Recap Korean Drama "Love Is for Suckers (2022)" Episode 1-2

What a great premiere! When I heard this drama had a working English title of Icy Cold Romance I expected it to take a lot longer for things to heat up between the leads. Luckily: not the case! We’ve already gone from a fake date to a cliffhanger kiss — do these two even need the reality show setup to bring them together? Nope. But hopefully it’s going to be a lot of push-and-pull fun.

We open in the present, where PD GOO YEO-REUM (Lee Da-hee) is working on a reality show called Kingdom of Love 2. When she arrives on set, a series of “brides and grooms” are being photographed for the show’s finale. We know from online comments that it’s rumored one of the couple’s is a real-life couple who will be married by the show’s end. Among the tuxedoed men is PARK JAE-HOON (Choi Siwon), who locks eyes with Yeo-reum as the clock winds back.

We start our story in a recent past where Yeo-reum and Jae-hoon are long-time best friends living as neighbors. These premiere episodes do a good job establishing their relationship, which makes them seem like a married couple who’s skipped right by dating each other. He’ll pick up food for her on the way home, but she’s nagging and persistent for him to do it. At the same time, he’s also her support system when things go wrong.

Yeo-reum has a few things going wrong at the moment. First, she’s sort of seeing the host of one of her variety shows. He’s “The Ramen Chef” JOHN JANG (Park Yeon-woo) and he’s six years younger than her. When we first see them together, he’s already breaking up with her. She was sure he wanted to meet up because things were progressing, but Jae-hoon had already bet her she was about to be dumped.

When Jae-hoon is right, she complains to him over chicken feet and soju and he tells her she needs to play it “cooler” in these kinds of fling relationships. He teases her and the tone is very much between people that have known each other forever.

Yeo-reum’s second problem is that her show, The Ramen Chef, has the worst ratings on the network and is about to be canceled. They’ve already lost ramen sponsorship and had their production costs cut. Her competitor, KANG CHAE-RI (Jo Soo-hyang), has the highest rated show, Kingdom of Love. However, Chae-ri plays dirty to get the high ratings — or, maybe I should say, shows the dirtiest footage. One of the charms here, though, is watching the drama spoof reality shows with hilarious success (“octopus mukbang” — that’s as far as I’ll go.)

While on a shoot at the seaside, Yeo-reum overhears Chef John telling a co-worker that he could have slept with her but wasn’t curious enough to want to. Also, he likes dating older women because they’re more cost effective (they don’t ask for much). Yeo-reum asks Jae-hoon to come to the shoot dressed nicely and to bring her flowers. She wants to look like she’s moved on.

But, being the prankster that he is, Jae-hoon shows up in sweats and sandals trying to embarrass her. Unfortunately, she’s embarrassed enough, having just crawled onto a mudflat to rescue a drone that had that day’s footage.

Afterward, Jae-hoon apologizes but Yeo-reum is really upset. It’s obvious he cares about her but doesn’t understand her. Why is she trying so hard to look good for someone so unimportant? She answers that after hitting a certain age she feels like no one is attracted to her. It makes her feel bad for even having to try, and she wanted Jae-hoon to help her feel attractive. He says that if she’s going to take a fling so seriously, she shouldn’t date at all — why does she invest so much in these nobodies? She responds, because no one invests in her. (Yeah, she about had me in tears.)

Things turn around when Jae-hoon finds out what Chef John actually said out there at the beach. To top it off, he sees photos on social of Yeo-reum covered in mud that day she saved the drone — with Chef John making fun of her. Jae-hoon’s real character suddenly comes through.

He takes a shower (thank you), puts on his best suit, and dusts off his sports car — because… he has one. He then drives to her set with a giant bouquet and erases The Ramen Chef’s pics from his phone. “Are you dating?” the jerk wants to know. Jae-hoon is cool: “I’m just a guy trying to look good for her. Because I am curious about her.” So much squee!! And this is only the end of Episode 1!

What else is happening, you might ask. Can’t these two lovebirds just get together after this? Oh, no, no. Not without multiple other people vying for their hearts.

On Jae-hoon’s side, we learn that his father passed away and his art-curating mother is always trying to set him up on blind dates. He is getting too old to live so carefree. Come to find out, he’s a surgeon — not exactly what you’d call a carefree job. However, after his father died, he left the hospital he worked for and now practices plastic surgery in the offices of other doctors (he doesn’t have his own practice). The vibe around the whole thing is that it’s shameful.

When Jae-hoon goes on a blind date to appease his mother, he meets HAN JI-YEON (Lee Ju-yeon). He’s quite rude to her at the initial meeting but she tells him off and he apologizes. She asks him to dinner and they go out properly a few times. She seems sweet enough but he can’t stop thinking about Yeo-reum when he’s with her, so I don’t think this one has any legs — even if she does appear to be the bride he’s with at the beginning.

On Yeo-reum’s side, we learn that she was engaged roughly three years ago to KIM IN-WOO (Song Jong-ho). She broke it off when he took a job in New York without talking to her about it first, and then asked her to come with him. It was a crucial moment in her career and she said no. The whole ordeal devastated her. But now, she’s still single and feels like work isn’t going great, so she’s second guessing her decision to prioritize work over marriage.

The reality is that she’s great at her job and always the problem-solver. But on her birthday, due to poor ratings, her show gets canceled and most of her staff becomes jobless. When she’s feeling her lowest, In-woo shows up with cake and flowers saying he missed her. She sends him away, but he still has a hold on her thoughts and emotions.

Luckily, our male lead arrives at the same time with his own cake. The two celebrate together and he makes her laugh on the crappiest day ever. He also tells her that In-woo is not a good guy for what he did to her, and “unless a really good guy shows up, just hang out with me.” They then proceed to put together a mosquito tent over her bed, not overlooking any jokes about insertion, and he falls on top of her, just short of a lip lock. We are one week away from knowing if they cross that scintillating centimeter, but I’m guessing not this early.

I am really excited to see how this drama plays out. We’ve got a couple of friends in their mid-to-late 30s juggling careers and relationships. This could be generic, but here, there’s a strong focus on their pasts and the events and choices that led each of them to where they are. Both of the main characters have a sense about them of almost giving up. Yeo-reum wonders what would have happened if she put marriage before her career, and is starting to feel hopeless about relationships. Jae-hoon can’t get past the death of his father — which he appears to feel some blame for — and is letting it ruin his career as a doctor by refusing to practice in his field.

The leads clearly need and depend on each other and that’s the bond at the center of this drama. Yeo-reum looks to Jae-hoon for support in all things but especially when her relationships fail, since that’s her weak spot. Jae-hoon feels a little like he’s hiding behind his friendship with Yeo-reum as a way to avoid dealing with his emotions or focusing on his career. While he’s helping her, he doesn’t have to focus on himself. Already, I’m seeing the places where both have room to grow, and I’m looking forward to seeing these two genius comedians carry it off.