Huh? How does that fit?

One of the Kdrama that is popular this season is When the Phone Rings. It features Yoo Yeon-seok - who is a favorite actor of mine - along with Chae Soo-bin who I am not familiar with. As I've mentioned in many posts, Kdramas can have interesting and unusual story lines. The story unfolds over many episodes and can be complicated - it's one of the attractions I have for Kdramas.

Chae Soo-bin and the fabulous Yoo Yeon-seok from When the Phone Rings

This Kdrama is no exception. If you actually might watch this Kdrama be forwarned there are spoilers in this blog post and you might want to stop now... otherwise feel free to continue reading.  

To summarize, Yoo Yeon-seok is married to a woman who is mute. Their marriage was arranged by their families and they have no emotional connection with each other. The wife is temporarily kidnapped and much of the show revolves around discovering the identity of the kidnapper. It turns out the wife isn't really mute and is pretty unhappy in the marriage since they have zero connection. (Gee, what a surprise!) And in typical Kdrama fashion he actually has feelings for her but has been hiding them throughout their marriage. [My younger brother will often tell me, 'why don't they share their true feelings?'] When the Phone Rings falls into that kind of show; open communication would have improved things for this couple.

But that's not even what I want to write about! The show has several near-death events, plenty of bad blood between family members, and some tame bedroom scenes; but it's the last episode that does me in. Our lovely couple has finally shared their mutual affection and things are looking up. But he disowns his family fortunes and disappears and.... wait for it...... turns up in a tropical warzone. What?!? Where did that come from? There was no discussion of any warzone and it has zero to do with the story line. Couldn't he have just gone to a remote village in rural Korea? Why involve rebels, counter rebels, palm trees, and jeeps?

I haven't researched this but perhaps the writer died almost at the end and they hired a substitute to finish up the story line. Unfortunately the substitute didn't read the original writer's story so they came up with this ridiculous, non-sequitur episode that just doesn't fit. This is why Netflix needs the Gmamas on retainer as advisors! ~ Judy

Pat here. Judy is correct: the last episode is a giant disappointment. However, I guess my memory is better than hers. The conflict zone WAS previously mentioned in earlier episodes of WTPR. Yoo Yeon-seok was a hostage negotiator there before he had his job as a government spokesperson. In that way, his return to to the war zone made sense. In more important ways it didn’t, though, it didn’t make sense at all. If I were to rate this Kdrama, it would get a giant “HUH???”