The Televerse #508- Spotlight on It’s Okay Not To Be Okay

I am so happy you liked the show. I am also very reliefed you liked it. But that’s only because I was afraid I overhyped it for you.

I wanna say a few things about IOTNBO. I’ll try to keep it short. But I probably can’t…
– Binging
I had absolutely no problem binging the show. There’s so much to unpack and keep you interested in each episode that those 60+ minutes just fly by. I also never felt weighed down by the trauma of the characters. It was always there and it informed a lot of their choices. But there was always something happening that pushed them
Funny enough, this was actually the first K-drama I finished. I started “Something in the rain” before but there were a few aspects that frustrated me with that one and I distracted myself by starting IOTNBO and got completely hooked by the setup and the visuals of those first 2 episodes. And by episode 3 I was completely on board and by the time that hotel scene came, I was in love with the show. The show looks great, the actors are amazing, sountrack and score are great as well and the writing is also very, very good. The characters and their motivations are so well put together and consistent. A lot is happening and you don’t know everything at the beginning. But that makes rewatching the show so rewarding as well.

– Product Placement
This is something very normal in K-dramas. Especially the „We’re all driving the same car brand.“ it is weird in the beginning but one gets used to it and just ignores it. At least you do not get apps praised or the newest Samsung phone gets held into the camera for 2 minutes…
Also, and this is me being a car guy: They weren’t all the same cars. Ju-Ri was driving a XC40 (small SUV), Lee Sang-In a XC90 (luxury mid-size SUV) and Mun-Yeong a S90 (luxury sedan) 😀

– Pacing or „Who knows what and whom when?“
The way I understand it, Sang-Tae and Ju-Ri never knew each other before. Sang-Tae and Mun-Yeong met each other by chance and you are right, the town is small enough that Sang-Tae knew where she went to school and was able to wait outside for her. But I’m pretty sure, Ju-Ri and Sang-Tae only met about a year ago working at the same hospital and she’s smitten by him for the last year. And how could you not. Look at him. He is such a hottie.
I am however not completely sure at which point Mun-Yeong figures out that Sang-Tae is that kid from her past. I think she realizes it that night in her hotel. The thing is: She thinks Sang-Tae doesn’t know and gives him sooo many clues. She does what she always does: She pushes people to where she wants them to be, either by whispering in their ears or screaming in their faces – whatever will work or whatever she feels like in that moment. But Sang-Tae already knows, which the audience does not know for sure at that time. So when he tells her at the end of episode 5, all the times before she hinted it and he didn’t react wasn’t because he was slow to realize but because he tried to ignore her. He hoped that she would loose interest and move on.
As for how Jae-Soo became so entangled: There’s an explanation at some point but I doubt it will satisfy you. It’s basically a throw-away line about how Sang-Tae came to work at Jae-Soo’s parents restaurant as a part-timer and Jae-Soo wanted to have a brother so he just decided to be part of the Moon brothers.

– Humour
Two of my favorite laugh-out-loud funny scenes are a) the already mentioned hotel scene. This is one of the funniest things I have seen in the last few years. And b) the one where Mun-Yeong storms into the locker room in ep. 3 (I think) while Sang-Tae is shirtless and just stops and stares at him. And then he pushes her out where Ju-Ri passes by and Mun-Yeong immediately puts her hands back on Sang-Tae just to push Ju-Ri’s buttons. She’s a master manipulator and she’s spotting the chance to spite Ju_ri and make Sang-Tae uncomfortable as well. You already know her manipulating character by that time so it’s even more impressive seeing him shirtless makes her speechless.
Jei-Su and Gang-Tae together are also comedy gold. As are Sang-in and Jae-Soo as well as Gang-Tae and Mun-Yeong. They are all such goof-balls…

– Tropes in IOTNBO and other K-dramas
“Fate” or “being soul mates” or “having made similar traumatic experiences” is a very common trope in K-dramas (and other romance media as well I would assume). Especially these intertwining lives since childhood or at least a few years whether they knew it or not. This is often retroactively explained in flashbacks to show that even though they haven’t interacted all that much before, they were basically destined for each other. In general, K-dramas expect you to just go with the flow and figure it out along the way which is also a pretty soapy thing to do. But one gets used to it 😀
It is very rare people in K-dramas talk about sex. If it is acknowledged at all, it’s usually only hinted at and then the camera cuts away and sometimes you get a “the morning after” scene. But for the woman to be aggressively pursuing a man and then not only openly offer sex as a bribe (ep. 2) or even tell him that she’s horny (I think it was ep. 3) is something I have never seen before in a K-drama (of which I only watched like 18 or so in the last year. So I’m no expert.)
There are also a lot of other K-drama “tropes” (I suppose not all of them are tropes as they are rooted in Korean society which seems to differ quite a lot sometimes from our in Germany) the show doesn’t have:
The “disapproving/worried parents” are usually a common factor, but both our protagonists are orphans. This is usually a *huge* deal and both of them would get very bad marks in that regard. Sang-Tae is an orphan in a not that well-paid field (so no redeeming qualities) and Mun-Yeong is so abrasive, no mother would want her for her son.
The “collegues/bosses want to go out for drinks butI have plans” are not an issue since Mun-Yeong is basically her own boss (or otherwise just doesn’t give a damn) and Sang-Tae moves a lot, is always the new one and has to take care of his brother.
So this show is pretty unique compared to other shows (with what limited insight I have) in that regard as well.

– Soundtrack and score:
I’m a sucker for good sountracks and Korean drama’s have a very different way of employing them. Usually you do not get a score, so they use different songs as themes for different emotions. They have like 4 to 6 songs and they cycle them through the episodes, sometimes several times in an hour. This can be pretty frustrating and pretty „We’ll play this song until you love it. You just wait and see“ – especially if you binge a show like I usually do.
But this show is different: You have that here as well to some extent. You get Janet Suuh’s „In Silence“ (dramatic and sad moments), „I’m your psycho“ (usually Ko Mun-Yeong’s shenanigans) and „Lighting up your world“ (happy moments), but you also get a whole soundtrack PLUS 48 minutes of score with (twenty) themes for different characters or character pairings which is absolutely insane. This is a 16 episode TV show. Not only that, but in 99% of the cases, K-dramas are one-and-done. Plus they created all this art including all of Ko Mun-Yeong’s books (that reminded me a bit of „Castle“ and how they sold „his“ books as well).
I don’t know who signed off on that. But I’m pretty sure they knew already what kind of treasure they had in this show. Or at least they hoped it would take off the way it apparently did.
Anyway: Needless to say I ordered the sountrack box (including the score which I only listened to once) and it was one of the most listened to albums of the last year…

I’m sorry this got this long. I probably also forgot a few things I wanted to say. Thanks for reading if you made it this far and thank you so much for watching the show. I know I have been a bit pushy but I was 85% sure you would like at least a few aspects of it and 100% sure more people needed to watch this show in particular and K-dramas in general 🙂