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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Family Outing" Episode 13

Near the beginning of this episode, we almost have a nice scene where the older family members have fun with their great grandchild. Then abruptly halfway through the tone completely changes to one of the very stark serious storylines again. I feel like this is what watching "Family Outing" is like writ large. Frequently it almost comes close to being somewhat enjoyable, then it's an abrupt jump away to one of the other myriad storylines, usually one of the overly serious ones.

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There are, for example, four romantic plots going on right now. Possibly more- with this many characters it's easy to lose track. The one with Joon-hee and Dong-seok is hopelessly muddled because every other scene has to abruptly transition at some point to either being about Joon-hee's career aspirations, her elaborate scam, or her tragic backstory. I'm continually perplexed as to why "Family Outing" feels the need to have so much going on at the same time.

It's honest-to-goodness much easier to follow along with the other romances simply because they're so underdeveloped that there's no way to get all that distracted by other plot points. Two of these paramours do not, so far as I can tell, have any reason to be in the story at all except to act as love interests. This is a good thing. It keeps the scenes tonally consistent, and consequently watchable. I can tell what the characters actually want to do.

As for jokes...I'm not sure "Family Outing" even tried to tell any jokes this episode. Well let's see, I suppose there was the one scene where someone remarked that Joon-hee and Joon-ah look similar to one another one. Not really sure that counts though. It's just a general observation, and as two people involved in a clandestine scam, Joon-hee and Joon-ah just kind of awkwardly small and make false assurances.

Yeah...that's where the drama is right now. So generally unamusing that I'm not even sure whether or not it's attempting to be funny. The cliffhanger, at least, inspires some mild optimism, not because I particularly care about Joon-hee's backstory, but because assuming there is an actual confrontation, the stakes will be clearly defined. Getting at the truth of the matter here, instead of just stacking uninteresting lies on top of each other, might actually mark some character progress for Joon-hee. Might. Personally speaking I'm not terribly optimistic, but at least my expectations are low.

Review by William Schwartz

"Family Outing" is directed by Joo Dong-min, written by Kim Sin-hye and features Lee Jung-hyun, Jin Yi-han, Oh Sang-jin, Park Won-sook, Jung Han-hun and Park Jun-gyu.

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