SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU STILL PLAN ON WATCHING THIS SERIES OR HAVEN’T FINISHED IT YET!!

Go Back Couple
(고백부부 / Gobaekbubu)
MyDramaList rating: 7.5/10

When I started on my season 2017 batch dramas I wasn’t expecting two 12-episode ones in a row. It only takes me a week to watch short dramas like that.
Anyways, this one was also on my list from the same period and it looked like a funny series and the trailer was very colorful and cute. The concept about a married couple that is fed up with each other going back to the time they first fell in love also spoke to me. When I started watching it I actually didn’t really know where it was gonna go, what the message would be. But in the end I think they did a good job.

The story of Go Back Couple is about two university sweethearts, Choi Ban Do (played by Son Ho Joon) and Ma Jin Joo (Jang Na Ra). They met at a mixer party during university and have been together ever since. After graduation they got married and in 2017 they had a sweet little baby called Seo Jin (Park Ah Rin; I have to mention his name because this child is too precious). Actually, at that point Seo Jin might be the only thing keeping them together. A lot has happened between them and all their lovey-doveyness has been drowned in the duties and expectations of married life.
Even though they used to be so in love, they started growing apart after a certain incident in which Ban Do wasn’t there for Jin Joo when her mother died. She hasn’t been able to forgive him and slowly but surely the two of them start despising each other.
After another incident in which Jin Joo gets the impression that Ban Do is cheating on her, they decide to get a divorce over the phone and they both throw out their wedding rings at the same time. And then something miraculous happens.
The next morning, the couple suddenly wakes up in 1999, in their 20-year old bodies. First they think it’s a dream, but they soon find out that this is real. Jin Joo is woken by her mother, which of course causes for a lot of emotion. Their parents and siblings are all exactly as they used to be in the 90s. When they get to school, their friends are there in 90s style fashion.
However, because they have their 38-year old consciousnesses(?), they look around more keenly than they used to. Of course, they’ve come a long way and they remember a lot about what has happened since they left university. They know about relationships between their friends that will go wrong and still have to watch them get together without any knowledge of how much they’re going to hurt each other.
In the beginning, both Ban Do and Jin Joo decided out of resentment towards one other, to each go after their other crushes, determined that ending up with someone else will provide a better future. Ban Do goes after his first love, ballerina dolly Min Seo Young (played by Go Bo Kyul) and Jin Joo approaches the popular guy of whom she heard he used to have a crush on her, Jung Nam Gil (played by Jang Ki Yong).

Up until here, of course apart from the upsetting situation in the beginning where the divorce was issued, it’s all good fun. It’s amusing to see everyone in 90s style, we laugh about the hairstyles and the fashion. And of course, the fact that the two get a chance to revise their 20-year old self’s choices is interesting. They end up changing a bunch of stuff, but not to a dangerous degree.
As a time travel theme fan, I liked what they did with the show. Because the two of them were in truth still adults in adolescent bodies, they couldn’t help but talk in a middle-aged way – Jin Joo was continually ‘Aigoo, aigoo’-ing at everything and everyone, which was funny.
However, when push comes to shove, they kept being reminded of their baby which they’d left behind. It’s all good and well to have fun and enjoy a stroll down memory lane, but you can’t just leave behind all memories of the old and more unpleasant life.
The two enjoy their first day and then automatically think they’ll be back to normal when they wake up the next one – well, no. They’re still stuck in 1999.
As viewers, we have no idea what has happened with the rings. They went up in golden ashes, there was this local earthquake only the couple felt and suddenly the next day: back to the 90s. We also don’t know what has to happen for them to go back again, although I did have the impression it had something to do with the rings, since it was suggested it happened because they threw the rings away.
So that was the information we get, and to reunite the rings, it can be predicted that somehow they have to make up again. So maybe it’s not really a good thing that they both went onto other people… But they find that out themselves as well.
Because 18 years of marriage does something to a person. No, I’m not talking from experience.

Before I go on spoiling any more I want to talk about the cast a bit. There were some familiar faces and some unfamiliar ones. First of all, Jang Na Ra. Who doesn’t know Jang Na Ra, the eternal baby-face princess. The first drama I saw with her was Baby-faced Beauty (of course) which I really liked. After that I saw School 2013 and Fated to Love You, but I didn’t really love these ones because I felt she was acting a bit of the same thing all over again and honestly I don’t really like the Korean remake of Fated to Love You (I liked the original Taiwanese version better *gasp* first time for me too).
Anyways, but she really surprised me with her acting in this drama. I read an article afterwards about how she expressed how this drama restored all her confidence in her acting again and I’m not surprised. I haven’t seen her act this well in a while. It seems like a really tough role, because she has to play a mother, a wife, a daughter and a student all at the same time. She acted really maturely, very naturally and even though she looks so freaking young I could really see her motherly/middle-aged woman side.
Very well done to her.
I didn’t know Son Ho Joon before, so I can’t really make a reference but I think he did well. I think Na Ra outshone him a tiny little bit, but I think the main leads had the most challenging roles overall. Playing an adult in a younger body seems really difficult already, but also combine the joy of experiencing youth again with the anguish of wanting to go back to their baby. And no one around them will understand what they’re worrying about.
That’s actually one reason why I felt sorry for the second leads, because we already knew from the start that it wouldn’t be meant to be. For them it was just a crush, no problems, but they had no idea what was really going on. In the end, both of them weren’t that aggressive and they backed off the moment they really saw where the others’ hearts really lie, so that saved us a lot of drama. But still. I think it was important for them to be there because Ban Do and Jin Joo had to try once if it would work with someone else.
We did get a little backstory from the second leads, but for example from Min Seo Young not nearly enough to really start rooting for her. Nam Gil’s second male lead presence was a lot stronger, but Jin Joo was clearly not into it, and at a certain time I felt a bit sorry because I was like ‘I’m sorry but it’s just not going to work bro she’s going back to her child, probably with her husband’.

Since that was what I thought, it really made sense when Ban Do said that this going back event was like a trip for them. They needed a break, they needed to go on a trip. And during that trip them found each other again. They slowly started clearing up misunderstandings, they finally got the chance to express their real feelings. Ban Do is able to tell Jin Joo why he was held up that time and disabled her to see her mother one last time and Jin Joo tells him how much she needed him during that period of grief. All of that, and they started seeing the good in each other again. They finally saw the effort and the struggles that the other went through. Going back to the past gave them the opportunity to re-establish their values.
Apart from that, they were able to change some other things as well: they brought back their friend who originally disappeared from school without a word, and they dealt with a scumbag who was using a rich girl for her father’s money while playing around with a bunch of other girls – someone who in the future became mostly responsible for Ban Do’s misfortune. They also changed the futures of Min Seo Young and Jung Nam Gil. Ban Do made sure Seo Young found the courage to start doing what she liked instead of following her mother who was drilling her into ballet, eventually causing her to have an injury. Jin Joo encouraged Nam Gil to look around more for people who cared for him and open up to people more, because he wasn’t as alone as the thought.

I knew the actress who played Min Seo Young, she was the mean stepsister in Cinderella and the Four Knights and she also played a minor role in Goblin. I’m sorry, but in this drama I had a hard time looking at her because she looked very unnatural to me. Unnaturally skinny, unnaturally dolly. I can’t really look at these kind of people and think ‘Oh, she’s so pretty~’ I think she looked kind of unhealthily skinny and her face was way too alien doll for me. Sorry if this offends anyone, but that’s just my opinion.
The actor of Nam Gil reminded me a bit of Kim Woo Bin, the same kind of face and broad shoulders. (I like Kim Woo Bin, don’t get me wrong.) I found out he was also in The Liar and His Lover, which is probably where I recognized him from. I found him a little stiff – but that was also his role of course – and I would like to see more spontaneous acting from him. It was all very safe and friendly. But I liked his character.
And then there’s the group of friends that made Ban Do and Jin Joo’s lives so enjoyable.
Jin Joo’s best friend Yoon Bo Reum (played by Han Bo Reum) and Ban Do’s friend Ahn Jae Woo (played by Heo Jung Min) got together in university as well, but in the future where our Go Back Couple comes from, they have just broken up in a real cruel way. So Ban Do tries to encourage Jae Woo not to date Bo Reum because it will only bring him pain in the future. And Jin Joo tries to tell Bo Reum that they’re going to go through a rough path as well.
It’s only until the last episode that we find out through Jin Joo why Bo Reum breaks up with Jae Woo (she finds out she’s infertile) and after this comes out, the two still make up in the future and get married.
I recently saw Heo Jung Min in Another Oh Hae Young, where he was the main lead’s delinquent younger brother. However, I think Jae Woo’s character was a bit similar. So I’d like to see a different kind of character from him. Han Bo Reum appeared in an episode of Let’s Fight Ghost, but I didn’t remember her from that.
And then there was Go Dok Jae (played by Lee Yi Kyung), Ban Do’s other friend who was kind of the clown of the bunch. In the 90s he had really long shiny hair and was always getting himself into trouble. I knew this actor from several other series but I never saw him in such a crazy role, so I liked it.
And Jin Joo’s other friend, the one they brought back from disappearance, Chun Seol (played by Jo Hye Jung). I like this actress, I’ve now seen her in three dramas in total and in all three she looked completely different. She was the best friend in Cinderella and the Four Knights, she was also one of the friends in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok Joo (for which she gained a lot of weight, because I first didn’t recognize her as the girl in Cinderella where she seemed a lot skinnier). And here she was a bit chubby as well, but again a completely different look. I love how some people can just transform completely in dramas.

What I also really liked where the many references to Goblin and Descendants of the Sun. Honestly you see references in every single drama these days, but I still like it when I can recognize it. It’s especially funny when there’s people in the series who also played in one of the two.

Okay, I will get back to the story again.
I think when it ended, the most important thing was that this ‘trip’ really symbolized a break between the two. A necessary break they had to take to get back together. For most couples, a break is just a period of time in which they think a lot and reassemble themselves and how they’re really feeling. Ban Do and Jin Joo’s break meant going back to the past for a bit. Portraying a real-life situation through fiction is always difficult, because it still has to feel like there’s a real message and it can’t be just fiction. For example, in Manhole I think they went a little too far. But in this case I think it was just right. Yes, they time-traveled, but there were no little aliens or anything that made them go back. And going back turned out to be exactly what they needed. They needed to come eye-to-eye again and they decided to return to their child as a married couple, as loving parents.
The main obstacle in the end was probably the relationship between Jin Joo and her mother. Her mother (again, the formidable Kim Mi Kyung) passed away before Seo Jin was born, so she never got to see her grandchild. Jin Joo wasn’t able to properly say farewell/see her mother one last time before she died (because Ban Do got into trouble) and this always bothered her. Going back and meeting her mother again, Jin Joo turned into a daughter who clung onto and doted on her mother. She used it as an opportunity to do all the things she still wanted to do with her and treasured every moment with her.
Of course, after Ban Do realized his mother-in-law was still alive when he arrived in the past, he had a lot of mixed feelings as well. He was fond of her, but also felt guilty for some reason. Jin Joo had always blamed him for disabling her to see her mother in her final moments. Seeing Jin Joo and her mother again, he even made a decision to stay in the past, and let Jin Joo live with her mother, even though that would mean abandoning Seo Jin.

I thought this was a very irresponsible thought. Of course Jin Joo was emotional when she saw her mother again, but she was busy processing her grief and finishing her own bucket list so that she’d be able to say goodbye to her mother properly. This was something that she had to do in order to go back. She would never have chosen remaining in the past just so she wouldn’t have to say goodbye to her mother over returning to Seo Jin. Her mother’s death would happen either way, and it was just an opportunity for Jin Joo to deal with her regrets of not appreciating her more and spending more time with her. Because, another important message of the series, you never know what’s going to happen. You have to treasure and cherish the family and friends that you have, be grateful for what they do for you, or you’ll end up regretting it later. You’ll only be able to think ‘I wish I’d spend more time with them’, ‘I wish I’d said ‘Thank you’ or ‘I love you’ more often’. This was Jin Joo’s way of dealing with that.
Ban Do selfishly almost gave up on Seo Jin, a child with a whole life and future in front of him, over a ghost of the past. And that really didn’t make any sense to me.

Luckily, they saw that in the end as well and wrapped up the past nicely in order to go back to the future. After going back some things had changed as well, but not as groundbreaking as, for example, in Back to the Future. They were reunited with their baby and I cried my eyes out because generally family reunions always hit my weak spot. It really ended with a happy ending for everyone except of course the scumbag doctor, who was faced with the ugly truth of the girl he’d used all those years hitting it off with another rich man who generally loved her.
Right, I have to say something about that girl. The rich girl whose father owned a hospital and who was dating the scumbag doctor, Kim Ye Rim (played by Lee Do Yeon). She was the crazy ghost friend in Let’s Fight Ghost who would cling to handsome guys. Overall, I guess you could say she’s not really pretty? In Go Back Couple she was also kind of portrayed as ‘the ugly girl’, which I think is always a bit harsh. In any case, I think she’s a lovely actress and I would like to see her as more than just a comic side role. It’s people like this who might look different but are really good actors that we need to see more.
I actually thought about this as well after seeing the trailer of a new drama called My ID is Gangnam Beauty, in which a girl who is really ugly gets bullied a lot and eventually gets her whole face plastic-surgerized to become ‘pretty’. I still find this a very problematic aspect of Korea, the obsession with beauty. Girls have to be beautiful and pretty and guys have to be handsome. If you don’t fit into that mold, you’re considered unnatural. Or weird, or something not good. In this trailer, I just couldn’t help but think, this young, slightly oversized girl having to play the role of an ousted ugly girl… What kind of effect will that have on her? What kind of message does this convey? That being oversized is ugly? That having large teeth is ugly?
Sorry for the sudden rant, but I probably won’t watch My ID is Gangnam Beauty since the story concept already pissed me off a bit ^^” so I wanted to mention it here as a response to this Lee Do Yeon who might be viewed as ugly but is still a talented actress. And still beautiful, without a doubt.

As a final note I would like to say, in the very last minutes of the series they went through the trouble of putting in some more fiction and show the viewers what was the deal with the magical rings. I thought it was funny, but in my opinion it didn’t have to be explained. I had already accepted that the rings were magical and brought them back together. But it gave a nice last way for a sigh of relief. They showed the main actors as divine beings quarrelling and throwing their rings down on earth in anger. And these were the rings that Ban Do and Jin Joo chose as their wedding rings. Once they took them off, they were send back on a little trip to make up, once they put them back on, they returned to their original lived. Thanks for bringing them together again, divine beings.

In the end, Go Back Couple is a very sweet story about two people who think they’ve reached the line with each other, are forced to take a break, and then realize they still have a lot to work on together. It had the right amount of humor, emotional depth, and a lot of great messages. And also the right amount of cliches, but it wasn’t to an annoying extent. I really enjoyed watching it.

Next up will be the last 2017 batch drama (I’m curious as to whether it’s an 12-episoder as well) and after that I’ll continue with more recent ones. Stay tuned!