Thanks so much for your recaps, @Unit!

형부 (brother-in-law)
I’m late commenting on this, but Ja-Yeon referring to Ji-Uk as 형부 is just THE CUTEST THING EVER! I love it. The way Han Ji-hyun naturally delivers the line shows how seamlessly Ji-Uk fit into the family: that he is family in so many ways. It may also be because KYD and HJH have already worked together that their on-screen chemistry as in-laws works so convincingly.

Keeping promises
At first I thought Ji-Uk’s obsession with keeping his promises to people was a convenient plot device to throw him into Hae-Young’s life. But, the reality is much sadder as well as realistic. When you need to keep a promise to someone, it means you matter. It means your actions affect others around you (think It’s A Wonderful Life where the impact of George Bailey’s life is shown through the ‘what if he had never been born’ scenario). It means you are connected to the person you promised something to. For Ji-Uk who never belonged anywhere or to anyone, it must have been a way to feel connected to those in his life.

The angelic puppy
Another puzzlement throughout the entire drama was how well-behaved Ji-Uk is. For someone who has never known the stability and warmth of a real family, he always seemed a bit too well-adjusted. He was the ‘angelic’ puppy of Hae-Young’s neighborhood, a defender of justice at the job interview, and always met Hae-Young’s crazed ideas and temper tantrums with even keel responses, or counters.

But, after Hae-Young mentioned how children who have temper tantrums are confident that they will never be abandoned it dawned me in that this puzzling personality trait dovetails seamlessly with his painful personal history. Many times people who are well-behaved are those who fear they have to earn people’s affection by being pleasant and undemanding. He was that angelic puppy because he feared that was the only way he would be accepted and not abandoned.

The perfect ending
Wow, this show really did not disappoint. That was the perfect ending. I really loved that what Ji-Uk really wanted in the end (to hear that he is loved) closed out the drama. The drama wasn’t just about Hae-young’s journey of discovering and appreciating the family her mother built for her through her foster siblings, it was also about Ji-Uk finding he has a true family, a place to call his own home. The fluttery moments, the banter, the skinship, the kisses - they weren’t just throw away events for the sake of a rom-com but were convincingly building the emotional and intimate history between our two leads.

(to be continued in comments)

I was very disappointed that the leads didn’t get enough screen time. Did the writers forget who the leads were in the last episode?? I needed more. A lot more happy moments with them so I felt denied. I have to go and watch the early episodes again.

I can get behind Hae Young wanting him to be free and to live his life in his own terms without any obligations. (And dude clearly can’t live without making promises. Tsk tsk). I think Ji Ukie needed that time for himself. To figure out what he wanted to do in life.
But somehow it didn’t translate well on screen. Especially the resolution. I was left with more questions. And they could have done this 20 minutes earlier and given us some happy moments and conversations with the couple and also added more scenes with sisters as a family.

We needed another two episodes to wrap up the chaebol arc, manager Ahn arc etc. Didn’t care for the Fok family till the end.

Anyway. Minor gripes aside, it was a solid romcom and I loved it. I have to give it a 9/10 because of the last episode. I was hoping it would be a 10/10.

I enjoyed these two final episodes. However, I started to feel a bit lost and disappointed by the second half of episode 12.
I wasn’t a fan of the break up, and the reunion felt underwhelming and kind of confusing. But now, the more I think about it, the more I’m okay with it.
I guess I really loved this show.

Hae Young said that pretending to not know what happened with Ja Yeon was a selfish choice. She said she didn't want to lose someone else in her life. She didn’t know if she was really helping her or if she was hurting Ja Yeon more, but she didn’t want to let her go.

However, with Ji Wook she chose to lose him, to let him go, to give him a chance to find himself. It was heartbreaking when she cried because Ji Wook isn’t the type of kid who can throw a tantrum just because. He doesn’t know how to ask for anything, because even before he could do that people would deny him everything and force their own answer on him. For this reason, Hae Young just wanted him to find an answer himself.

When it came to Ji Wook she became so vulnerable, forgiving and was ready to suffer any loss. That was her way to love him, and I think that makes her final decision of letting him go instead of letting him live keeping another useless promise that wouldn’t let him be and express himself.

And then Ji Wook… I thought that when he decided to stay last week that meant that he was done with all the secrets and promises and sacrifices. However, he wasn’t done. Dude was ready to tie himself to another two new promises in less than one minute—I guess people really don’t change de un día para otro. We know that he loves Hae Young, but he couldn’t comfortably express that. Instead, he made it sound as if he was going to be by her side as another mission-like-promise. Which means that even if he gets sick of uri Son-nim he would stay with her till his death because, you know, “promises”. He was making their relationship about duty and sacrifices again. So what he needed was the confidence to choose himself and what he wanted instead of what others need or expect from him.

For the reunion I wanted him to say exactly that, and tell us how much he changed but he didn’t so I was kind of confused, but then I realized that he technically did. No one told him to go to meet his mom and her family. The promise was not to do that, but he broke it. And then he came back to Hae Young to tell her that wanted to be with her. His heart is with her. And that if she finds that too heavy, she can deal with it! LOL

And now that he’s promises-free, she can love him without hurting him, and he can do the same. So, yeah, it was a Zero Losses kind of ending for our main couple. And I’m okay with it. Did I want more after that? Yes, but I won’t resent the show for it.

The relationship between Hae-Young and Ja-Yeon was my favorite thing about this show. That moment when Ja-Yeon found out Hae-Young had known the murderer's identity all along really got me.

I also thought Bok-yu and Ja-Yeon were the cutest, and I'm glad we get to see a little more of them. I have loved Lee Sang-yi in every show I've seen him in. I wish they would give him lead roles. He isn't the hottest actor in dramaland, but he's always so charming and funny! Even when he's being kind of assy, as he was in this show.

Overall, I really liked and enjoyed this show. One thing I didn't like was how there were no consequences or even acknowledgement of wrongdoing from the Bok family. Does it count as lampshade hanging that Ji Uk referred to the fact that Gyu Hyun had THREATENED him and just went on being comfortable with him like nothing happened? Same with the chairman showing up at the airport to see him off. Like WTF? What was I supposed to think or feel about him being there? And then he rushed over asking "what did he say about him?"
I swear something must've gotten lost in translation but Frm Manager Jang's retort and reaction to him kinda makes up for it. I liked when the chairman did that gesture like he was gonna do something to Jang and reflectively Jang shrunk back but then he had his moment of remembering he doesn't work for the Bok family anymore and he doesn't have to cower to them and then rose back, making the chairman shrink back.

I did not notice that Gyu Hyun had taken pictures of the rings throughout the day haha. I really would miss a dancing gorilla in a crowd haha. I just thought that it seemed kinda full circle or a callback to when Hae Young was taking those pictures of herself for her proposal video/story. I thought that's why it ended with the video of them exchanging the rings.

I was also a bit confused or thrown by the fact that Hae Young started her own company only to have to get an investment from Gyu Hyun and his company. If he's an investor, doesn't that mean he would be (a) profitting off her business and (b) would have some entitlement in having a say in it? I honestly thought Ji Uk was gonna end up being an investor. Like maybe the chairman would give him a lot of money, as an apology or something, or maybe his mother had alot of money and that would be used to invest in Hae Young's company.

Again, I felt like No Gain No Love was used to springboard the spinoff. Gyu Kyun suffered zero consequences for how he treated Ji Uk and Hae Young. He was never seen standing up to his parents. There was a sign in an elevator that said equal benefits regardless of martial status and that's it. Not even a shot of him having a female secretary. He got to be called Hyung and he got the girl and everything just worked out for him.

Whatever; it's nice and light but it did leave me kinda feel like it was setting the stage for the spinoff.

He did get his hero moment of dual wielding light saber sex toys so that was certainly something haha
I did some blinky blink when I saw that because I couldn't believe what I was seeing haha

And the actor had to film it twice apparently haha
Once with the light sabers and once with the toys I guess haha. Those lights reminded me of what is used at airports haha
And it also made me laugh/chuckle that he innocently asked Ji Uk what they were and why was there so many haha.

Someone on Reddit said that they think this drama had two main couples, and I agree with that take. They got way more than second leads usually do. It was more like A Business Proposal, and even then it was probably more. I write romance stories for fun, and there was one time I was writing a primary couple and secondary couple. As I wrote the story, I ended up liking the secondary couple more and more and they became way more than secondary. I wonder if that's what happened here. I mean, they were even inspired enough to make a spinoff.

I am not happy with how they handled Gyu-hyun's character, because I was convinced he was going to get redemption (beyond that moment in ep 11, which was awesome). I apologize for my overconfidence in previous recap comments in that realm. It baffles me how the writers decided how to handle this. Sure, you want Hae-yeong to start her own business. I get that. But would it have killed them to show one scene of Gyu-hyun to offer Hae-yeong her old position and she turns it down, and to tell Ji-uk that he doesn't have to leave apart from starting to say it and being interrupted? And then to see her ex succeed in her place... Like I was saying on the fanwall, it's realistic but not what I want to see in a romcom. Also, like, what about his wife? Are they fine now?

That being said, as weird as this might sound I'm not gonna fault Gyu-hyun for bad writing. Maybe it's because I'm a Gundam fan, but I'm very good at disregarding things as canon. So I'm just gonna ignore that problematic aspect and enjoy his scenes and interactions with Ja-yeon. The drama clearly doesn't see it as problematic, so I am choosing not to as well. I will view it as he's still kind of a snob and entitled and elitist, and the most he'll go against his parents is implementing policies for his employees. I would be much, much happier with this ending if I didn't have to make that choice, but c'est la vie. But it was weird how they just kind of, like, dropped his parents. His mom stopped being vengeful? His dad finally accepted Ja-yeon? Who knows? And I REALLY wanted to see a scene of Ja-yeon and Gyu-hyun's mom interacting now that Ja-yeon and Gyu-hyun are together. Still, I did enjoy the blind date scene, and that actress should win an award for portraying such a believable version of the HPL art gallery owner's sister.

Lee Sang-yi did SO much heavy lifting for this character. I am glad, though, that he had this role where he got to be funny and dynamic and romantic. I also think he and Han Ji-hyun had fantastic chemistry and I hope someday they get to be in a drama where they are the main leads and, uh, are not controversial.

Also, like, he was just giving her couples' rings, right? Not proposing marriage? Because people online keep saying it was a proposal. And the dialogue made it sound way bigger than couples' rings. But it was just couples' rings, right?

Someone else on Reddit said that Hae-yeong is...

Random question: @unit @mayhemf @vienibenmio - was this show pre-produced? Is this a silly question?

I got into Kdramas in 2016 when production was merely days (even hours) before airing. It was a big deal that Moonlovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo was pre-produced. Then, I got out of Kdramas because they took up too much time. Has the industry changed since then so that most Kdramas are pre-produced?

With No Gain No Love I noticed the different seasons, especially winter in some of the scenes with snow. So, did primary shooting happen last year?

I think there maybe something lost in translation because it makes little to no sense Ji Uk would be house shopping and giving out wedding invites to *his* friends & aquaintances for a wedding for his "stepfather's relatives"

If that was suppose to be a misdirect 실패!

I think it's heartbreaking/heartrending/something with heart the fact that Hae Young's mom said she was gonna lose all the bad memories, leaving only the good ones and the last place we see her is thinking about her daughter. It's also kinda a tear jerker that all the moments she was lucid or fairly lucid were the wedding or when she congratulated Hui Seong on becoming a mother. That wedding really did have multiple benefits.

I didn't personally mind Hae Young breaking off things with Ji Uk because I understood her reasoning and it was in line with her character all along. What I did feel a skotch disappointed by is Gyu Hyun and Ja Yeon getting the bulk of the sweet moments in the finale. Hae Young and Ji Uk got the emotional moments so it still works out but yeah, that was a tiny bit sad to me.

I wonder if Ji Uk traveled the world on the chairman's dime. Again, I love that for him because he never got to do anything for himself; he was ALWAYS living for and in consideration of other people.

While I liked the ending and the end credits makes me wanna rewatch the series again, I did have a moment of thinking I can see the appeal of having 2 more episodes because I want more of Hae Young and Ji Uk.

One of the things I liked most about their last moment is the full circle aspects. The first time Ji Uk came to the house, Hae Young's mom hugged and welcomed him and now it's Hae Young doing it. Also she went from not wanting to share "her" space and resentful of the foster kids to opening her heart to them, especially the last one.

I love to collect interesting words – you may have heard of these, for example: 🧐

Tsundoku (Japanese) the habit of buying books but never getting around to reading them. As a noun it can also be the pile of unread books that keeps growing…👀

Or Kummerspeck (German) – literally ‘grief bacon’. Binge eating as a result of emotional pain (we might say ‘eating your feelings’). 🤣

So, I think we need a Korean word (or maybe one exists that I don’t know about) that means ‘that feeling when your fave k-drama couple finally get together and you check the time left in the episode and it’s only 3.5 minutes and you feel completely robbed!’. 😬😬💔

Hui Seong's boyfriend wearing the pregnancy belly and taking classes even though they were broken up?! Sweet! I really liked that and I wondered if that's a thing guys really do; volunteering wear bellies or take classes to better understand the mothers.
I know there's classes about the actual baby related stuff (labor, delivery, and handling them, etc) but I never considered it was classes to help men better empathize with pregnant women. (Aside from youtube challenges haha)

I adored this show, and the female lead was one of my all-time favourites. But why can’t k-dramas get the no of episodes right??

I feel like a disappointed Goldilocks💔. We either get too many eps – with ridiculous filler flashbacks and montages, or, as in this case, too few, and key elements are not tied up or we don’t get to revel in couple joy the way we were made to wallow in couple sorrow/frustration…😬😭

Our FL, Hae-young, was an intelligent, inventive and amazing career woman who deserved to be a girl-boss and to get her elevation at the expense of the petty CEO.

Lest we forget Gyu-hyun’s very un-finest hour - he not only demoted her simply because she was connected to his new half-brother, but also promoted her slimy ex, who stole all her ideas!!! And, as far as I can tell, he never apologised or was forced to compensate her for that (them having to ‘face heart’ him into investing in their company just added insult to injury).

Re her mother storyline, I thought the idea that she never got ‘closure’ from the mum was pretty realistic to their relationship dynamic, so I didn’t have an issue with that (although it was sad).

But the fact that NO ONE, especially Ji-wook, validated her perfectly reasonable anger at being the one child who felt abandoned by her fostering mother, rather than supported by her was incredibly frustrating to me. You can agree her mother was doing an amazing thing, whilst also accepting that it robbed Hae-young of a lot of maternal affection.

And of course, as Unit said, even the romance left us wanting in the final ep – no passionate kiss, no bed scene without full clothes, nothing….

A whole bunch of other threads were left dangling in the wind, but those were the FL ones that bugged me the most…

Firstly, let me say this to get it out of the way before I start my work day:

1) Bruno and Chris officially need to be credited in the cast list! Yes, those awesome glow-in-the-dark Jedi light sabre sex toys doubling up as weapons-to-apprehend-potential-murderer/intruder.

Well played, Show. That Chekov Gun finally went off in the finale - in the most hilarious way 🤣🤣🤣

No Gain No Love had a lot of wonderful, amazing parts and most of its run was great, but it wasn't perfect. It needed some tweaks. The humor from beginning to end was a highlight. Dry humor? Check. Wacky humor? Check. Funny sound effects? Yes! Graphics and details that made a moment pop. EP 11 had me crying so much THEN cackling when the trash dad got beaten with dildos LMAO. It was a hilarious way that instantly broke the scary tension and gave me time to breathe, haha.

Son Hae Young is one of my top heroines ever. She was consistently awesome, brave, and caring. LOVED Shin Mina in this role. One of my favorites she's done so far.

The sister trio and seeing their bond were big highlights as well. I like the callback to the box of gifts during their celebratory party, heh. Their love, concern, support for each other was so palpable. Their bickering, their teasing, their hugs. 💗

I appreciated the candid sex talk and sexy, natural skinship. It was good to see grown adults flirting and acting with desire. I liked both couples, but more development and communication was needed and then by the end, I was more supportive of Hae Young and Ji Wook than of Ja Yeon and Gyu Hyun.

Ji Wook had to drink alcohol to bolster his courage to voice his feelings and face Hae Young. His soft, mellowy self balances out her fierceness, but I wanted a stronger response from him when they reunited (a second time lol). Still, his line "I only came back to where I left my heart." got me good. T.T

Her earlier point of view was a compelling one when she said she did not want to be his reason for living. That it would be too much of a burden. I don't often see that perspective in kdrama romances so that was refreshing. I understood that she wanted him to live his life without holding himself back. They could have explored their relationship while trying different experiences on their own or together.

My heart broke with how Ji Wook easily accepted that he would be abandoned and be alone after the funeral scene. He was used to it. He didn't fight back when Hae Young wanted them to part ways.

One random bit that distracted me was when she took away his ring and left him.... I kept thinking that he bought that ring himself! LOL. Of course, I knew he would come back. It was just an off detail that could have been left out of the script or something.

The finale had too much screentime of the second leads. Gyu Hyun and Ja Yeon had cute, swoony scenes I enjoyed in the past and this time (and last week), they were cute and convincing.... However, in the back of my mind, I couldn't help but think of his moves that messed up Hae Young's career. He approved her project idea and had it moving forward without her. He never apologized or show remorse to her, not even saying sorry to Ja Yeon. His parents sucked and were underdeveloped.... His mother could have been interesting. Manager Yang snapping back at his father in the finale was very...

Sic’s Shortlist of Reasons for Hating No Gain No Love, as requested by the Beanies @vienibenmio, @pineapplegongzhu and @jossie4cheryl

1. It was boring, almost the entire time. And rarely funny.

2. I found the themes in general, but especially the central theme of Gain and Loss in Love and Relationships, very poorly developed and very poorly executed when it was bought up at all. For a show literally named after said theme, I expect a lot more.
The only main way this theme is truly developed is in regards to the FL and her mother and foster sister, and even then, I don’t think it was that well executed.

And the drama so poorly develops this theme in relation to the main OTP and their relationship, that I am tempted to say it doesn’t at all.
It appears a lot at the beginning and then they seemed to forget about it until Hae Young is apparently already in the middle before she began, and realises she would suffer loss for him, but without ever truly exploring that change or how we got there or why we got there OR what the consequences of that are. And then it forgets about it until the ending with her mum’s funeral.

I do not agree that the FL’s opinion on suffering no loss in relationships or life is correct. I do not believe that is merely a way of protecting herself from being taken advantage of either.
But the drama never challenges her on this properly.
In fact, it seems more intent on rewarding her for this (Ji Uk’s line at the dinner with the Chairman and co. and her realisation that her mother did not suffer losses in the same way she feels her foster sister is a gain) than anything else. We get one brief line about her being willing to suffer loss for Ji Uk, and almost nothing besides.

I can’t even say the OTP’s ending even brings it up again because it seems more intent on exploring everything else BUT what it means to be in a true relationship with someone and suffer gain AND loss.

Relationships aren’t transactional. At some point, there will be loss and sacrifice in relationship that you cannot get back. And there will be grace and love, undeserved, and unmatched, both given, and received, because all is NOT fair in love, and life, and war. And, respectfully, that is the entire point.

But this is instead thematically perfunctory and performative rather than actually thematically well written. It presents an idea, it has a brief conversation or two about the idea, and then the idea has no or very little farther consequence on either the story or the characters.
And, more often than not, the ideas contradict each other as well.

And then the show does this same exact thing with every other storytelling component as well.

3. I dislike the FL.
I find her patronizing and arrogant, and as per the lack of development for the main theme, I don’t really think she grew very much throughout the show, with the exception of the arc with her mother.

She pushes him away because...

Ngl NGNL, I didn't love the last episode. Forced separations in the finale will always be my ToD, even though I think it made sense here. It just would have been nice if it was a mutual decision made after they had a conversation, and if we didn't have to wait until the last 5 or so mins for them to reuinte. It just felt like that whole episode could have been condensed into the first 30mins and then we could have had cutenes n' fluff and some time to better tie up most of the loose ends.

But! I'm not super salty about all that anymore. I will gladly take a series where all but the last episode is consistently awesome, over one that runs out of battery midway through. This show gave us a darn adorable, heart-fluttery OTP (one of my favorites), one of the best FL's ever, a wonderful found family (the sisters have my heart), and so, so many laughs. And I love how even though she had a rocky relationship with Mom, Hae-young gained her dearest people thanks to Mom's foster work. Thank you for the recaps, Unit!

I stand by that break-up being the right idea. He needed to live life for himself, and make decisions for himself, and his future. If they stayed together, they would've just grown to resent each other because he always lived life for other people, and not for himself. He needed to be free, from both his relationship, and his promises, as both were also very much tied together. That way he was finally able to make decisions based on what he wants, decisions that are influenced by his own feelings and nobody else's. He made the choice to reconnect with his family, and he ultimately made the choice to return to Hae-young. Now, I certainly didn't expect the break-up to last the entire episode, but I'm okay with it, because it was ultimately the right thing to do.

I also loved our second couple, and I love that they had plenty of screen-time. This is a rom-com, the more well-developed couples, the better. There's nothing more frustrating than a second couple having potential, but never reaching it because they don't get any meaningful screentime. Their development happens pretty fast though, and probably could've used additional time, but it still works, so it's not a big problem.

Fork-gyu is... Well, he's a giant mess that's incredibly flawed, and I like him because of it. Big credit to Lee Sang-yi, because I don't think the character would've worked without him. But the reason I like him also has to do with the show treating him like a flawed character. I never had the feeling that the show was trying to pretend he was perfect (which, imo, is one of the worst things you can do with a flawed character). His flaws are always there, and you either love him or hate him, and I very much understand both sides.

Hae-young was fantastic, and her relationship with her sisters was another highlight, especially with Ja-yeon in episode 11.

Now, the show certainly wasn't perfect, and neither was the finale (which I really liked, despite it also being my least favorite episode), and there are certainly some loose ends. Like, did the show just forget about Woo-jae's wife? Where the heck was she? I also think the polyamory storyline with Hee-sung should've been handled better, but at least it wasn't problematic? Small victories I guess, but I'm still pretty satisfied with her ending.

All in all, this is by far my favorite rom-com this year, and I will miss it a lot. But anyway, we still have the two-episode spin-off! Bonus round, let's go!