A strong first half that dwindled into the biggest disappointment of this year

For something to 'disappoint' you, you must have had high expectations of it to begin with. And with the way this show started off, many would not have been unreasonable to see its vast potential and expect the show to live up to that potential throughout its duration.

By episode 4, the writer had a rich plot and a set of decently shaded, fascinating characters that were just begging to have their stories told. What started off as a tale of a prickly girl learning to live again with the help of a happy-go-lucky boy-angel dissolved into a hapless mess about two star-crossed lovers being forced apart by a wholly unsympathetic diety whose intentions nobody in this drama understood (not even the writer it seems).

It’s just...GOOD GOD...it had so much going for it you know?!? One of the biggest mistakes this drama made was when it shifted the focus off the female lead’s journey, i.e. her return to ballet, her scheming relatives, her emotional growth, and instead onto the ill-constructed love story between her and the male lead.

Being a romance, a love connection between the two was imminent. But I just wished it had been executed and drawn out better. Not only did it seem to come completely out of left-field, but also Dan and Yeon Seo's relationship was never explored to the extent where it would be believable that they were truly as crazy about each other as depicted in the drama. When does companionship equal passionate love? All I saw was a budding friendship that suddenly turned into a love-or-die kind of affair, which was jarring at best.

Secondary characters had extremely promising trajectories, which were abandoned halfway through the drama in favour of blander plot elements. Ji Kang Woo, a director at Yeon Seo's ballet company was being set up as a noteworthy second lead, and had a fascinating backstory that could've been used to elevate the fantasy aspect to so much more. Furthermore, he had such an intriguing relationship with the second female lead, Geum Nina, that to not expand on it was a disservice to this entire production. Instead, whatever Nina and Ji Kang Woo had soon dissipated into screeching one-sided love declarations from the former, while the latter coldly brushed her off in favour of the forever-pristine main female lead.

All in all, the writer set up some grand goals for herself and failed to follow them through. The lacklustre ending more or less demonstrated this perfectly, as the main couple are reunited in the last five minutes with no explanation given whatsoever. It's almost disrespectful to the characters and the battle they fought to be with each other in the second half of the drama. What writer is shameless enough to build the entire drama around a singular conflict, only to resolve it with one of the most half-assed endings of all time? Other than the writer of About Time, THIS one.

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I almost never write reviews, so the fact that this is my FIRST review on this site should account for how much I loved this drama. It's inspired so much emotion and self-reflection in me that I think I've begun to view life differently as a result. This drama is probably going down as my top drama for 2018. I shouldn't have expected anything less from the writer of Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo, but the fact that she can do just as well, if not better, with a more mature and melancholic topic (whereas WFKBJ was a lighter campus drama) just speaks to how good of a writer she really is.

I think Familiar Wife hits that sweet spot between fantastical romance and relatable reality. Despite the large role played by elements like 'destiny', Familiar Wife never fails to feel like an everyman's story, one that everyone can see themselves be a part of.  Familiar Wife tackles two seemingly conflicting notions about love, showing that they, in fact, go hand-in-hand and complement each other. Should a couple belong together because they are fated? Or because they understand each other, communicate well together? Is compatibility predestined, or nurtured over time after knowing each other? Although Woo Jin and Joo Hyuk are clearly destined together, they still had to put in work to reach a happy place in their relationship. When they didn't, their relationship began to fall apart.

This drama had so many applicable life lessons and such larger than life characters, it was a complete joy to watch them. Characters that started off as unlikeable had such amazing growth trajectories and the situations mirrored real life to such a surprising extent, you could literally see yourself in them. The friendships and familial relationships were so sweet, and every emotion experienced by our characters was so palpable (all credit due to the amazing cast)

I know this drama draws a lot of comparisons to Go Back Couple, but they really are very different when it comes to what they are at their core. Yes, they're both about rediscovering your love for your spouse, but I think Familiar Wife tackles the subject of marriage breakdown more comprehensively and better. It focuses more on the husband and the wife and their relationship dynamics, which I found lacking in GBC, but that makes sense because GBC was more about reliving one's youth and getting closure for things in the past.

Familiar Wife requires a slightly mature and forgiving audience, because these characters are flawed, not unlike real humans. They make mistakes, learn, and make more mistakes - and that's how life works.

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I could make a checklist for every trope this one hits, but man I just couldn't stop watching. The plot is fast-paced and ties in everything together well, the acting is on-point, the chemistry magical and OST magnificent.

This is the quintessential k-drama - you have a bickering main couple, who happened to know each other as kids, amnesia, kidnapping, a damsel constantly in distress, and an ML with mommy issues. And I can just keep on going.

But something about this show just kept me on my feet and squealing at every turn. Despite the multiple clichés, the show is unpredictable in the best way possible. The friendship between the 3 leads is heartwarming, in a way that reminded me of Chicago Typewriter, because despite the love triangle, you know their relationship runs much deeper than that. We gotta have more 3-way love triangles!

As a genius tech sav who was constantly on the run from the authorities, the ML reminded me SO MUCH of Healer.
I also found it super refreshing that we had a 30-something FL who was NOT a candy and pretty accomplished in her own right. Yes, she got a bit damsel-in-distressy sometimes for my liking, but she was fully part of the action in the final episodes and I WAS ALL FOR IT.

Although this drama may require a bit of suspension of belief, it was easy to get lost in this shiny world of advanced AI.
Final words: WATCH IT!!

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