K-Drama: World of the Married (9.5/10)

I know I am late to the party on this one. I didn’t watch this show when it first aired. This is because I am single, which is mostly fine with me, for a lot of reasons, but what single person gets enthusiastic about a show called World of the Married?

Obviously, I didn’t read the summary. I just judged a book by its cover and I am so glad I decided, months later, to watch it anyway. It is MY FAVORITE SHOW OF 2020.

Here’s is the summary for anyone that did what I did and didn’t read it before:

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Ji Sun Woo is a family doctor and is married to Lee Tae Oh, with whom she shares a teenaged son. Lee Tae Oh, with the financial support of his wife, has established an entertainment company and dreams of becoming a famous director. They seem to have everything; successful careers and happy family life. But that perfect image will soon be shattered when one spouse betrays the other, and those that serve to protect them. (Source: JTBC Worldwide)

What the summary doesn’t tell you is that the show is about a betrayal which causes a series of events that are CRAZY and displays how difficult it is to be betrayed, unloved, unappreciated or to go through a break up, especially when your spouse has moved on. And how difficult it is for the kids when their world as they know it ends and their parents are too caught up in themselves to notice.

From the first episode I was all in! It had the best cliffhangers. So good that I had to know what would happen next and marathoned it.

The story focuses on the two spouses, one who was loyal and the other who cuckolded them, the person they did it with, their family, a couple who unexpectedly got caught up in the spouses drama, the spouses neighbors and people at the hospital where the wife worked.

Almost every character was both good and awful. Thinking about others occasionally, but mostly about themselves. The spouses were a successful doctor living the dream and a film director producer who relied on his wife for funding and was the lucky loser among his friends because his wife always stepped in and supported him.

Other characters included the couples teenage son, who bore the brunt of their issues, the interloper in the spouses marriage who was immature and had no guilt over breaking up a family, the wife’s best friend who was sometimes supportive, but usually selfish and shady, the wife’s boss who was an open misogynist, the couples neighbors who had their own marital issues that took many episodes to work through and a couple in the throes of domestic abuse.

It seems like this show would be a heavy lift to watch with all the emotional stuff and family issues, but it’s not. This show stays interesting all the way through. Because it was interesting and exciting and did I mention crazy? It had cheating, tears, blackmail, rags to riches, violence and near death experiences.

There were only two things I did not like about it. One was the characters black and white views around who would have custody of the kid when there were so many compromises available. The other was the ending.

Obviously, I won’t tell you what it was. And I didn’t hate it. In fact it could have been so much worse. It was good, but a little wonky, overly dramatic and yet a little lacking, in my opinion. I felt like the writers had other better options and were probably just exhausted at the crazy ride they had taken themselves on while writing the drama. Or maybe they had different ideas about the ending and compromised in the end. I don’t know.

I do know that even with my criticisms this was the best drama I have seen all year. The writing was excellent. The acting was amazing. The production was great. Overall, I give it two thumbs up 👍🏻 👍🏻