I’m tired of Ji-yeon. Ep. 11 demonstrates once again how expertly she attributes responsibility for her own emotions and responses to others. It really is her genius. She startles JH by saying “my regeneration skills are better than you think” - in the context of the scrape on her arm, but obviously really meaning her crush and her determination to overlook any hurt or slight to obtain him. She’s human rubber cement and completely shameless.

The way Joon-ho hurls Ji-wan at Knife Guy while scrambling away himself! 🤬🤣 I saw the purpose of the knife attack as showing that Chae-ri’s approach to reality TV production is the same as Joon-ho’s to his investors/victims: take a chance on whatever you can get away with, gloss over the potential downsides, offload as much of the risk as possible onto others, and shrug off responsibility as “you signed up for this, that’s just the way it happened” if things go wrong. They both treat people as fools or game pieces and both seem genuinely to believe that as long as their unfortunate victims gave consent, however ill-informed or coerced, they have no moral culpability. They’re both sociopaths, but at least Chae-ri ultimately confronts Knife Guy and says she's in charge (which ties to JY’s earlier assertion that the staff’s role is to protect the cast), even if she’s still mocking his anguish and saying it’s his own fault. JH’s disgusted glance at CR after Knife Guy is subdued speaks for all of us. She’s a horrible person with a defective moral compass. I'm not looking forward to some phony redemption for either her or JY.

Also, three cheers for lovely Sun-woo telling Chae-ri he no longer wants to apologize to her after she airs the revelation of Ji-wan’s sexual abuse.

Image of the week: YR striding into the Kingdom looking badass (but also ridiculous) with her knee-high boots, past the armored statue holding a pointy weapon, to find a scene of real, not romanticized battle.

@dramaddictally, you're so right that the kiss is unsatisfying because it feels unearned for YR. We see lots of moments of her gazing moonily into a monitor at JH or staring at his retreating back, but there is neither the kind of clarifying discussion they need nor some other exposition of how she’s reassessed her relationship with him. I can’t see why he would be so ready to jump into kisses and bed with her when she finally says she wants to be with him. She’s held back too much for too long for that to be so easily overcome (unless of course he’s just being a typical guy leaping at the chance for sex, which would be out of character).

This is starting to look a little like Kiss Sixth Sense in that this episode feels like the end, we can pretty much guess what happens after this, and I’m probably going to wish I’d just stopped here - except for mild curiosity about what has stopped Yeo-reum from tackling JH straight into bed for so damned long.

Chef Joon and Ji-wan... are upstaging our leads.
I agree and give a Yes this statement. I'm rooting for them big time. I entirely love this two together. It will become perfected for LiFS if Chef John and Ji-wan are the two casts who are rumored to be married/real time dating by the end of KoL2.

I'm choosing to forget his name but dayum! He's a douchebag, a complete one.

I don't know if I should spank Jae-hoon in the head. He sure knows how to say two different things to Ji-yeon. One minute he's telling her with so much care about how much he wants to work towards loving her. The very next minute he's reminding her about their situation, she loves him more...bla bla bla, as if to rub it in her face. It would have been nice if Jae-hoon cleared the reason why he said those words after hearing what they are called, before he switched on the audio waist-pack and made an onscreen statement, that way Ji-yeon wouldn't see a glimmer if hope. Sincerely, I don't see how Ji-yeon hasn't crested an emotional distance in her heart and just play along for the story. Their situation isn't bad perse. It's not a bad thing nor do you lose points for liking someone first and then making the mistake/having the honesty to voice out your feelings when you're definitely sure the other person isn't feeling the same way. I don't know if she shot herself in the leg or I admire her boldness or it both, but I want Jae-hoon out of her head. It got really pitiful seeing Jae-hoon boost her confidence during the date and someway somehow hurt her pride the very next scene involving them both. She really needs to take a break. It's clearly affecting her and I fear her clutching to hope isn't doing her any good. It's just sending her into a continuous loop of high and lows.

With whatever was going on with the leads, it was John and Ji-wan that held my interest and I really love what Chef Joon is turning out to be. He apologizing to Yoo-reum told me that Ji-wan made am impression on him. I like him a lot and I like Ji-wan for the person that forced that sweet persona out.

@dramaddictally thank you for the weecaps
The truth is he was raised in a fishing village by a single mother, and all he ever wanted was to succeed.👈 This gave me Golden spoon vibes.

From the first time I saw the webtoon artist it reminded me of the drama Coffee, do me a favour. That was about a webtoon artist who is overweight and in love with her boss who treats her well while everyone else either ignores her as a woman or teases her due to her weight.

‘The scene delivers everything I would have wanted about four episodes ago, but for some reason I just can’t feel what I want to feel here.’ 👈 exactly. YR needs to say she felt something for JH since their first kiss days but was an idiot and lied because she didn’t know what he felt. When they became proper friends she definitely didn’t want to lose the friendship and when she fell in love with the fool she thought her feelings for JH were clearly not that deep if she was happy to marry someone else. When they broke up she didn’t know what she wanted and as none of the other relationships worked she didn’t want to risk checking out the depth of her feelings for JH that had grown considerably over the years through their supporting each other during their bad times. When the fool returned she remembered how they had been so happy together in version one so decided to go for version two believing those deeper feelings would return and thought that was the explanation for why she had not been able to fully connect with anyone since. Now version two is properly over she knew she needed time to work out why she had settled for basing a marriage on memories, and what she feels and is prepared to risk for JH. But, rather than say that she found herself lying again about her feelings when he told her he was prepared to be a friend placeholder until she was ready for the next stage. She initially decided it was better to make a hasty decision to stay as friends full stop rather than feel pressured to come to him. Watching him with Jiyeon let her know she really did love him and it was not lust which she had feared when her heart and body responded to the kiss they aired on The Kingdom set.

We then need to hear JH’s equally confused explanation for why he didn’t ask outright about the first kiss and confess then, why he didn’t admit his feelings when she was dating random guys and why he couldn’t give her the space he initially offered after the wedding fiasco when she clearly needed it. Once they have both talked it out then I will sign up 100% to long term successful wedded bliss confident they will be the happy solid couple and great well adjusted parents like her parents. They may benefit from therapy for their individual issues especially JH re his unresolved regrets about his dad.

What I do want to see is Chef John make his pick for Ji-wan to the surprise of everybody👈 I am also hoping they are in a serious relationship and she makes a webtoon about Kingdom of love two. The gap...

I really am sold for Jonh ans Ji Wan scenes. Whenever their scenes come up now, i just watch them so much happiness. Their conversations are so sweet to watch. Hope they become a real couple in the Kingdom of Love.

As for Yoo reum and Jae Hoon, even though they finally got back together with all the kissing, I did feel happy about it, but I felt something missing. Like I was expecting it be so electrifying with so much passion, but maybe the scenes between them lately were so distant, and suddenly they were having this steamy scene really didnt match at all with thr pacing of the story. A bit disappointed with the way this reconciliation was brought up, the scenes played out because I have waited for this long , for them to be back together because they are perfect. I would have liked a long hug for that part and Jae Hoon consoling her.

Chae Ri has become a character i really dislike now. Even though earlier she was brazen enough and tolerated her for it , but she is way too stubborn. What a heartless character she is.

What was that? I was just thinking about how the writers were going to make it believable in the remaining episodes that Yeo-reum is ready for a relationship with Jae-hoon and then - poof, suddenly she changes her mind without any comprehensible explanation.

I rather praise the pair of chef and webtoon author, who I'm enjoying a lot more at the moment. Chef John Jang has credible character development.

But at least there's hope now that things will be less gloomy going forward. Yeo-reum hopefolly now has one less reason to creep around melancholy.

Oh I love John and Ji-hwan together. They just fit; and his soft expressions when he looks at her almost too much for my heart to handle. I also want him to choose her and vice versa. I have zero interest in our main couple now, I'm here for John and Ji-hwan.
The con artist was ridiculous; actually pushing Ji-hwan toward the guy with a knife. Ugh.
Our puppy Sang-woo got hurt and he did so protecting Chae-ri who he was clearly upset with. Kudos to him for standing up to Chae-ri and still being a gentleman and protecting her (though she didn't deserve to be protected, imo).
Can't stand Chae-ri. She caused these problems by bringing in the con artist and she had the nerve to blame Yeo-reum, claiming Yeo-reum ruined the show.

I really don't understand Yeo-Reum. If she's in this situation, it's only because of her own choices. She doesn't assume anything. She's wandering pitifully.

Chae-Ri is Chae-Ri but at least, she's trying to do her job. She didn't run away during the attack. She was there for her colleagues and the members even she was completely terrified.

It's really a weird show when you're more interested by supporting characters and not the main or second leads... But Ji-Wan and John were really cute together and so honest.

I couldn't care less for leads. I really dislike JH, the man who pushes and pushes the woman he used to call a friend to have sex with him when she said many times "I'm in no place for another relationship, I need a friend". Well, bad for YR, her friend finally got what he wanted, and I am not pretty sure she consented or was forced to. Anyway, I hope these two are unhappy ever after, I am done with them.

The only reason I will keep watching, if i keep watching, would be Chef Jang and JiWan. I love their arch, is wonderfully written and acted (in comparison with the leads one), even if JiWan is not a favourite character. I really don't like when writers push us to like a character at all costs, just because she is shy, fat and not pretty and she's never been loved before.

And contrary of many comments here, I L O V E PD Kang. She is a hard worker, gets the job done, knows how to do the job and gets results. So she knew Joonho was a fraud? And what? Does it make her responsible for the situation? No way! In fact she took care of it. Of course it had to be two men to save the day, but she is honest. I loved her conversation with YR, when she said "Don't you dare judge my innocent desire for wanting my program to succeed". I adored her when she said that: programs like that are consumed every day in TV channels all over the planet... are you telling me all PD Kangs in the world are bad people? That people watching those reality are bad people? No they are not.

I do agree that Chef Joon and Ji Wan have upstaged the lead OTP big time. I am rooting for them to work things out for real.

I am disenchanted with both Jae Hoon and Yeo Reum for various reasons. Even if they ended up in bed at the end of the episode, I did not feel anything but meh. Both of them have a lot more talking to do and issues to deal with if they want to make it work. I am not sure I want to sit through that anymore.

I liked Chae Ri at the beginning because I found her interesting but as we get to know her more we see her faults big time. Her lack of moral compass makes her difficult to root for. Yes she gets great ratings for her show but its to the expense of others. I can't believe she got the swindler on the show knowing he is trouble.

As for Ji Yeon, I just wish she stop pursuing Jae Hoon now. He does not deserve her attention. There are better guys out there for her. Jae Hoon is just leading her on at this point despite the previous permission she gave to use her in the show. She must know when to stop and preserve her dignity.

I do not like Joon Ho the conman and want him to be outed as a horrible person on the show. At least that way, he will not be able to con more people once KOL ends. I can't believe he shoved Ji Wan to his attacker then turn around to plead with her once the incident ended. And that is after he outed JW's painful past for his own gain. He is the reason Ji Wan felt suffocated on set.

I want to see more scenes between Chef John and Ji Wan. I want him to choose her over vapid Tae Mi in the final pick. They are the only bright spot on the show for me now.

What I wanted, in lieu of a kiss scene, was for Yeo Reum and Jae Hoon to have a proper conversation. This reconciliation romance or whatever it is, is bizarre to me and I just felt sad for them both. Hopefully they’ve just gone about things in a different order than I would have liked, and the relationship repair work will start soon.

Recognition where it’s due - @gremlich was right!!🥳 Yeo Reum realised her feelings for JH via a series of flashbacks that allowed her to see that she had loved him all along (and also after feeling shaken/jealous when his attention and care weren’t on her anymore). Can I just say how much I hate this frame for friends-to-lovers? There are many reasons friends don’t always make good romantic partners (apart from whether attraction is present), and I am yet to be convinced that YR and JH will be able to make that transition if they don’t communicate.

On a happier note, I really like Ji Wan too, and I loved the phone call she had with Sang Woo when she realised he wasn’t on set anymore. I also like @reply1988’s suggestion of her finding love with Sang Woo’s older brother or something!😅 But Chef Jang is who’s around, and they’re making him more likeable. I’m not fully convinced yet that he’s good enough for her, though!

Ji Wan’s presence makes it very obvious how ridiculous the size standards are, and how anyone larger than model-thin is often typecast in dramas. It’s also interesting that they’ve made her love of food one of her shining qualities - I’m waiting to see if and how they explore this. Will they make her thinner after a time jump of dieting and better mental health (I hope not), but if they don’t, will we actually see her being accepted and viewed as attractive as she is? The show hasn’t done anything with the eating disorder arc yet, so I’m not hopeful, and I know I can’t expect the show to address everything, but I’ve always felt that there’s a huge elephant in the room. We often have very thin characters of both sexes eating and drinking to excess onscreen, and it is viewed as charming, but how on earth is that actually possible most of the time? At least a character having an eating disorder is more reflective of what happens in real life, given the pressures that these characters face to look a certain way. (Except we all just call it dieting most of the time…😞)

What leads? Leads? Where?
It’s sad that their kiss and bbmaking scenes made me feel nothing. Like, what was the conflict? What got resolved?

Ji-yeon- omg. She is like a whinefest and cryfest. Happy, she cries. Hurt, she cries. Someone didn’t give her attention, she cries. Someone rejects her she cries. It rains, she cries. It’s too windy, she cries.
Someone please remove this woman from my screen. Thank you!

I didn’t expect the show to flip John Jang and did they deliver. Boy! What a beautiful turnaround. And it made more sense that he was always this kind person from a small town, but let the little success get to his head. A self aware character who actually has the humility to apologize! Bravo! And yes, I am now rooting for these two.

Yeo-reum is not my favorite character, and it’s hard for me to cheer for a rebound as an OTP, but oh well. I just hope Jae-hoon figures out how to deal with the loss of his father in a more healthy way by the end of this, and I’ll be satisfied.

I CANNOT believe Joon-ho shoved Ji-wan toward the knife guy! I mean I can because he’s terrible, but still – why haven’t they addressed this? I can understand the other characters not noticing because they were understandably focused on the drunk man wielding the knife, but Ji-wan surely noticed what he did to her? I’m glad she’s at least seeming to distance herself from him, but ooph, he is just an absolute waste of space.

Especially in the absence of almost any Dae-sik and Hye-jin, Ji-wan and John (Jun) were my favorite thing this week. Thanks for focusing so much of the weecap on them @dramaddictally! They are what I want to remember from these episodes anyway. It feels like it’s the first time John Jang has had a real interaction with anyone in a long time. And he’s come such a long way in this drama so far! I have gone from absolutely despising him in the first week to him being a favorite now, which is no small feat! I loved his apology to Yeo-reum and his hesitancy to play Tae-mi’s game, but mostly I loved every little time he looked over at Ji-wan or said something nice to her, or took her to see his mom.

By stalling the central romance for too long, this show now has a hard job reclaiming my attention for the main pair and extended flashbacks to happier times leave me cold. It's dead, dude, and just has me pressing FF to pick up other happenings. Some comments last week touched on how they couldn't see a reconciliation and after ep 11 nor could I, and to be honest I find harking back to their relationship a distraction and annoyance when I'd far rather watch the magnificent Ji-Wan and John Jang getting to know and appreciate each other.

Let's face it, a budding relationship of the unlikely kind is far more interesting than one apparently going nowhere. When Ji-wan ran to JJ's car and asked if he would take her along (and he didn't consider it for too long before saying yes) that was more exciting than the knifeman turning up the night before, especially when we discover JJ's humble beginnings and realise in just that few seconds, he knew he could take JW there and she wouldn't judge him. Not to mention how she showed no hesitation in approaching our aloof and handsome chef as an equal and not a squealing fan. That's how comfortable they are with each other.

As for YR and JH, more boredom with her sitting on benches eating ice cream, wandering in her old empty house and feeling sorry for herself, with him doing the equivalent wandering the streets and tying himself even tighter to JY, even though he doesn't want her and has made that plain. This fiasco has now reached the point of cruelty with JH holding on to her in order to punish himself for still liking YR, who until her belated confession did everything she could to avoid their uncomfortable relationship. Up to this point they were both behaving like stubborn children and rightly being eclipsed by contestants in the show within a show. So now we finally have the confession but it's too late for me. I'm bored with both of them, so good luck reeling me back in.

I will bet money that most of us are far more interested in JW and JJ, until the end of ep 12 the only two characters moving smoothly forward instead of being stuck in a resentful rut. I hope they win KOL and get married, with Sang-woo directing to show Chae-ri exactly what kind of show he intends to make. That's the kind of academy I went to, the kind that taught me not to "speak prettily", but to let JJ go to a good woman, even though I'm now officially in love with him myself.

Ji Wan and Chef John/Joon are the best surprise/twist in this drama so far, and I'm literally conductor of this love train moving full steam ahead, lol.

I also felt the first scene where he gives her the shoes showed their great chemistry (and I wasn't sure when that scene even happened - I presume before the show started) but that wasn't displayed when they got back together. And that sneaker scene also showed what we've been missing the last few episodes with all the miscommunication and mess.

I'm mad at this show. No. I think I hate it.

1. I think the show is trying to make us hate Chae Ri, dating shows, what the whole thing represents or wtv, but the only person that annoys me is the writer of the drama.
We needed to see Chae Ri disclose on national television Ji Wan's painful past? nope. We were done with that. What was the point of Sang Woo deleting the file? to see Yeo Reum and Jae Hoon kiss?
I really don't understand what was the point of that.

Same thing with the the con artist. I mean, we knew the guy was trash. They really needed to bring a guy to try to kill him? Why didn't they focus on what he did to Ji Wan?

2. Are they going to use a woman with a mental disorder to go all "psycho" or "crazy" because some guys didn't choose her as their date in a reality show?

3. What's the purpose of Kingdom of Love, or the side characters?
Besides Chef Joon and Ji Wan, the rest of the cast feels like the characters of "W" when they froze in time everytime Kang Cheol went to the real world. They have no development, storylines, meaning...

4. The leads... LOL.
Well, I guess now we won't see Jae Hoon's sleepy face and fake smiles or Yeo Reum's eyes full of water in a while. That's a good thing.
But the way they barely had scenes together these last episodes and they just got together after their first pseudo-real-conversation... LOL.

I love how all the good flashbacks, with real romcom vibes, are a bunch of scenes we've never seen before. I literally have no good memories of this couple.

This show could've used the best tropes out there (cohabitation/neighbors, friends to lovers, etc) and give us a nice drama. This could've been the next Fight for My Way, but nope. Nothing happened. They made her move out (no neighbors), and maybe they were never friends? (I'm not sure if they were really friends or if JH was good to her because he always liked her). Even the besties... Nope, I'm done. Such wasted potential.

1) Episode 11 was really, really HARD for me. Like I might violate my personal drama watching rules and drop this show, hard.
2) Yeo-reum sees herself as the reason why all her relationships fail. She said, or eluded to, that in an earlier episode.
3) Even with them sleeping together, I don't think we're off the Yeo-reum/Jae Hoon merry-go-round just yet. Jae Hoon's still a cast member so they can't go public. Also, because of #2 above, I believe Yeo-reum's going to pump the breaks hard. And Jae Hoon won't want go public because he's trying to help Ji-Yeon save face.

Were the producers of Love is For Suckers told to wrap up the show like Yeo-reum and Chae-ri in Kingdom of Love, because what is happening. I am getting more and more frustrated with the show. I agree with you that where they've gone with Ji-yeon is infuriating. She is always crying! Or is she the sucker the title alludes to. Yeo-reum too! I thought Jae-hoon asking her if this is the show she wanted to make would be a wake up call to get her mind back in the game, and not just make half-hearted comments at Chae-ri. Argh.