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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "The Woman who Married Three Times" Episode 19

I get now why this whole storyline with Da-mi feels so awkward. It's because, inadvertently and rather unjustifiably, Da-mi's being unreasonable has apparently solved all the emotional problems in the Hyeon-soo / Joon-goo relationship. Remember how Hyeon-soo was so frustrated she left Joon-goo's home, and had to do a lot of soul-searching before she could be persuaded into coming back? Remember the marital rape? "The Woman who Married Three Times" seems to have decided these were lightweight events that mean little in light of the current Da-mi crisis.

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The charitable explanation is that these issues do still exist, these characters just aren't going to deal with them seriously until after the issues with Da-mi are resolved. Which is all right, I guess, but I still just don't really care about Da-mi. Her continued freak outs are pitiful, to be sure, but they're also getting to be kind of redundant. The way this drama has taken a turn for celebrity image problems is rather annoying considering there's been no focus on this at all up until now.

Far more interesting drama is had with Seul-gi's troubles living at her father's home. It's becoming extremely clear that Tae-won has learned from the mistakes of his first marriage. He straight up gets angry at his family, even going so far as to yell at them before taking Seul-gi away from the toxic influence. Tae-won's character growth is subtle, but enormously effective. I get the sense that social conventions kept him from sticking up for Eun-soo. His daughter, though? She's his complete responsibility and he is absolutely unwilling to make those mistakes again.

Chae Rin is in an interesting position here. She's a woman who, as far as I can tell, has no backstory at all. Her value is that Tae-Won's family likes her, and she likes Tae-won. But as a stepmother, Chae rin doesn't bring anything useful here. The woman does not have any idea how to deal with children, and constantly gives off the feeling that she cares more about perception than actually being a good stepmother.

And unfortunately for her, Seul-gi is smart enough to know the difference. This storyline has moved into a really compelling direction, and the cliffhanger particularly sells what happens to children who have been made to feel that their presence is an inconvenience. It's problematic that every other plotline isn't able to muster up the same level of energy- Eun-soo's story is moving at such a glacial pace I have trouble telling if anything happens at all. Still, at least there's some good stuff here worth watching.

Review by William Schwartz

"The Woman who Married Three Times" is directed by Son Jeong-hyeon and written by Kim Su-hyun and features Lee Ji-ah, Uhm Ji-won, Song Chang-eui and Ha Seok-jin.

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