away from and hiding from others (for her, her debt from her parents; for him - ???).

 

I don't know if it's an attraction between them as much as a need that each of them has for someone to see the good in each of them (Gu is running away from that but as a human being he needs it).

 

If this was real life, of course, I would tell her to run a mile from somebody who has a serious, serious drinking problem lol. And he might not want to get involved with somebody who can't manage her money, her emotions or her life very well.

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

The introduction of the household servants as enemies of the new Seo wives is kind of intriguing to me. They could have done this in a more "Upstairs, Downstairs" way where we see their parallel lives. But that seems to be outside the skills of the current writing staff. I would imagine the maids, cooks and drivers get annoyed at their bosses and create havoc sometimes. Instead of creating another ghost for Dong Ma's mother, the head maid is the mouthpiece for how horrified she would have been at the new lower class of Seo women (lol). Intriguing but to introduce this in like episode 12? Who cares at this point?

 

Begging for NO season 4. Begging. I love the main actresses in this but they can all do so much better.

[[Drama 2022] My Liberation Notes, 나의 해방일지]

I'm really enjoying the quietness of this drama. It's like a coming-of-age for people who are in their late 20s/early 30s, not for teenagers.

 

I know Seoul is super expensive to live in but couldn't all three siblings pool their money and get a small place together? I feel like that would free up the ridiculous commute time and the oppressive parental disapproval (the father's blank, yet scolding stares are chilling) from their burdens. Without the commute time, they could pick up extra jobs, if needed, or have time to concentrate on the jobs they actually have (and all seem to be doing middling to poor in), or have more fulfilling social lives.

 

At the same time, they all seem very resentful to have a mom who cooks for them any and every hour of the day, a free place to live and the companionship of their hometown friends. Like there is no appreciation for what they actually have as opposed to what they don't. And the older brother and sister are really, particularly awful about this. At least Mi Jeong doesn't outwardly complain to everybody she meets.

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

This is why I love this forum. Everybody's theories are way more interesting than what's really happening onscreen (or in Phoebe's head). 

 

Things I've noticed that are super weird on this show:

1) many shots of bread being buttered or slathered with some spread

2) the artificial way of speaking, like in a commercial

3) since LSE and SPY got engaged, we see absolutely nobody working

4) the older folks are OBSESSED with everything the younger folks do - even in countries where families are super close, the older people have their own things - especially the wealthy ones!

5) the super-aegyo way of speaking that a lot of the women do when interacting with the menfolk - so ick. They're all too old for that.

6) as has been pointed out before, the puzzling wardrobe choices for SDM.

7) the towering high heels that all of the ladies except maybe LSE wear at all times.

 

It all feels like a dream or something I would have written when I was 12 and had no understanding of relationships at all.

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

Maybe the spirits will do something that sends Ami, Ga Bin and BHR to America, never to return. And the scheming maids accidentally poison themselves and LSE and SPY's ex-husbands. Oops!

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

Lol. I agree that some of the wardrobe choices for SDM have caused me to lol straight up. He mainly looks good either in traditional suits or naked. 

 

If the only storyline you're following is BHR's I can understand why you would hate this drama. Hers is the most nonsensical of all the harebrained plots. Honestly they missed the opportunity to ditch the 30s couple altogether when Sung Hoon didn't return. They could have revisited the plot that 30s couple grandpa still had the hots for crazy Dong Mi. Let's face it, they've spent more time with the grandparents than the 30s couple overall.

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

I don't think SDM and Ga Bin slept together during their brief reconciliation. She was already in mourning and all we saw her do was weep and mope around like a limp piece of spaghetti so I'm not sure how she could have gotten pregnant. But it's Phoebe, who knows? Maybe the ghost child will invade the womb of Ami or Ga Bin for a truly nonsensical storyline in addition.

 

I think the BHR possession RickRoll'D me off the most because Song Won's artificial of fake-nice speaking drove me crazy and now BHR is doing it as her puppet. The grandparents are the only fun thing about this part of the storyline. The shaman can't come soon enough!

 

Now I continue to question how close all of the mistresses got within, what, six months to a year? of knowing each other. All of a sudden these two women were visiting dead Song Won's future in-laws and baby? Ga Bin weeping at BHR's second wedding as if she was missing Song Won so hard. What? Her character, in particular, is a mess and makes the least sense of any of them. She's had the wildest ride: from being a successful musical actress, affair with Professor, parents die, breaks up with Professor, is reconciled with SDM by his sheer force of will, dumped by SDM suddenly, to singing at BHR's second wedding. We never see her working. 

 

And does A Mi have a job? It feels like Season 1 was five years ago.

 

Speaking of jobs, for SDM being an executive, he has an awful lot of free time, though I'm here for it if they keep inserting half-naked shots of him at the pool, in the shower, etc.

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

He had been drinking and she's not gonna do the deed with the kids in the house. But I am going in assuming that these two would have a sexless marriage. She doesn't look like she craves it and he is so, uh, stiff in general, that I don't know if he does either. She likes him but she's not lusting for him. I don't necessarily get the feeling he lusts for anybody.

 

I like Wild Cherry's theory that they only made Song Won a ghost to get BHR to remarry because in "reality" she burned those bridges pretty hard before she found out the mistress died.

 

If Phoebe is gonna go hard on ghosts, how about the ghost of SPY's mother getting revenge on her daughter for not speaking to her for so many years? Or the previously unseen mother of Dong Ma, the unseen parents of Ga Bin, the bio father of Ami - are they going to pop up in some weird way at the Double-Seo Wedding of the Century?

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

So we still have a couple reveals left: Ga Bin doesn't know SDM is marrying Ami's boyfriend's ex-wife, nor does SPY know who Ga Bin is the ex-fiancee of. 

 

Are they really trying to hook grandma up with LSE's ex? He's not rich. They're both super-selfish. They make good drinking buddies though! I feel like she would still sleep with him just to prove she's still got it.

 

I'm still irritated by BHR remarrying dumba**. It looks like maybe she gets pregnant? And Ami?

 

Why another ghost? Why? Why? Why? None of the ghosts have added much to this drama. Stop!!!!

 

I continue to watch because I wanna see our ladies get married to their much better new husbands and see the ex-husbands get kicked in the teeth (at least a little bit). And please, no Season 4.

 

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

I also can't stand Song Won/ghost or not. After the first five minutes, I skipped all of the parts of the 30s couple's family. I can't stand that entire storyline and at this point it feels almost completely unrelated to the rest of the storylines except it looks like they're going to force Ami to get involved with the Seos, somehow.

 

The Professor is garbage. He doesn't actually want to have the kids. He just wants to make Si Eun unhappy and he doesn't want to give Seo Ban the chance to make the kids happy. He is too narcissistic to kill himself. 

 

I also don't care about Ga Bin. She is a wholly unentertaining character. Ami has given us some laughs with stepgrandma but Ga Bin has been wallowing. I completely forgot about her parents dying.

 

I think Dong Ma's mom is the person who died. Maybe her ghost will enter SPY and be re-born as SPY and SDM's child. Yay!

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

The thing is that wouldn't be fun. If it's going to be makjang, I want it to be fun. None of those scenarios sound like something I would want to continue watching. This is my problem with Phoebe: the domestic scenes are done so realistically that they're boring and then all of a sudden, something so out of left-field happens that you think you're having a stroke while watching it.

 

The last couple of episodes made promises of domestic bliss for the ladies that we actually like. There are no other characters to root for if you make our wronged wives two-time losers. Unless she plans to introduce new characters, the current characters are almost played out. Also, the supernatural elements are so out of place in a drama rooted in basic marriage-cheating-divorce tropes that it really is laugh-out-loud funny sometimes. But ultimately it brings the story down.

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

Oh god I know. I feel insane because I really really hated Season 1, the first half of season 2 (and the random-seeming ending) and feel like if TV wasn't about making money from ads, story-wise, they could have condensed all of it into one incredibly good season of TV. So Phoebe knows what she's doing, although if this last episode was the last episode, I would be happy because it leaves our heroines in "happy" scenarios, except BHR. 

 

The only thing I'm looking forward to is seeing SDM at the pool 

[[Drama 2022] Love (ft. Marriage & Divorce) Season 3 결혼작사 이혼작곡]

Maybe the main question is why does Seo Dong Ma want to get married so badly, whether the woman is into him or not? When he was with Ga Bin she was still moping over the professor. His beginning with SPY was her just staring at him like he was crazy (he is). He does what he wants without any input from his potential partner and that definitely doesn't make a marriage. His love bombing is the biggest red flag. That giant doorstop of a diamond he gave SPY is so he can throw it in her face later that he "gave" her everything and he will owe her nothing. It genuinely makes me ill because in real life it mainly happens with people who are absolute con artists.

 

The ghost of Song Won inhabiting BHR makes me pity BHR. Even though I was loving her getting kicked to the curb by the Seo brothers and her former co-workers, she is still the wronged woman, originally. And the mistress was mostly treated with absolute kindness by everybody. I could see the ghost wanting to protect her baby but nobody murdered her (or did they?). BHR could be such an interesting character but she has become comic relief/punching bag. I would be upset if Seo Ban dumped Lee Si Eun for possessed BHR.