Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.
Forecasting Love and Weather
(기상청 사람들: 사내연애 잔혹사 편 / Gisangcheong Saramdeul: Sanaeyeon-ae Janhogsapyeon / The People of the KMA: A Cruel History of Office Romance)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10
Hello hello hello! After an incredibly busy month with multiple deadlines I am back for a breather and some well-earned drama watch & review time. This show had been on my list for some time, so I was glad I finally got to watch it. I’d seen and heard quite negative things about it, and it has quite low ratings and bad reviews on MDL, so I was curious to see for myself what the deal would be. I have to admit I might contribute to an unpopular opinion here, similar to the case of Love Alarm: I actually enjoyed this show. The casting was good, the characters were interesting and the setting was quite unique. I liked the metaphor that was created between love and the weather, and the rising tensions that predicting both air pressures and human feelings brought with them. I’m excited to share my thoughts on this show, so let’s get into it!
Forecasting Love and Weather is a jTBC/Netflix K-Drama with 16 episodes of about an hour and ten minutes each. It focusses on a team of weather forecasters at the KMA (the Korean Meteorological Administration) who work hard to provide daily weather forecasts as accurately as they can. As the original title suggests, the series follows several KMA employees and how they combine their intensive work with their personal struggles (which concept-wise reminded me of shows like Doctors and Jealousy Incarnate). Although there was a clear division between the main and side characters, almost all the side characters got a relevant backstory and arc, so it did feel like the screentime was distributed very evenly.
The main character in the story is Jin Ha Kyung (played by Park Min Young), who finds herself in the position of team director at the Chief Team of forecasters at the KMA after the former director resigns due to health issues. As a full-fledged career woman who single-handedly worked her way up at the KMA, Ha Kyung can be quite rigid and doesn’t typically get emotional. She prefers to keep work and private as separate from each other as possible, even more so after her own office romance ends in her fiancé cheating on her a month before their wedding. The fiancé in question, Han Ki Joon (played by Yoon Park) works at the KMA Spokesperson Office, where he’s in charge of directly dealing with people’s complaints about weather-related issues. Although Ha Kyung and Ki Joon are introduced as a couple about to get married, it’s clear from the start that both their hearts aren’t really into it – Ha Kyung frequently cancels wedding-related appointments because of work, and Ki Joon keeps holding off on paying for any of the wedding prepations. Ha Kyung eventually finds out about Ki Joon’s infidelity when all the wedding preparations suddenly get cancelled because of the overdue payments. After this, she vows to never have an office romance ever again and consequently builds an even higher wall around herself – something that instantly creates tension between her and her new teammates, who were already struggling to accept her as their new director.
On the other hand, there is Lee Shi Woo (played by Song Kang), a young and bright weather enthusiast who originally works at the Metropolitan Weather Office (if I remember correctly). Besides his passion for the meteorological, he tends to have really good hunches about abrupt changes in the forecast, which have so far always proved him right. Around the same time that Ha Kyung finds out about her fiancé’s infidelity, Shi Woo goes through a break-up as well, with his girlfriend Chae Yoo Jin (played by Kim Ah Young/Yoo Ra), who also works at the KMA as a daily weather reporter.
While Ha Kyung and Shi Woo initially collide due to a disagreement in predicting heavy rain, they somehow find companionship in one another after they find out that their exes actually cheated on them with each other: Han Ki Joon and Chae Yoo Jin were seeing each other. When Ha Kyung and Shi Woo go out for a friendly drink together after work one night, they end up having a one-night stand. The next morning, things get even more awkward when Shi Woo announces he’s actually been transferred to Ha Kyung’s team at the KMA. Since all four parties within this relationship square now work at the KMA, it is impossible to avoid one another, which becomes an even bigger issue once Ha Kyung and Shi Woo decide to seriously date each other as well.
While the awkwardness between the four main characters unfolds, we also get insight into the personal circumstances of several of Ha Kyung’s teammates, including Senior Forecaster Eom Dong Han (played by Lee Sung Wook), Assistant Director Shin Seok Ho (played by Lee Seung Won/Moon Tae Yoo) and bureau agents Oh Myung Joo (played by Yoon Sa Bong) and maknae Kim Soo Jin (played by Chae Seo Eun).
Before I move on to my character analysis I just want to comment on the setting of a weather station as “the main hub” of the story. As I often say, I always find it interesting when K-Dramas cover a specific field of work that I’ve never encountered before, and this was a brilliant example of that. Although I admit I do not remember the names of every single station or department that the KMA was associated with, nor did I register any of the meteorological terms that were used during the discussions and meetings, all in all I thought it was really nice how this show highlighted this specific occupation, and how it represented the passionate people working there. In a sense, it wasn’t that different from shows about people working at hospitals and the like, as they also occasionally had to sacrifice their private lives in the line of duty.
Another thing I liked about the setting was that it made me aware of the importance of weather forecasting in a way I’d never considered before. The fact that there are actually so many parties and stations involved, and that weather forecasts mean so much to so many different people was very eye-opening. I personally know never to fully trust the weather and I purely use the forecast as an indicator of what to wear when I go out and whether or not to bring a raincoat or a thicker jacket. It has never occurred to me to complain to our national weather station when the forecast turns out to be different than predicted – in fact, I actually didn’t even know that was possible. But through this show I learned that weather forecasts are incredibly important to people working on the land and at sea, and that it actually ties in with precuring serious safety measures as well. I thought it was really interesting to see how they highlighted the importance of the work that the KMA did, depending on each season, and also how tough the job itself is. These people literally get paid to study charts and read data off monitors in order to predict what the weather – possibly the most unpredictable force of nature – is going to be like the next day. All in all, this show made me want to give a round of applause to everyone involved in this unique and extremely unpredictable work field – I bet they never get enough credit for what they do.
While the KMA is the main set for most of the workplace scenes, there are several different other stations we get to know and see throughout the story. Most of these we only get a glimpse of through the video call screens during the meetings, but it does happen that people visit other stations and show up on the other side of the screen, like when Shi Woo is still working at the Metropolitan Office, and when Shi Woo and Ha Kyung visit the Typhoon Center on Jeju Island. Still, these appear only briefly, along with the introduction of the person in charge there – most of the story takes place at the HQ of the KMA in Seoul. Within the KMA, we also get to see a lot of different rooms, such as the main characters’ respective offices, the briefing room where the Spokesperson Office updates the weather reporters, and spots like the cafeteria, the staircases and the roof. By showing different spots at the KMA HQ, it actually felt like I was familiarizing myself with the building and everyone’s workplaces, so that was also a nice extra.
The Chief Team office is basically the main room in the KMA building where two teams rotate shifts to make sure the weather is monitored 24/7 through satellite reports and thorough analyses. Ha Kyung is in charge of Team Two, and although we do get to see the people from Team One occasionally, we aren’t introduced to all the employees to the same extent – which is probably for the best because that would’ve been a lot of people, and the current screentime balance was just right, if you ask me. Still, it was nice that they actually added in a convincing amount of people to fill the office spaces – at least they didn’t make it seem like it was just the main characters working there. Even if they weren’t introduced as elaborately, all the people in the background were given a certain attitude and personality, so it wasn’t like they were just fillers either. I liked the attention to detail in that aspect.
Let me begin my character analysis now, starting with the four main characters and their backgrounds.
Ha Kyung was raised in a family that consisted of her parents and one older sister. When she was a teenager, she found her dad in the house after he hang himself, which was (understandably) quite traumatic for her. At present, her mother Bae Soo Ja (played by the magnificent Kim Mi Kyung) and older sister Jin Tae Kyung (played by Jung Woon Seon) still live together in a traditional house while Ha Kyung lives in a comfortable apartment by herself. Ha Kyung’s relationship with her mother and sister isn’t great – she especially prefers not to interact with her mother too much since the latter is always going on about her getting married, even after the fiasco with Ki Joon. Now that Tae Kyung is divorced and Ha Kyung got cheated on, her mother is even more adamant on finding a good match for at least her youngest, ignoring her daughter’s very clear rejections on the prospect.
I honestly thought it was interesting that Ha Kyung’s mom’s main purpose in the story was to butt into her daughter’s love life despite the fact that she hadn’t even been that happy in her own marriage. She really seemed to be stuck in her conservative ways, always firing the same questions at eligible men about their families and backgrounds. She didn’t listen when her daughters told her to stop, and instead scolded them for “not understanding her” while it should’ve been the other way around. She was a typical tough love kind of mom, she wasn’t affectionate with her daughters at all despite caring about them a lot. I’d like to think that she became a bit more lenient or at least understanding towards different perspectives on love and marriage throughout the story, though.
Ha Kyung’s older sister Tae Kyung, 40 years old if I remember correctly, is an unsuccessful children’s book author. Not much is revealed about her first marriage that ended in divorce, but it does seem like she’s given up on finding a new partner. Although she often stands up for Ha Kyung when their mother brings up the topic of marriage again, she does keep getting involved in Soo Ja’s attempts to convince or appease Ha Kyung. Despite having the clear career path and dream of writing (and drawing) children’s books, it’s revealed that Tae Kyung is quite naive in the publishing industry, and has no experience whatsoever in contractual negotiating, nor does she have a knack for thinking of interesting stories. She ultimately becomes more of a regular character when she crosses paths with Shin Seok Ho, but I’ll elaborate on that later.
In any case, back to Ha Kyung. It’s established from the get-go by her mother that Ha Kyung is “very careful” and I actually think this might have contributed to her initially “cold” demeanor. It’s not that she’s arrogant or doesn’t like other people, she just prefers to stay in her own bubble rather than join the small talk of colleagues. I think her preference to focus on serious rather than casual relationships came through in two different ways.
At work, she initially takes on the role of director while drawing a clear line between herself and her subordinates. She sees them purely as colleagues and refuses to act friendly with them. However, the more she finds out about their personal circumstances and the sincerity with which they’re all trying their hardest to balance life and work, the more she starts warming and opening up to them. Eventually, she even joins them for a team dinner and karaoke. This proves that she doesn’t completely shut herself off from people, but she only starts opening up once she forms a real connection with them.
The same goes for romantic relationships. It’s not that she ignores her mother’s nagging because she’s against the idea of marriage – she actually admits at some point to Shi Woo that she’s never entered a relationship without the prospect of getting married. This mindset also doesn’t change after Ki Joon cheats on her, which I actually thought was pretty strong of her, because it would’ve been valid if this experience completely ruined the idea of building up a relationship with someone for her. It actually takes her less than a year after breaking up with Ki Joon to start dating someone new with the same intention. She genuinely likes Shi Woo and has no trouble showing him her affectionate side. The reason she and Shi Woo keep their relationship a secret at work is merely because they don’t want people to gossip about them (as this would also reignite tensions with Ki Joon and Yoo Jin), not because they are embarrassed to come out with it. All in all, it really felt to me like she just preferred serious connections and relationships with people rather than casual friendships and dating, which is pretty natural.
I quite liked the way that Ha Kyung grew closer to her teammates throughout the story. I think there was actually way more development in the relationship she built with her co-workers than there was in the relationship between her and Shi Woo, although falling in love may have contributed to her becoming more sociable. I also thought it was nice that Ha Kyung really wasn’t as rigid as she made herself out to be in the first place, as she literally fell right into a new office romance right after “vowing” she’d never enter a similar relationship again. I feel like one thing that might have been frustrating to people was that she kept going back and forth between expressing her feelings for Shi Woo. On the one hand, she keeps telling him that she’s serious about him, that she wants to make this work, even asks him to move in with her quite early on, but on the other hand she keeps reeling herself in and seemingly can’t bring herself to be as open and expressive about her feelings as Shi Woo. As much as she’s allegedly left the incident with Ki Joon behind her, it can’t be denied that it hit her pretty hard. Besides her first lash-out at Ki Joon in the beginning of the story, she also eventually breaks down in front of him after Shi Woo breaks up with her, yelling at him how it’s his fault that her confidence was completely destroyed and the fact that she’s become so scared of giving her relationship with Shi Woo her all without worrying about losing it again. It was good to at least see her express these valid emotional feelings every now and then, because it did make her more relatable to me once I knew that there was way more going on behind the surface of her collected calmness.
All in all, although I do appreciate that she was made out to be careful and think things through very thorougly before acting on her feelings, there were some moments where I really would’ve liked Ha Kyung to be a bit more proactive. Sometimes she would just numbly stand around instead of chasing other people or expressing herself more clearly, and I was also a bit sceptical about her getting involved in Shi Woo’s relationship with his dad, although that did work out in the end. While these aspects did cause some minor frustrations every so often, I still thought she was an interesting character because of her established tendency to be careful and hold herself back, and she did go through a nice development of becoming better at that.
You could say that Shi Woo was the polar opposite of Ha Kyung. He had an awful upbringing, but he managed to come out of it as a very upfront and genuine person. The way he was introduced, especially in his initial relationship dynamic with Yoo Jin, really made him seem like a puppy – he got excited about every single sky and scenery, and spammed his girlfriend with pictures of clouds (as someone who loves skyscapes this would’ve actually made my heart explode, but I guess it wasn’t Yoo Jin’s cup of tea 😂). While he seemed a lot more free-spirited than Ha Kyung, he also immediately clarifies that he doesn’t play around in relationships and that once he’s serious, he gives his undivided attention to that one person. However, the only breaking point between them is that Shi Woo doesn’t believe in marriage. The dynamic between Ha Kyung and Shi Woo kind of reminded me of Ta Mi and Mo Geon in Search: WWW, although in that show it was the woman who was against marriage. Shi Woo’s lack of affinity with the idea of marriage stems from his upbringing, and more specifically his dad.
Shi Woo’s father Lee Myung Han (played by Jeon Bae Soo) is a gambling addict. Ever since Shi Woo’s mother passed away when he was still very young, his dad has neglected him, just leaving him outside motels while he went inside to gamble all his money away. From Shi Woo’s reactions to getting calls from his dad, it’s clear that his hatred towards him goes pretty deep. His father always finds ways to harrass him and the people around him for money, and this is one of the reasons that Shi Woo is anxious to tie the knot with someone – his father has always been at the end of all his relationships and the last thing Shi Woo wants is to burden the person he loves with that.
We get to see first-hand who brazen Lee Myung Han is as soon as we are introduced to him. Besides the fact that he only ever calls his son for money, the moment he clocks someone who’s close to Shi Woo, he somehow manages to find a way to obtain that person’s contact details and starts harrassing them as well. I was baffled when he actually just barged into the KMA to talk to Ha Kyung after seeing her with Shi Woo once. The audacity of him to just walk up to a random stranger and be like “hey, I know you’re close to my son, care to give me some money?” was mind-boggling to me. And that wasn’t even the worst thing. I still don’t know how exactly he got wind of Shi Woo’s accident at the Typhoon Center, but I guess the hospital called the only indication of a parent they could find on his phone? In any case, this man actually started a riot at the KMA under the pretense of “you caused my son to get injured”, but in reality he didn’t care as much about Shi Woo’s wellbeing as he did about getting his hands on the monetary compensation he could get for his son’s injury. This man was actually prepared to exploit his son’s injury in order to get money out of it, heck, he even got himself hit by a car to receive insurance money. He was absolutely deranged and I understood completely why Shi Woo wanted nothing to do with him. There wasn’t a single shred of parental sympathy in him whatsoever. He honestly seemed pretty delusional, as if he truly believed that it was normal for a father to treat his son like this. Whenever people tried to reason with him or make him see that he was being ridiculous, he just got violent. I actually thought it was pretty bold of Ha Kyung to bring Myung Han with her to see Shi Woo at the hospital and to urge Shi Woo to make up with him. Even after it was revealed that Myung Han had cancer, I honestly still expected Shi Woo not to care, because that’s how deep his disdain for his father had been established from the get-go. Still, I guess Shi Woo was really just that good of a person, because he still managed to shed a tear about his dad even after having been treated as a cash cow for his entire life.
In any case, I couldn’t help but admire the fact that Shi Woo managed to become the opposite of his father. With this kind of upbringing it often happens that a kid, despite knowing he’s being mistreated, still ends up copying a parent’s behavior because that’s the example that they grew up with and they don’t know any different. Shi Woo didn’t have any other parental figure in his life, so I found it quite impressive that he was able to deduct that his father’s behavior was bad, and that he actively made sure he never grew up to be like him, even though he couldn’t fully escape his dad’s presence in his life. I felt like his relationship with his dad was more than enough justification why he didn’t want to get married. If you look at how Myung Han went after Shi Woo’s friends and dating partners, how far would he go to harrass Shi Woo’s life partner? I totally get that Shi Woo felt like putting the woman he loved in that position would only burden her for the rest of her life.
Although Shi Woo initially seems like Ha Kyung’s opposite in how playful and expressive he is, he actually shrinks away once he starts feeling like he’s burdening her. After the initial tension caused by finding out about each other’s views on marriage (through their exes, ironically), things only get more strained when Ha Kyung keeps responding to Myung Han’s calls. I mean, I get that her own trauma with her dad strengthened her in not wanting Shi Woo to have any regrets with his father, but there were several moments where I actually went “not sure if Shi Woo would appreciate that 😬😬😬”. It definitely got a little messy at some point, especially when the whole ordeal with Shi Woo’s dad fell together with their relationship getting exposed at work right after they broke up, causing them to keep up the pretense to avoid any more negative gossip.
To be completely honest, I couldn’t really get into Ha Kyung’s and Shi Woo’s relationship in the end. I felt like the part where they were happily dating in the beginning was fairly short compared to the part where things got awkward between them, and the messy back-and-forth element of their relationship got a bit “meh” in my opinion. In contrast to several other (romantic) storylines occurring in the background, the romance between Ha Kyung and Shi Woo was actually not the most interesting thing to me in this show. Of course I thought it was nice that they managed to work through things and still ended up going back to each other once they both finally got rid of the issues that were holding them back, but throughout the series I wasn’t really feeling the constant melancholic and awkward looks between them. I wouldn’t say their relationship ruined the show for me, absolutely not, but it just kind of remained stagnant in the awkward stage and they only kept telling other people about how much they still liked each other without actually confronting one another and clearing the air between them earlier on in the story.
Moving on to the next problematic relationship, let’s talk about Han Ki Joon. I’m fairly positive that this guy contributed to many a negative review, but I actually found his clownery quite entertaining.
I think we can all agree that Ki Joon was a hot mess. After breaking off their ten-year relationship and an engagement because Ha Kyung’s commitment to her career made him feel inferior, he literally just married the next first girl that looked at him with interest and treated him with admiration and respect in less than a year, and then found himself stuck in a marriage without actually knowing what to do. As if that wasn’t enough, despite him being the one who screwed everything up, he actually couldn’t fully let go of Ha Kyung after they separated. Ha Kyung was always the one telling him how to do things, and she always helped him come up with inspiration for his seasonal columns. Being a manchild, Ki Joon ended up helpless without her guidance. The fact that he had to ask his ex-fiancée for help at work and then gloated about the result to his colleagues was unbelievable. Honestly, while he started out as the jerk who cheated, he just got more and more clownesque throughout the story, and I have to admit I found it more hilarious than frustrating because he was just so ridiculous.
Looking at the way Ha Kyung dealt with being put in an incredibly awkward position at work and having to figure out all kinds of stuff by herself while trying to hide how much she got hurt in the process, it was all the more unbelievable how brazen Ki Joon was when he kept approaching her for help. Truth be told, he was just very incapable in many ways, even in maintaining his relationship with Yoo Jin. It honestly seemed like he had no clue how to be a husband. On the contrary, when he found out about Shi Woo being Yoo Jin’s ex (plus the fact they used to live together) and the fact that Shi Woo and Ha Kyung were dating, he actually believed he had the right to butt into their relationship because “Shi Woo is bad” and “Ha Kyung deserves better”. While taking care of Ha Kyung shouldn’t have been any of his business anymore, he kept claiming that “he didn’t want her to get hurt again”, as in some weird way of compensating for the pain he inflicted on her? – it was all kinds of weird. Even Yoo Jin didn’t make that big of a deal of it, despite her own initial disbelief about Shi Woo and Ha Kyung’s relationship. It’s pretty ironic that Ki Joon’s new obsession with Ha Kyung’s dating life almost cost him his marriage with Yoo Jin as well.
Even after finally seeing eye to eye with Shi Woo and letting Ha Kyung go, I kept having trouble accepting that Ki Joon was suddenly painted in a more positive light. While it was good that he and Ha Kyung made up, it still felt weird that they reverted back to being friends like that. The scene where they went out for a drink together and comforted each other like “You’re actually a good person” and “Why wouldn’t Shi Woo want you anymore, you’re a formidable woman”, kind of put me off. It felt very out of place for them to suddenly be all chummy and “water-under-the-bridge” with each other, and for Ki Joon to suddenly become the token person to give advice about life and relationships while he was still making a mess of his own marriage. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an immature man represented in a K-Drama, which is kind of admirable in itself, lol. I’m just glad that I was able to laugh about it rather than feeling constant annoyance towards him, because that might’ve actually ruined the show for me. I’ll just say that I’m glad he was at least able to reflect on his own stupidity and make up with and hold onto Yoo Jin.
When she was first introduced as Shi Woo’s very unenthusiastic girlfriend, I honestly didn’t really expect to like Yoo Jin. From the way she treated Shi Woo before she broke up with him to her unapologetic attitude regarding the whole cheating situation, I just felt like she was going to be “the other woman” who was going to be all smug towards Ha Kyung or something. However, I’m actually glad that they made her better than that. Although she didn’t exactly become one of my favorite characters, I did find myself understanding and supporting her side of things several times.
First of all, I could actually get behind her reason for breaking up with Shi Woo when she explained it. Although I usually dislike it when people in relationships can’t enjoy the present moment as they’re already thinking about when they’ll break up, but I can understand that, if you already know that you have different views on marriage, it might be kind of draining to sit through a relationship when you know that you’re going to have to break up at some point. This again took me back to Search: WWW where the FL was constantly sabotaging her own relationship because of this, while the ML just wanted to be in the moment and not worry about the future. Yoo Jin just couldn’t bring herself to stay with Shi Woo when she already knew they wanted different things. I actually appreciated that she at least broke up with Shi Woo, even though she’d already been cheating on him, instead of letting stuff unfold like Ki Joon did.
Secondly, I didn’t blame her at all for wanting some space and leaving for a while after Ki Joon became so obsessed with Ha Kyung’s dating life. I honestly thought Yoo Jin’s lingering connection to Shi Woo was much more natural and understandable than the one between Ha Kyung and Ki Joon, because at least Yoo Jin didn’t act like she was still invested in Shi Woo’s private life after they broke up. Apart from the fact that she took the news of his new relationship a certain way and she felt the need to inform Ha Kyung about certain things (such as Shi Woo’s view on marriage), at least she didn’t make that big of a deal of the fact that he moved on. Honestly, I would also start feeling miserable and insecure if my fresh new husband got so absorbed in his ex’s new relationship that he actually bailed on important family meetings for it. Ki Joon and Yoo Jin got married after only seeing each other for a couple of months (!) so it was only natural for there to be worries, but Yoo Jin seemed to be the only one dealing with this and Ki Joon didn’t exactly put her mind at ease. I just didn’t understand how he kept telling everyone around him how much he loved Yoo Jin and blatantly showed off their relationship at work, only to come home all “I’m tired” and “Let’s talk later”. It actually made me wonder if it had been worth it to both of them to throw their former relationships away for this. At least Yoo Jin was rational enough to realize that this wasn’t right, but she could never get Ki Joon to listen to her even for a second. I honestly hated the way Ki Joon just immediately jumped to conclusions, like with the bag she’d bought for his mom and the article on the faulty report that accidentally got uploaded. He never let her get a word in to defend herself even when she had nothing to do with it, it was really shitty behavior. At some point Ki Joon was treating Yoo Jin so badly I honestly felt she deserved better and I thought it was really good of her to take a break from him and visit her mom on Jeju Island, because that’s also when a different and more sympathetic side of her came out. It was nice that they revealed a little bit about her family background. I liked the small addition of her having trouble accepting her stepdad as her new father, followed by the stepdad going straight for Ki Joon’s throat when he “made his daughter cry” and getting all emotional about Yoo Jin (accidentally) calling him “Dad” for the first time 🥺. I think showing her in a different environment, even just briefly, contributed greatly to her character as we got to see her as a daughter and a sister instead of as “the other woman” and a neglected wife.
Thirdly, I actually thought it was really mature of Yoo Jin when she initially decided not to have the baby. I thought the way she considered all the right things – like how they’d only just gotten married and how things were so messy between them, the responsibility and the costs it would bring with it, and how she just didn’t feel like she’d be able to give the baby a comfortable and stable home with things being as they were – actually made her a very mature person. She reflected on how rashly they’d jumped into marriage and acknowledged how going into having a baby the same way would be less than recommendable. On the other hand, Ki Joon was still the kind of guy who’d be like “it’ll be fiiine” before realizing that he actually wasn’t prepared at all when it was already too late. It was really satisfying to see how Yoo Jin just kept proving she was so much wiser than Ki Joon was, and how she thought things through way more realistically than he did.
Using that as a segue, I also liked how this show tackled the topic of companies treating female employees like shit as soon as they get pregnant. I actually experienced something like this (indirectly) in real life, at the first Japanese company I worked at. I quit after one year because the manager was a misogynist and I’d gotten sick of work after having to spend eight months alone in the office with him. About half a year after I quit, I got a text from a Japanese ex-colleague who’d joined shortly before I left, and she basically told me that she now understood why I hadn’t been able to cope with that manager. Basically, after getting married and finding out she was pregnant, she’d gotten fired on the spot, much for the same reason as that stupid guy gives Yoo Jin. If a female employee gets pregnant, it means she’ll have to take a leave of absence for a considerable period of time, making it only harder for her to reintegrate when she ultimately comes back. This was also tackled in Watashi, Teiji de Kaerimasu, where this one woman came back after maternity leave and made a whole scene of trying to convince everyone not to treat her any differently now that she’d given birth. It’s such a derogatory way to look at female employees, but it’s apparently very common at companies in Asia. In any case, I really liked how Yoo Jin dealt with this in the end after she’d embraced her pregnancy and was like “screw you guys, I’m doing whatever the hell I want because I’m a mom now”. That was really satisfying, all the more because it was such a turn-around from how anxious she had been throughout the series.
All in all, I found the relationship between Ki Joon and Yoo Jin very problematic, from start to finish. Starting with their respective motivations of why they fell for each other, please tell me I wasn’t the only one who listened to Ki Joon’s story and went “so you basically fell for her because she made you feel smart?” He felt so inferior to Ha Kyung because she did everything for him, that he immediately fell for a girl that showed even the slightest bit of interest and admiration towards him. I just couldn’t when he went all “the way you looked at me 🥹” when she was literally just asking him to explain some work-related things to her. If you’d ask me, the way she looked at him was like a student listening to a teacher talking about a topic they were interested in, it didn’t immediately scream “marry me”. On the other hand, while I repeat that Yoo Jin’s stance in their relationship was way more realistic, she also explains her decision to marry Ki Joon with “he was the first guy to propose to me before we actually started dating”. I mean… wouldn’t you say this is actually kind of a, you know, major red flag? So basically, she cheated on Shi Woo with a man who at least wanted to marry her, and Ki Joon cheated on Ha Kyung with a woman who at least made him feel like an interesting person. …….. I don’t know, man. 🚩 Even though, as I discussed earlier, I could get behind Yoo Jin’s reasoning for breaking up with Shi Woo, I still found it really rash of her to literally just jump on the first next man who told her he did want to get married. The whole issue of them getting married so soon and then being kind of at a loss to make things work and Yoo Jin getting pregnant whilst they were in that mess just made their whole relationship feel so wrong to me. Even the fact that Yoo Jin at least showed more maturity in realizing the reality of their rushed marriage and pregnancy couldn’t completely fix that for me.
You know, the setup of this love square actually reminds me of a webtoon called Couple Breaker, which is also about two couples of which one guy and one woman cheat on their partner with each other. The remaining partners (the Ha Kyung and Shi Woo counterparts, so to say) decide to join a reality show to take revenge on their exes by pretending to be a better couple than them, and ultimately end up falling for each other for real. I remember the “cheaters” were also really brazen in this story, and they even ended up regretting having broken up with their former partners. The guy was also very much like Ki Joon in his clownery. So yeah, there were a lot of common elements there, which was funny to see in a drama.
Once the entangled relationships of these four main characters were revealed, there was this part where things were just constantly awkward. Honestly, at some point two people couldn’t even enter the same room anymore without getting suspicious looks from either an ex or a current partner, and it got quite tedious. I kept feeling like Ki Joon and Yoo Jin somehow kept holding on to their exes, although for different reasons, and the way they started warning their exes’ new partners about stuff also felt icky to me. Sure, if your ex is abusive or problematic, I think it’s good to help out their new partners by at least warning them what they’re getting themselves into, but in the case of these four there was just too much sourness involved to make it seem like they were genuinely trying to help each other out. Admittedly, this square still wasn’t as bad as the one from So I Married an Anti-Fan, but it still didn’t sit right with me throughout the entire series. Of course I’m glad they all got to sort out their respective relationships in the end but on the whole, the constant mess throughout the story definitely took away from my investment in the main leads’ romantic relationships.
Now that I’ve discussed the four main characters of the story, I’m very excited to move on to the side characters that actually made the show for me. I’m not sure when I last enjoyed the side characters’ storylines more than the mains’. I’ve seen shows where the side characters’ stories overtook the mains’ and I didn’t like it, but in this case I think they did a great job at creating supporting characters with respectively relevant and interesting storylines.
First of all I want to talk about Eom Dong Han, who was quite possibly my favorite character in the show. He originally works at a different station (I forgot which one) and gets transferred to the KMA at the same time as Shi Woo, where he becomes a Senior Forecaster. This basically makes him vice-director to Ha Kyung, meaning he gets to sub for her when she can’t participate in meetings for example. While he was introduced as a bit of a grump, I really liked how he gradually integrated into the KMA and how he actually started joining in on more team activities as well. One development I really liked was when at first he wouldn’t start a meeting when Ha Kyung was running late, and later explained to her that he’d only take direct orders from her, not through other people. They just had a really nice conversation where they cleared a misunderstanding, and where Ha Kyung instructed him to start meetings in her place from now on, should such a situation occur again. It was such a nice and subtle confirmation of this agreement when he actually ended up doing just that later on, it really showed how much their teamwork had grown. Besides this, I thought it was hilarious that he was the only one who didn’t catch on to Ha Kyung’s and Shi Woo’s relationship when he literally shared a house with the two of them, lol. He might have been really good at his job, but he definitely had a lot of socially awkward characteristics, and being unable to read the room was one of them. The way he went “SHI WOO-YA! I HEARD YOU AND THE DIRECTOR ARE DATING!! 😃😃” in the cafeteria sent me 😂😂 It was so typical for him to miss every single social cue to be discreet about it.
Despite his respected reputation at the KMA (the Team Two members even originally wanted him to become their new team director), Dong Han actually has a bit of a complicated situation going on at home. Being as dedicated to his job as he is, he actually missed out on most of his teenage daughter’s upbringing, and for this reason his relationship with his wife has soured considerably. He’s become so estranged from his family that they’re not even used to seeing him at home anymore, and his daughter actually feels awkward when he’s around. Even when he tries to commit to becoming better at it, Dong Han always ends up moving back into the KMA’s Night Duty room because he feels like he’s just making his wife and daughter uncomfortable when he’s around at home.
Honestly, I thought the writers did a really good job at expressing both Dong Han’s and his wife’s feelings on the matter. While some people might have found it annoying to see them constantly go back and forth, thinking “just get divorced already”, I was actually really rooting for them to work things out and to not keep avoiding each other. I found it really refreshing how Hyang Rae (played by Jang So Yeon) expressed her feelings to Dong Han so clearly, because I feel that sometimes people just don’t talk about these kinds of things and just let them explode awkwardly in the end. As much as I sympathized with Dong Han and his desire to at least become more friendly with his daughter Bo Mi (played by Lee Seung Joo), I also thought Hyang Rae was right in scolding him for being so wishy-washy. I agreed with her that, when he asked her if he could move back in, he shouldn’t have been so quick to move out again and that he should at least make an effort. It must’ve been extremely exhausting for her to constantly be like “is he going to show up or not”, getting her hopes up time and time again. On the other hand, seeing her hesitate to divorce him also pinched my heartstrings, because you could see that she really didn’t want to, despite how tired she was of being disappointed. I’m not even going to lie, the scene between Dong Han and Hyang Rae in the Night Duty room actually made me tear up. It was really heartwrenching when Hyang Rae expressed that she was never serious about getting a divorce but got so hurt when he’d agreed to it so easily, and how she’d prefer him to be thankful for the things he did get to experience with her and Bo Mi instead of only apologizing for his shortcomings all the time. The way they both started crying and ended up hugging like that was so touching to me, because I was truly rooting for them to work things out and preferably stay together.
I actually really liked the gradual development of the relationship between Dong Han and Bo Mi. It was so endearing to see Bo Mi slowly but surely become more comfortable with her dad. At the beginning, it actually felt like he was a stranger to her and she didn’t even want to be in the same room with him. But then, when she became aware that her mother was contemplating divorce, she actively started seeking her dad out by taking that field trip to the KMA to gain more understanding of the work that he did. The fact that she actually grew to like him so much that she’d come home early to catch the weather forecast, all proud that her dad had contributed to that 🥹. Although I didn’t really understand why she lied about being able to eat ham, I am actually convinced that she decided not to mention it because she didn’t want to put her dad on the spot for not knowing about her allergy in front of his colleagues. It must have been something like that, because I feel like it wouldn’t have been hard at all for her to just say, “I actually have an allergy” if it weren’t for the excited looks his teammates were giving them. She didn’t even blame him for it and only became more interested in learning more about him and spending more time with him, which in turn also made Dong Han really happy.
Honestly, you can say a lot about Dong Han and how he handled his family situation, but you can’t say he wasn’t a doting father. The way he told his colleagues how he just couldn’t stop smiling when he looked at Bo Mi 🥹. It was so clear how much he cared about her, even though he kept missing the opportunity to actually show up for her. Don’t even get me started about the look on his face when he heard about Bo Mi collapsing in the bathroom, and how he stayed at the hospital the entire night. I think what I liked about him the most was that he was literally just a middle-aged guy trying his best while knowing fully well how incredibly awkward he was. The way he embraced that and kept trying in his own clumzy way to be better was just so endearing to me. Honestly, I got so caught up in rooting for him that it was actually painful to see him turn the car around while he was heading for Bo Mi’s birthday party. I mean, I knew he was going to prioritize work, but when he got that call and went all “But it’s my daugther’s birthday! I even did my hair!” 😭 it made me so sad. He’d come such a long way from being a completely absent father to a dad who actually beat himself up for not being able to be there for his daughter. It didn’t make it any better when he arrived at the office and the situation got solved super quickly and I was like “my guy lost his chance at redemption with his family for this?!” 🥲 My favorite part about this scene was that Dong Han got to tell the leader of Team One to “stop being a preachy boomer” 😂 I saved that quote because I loved it so much, what a legend.
All in all, I thought Dong Han was a very realistic and relatable character, all the more because he kept trying to set things right while being painfully aware of his own flaws. I really enjoyed his storyline and I actually found his development with his daughter more engaging than the main leads’ relationships at times. 🙈
Another one of my favorite characters was Shin Seok Ho, the Assistant Director of Team Two. What immediately piqued my interest about him was the way he acted when he was alone at home. I loved seeing him lounge around in his bathrobe with a glass of wine, looking out of his penthouse apartment, lol. It was such a funny contrast to the stiff person he seemed to be at work. While he started out as just another interesting character to me, I actually folded when they showed his treatment of the people who fixed the air conditioning at work. There’s this time when it’s super hot and the air conditioning in the Chief Team office is broken, and the employees keep complaining about why it’s taking so long to fix it. Seok Ho is repeatedly asked to get an update, but can’t bring himself to complain when he actually sees the people trying to fix it, completely drenched in sweat and in even worse condition than the office employees who at least have hand fans to cool themselves. As if that in itself wasn’t already decent enough of him, once the issue eventually gets fixed we actually see Seok Ho personally handing out cold drinks to the workers and thanking them for their hard labor. That was the moment I decided I loved this guy. It’s always the kind gestures that people show when no one else is looking that get me the most. Despite the fact that he’d seemed so withdrawn and self-absorbed in the beginning, I loved how we actually got to see the goodness in him through this subtle kindness.
From some point onwards, Seok Ho keeps bumping into Tae Kyung by coincidence, starting with when Tae Kyung asks him to store some side dishes meant for Ha Kyung in his fridge since Ha Kyung isn’t home (he lives one floor above her). After that they meet again at a coffee shop, and then at a bookstore where Seok Ho is the only person to pick up Tae Kyung’s book. After confronting him about his opinion on the book, Seok Ho shares some tips with her and they start meeting up more frequently as they learn they have some things in common. It was the most adorable thing to see Seok Ho fall for Tae Kyung. The way his face lit up when Tae Kyung showed genuine interest in his hobbies made me feel like maybe he’d felt embarrassed about them before, and that only made it all the more sweet. I honestly adored the romantic development between these two, they were so incredibly cute together. I also loved how it brought out both a pure and a passionate side of Seok Ho. I liked the part where he’d gotten distracted at work and made a mistake and called out Tae Kyung to tell her that it wouldn’t be wise for him to date her since he couldn’t afford to get distracted at work, and she just went “I’m in love with you too” and they ended up spending the night together, lol. Also, the moment Tae Kyung’s mom was like “Are you considering marriage?” and he was like “Yes” while Tae Kyung said “No” and he went all “But but but, you are both my first love and my first time and you need to take responsibility for taking my virginity!” 😂😂 I definitely did not expect to see Seok Ho of all people trip over his own feet while falling in love, but it was so worth it. Seriously, the fact that he started his own publishing company so he could publish Tae Kyung’s books himself?? If that isn’t true love, I don’t know what it. All hail Shin Seok Ho.
Another interesting side character among Team Two is Oh Myung Joo, a middle-aged lady who’s balancing her work with being a housewife. Her husband (Son Sang Gyu) also works at the KMA, but he hasn’t been doing too hot and Myung Joo gets an unexpected curveball thrown at her when he suddenly announces that he wants to quit his job and start studying for the Civil Service exam again and go back to training to become an engineer or something technical (I don’t remember it exactly). This means that Myung Joo will become responsible for the entire family income next to taking care of her children whilst hubby gets back to full-time studying. They promise it’ll only be for a year and Myung Joo goes along with it, but it doesn’t take long before this lifestyle starts taking a toll on her sleeping schedule, causing her to doze off and lose focus at work as well.
What I appreciated about Myung Joo was that she really was the best of both worlds. She was an incredibly loyal and trustworthy member of Team Two, always prepared to stand up for someone who’d made a mistake and take responsibility for them. I also loved how she was such a warm and lovely mother figure to Soo Jin, always caring about whether she was happy in the team and supporting her in every way. As a wife, she was also really accommodating and loving to her husband and children. On the other hand, she was a very strong and confident person who wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself. The way she confronted her husband after busting him playing baseball with friends while she was literally carrying both their kids home after an exhausting day of work was so satifsying. I loved how she just went “Here are your options: you get your ass back to work, we get a divorce, or you get the hell back to studying and ace that exam”, that was such a powermove. I mean, honestly, the fact that he even pulled that knowing fully well that was the last thing he should be doing – at least he held onto her and they still made it work, he chose for option #3, but phew… I definitely didn’t blame Myung Joo for standing her ground there, all the more after we’d seen her struggle so much since she’d become the main breadwinner of the family. I loved Myung Joo, she always managed to lift everyone’s spirits and made sure everyone was happy in the team. I also liked how she was the first team member who approached Ha Kyung in order to help her gain more understanding of her teammates and improve their teamwork. She was the best mom both her family and team could’ve wished for.
Kim Soo Jin was the youngest member of Team Two, and probably the one who got into the most trouble. It’s eventually revealed that she initially wanted to join the Policy Division team, but got placed at the Chief Team instead. While she doesn’t dislike the work, she occasionally gets demotivated, saying things like “I didn’t study so long to just do this and this”. At first glance, she might’ve seemed like just a young spoiled girl who still had a lot to learn (she gets reprimanded quite harshly by Ha Kyung a couple of times as well), but I liked seeing her learning curve throughout the story. It was also nice to see the flashback of how Ha Kyung used to be just like her when she started out, and how that also softened her to be more understanding and supportive of Soo Jin. It was nice to see how Soo Jin gradually fell into place in the team and how she grew more confident. It wasn’t that she wasn’t capable or anything, and while it’s true that sometimes people just fit better at different departments, I was really proud of her for eventually deciding to stay at the Chief Team – even if it might have been partially because she liked being looked up to by the new batch of trainees, lol. I mean, it still came down to her finding her drive to become a respected senior herself, and that automatically motivated her more to improve her skills and share her knowledge with the next “generation”.
Although they started out with a lot of tension between them, I really loved to see how Ha Kyung, Myung Joo and Soo Jin started opening up to each other more, to the point where they actually went to dinner and karaoke together. It was just really nice seeing the three women of Team Two join forces and grow together in their own respective ways. All in all, I think this show did a great job at gradually building up the teamwork of Team Two, and I think this came together really nicely when they stood up against Team One together: that moment where the whole team was standing in front of the elevator and just burst out in a silent victory dance together was really wholesome.
I just want to comment on one more character before we move on to my other comments about the series: the Director General. Go Bong Chan (played by Kwon Hae Hyo – I couldn’t help but scream “BRIAN!!!” when he appeared on screen, lol) was the director that supervised both Chief Teams. He was basically in charge of supporting the team directors and urging them to make decisions and/or appoint subordinates to visit other stations. He was always present at the meetings and covered for whenever someone made a mistake. I thought it was funny how it was kind of a running gag that the KMA made mistakes in predicting the forecast, and he always had to report that to the higher-ups or something. That one time when they predicted the first typhoon right and he was confirming it all happy on the phone before going back to apologizing when then they predicted the second one wrong again, lol. I liked his character, it just felt right seeing him as a supportive director again after Search: WWW. Even though he could get quite stern, he was always on his team’s side and it was nice to see his dynamic with Ha Kyung as well. He was cool.
Now that I’ve gone through my character analysis there are some other things that I want to point out that jumped out to me or just crossed my mind while I was watching the series.
I think it’s safe to say that one of the main themes this show deals with is to create a metaphor between the weather and love. Love lends itself for countless types of symbolism. When tensions are rising or passion is building up, it’s not uncommon to add in a shot of a boiling kettle or something else that suggests something that’s physically hot. This series even has an episode called “Tropical night” where the heat literally contributes to the ongoing tensions between characters. In this sense, using the weather as a metaphor for love might not have been the most original idea, but I still liked it. They kept finding ways to create original metaphors, like through the changing of the seasons, constantly migrating anticyclones, an unusually dry rain season and actual typhoons. Combining these meteorological phenomena with specific events and twists in the stories, I think they actually did a pretty good job of keeping things engaging and interesting, and I liked that there was always a subtle mention of or reference to the episode title.
My favorite quote would definitely have to be the one from Ha Kyung’s mother in the final episode, where she comments on that Ha Kyung spends more time “predicting the answers of tomorrow” than focus on “the feelings of today”, which I thought was a really good way to express the theme of only ever looking ahead in a relationship instead of enjoying the current moment.
Another type of symbolism that I liked, which I honestly only picked up on in the final episode, was the use of the screens during the video meetings. I don’t know if this was just me, but when Ha Kyung and Shi Woo were captured kissing together on the screen showing the Observatory Tower in the final episode, it suddenly occurred to me that they’d come a long way, first being on different sides of a screen and then on the same one at the KMA but still apart. Capturing them finally officially “together” on screen was like a cute way of confirming that they were officially on the same page/screen in terms of their relationship. Maybe this wasn’t intentional and I just interpreted it as such, but I still thought that was kind of sweet.
Something else I appreciated about this drama was that it actually focussed equal parts on daily office life and romance. Of course there was romance involved, but I liked that the story was centered on people trying to balance private and professional. I’m glad Ha Kyung’s and Shi Woo’s story wasn’t just about them romancing each other, but also about them adapting to a new team and applying their own work experience and knowledge to match everyone else’s. It was as much about improving skills and teamwork as it was about building and maintaining both romantic and familial relationships. I thought the way this series kept the focus on the work aspect set it apart from typical office dramas, and that made it quite original in itself.
On the whole, I have very few criticisms about this show. I already pointed out some minor frustrations and confusions I had with the main characters in my analysis, so I just want to point out a couple of things that felt just a little bit off to me, even though they didn’t negatively influence my watching experience as much.
First of all, I felt like they didn’t really do Shi Woo’s unique introduction (with the rain reference in his name and his reputation of having 100% correct hunches) a solid. Whenever it comes to things that are made out to be specifically important to a character and then just disappear as if they never existed, I always have to think of Jugglers, where the ML had a trauma of fire which was then never mentioned again until in the final episode and I was like, “oh right, that was a thing”. I kind of had that same response when (either through a mention or a flashback) they brought back the whole explanation of Shi Woo’s name and how his hunches were always correct and I was like, “right, I completely forgot about that”. I mean, let’s be honest, after that one correct hunch in the first episode, it’s not like this was a thing that kept setting Shi Woo apart from the rest of the team – I distinctly remember him predicting that second typhoon wrong so…. Not sure why they set the bar so high for him at first if they were just going to drop it at some point.
Secondly, and I’ve already kind of talked about this before, but I really didn’t understand why they ended up making Ki Joon someone who kept giving advice to other people. I feel like he had a lot of sit-downs with both Ha Kyung and Shi Woo that just made me go “why is he acting all wise all of a sudden?” If there was anyone who had anything to learn, it was him. He was quite literally clowning his way through life, love and marriage, and no matter his own devotion, I honestly couldn’t help but feel uncertain about him being a father when he wasn’t even able to be a proper husband during the several months that he was married. I thought it was kind of a weird decision to chalk the counselling talks up to him, is all I’m saying.
Although of course I’m glad that everything fell into place at the end, I couldn’t help but feel that the ending was very conveniently happy for every single person. Conveniently almost to the point of being not necessarily realistic. Ha Kyung and Shi Woo reunited, Ki Joon and Yoo Jin made up and came to an agreement to have the baby, Dong Han and Hyang Rae made up, Myung Joo and her husband made up, Seok Ho and Tae Kyung made up, everything ended all good and well between all the couples.
My main issue with this ending lays in how they wrapped up the relationship between Shi Woo and his dad. In my opinion, it didn’t really make sense for Myung Han to suddenly turn a new leaf in the final episode. After how he’d consistently been acting, showing not the slightest care for his son, I found it kind of hard to believe that he suddenly reflected on his behavior and realized he’d been a bad father, or that he even started crying about the way he’d treated Shi Woo. Seeing them all chummy in the end after Myung Han finished his chemo therapy was kind of odd, as to me there hadn’t been a clear transition point where they got on good terms with each other. Like, of course it’s nice that they made up, but in combination with all the other relationships also ending so conveniently and happily, I couldn’t help but feel they really just went for a general happy ending for everyone, even if this wasn’t necessarily a realistic turn of events in the case of some storylines. Again, I’m not saying I don’t appreciate a happy ending, but I honestly wouldn’t have minded it if at least one couple decided to break up or one married couple decided to get divorced. Like, with the struggles they’d faced, it was kind of typical that everything was just wrapped up so ideally for literally every single character.
We’ve reached the cast comments! I honestly really liked the casting of this drama, everyone did a great job at conveying their characters’ struggles and representing the passionate work of weather forecasters.
It was really interesting to see Park Min Young in this series. I’ve seen her in several shows before, like Sungkyunkwan Scandal, Healer, What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? and Her Private Life and also in the variety show Busted!, but I feel like this is the first thing I’ve seen her in where her role didn’t purely have a romantic storyline. Although I’m used to see her portray career women in office settings, it still felt different for this drama because as I said, there was a bigger focus on the career aspect of her character than on the romance, and she didn’t have as many kissing scenes in this series as in others. Which was good, in a way, since that allowed her to show that she was capable of more than just passionate romance dramas. On the other hand, I have to say that, despite the occasional scene where she actually had an emotional outburst, her energy throughout the series was quite low. I guess I’m used to seeing her smile more, but it felt as if she mainly had one numb expression. Although I really like Park Min Young, this is probably one of my lesser favorite roles of her, not because she didn’t perform well but because I just missed a certain energy and sparkle in her eyes that I’ve seen before. Still, it was a nice transition to see her in a role that I hadn’t really seen her in before, and she definitely pulls off the career woman image. I hope I’ll get to see her remaining shows that are still on my list soon!
One of the main reasons this show was on my list was that I was actually really curious to see Park Min Young and Song Kang as a couple, lol. I’ve seen Song Kang before in The Liar and His Lover, Love Alarm, Nevertheless,, and My Demon, and since he mostly gets cast as quite devilishly handsome bordering on toxic male lead characters, it was actually very refreshing to see him portray such an unproblematic puppy as Shi Woo. Unproblematic in terms of personality, not in terms of family history, obviously. I was wondering if I’d ever get to see him portray a character that wasn’t exuding with confidence or constantly flirting around, lol. It was fun seeing him with Park Min Young, as she must be quite the sunbae to him, but they looked quite natural together and I really liked their first kissing scene where they drunkenly started pecking each other outside of that restaurant. It was interesting seeing him in an office drama as well, I definitely got to see a new side of him come out through this character. I think I was most impressed with the scenes that involved his father since those brought out the darker and angrier parts of his character that he usually kept hidden. All in all, I liked his performance here, and I’m curious to see what more he has to offer.
It’s been a while since I’ve last seen Yoon Park in a drama! He appeared in Uncontrollably Fond, Age of Youth, Shy Boss, The Package, Radio Romance, Room No. 9, Itaewon Class, and a bunch more shows that are still on my list (and which I’m now even more excited to watch). Despite my (and probably everyone’s) criticisms on Ki Joon as a character, I think Yoon Park actually outdid himself in portraying him. I can just imagine him going “what the hell is wrong with this guy” at his own character, lol. In my case, the fact that it was Yoon Park really helped me deal with Ki Joon, because it enabled me to enjoy his performance rather than get super frustrated with the character. When you hate the character, it means the actor did a great job, and I think Yoon Park did an amazing job. It was nice seeing him in a larger role again, I feel like it’s been ages. I really hope I get to see more of his acting again soon.
Apparently, Kim Ah Young/Yoo Ra appeared before in To The Beautiful You, but I only remember her from Radio Romance, but mostly because I remember from my review that I didn’t understand the purpose of her character 😬. I’m glad I did feel a bit more for her character in this show, although I still found Yoo Jin’s and Ki Joon’s relationship pretty problematic as it was. It was nice to see Yoo Jin get redeemed as a more mature person rather, and I did end up feeling more sympathetic towards her. I was happy that they didn’t make her character more spiteful towards Ha Kyung or something, it was nice to at least have one party of the “cheating exes” to be realistic about their situation and even have second thoughts at some point. I just realized that, apart from the scene where Ha Kyung caught the two of them in bed together, Ki Joon and Yoo Jin actually didn’t have any kissing scenes together, despite the fact that they should’ve been in their “honeymoon phase”. That’s actually funny now I think about it. Anyways, it was nice to get a better introduction to her as an actress through this show, and I hope that her remaining dramas that are still on my list will be good as well!
I was so happy to see my favorite eomma actress Kim Mi Kyung again! It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve seen her, which is crazy because she appears in so much stuff. So far I’ve seen her in the movies Kim Ji Young: Born in 1982 and Sweet & Sour, and in the dramas Sungkyunkwan Scandal, Secret Garden, Baby-faced Beauty, Missing You, I Hear Your Voice, The Master’s Sun, The Heirs, Healer, Another Oh Hae Young, The Sound of Your Heart, Shy Boss, 20th Century Boy and Girl, Go Back Couple, Her Private Life, It’s Okay to Not Be Okay, Crash Course in Romance, and a bunch more that are still on my list. Even as the most nagging mom who kept sticking to her conservative beliefs and forcing her daughters to marry, they could never make me dislike any character she plays. She’s so effortlessly funny, tough and endearing at the same time, you can’t help but love her. I recently read something somewhere about her declining a role offer because of a kissing scene, and that she’d said that she didn’t like roles or dramas that revolved solely around romance. Honestly, if I think back on the roles I’ve seen her in so far, I believe she stuck by that every single time, which is admirable. I always respect it when actors stand up for what they believe in when it comes to acting. I hope I get to see her again soon!
Jeong Woon Seon was one of the few actors I hadn’t seen in anything else before. If I check her MDL list she’s only done seven dramas so far, and this was her second project. I thought she made a really natural sister to Ha Kyung, despite them not being that close. I also really enjoyed her chemistry with Seok Ho, it was nice that they decided to give Tae Kyung some romantic development as well. What I liked about Tae Kyung was that she was just her own person, living her own life, but that she still contributed to the main story in a relevant way. I thought Jeong Woon Seon did a really humble and sincere job at portraying her, I’m curious to see more of her!
Lee Sung Wook just keeps crawling up in my list of favorite ahjussi actors. So far I’ve seen him in Duel, The Silent Sea and quite recently in 365: Repeat the Year, where he actually played a serial killer. With his role as Dong Han, he definitely redeemed himself for that – I think this might actually be my favorite role of him so far, followed closely by his performance in The Silent Sea (justice for Kim Hee Sun ✊🏻😭). Lee Sung Wook just has this super likeable down-to-earth energy. From portraying effortless humor to darker and more emotional and serious layers, he always pulls it off with realistic expressions and body language. I always really enjoy his acting and I absolutely loved him in this show. It doesn’t happen often that an awkward middle-aged male supporting character ends up being my favorite person in a series, but I guess that just proves how good he was. I think this might’ve also been the first time I’ve seen him portray a father, so that familial dynamic also made a difference. I just love him. Hope to see him again soon.
Lee Seung Won (or Moon Tae Yoo) is apparently a musical actor! Not gonna lie, imagining Seok Ho singing on stage is pretty funny to me. I actually hadn’t seen him in anything else before either, and I was really impressed by his performance. I thought he did a great job at portraying how Seok Ho’s einselganger tendencies were tested once he started falling in love, it really was the cutest thing. Who would’ve thought he was capable of being so affectionate! His chemistry with Jeong Woon Seon was the sweetest, and I also liked him within his work team. He showed a lot of emotional range and different sides to his acting in this role alone, which was cool to see. Can’t wait to see what more he has to offer! Lowkey curious to see him in a musical now too.
I’ve seen Yoon Sa Bong a bunch of times before, mostly as guest roles like in Shopping King Louie, Tomorrow With You, Fight For My Way, Age of Youth, The Sound of Magic and Mask Girl, but I mostly remember her from her roles in Arthdal Chronicles and Nevertheless,. I really loved her as Myung Joo. She has such a natural warm motherliness over her, but never loses her spunk and I think this role brought those two things together in a very nice way. Honestly, I would’ve given a lot to have someone like her on my team who’d make sure I was doing alright, lol. I liked that she got a little backstory of her own, which only contributed to her strength as a working mother. It was really cool to see her in this, Myung Joo was Best Mom.
This was the first drama performance I’ve seen of Chae Seo Eun, and I see on MDL that she’s still quite new to the scene; so far she’s appeared in five dramas, starting from 2020. There’s at least one other drama of hers on my to watchlist, so I’m curious to see her in that. Anyways, I thought Chae Seo Eun did a really good job as Soo Jin, she really embodied that rookie that kept debating whether or not she was in the right place. She might not have gotten much backstory, but her development throughout the series was really clear, and I liked that they didn’t lose sight of her within the team. It was cool to see how she came to appreciate her work more and more, and how she started glowing once she was able to teach new people, how much confidence that gave her. I thought she did a really great job!
As I already mentioned before, my first response to seeing Kwon Hae Hyo appear on screen was to yell: “BRIAN!!!”, in a reference to his character in Search: WWW. I didn’t expect to see him in yet another cool director role after that so soon! Other than that I know him from the movie Inseparable Bros and the dramas Lie To Me and Jealousy Incarnate, which are quite old shows. It’s so nice to see him appear in more recent dramas again, I hope I’ll keep seeing him around.
It was quite ironic to see Jeon Bae Soo as Shi Woo’s dad since so far I’ve only ever seen him in kind father roles, lol. He appeared as a dad in Fight For My Way, Revolutionary Love, Thirty But Seventeen, Abyss, The King: Eternal Monarch and Extraordinary Attorney Woo. I’m bound to see him again in another show soon. In any case, I say it’s ironic, but of course it’s only better for him as an actor to play different types of people, and he did a very good job – he actually set my teeth on edge with this portrayal of Myung Han. He did painfully well at playing the shameless dad who was completely oblivious to his own wrongdoings and just lashed out at whoever tried to educate him. I was quite impressed with his performance, it was cool to see a side that I hadn’t seen from him before.
I wasn’t expecting to see Jang So Yeon again after just finishing Welcome 2 Life! Apart from that I’ve seen her in While You Were Sleeping, Something in the Rain, Touch Your Heart, The Secret Life of My Secretary and Crash Landing on You. She’s usually cast as timid sweet ladies, so I have to say it’s refreshing to see her in a bit more feisty roles lately. Feisty as in, not afraid to stand up for herself and bearing her fangs. Even though there were times where I felt Hyang Rae might be a little harsh on Dong Han, she did always back it up with very solid arguments, and I appreciated that she was so articulate and open about her frustrations. She actually enabled me to see things from her side, as a wife whose husband was so absorbed in his work that he completely neglected her and her child. I could already feel the storm coming (we’re sticking with weather puns for this review) when Bo Mi suddenly also started paying more attention to the weather forecasts, lol. In any case, it was nice to see her in his and I liked seeing yet a different side of her acting skills.
I can’t believe this was actually Lee Seung Joo’s drama debut! She did so well as Bo Mi! She’s only appeared in four dramas so far, but I really hope she can continue to grow and develop her acting skills, which were already really good in this show. I really liked her chemistry with both her parent actors, and I enjoyed seeing how she gradually warmed up to her dad throughout the show. I thought it was really powerful that Bo Mi herself, despite being so awkward with her dad at first, took the initiative to learn more about his work and get to him better, that was really endearing to see. She even stopped getting mad at him for not being able to make it to things because she came to understand how important and interesting his work was, and I thought that was super mature of her. I sure hope Lee Seung Joo will be a new upcoming teen actor, and I wish her a lot more great acting opportunites. You go, girl!
Finally, I just want to give a final shoutout to my queen, Seo Jung Yeon. The way I yelped when she was revealed to be the director at the Typhoon Center. I always credit her, even if she just appears as a guest actor. I love this actress so much. From her appearance in movies like Midnight Runners and Be With You to her many iconic drama performances in Valid Love, She Was Pretty, Descendants of the Sun, Moonlight Drawn By Clouds, Bride of the Water God, Something in the Rain, Come and Hug Me, Melting Me Softly, The King: Eternal Monarch, Run On, Nevertheless,, Dali and the Cocky Prince, Our Beloved Summer, My Demon and so many more. It was so great to suddenly make a power appearance in this drama as well, as that badass Typhoon Center director. Loved seeing her, that was such a cool surprise.
And with that we’ve reached the end of this review! All in all, I had a good time watching this drama. I’m not sure what ruined it for other viewers to make them all rate it so lowly, but I honestly wasn’t really bothered by anything major throughout the series. The casting and the acting was good, the characters were really quirky and well-established, and the setting was very interesting and unique. I realized in hindsight that I might’ve actually learned more if I’d watched this with Dutch subtitles, since I do know a couple of terms from the daily weather news, haha. Anyways, I thought it was really cool to see just how crucial the work is that weather forecasters do and how so many different parties depend on accurate weather reports. I liked getting glimpses into different departments of the KMA, like the reporters and the spokespersons, and how everyone depended on each other. As the original Korean title of the show suggests: this was indeed a depiction of a fairly unfortunate incident of an office romance (lol), but the characters really kept me on my toes and managed to even make the stupidest things entertaining. In this case, I think it was a very good choice to portray male clownery in such a realistic way – I’m actually impressed that this was directed by a man, lol.
I liked that in essence, it focussed on everyone’s individual growth within work and relationships (in both the romantic and the familial sense), and that it kept a balance between those two instead of choosing to either prioritize the romance aspect or the career aspect. I appreciate shows that focus on characters struggling to balance work and private, because this is actually a really big sociological issue in many (Asian) countries. In a more specific sense, I really liked Ha Kyung’s personal growth, how she started out as a lone wolf but ended up defending every single member of her team to other stations, showing how much she acknowledged what everyone was going through. She learned how to become more responsible as a director and to be more open about her true feelings, so that was a nice development. I really liked the cast, it was nice to see both new and familiar faces, and some side characters really ended up unexpectedly stealing my heart. It may not have been the most spectacular drama in terms of plot, but I personally quite like these daily life stories that don’t move as fast and focus more on character building, so I enjoyed it.
It was nice to be able to take a couple of days off to work on this, believe it or not but it actually feels like blowing off steam after such a busy month. I do hope I’ll be able to finish another show within June, but we’ll have to see.
Until next time, bye-bee! x
