I know people predicted Ji Uk's chaebol turn but I was still 🫨 at the way it played out because it's just so randomly ridiculous to me. How does someone just show and say "your mother had you out of wedlock, abandoned you to start a new life with a new family in another country and to protect their reputation, you have to do what we say" haha
That is so WTF if I've ever heard it haha. Why on Earth would I care about a parent who abandoned me new family's reputation in ANOTHER country? But it brings Ji Uk & Hae Young together for workplace comedy so fine.

Only to then confuse me with the coworker who was inspired by Ji Uk and trying to a good thing, messing up their whole situation haha. It's not funny but it's funny/it's funny but not funny. I just hope that the coworker isn't totally turned off of trying to help someone in the future but maybe talk to them first.

One thing I seem to like in dramas, or at least I liked it here and in Weak Hero Class 1, is when the same exact situation, behaviors, and dialogue is recontextualized once the perspective is changed. Hae Young's comments are based in the very real perspective that she'll be reduced to "wife" and all that matters is how she takes care of her husband. Yet those same exact comments can be considered harrassment or power tripping. It's interesting to me.

Oh same with how protective he was of her. When no one knew their relationship, he was just a good guy trying to help his team leader but now that he's her husband, it was more protective.

It would be kind of annoying if that man is his father, but whatever. I am continuing to enjoy the drama. It started off slow to me, but I am really liking it now.

The cameo of Her Private Life characters! And I just mentioned her this week during the moms drama chat haha
Seeing her had me once looking at Her Private Life clips and it's such a slippery slope to just watch Kim Jae Wook fanvids on repeat haha. I wonder why he doesn't do more romantic leads or characters. I think he's done 2 (and I've seen both haha. I would choose HPL over Crazy Love but both are fine). I would even rewatch his segment on Death's Game and he played a serial killer in that just to get a Kim Jae Wook fix
(Actually, another option is to watch his appearance on Seo In Guk's youtube channel haha)

Anywho, back to this show haha
I liked that cameo and I loved how it totally fit in the world of both shows haha.

The "smell of sunshine" was touching. I would've never considered that.

Something else I liked was how the CEO and the writer engaged with each other this week. It did seem plausible that feelings could possibly develop between them because they are seeing each other as people and not just a writer behind a screen or a malicious commenter. I really like how their dynamic is playing out because she's really making him deal with the consequences of his actions and earn her forgiveness AND expanding his worldview (unknowingly bringing him into Ji Uk's orbit haha) by having him volunteer. For his part, I can totally see why he would end up falling for her.

I can also see her having her interest piqued in him but I wonder if she would incorporate him into her novel haha. Like that would be the way she deals with her burgeoning feelings.

I think the ceo's mom is the one who brought Ji Uk into the company but also seemed like the CEO knows or suspect him of being his son. That whole dinner seemed very invasive and "family meeting".

I liked Ji Uk & Gyu Hyun and I wonder if there will be more scenes with them.

How people didn't recognize him as her husband?!? He didn't even wear his glasses during the wedding... It really didn't make sense at all. So it was the wedding, now they're working together, when will be the cohabitation? 😁

It was weird the episode 5 stopped without giving us a hint about Ja-yeon's situation, I was quite worried! But fortunately, she just needed a good sleep in a very expensive room 😄 I like their interactions. What he did was really wrong and I'm happy she didn't forgive him easily. But in the same time, he's not a bad person, he just needs to work on himself to understand this (sexual) frustation.

This drama would way more fun to me if the ML was acted by another actor. KYD brings nothing to this character (who already seems so perfect, it's kinda boring), he's too robotic. It's sad because Shin Min-ah is great in this role. LSY and HJY are pretty fun too.

(I wonder how KJY's height is 185cm and Go Wook's one is 187cm, GW seems more around 190cm.)

Hae-young's soul leaving her body, as the random aunty gave her the exact "you should make him breakfast" lecture she had been dreading, was my favourite moment 🤣.

I'm still enjoying this a lot. Hope it keeps up this level of rom and com all through its run!

Hae-yeong is rapidly becoming one of my favorite FLs of all time. Her flipping off Ji-uk in her dream. The way her soul left her body when she was being told to make breakfast for him, and then wondering why she has to be the one to make breakfast. The way she just obliquely stated, "Are you asking if we've slept together?" instead of being all passive. Her trying to intervene when she suspected a kid was being abused. She is wonderful. I also love her relationship with her sisters.

As you all know, I madly ship Ja-yeon and Gyu-hyun (see my fanwall for my take on his character) so I was loving them this week. They're showing incredible chemistry despite only having had a few real scenes together so far. Their conversation about his online comments was really intense and heartfelt and then their interaction in the hospital was just comedy gold. I also laughed so hard at the subverted "truck of doom" trope, especially when a very stunned Gyu-hyun gave the driver the thumb's up. I can't wait to see more of them, and ep 7's preview looked very promising. I would bet a large sum of money that he's going to fall for her first. Speaking of, someone on MDL said that Spice Up Our Love is going to be 2 episodes. Doesn't that seem way too short? Do 2 episode dramas even exist?

It was also really refreshing that Gyu-hyun doesn't drink. I assume that at some point he will, just like Ji-uk. Also, that scene where he and his father are sober and bored out of their minds with everyone drunk around them was incredibly relatable.

I have a sinking feeling that Ji-uk had feelings for Hae-yeong all along, which as you know is something that romance dramas keep doing that annoys me, but it's not a dealbreaker. At least my second couple doesn't have that dynamic.

Overall, i think this drama is showing that romcoms can have substance without having to incorporate serial killers / murder mysteries or cancer. It's a screwball romcom, which is awesome, but it also has really compelling and well written characters.

@Unit thanks for the recap however I think that the Mother changed the subject as she could see that her husband's line of questioning was way out of bounds, whether she suspects what is going remains to be seen but it was obvious he was sizing up Hae-Yeong as breeding stock...he is so repellant. He is not much better than the other abusive parents we have seen thus far.

I loved the cross-drama continuation of the sageuk comparisons this week! First BME with the outrageously out-of-place sageuk-speak bedside, and now here with the hilariously appropriate comparison between peeking through the paper screens at newlyweds and the "relationship microscope" under which Hae-young and Ji-uk seem to be at work. So funny.

Also, the subs translator on Prime was nice to offer "HANBYEOL Orphanage" to us! Seems to be an Easter Egg as that's a Sh**ting Stars reference for KYD...plus also, obvs, the Her Private Life cameos.

I think it's relatively clear that the ML will NOT be the son of the CEO at this point, but as the very spoilery Prime synopsis writer suggests (@hopefulromantic was very right!!)...just who the secret love child will be, will certainly be interesting!!!

This show is crack!! OMO! That ending. 🤣

This is Noona romance done right. Love the dynamic between our leads. It’s the right balance of letting the ML be swoony and then having him listen and learn from her. I especially loved how quick he learnt to be shameless to overcome the office scandal 😂😂. They are just so awesome.

The way he looks at her!! Dang! MY HEART!! 💙 The show delivers so many heart fluttering moments. I love how he gets annoyed yet does these things.

That realization that He always had her favorite breakfast in stock while working in the convenience store was so well done. There was this silence when it sinks in for her and us. There was no need to state the obvious.

Every time he gets mad he leaves only to return 10 seconds later!! LOL.

He BOUGHT THE RING!! Omo!!

And the tropes! They are having so much fun with the tropes. The ToD ended with thumbs up!! lol.
And the stairwell scenes - the women always check up and down before spilling the beans. This is not a drama where someone is going to overhear a stairwell conversation!!

I realized only in ep 6 that Sonnim was a play of words. Ms.Son-Nim (her name) or Soonim (customer)!

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this show! Thanks for the spazz recaps @unit

I am waiting for more tropes - cohabitation is next in line right?? We need to bring the Aegi/baby cat back!!!

I know it's a drama but Hae Young still lucked out getting a guy like Ji Uk. He's a good guy, he's handsome, and he's considerate. Thank goodness, he saw the message before that host/hustler/whatever he is saw it and agreed to the arrangement.

Even when he was combative or seemingly antagonistic, he was still looking out for her.

I'm liking the male lead in this role. I think their back & forth and non verbal actions are all so good. Like the scene when he heard how she evaluated him or when he caught her as she fell. (Sidenote: he must've had superman's speed to get back to her haha)

I wonder when and why he bought the ring.

I binged this in two nights and I’m not disappointed. It make me laugh out loud, and our boy is so I love with the FL. Can I just say Love the cameos of director Eun form chum gallery in her private life and ceo Nam from strong girl nam soon. I wonder how many more they will throw in

Although this is very much a kdrama, with traumas and sentimentality about childhood connections, this remains one of two funniest rom-coms of the year, the other being Dreaming of a Freeking Fairytale. The scene that Unit points out with the deadpan "infertile." The scene where Ji-Uk's looks are highlighted in a golden glow, with a heart appearing from his breath, the scene that @vienbenimo highlights, where Hae-young’s soul appears outside of her body when someone says to her exactly what she predicted and the last scene where the ex boyfriend appears, out of the sheets, as if he'd been birthed by Hae-Young-those were highlights for me.

But really, the best part of this rom-com for me so far is the way its lampooning male talk about the birth crisis in Korea. First there is the whole setup of the show, the fact that the three women and Ji-uk are from the same foster family, and then why Hae Young has to pretend to be married in the first place, to help remedy the Korean fertility crisis so more educational software can be sold. And then when the office discovers they are married, all the talk is about sex and having babies, with the office workers appearing as peeping busybodies. Then when the middle foster sister says to Hae Young she doesn’t want to get married, Hae young says that she is “wasting the best years of her boyfriend’s sperm.” Although this dialogue was partly to set up a clever (and daring) double entendre from the sister, which I won’t repeat here, because it will bring comments on how western decadence has destroyed the innocence of kdramas, it also is a funny reversal of the argument that women need to get married in their prime child bearing years.

I’ll be interested to see if the show does end with babies, or at least jokes about having babies, pulling its punches a little bit, or whether the women remain somewhat defiant to the end, as I think they will!

Whoever comes up with the sound effects in this show knows what they're doing haha. I'm still laughing over the ending of episode 6! There's just so much to love about this show 🥰 The tropes, it's sweet/heartfelt moments, and I really love that it shows these issues like all the workplace nonsense that Hae-young especially has to deal with, and how they're handling the hate comment storyline. It's always the best when so many Beanies are enjoying a show together too. May the truck of 2nd half drama problems be driven by the same guy they got here ✨️

Given how cleverly NGNL has delivered on all its trope inversions so far -- princess catch and carry, white truck of not-doom. morning-after-drinking bed check -- there's reason to hope it'll subvert the second-half slide too. I appreciate how Ha-yeong and Ji-uk bring different types of consideration to their relationship. It's more straightforward on his side -- he's been taking care of her in small ways for a while, from knowing her favorite candy to saving breakfast for her. But despite her so-called calculating nature, she's considerate, too, not just of him but her family and strangers like the little boy. And when she acts, it's not a moment of impulse but because she has weighed the consequences and decided that yes, going after the abusive father with a chair is totally worth it. 

I can't wait to see the sparks fly when she and Ji-uk are forced to ramp up their couple act. Her annoying ex is good for something after all -- forcing them together. Whatever the family connections turn out to be, that's going to be some series of delicious reveals. Fingers crossed NGNL keeps us laughing out loud with delight and surprise until the end.

Hahaha, I love how this show plays with tropes and adds their own twists like the good ol' Truck of Doom swerving this time and missing! It was a close one too. And then the show made Gyu Hyun's saving Ja Yeon scene so funny with his extra gym moves.

Another example was when we saw the next morning scene of Hae Young and Ji Wook in bed. Oooh la la, they were close in bed together. Nice... Then their mutual screaming was just the start of the comedy. Next the camera pans down to the shot of her ex's head. Lmao, he looked like he was just born and the baby sound effects added to the surprising scene!

Hae Young and Ji Wook are now reunited and back in each other's life. I can't wait for them to grow their attraction more and acknowledge their feelings.

I'm somehow hoping there's a twist with Ji Wook's birth secret. I thought that maybe Madam Fangirl is the one behind the threats and Manager Jang. But then Chairman Bok was acting so obvious and rude during the dinner.

So far, the antagonists haven't been frustrating. They've managed to be silly, funny. Only a little pesky. And the angst has been minimal. I hope the future angst will be handled well.

I am simply loving this show 😀 It's the Kdrama highlight of my week now... just so funny, and touching, and swoony, all at once, and like the younguns say, the chemistry is chemistrying.
So many moments again this week...
The dorky hairstyle she gives him, as if it will lessen KYD's hotness even a bit haha. He could sell me the Eiffel tower, I would sign my kid up too, after the thirsty bee costume/ laundry scenes!!
The trust/ strength test.
The Fight rounds in the elevator, which reminded me of Physical 100 voiceovers.
The Joseon peeping with headbands, moustaches , and rouged cheeks (had me laughing so hard)
The candid aged sperm conversation between sisters LOL
The drunken bacchanal dinner party, with CEO and 2ML bored and exasperated beyond belief at everyone else's antics,
And finally, MLs confession about why he accepted to marry and loves Hae Young... He meant every word of it, which is why he didn't give up the wedding ring.
This show is everything, everywhere, all at once, and doing a damn good job of it, at that.

Given the announced spin off for Ja Yeon and Gyu Hyun, I know we are supposed to ship them. So I was surprised at the set up of Gyu Hyun’s character. He is a thirty something year old man who has been severely controlled, socially isolated from women, and has been threatened and warned about having relationships with women. His parents have used him as a pawn in their completely angry and dysfunctional marriage. His complete displaced rage when finds out his mother’s reading habits led to his vitriol at Ja Yoon. It’s not just what he said, which we know made Ja Yeon feel like he wanted to kill her with his words, it was also the sheer volume of his rage. Frankly, this anonymous online vitriol seemed like incel behavior. Before they put them together, I was looking for real change, self-reflection and even something akin to therapy. However, his apology, which only came after she pressed charges, was forced by the fear of legal and PR ramifications, and his defensiveness about her very real anger and hurt after rejecting his obviously forced apology showed that he really hadn’t understood what he did. He didn’t even seem contrite when he was doing community service—he tried to get out of doing hard work and was a reluctant volunteer. For a show with a lot of good commentary on women’s issues, I was surprised that they chose to soften Ja Yeon’s feelings to him not by some real change in Gyu hyun’s behavior or psychology, but by her realization of his potential wealth. My Sweet Mobster’s Il Yeong wins again! It feels like the show is depending on wealth and Lee Sang Yi’s charm to gloss over a truly problematic character. Sure he can change, but let’s see him work through enough to make him seem like a good potential boyfriend. If anyone could use a 3 year separation to work on themselves it is Gyu Hyun,

Oh my cat, I'M IN LOVE!
Writer-nim, I trust you. I. Believe. You. 😂 So, please don't disappoint!

Episode 5 tried to be a bit more calm and thoughtful since varios serious issues were addressed, like the domestic violence/child abuse and Jae Yeon's storyline. But then episode 6 went back to the neverending comedy and I loved it!

1. Hae Young is ICONIC. Period.

2. I love our main couple so much!!
The "I-don't-know-what-this-is to lovers" trope, is perfect.

One minute they're on the same team, and they're like super considerate and gentle with each other, and the next second they're bickering.
One second Hae Young thinks he's taking revenge on her and next she's talking about trust falls. LMAO
I love them so much.

The only problem I have is that Ji Wook is keeping too many secrets. He knows her mom, and her boss (or more like "her boss knows him"), and he isn't telling her any of that.
If he wants her to make the calculations right and see if her relationship with him doesn't cause her losses, then she needs to have ALL the information.

Her work life can get messy because of him (it already did tbh), and that's not fair. So he better tells her everything next week.

3. Beanies, when are we going to get a confirmation on the middle sis' relationship status?
They're definitely not conventionally dating.
And I feel like she likes someone else. Ah! I'm so itchy to know!

4. Flaw of the week: not enough Secretary Yeo.

5. I'm loving the second leads!
Maybe it's because I'm less focused on their future relationship and more focused on their present, just as two individuals, but I love their storyline.

First of all, I love Bok Gyu as a character. He's neither a cold and trashy chaebol who treats everyone like garbage because he can, nor the utterly unrealistic chaebol with a heart of gold and the morality of an angel.

Dude's just human. We see how growing up with so many privileges makes him think he's superior to others, but that's not because he's a bad person, but because he's ignorant. And we see how the unhealthy parenting has not only made him sexually repressed and immature about some aspects, but it also made him believe that he doesn't have to take real responsibility for his actions.

However, it's also clear that he isn't against change. He can learn and grow. We already saw that in these two episodes.
His first apology to Jae Yeon was horrible. He didn't understand what he had done wrong. The emphasis was on him "feeling sorry". For him, those "sincere" emotions were enough. He was like, "why can't she understand that?"

But after the ToD visit (best cameo of the week), when she got in the taxi and he apologized again, this time the emphasis was on her feelings. He apologized for causing her all this pain.

Same thing when he went to the orphanage. He thought he could just buy some washing machines and call it a day. But then, thanks to his dongsaeng, he...

Thank you for the witty recap. I should mention that there was another white truck of doom in Perfect Marriage Revenge that kept honking but simply passed by.

I’d like to gush about Han Ji Hyun a bit. This is my first time watching her acting in any drama, and I’m simply charmed by her. I literally get cute aggression during her scenes lol The way she face plants into her duvet with shame at the hospital, and all her scenes during the girls’ out of doors exercise routine -spinning on the workout gear and collapsing on the bench- stayed with me, she was so memorably hilarious in those short moments. She also has insane chemistry with all her costars.

Hae-yeong and Ji-uk making the news is funny, now the whole country knows they’re a couple lol.

I’m a bit confused about Yi-rin’s (ex’s wife) attitude towards Hae-Young; didn’t HY basically ruin their wedding shots? Or was all that in HY’s head? She’s also clearly manipulating Woo-Jae; she was throwing him at the president throughout the dinner even though he was not at all interested. I don’t think she’s clueless about WJ and HY’s history either. That girl is brewing something I’m telling you.

Finally, finally, a k-drama that has me hugging myself with glee every week. The writer is having so much fun with all the tropes!

Highlights of this week's episodes include:
- the swerving Truck of Doom
- Ji-wook coming out of his bedroom to find Secretary Jang (otherwise known as Misfortune!) lurking in the living room
- that moment when Hae-young goes to leave, then suddenly turns back to Ji-wook. I'm expecting her to beat him up, but she gives him a centre-parting!
- Nam Ja-yeon's imagination running wild with the "Whenever I eat pork cutlets, something good happens" line.

Her ex sure is openly antagonist towards her for someone who is such a douche. Hae-young could totally tell his wife about them at any point, so why is he so smug.

Awww Ji-uk catching her when she accidentally fell, my heart

Continue being awesome show! Can't wait for the next episode.

Something that I liked or that amused me about the drinking scene is the motivations. Hae Young & the ex were trying to impress or get on the good side of the CEO's mom which led to them competing against each other.

Ji Uk was drinking just so he could be different from the chairman. He doesn't care about impressing anyone.

I think it was another show of their personalities at play.