Early Access: Mad For Each Other E1

E1. Well, whaddya know. I actually find this show ridiculously entertaining, right away. This, considering that I wasn't planning on checking out this show despite liking both leads, because the premise did not sound at all like my kind of thing. I was especially wary of the part about our male lead having anger management issues. That is absolutely not my kind of thing, because the idea of a male lead getting angry a lot (which, surely he would, right?) is the opposite of appealing to me.

And YET, Show makes it all work, and I found myself feeling thoroughly amused for much of this first episode. That, combined with the fact that people have told me that this show is delightful, is very promising indeed.

I think one key thing that makes this work for me, is that Hwi Oh really appears to be a harmless regular guy, until he's provoked. Not only that, it takes quite a bit of provoking, before he actually loses his cool, this episode, which makes me feel like his anger issues might not be so bad after all. I think most people would lose their cool in his shoes, this episode, actually; it's just that maybe they might not express that anger the same way he does, knocking his knuckles bloody against the wall in frustration.

Honestly, though, Hwi Oh's day just gets worse and worse this episode, and I felt really sorry for him, particularly when a lot of the frustrating encounters he has, are due to misunderstandings.

..Which brings me to this episode's key idea, that context really is everything. It's something I say a lot, so maybe that's why I like Show's presentation of it so well. Poor Hwi Oh is the victim of a wrongly constructed context, where Min Kyung basically pieces circumstantial fragments of information together, leaps to the wrong conclusions because of her anxiety (which we see is related to PTSD), and not only reacts in panic whenever Hwi Oh is in the vicinity, but (wrongly) warns people about him, causing him to suffer unnecessary prejudice.

And somehow, the comedy around that works, even though I don't usually jive with humor that, 1, is at an innocent someone's expense, and 2, leans on the toilet side of things. The humor in this show is BOTH of those things, and yet, I found myself giggling haplessly at my screen, groaning, "Oh nooo~," even as I eagerly kept watching. I don't know exactly how Show does it - maybe it's in how harmless everything and everyone ultimately comes across - but it somehow works for me. It's the darndest thing.

The other thing that makes this work, I think, is how Min Kyung is clearly suffering too, because of all these events. She's not out to make Hwi Oh miserable, she's just hyper anxious because of her mental health struggles, and can't help feeling fearful and scared by the conclusions that her agitated brain is coming to. From her point of view, she's just trying to be brave enough to get on with as normal a life as possible, and this menacing guy keeps showing up around her, and behaving suspiciously enough, that she thinks he's out to get her. Hahahaha.. I feel bad for laughing, because they are both suffering so much, but Show's lighthearted touch makes me not take it too seriously, and it lands as very amusing to me.

Both Jung Woo and Oh Yeon Seo are great in their roles, which, I think is a large part of why this show works as well as it does.

Jung Woo makes Hwi Oh baffled, frustrated and wretched, without making him actually frightening or intimidating when his anger spills out. He's just.. really perplexed at why his life is going the way it is.

Oh Yeon Seo makes Min Kyung timid and jumpy, without making her annoying. In fact, it feels like there's something quite delicate about Min Kyung, where she's trying her best to embrace life, while living with her anxiety. It's probably meant to be a gag, that she puts a flower in her hair as a matter of habit, because in Korea, a flower in someone's hair, is shorthand for crazy, and Min Kyung does come across as a little bit crazy, especially to Hwi Oh. However, the way she selects the flower from the bowl of flowers that she keeps, and carefully puts it in her hair, feels, to me, like a very soft and personal thing, where she's being dainty and elegant, in her own way.

Hwi Oh's parents might not work for everyone, but I found them effective for our story. Dad's clearly where Hwi Oh gets his temper from, and there's also definitely emotional baggage from the past, that causes Dad to be extra impatient and confrontational with Hwi Oh. Plus, it's just really unfortunate timing, that Hwi Oh would need the toilet so desperately, at a moment when Dad himself is sitting on it. Oops. That's probably the worst time and circumstance to have a clash of wills. I could understand Hwi Oh's violent urgency in trying to get Dad off the toilet, and I could also imagine how offended Dad would feel, to have someone try to interrupt his, er, toileting.

How motherly of Mom, though, to then handwash Hwi Oh's things, after he ends up pooping his pants. And how sweet of her, to not only not mind it, but even reminisce what it had been like, to wash Hwi Oh's poopy pants when he'd been little. I feel Mom's care and concern for her son, even though her earnest advice for him to change his name feels misguided.

Also, it definitely helps, that when Mom gets all down and upset about things, that Dad forgets his anger and apologizes to her. That definitely helps to make Dad more appealing as a character.

The fact that Min Kyung and Hwi Oh not only go to the same psychiatrist, but live next door to each other, is sure to give rise to more hijinks, and if those hijinks are as funny as the ones served up this episode, I feel like we are in for a fun ride. Even better, I think, is the unspoken promise that these two people, who are wounded and weird in their own ways, will eventually bond, and help each other to heal. I like that idea very much.