Romcoms undoubtedly have a special place in my heart and no matter what dramas I come across, I'll always return to romcoms when I want a relaxing watch. That's why we're moving on to Oh My Ladylord (or directly translated to Oh! Master), which is the textbook definition of a romcom. Starring Lee Min-ki (Because This Is My First Life, The Beauty Inside) as male lead HAN BI-SOO and Nana (Justice, Memorials) as female lead OH JOO-IN, this drama focuses on a celebrated thriller drama screenwriter and an award-winning actress who end up living together, with silly comical situations bound to arise from this cohabitation. The drama's title is actually a pun as it's romanised as "Oh! Joo-in-nim", which is a play on the female lead's name (Oh Joo-in) as well as how "Joo-in-nim" can be translated as "master". On that snort-inducing moment, let's dive right in.
INITIAL THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS (SPOILER ALERT)
Episode 1 introduces us to our leads Bi-soo and Joo-in, and sets up their romance. Bi-soo is a drama screenwriter who specialises only in thrillers and his works have all done well. However like many other romcom male leads, he's quite standoffish and rude, having little care for those around him and wanting everything to go his way. Bi-soo also has a huge obsession with cleanliness and order. He hates having things out of place, needs all the doors in his house to be closed fully and is also a huge perfectionist when it comes to his scripts. Not only does he cut deadlines close by constantly reworking his scripts until he thinks they're perfect but he also wants the actors to only stick to his script without any adlibs or additions from producers. He's even fired actresses for what he deems as bad acting and antagonises the crew working on his dramas.
His annoying ways have placed him at loggerheads with Joo-in, a famous actress who's won Best Actress twice (in some unmentioned awards ceremony) and has starred in a ton of commercials. She's basically the "romcom queen", having made her name through that genre but she wants to challenge herself by taking on a different kind of drama role. She's tried to star in two of Bi-soo's previous dramas to no avail and tries a third time after the aforementioned actress-firing incident. Of course, he ignores her in his usual rude way and hires another A-lister instead, which naturally doesn't end up well after tabloids spin a tall tale about an on-set incident, turning the public's anger onto Bi-soo. With his drama on the verge of getting cancelled before it even makes it to the small screen, Bi-soo's only hope is to hire Joo-in as his new heroine, something that he's extremely reluctant to do.
Under the glitz and glamour of showbiz though, our leads have their own tragic backstories. Episode 1 has shown us that Bi-soo has a strained relationship with his doctor father and can barely stay in the same room as him despite being very close to his own mother (who he refers to by name). Through flashbacks to when he was a high schooler, we get hints that Bi-soo caught his father cheating on his mother in their own house, with his father threatening Bi-soo to keep the adultery under wraps so as to "not hurt his mother". Till this day, his mother presumably doesn't know what went down and Bi-soo hates his father's guts, with this situation potentially having caused our male lead to become the way he is now.
Joo-in on the other hand masks her sorrow under her "camera" smile, with her mother being in a nursing home for what I assume is either early onset dementia or Alzheimer's. While we don't know the full story, Joo-in's father (who was an author) presumably passed on some time ago and her mother has either forgotten this because of dementia or because his death has traumatised her. Our female lead has spent so long climbing to stardom just so she can support her family and get them back together again by buying their old family home. Although she wants her mother to move back in with her to their old home, she refuses much to Joo-in's disappointment. Joo-in does end up buying back their home but as luck would have it, the current home owner is Bi-soo's mother, with her son living there. Selling the house with Bi-soo none the wiser, his mother allows Joo-in to move in after she's moved her son's stuff out. The episode then ends with a drunken Bi-soo returning home after he meets his father and both leads end up chancing upon each other in a classic romcom moment, with both of them using the same bathroom.
This drama ticks all the typical romcom tropes. Guy and girl hate each other at the start, end up interacting more with each other and then eventually fall in love. Of course, we haven't gotten around to the last one yet but it'll come eventually. So far, this drama is definitely my cup of tea because it's a simple romcom that doesn't require me to think too much, instead allowing me to just enjoy the drama. There'll definitely be a bunch of other plotlines explored as we go along, such as what actually happened to Joo-in's family or the truth behind Bi-soo's animosity towards his father. I also think that Bi-soo's mother is hiding something as she constantly tries to get him to move back in with the family and even sells his house without him knowing. Maybe she's sick and wants to spend what little time she has left with her whole family? I don't know it's a possibility.
Another plot point in episode 1 was Bi-soo getting hit by a truck and being launched quite far away before emerging from a 3-day coma only to be completely unharmed. It's not explained how this happened yet but before he falls unconscious, Bi-soo sees a man dressed completely in white appearing before him and telling him that he'll save him. We don't know who this man is because of our hero's blurred vision at the point in time but we'll probably find out soon. I doubt he's an angel or anything like that since I don't believe the drama will delve into the supernatural but hey, we'll only find out as we go along. The final thing I'll mention is that the drama features a second male lead in the form of YU JIN [CNBLUE's Kang Min-hyuk (Hospital Ship, How to Be Thirty)], who we haven't seen yet but as we know from general info, he's Joo-in's close friend since high school who's a successful artist abroad but has returned to South Korea to confess his love for her. Usual romcom love triangle shenanigans but I'm all for it.
I really love romcoms I can't stress this enough. Even if they're chockful of cheesy and romantic moments, I can't get enough of them. It's not news that this drama's ratings were terrible, having had the lowest average ratings for a free-to-air K-drama in a primetime slot, only achieving 1.6%. In fact, people have said that its terrible ratings are part of "MBC's downfall" (MBC being the broadcasting network), with the network having been regarded as the "Drama Kingdom" in the 1990s but to that I say, don't let ratings determine whether you should watch a drama or not. I certainly won't so I'll hope you join me as we continue watching Oh My Ladylord.
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