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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Madame Antoine" Episode 11

There's a great scene this episode where Ji-ho, apparently having changed his borderline autistic mind about which women he can like, attempts to start again with Yoo-rim. But Yoo-rim just gets angry at him. Why? Beause Ji-ho is borderline autistic and has been disregarding her feelings for pretty much the entire drama up until now. Yoo-rim behaves like any normal, sensible person would when faced with an obviously manipulative suitor. And that makes me wonder- why can't Hye-rim act like that? Are she and Soo-hyeon really going to go back and forth on who's really lying for the entire drama?

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At this point my mind turns off every time I see Hye-rim and Soo-hyeon engage in these kinds of mind games and overthinking postulates. Most appeal for these characters individually is gone, let alone as a couple. All right I'll admit it- Han Ye-seul alternating between super flirty and irrationally unreasonable is a little funny in its own right. But where are either of these characters going as a couple? How have they grown? If anything it seems like they're encouraging each other's worst personality traits.

We keep getting that whole plot point of Soo-hyeon's traumatic childhood being dangled like a carrot. Hye-rim's somewhat interesting backstory as a divorced woman ended up being forgotten after the first few episodes. So what we're left with is these two engaging in increasingly elaborate schemes to get honest answers rather than just talking to each other. Which admittedly wouldn't work anyway since Soo-hyeon lies all the time.

This drama has also managed to convince me that science is a lie, since it's clear now that Soo-hyeon's theory of love is impossible to prove. If MRI machines can even be foiled unintentionally by distracting thoughts, what good are they? Does Soo-hyeon have any evidence aside from the MRI machine readouts? If the whole confession video is just a ploy why go the trouble? Just for the sake of a good prop to show off to donors?

"Madame Antoine" is, at this point, faint little bits of fun cute straining against a production that has completely undercut itself in terms of pulling off a coherent message. The new temporary case comes completely out of nowhere, and seems a tad implausible in the age of easy background checks- anyone who doesn't order one of those is either incompetent or just doesn't care. I've reluctantly had to take the same view of the production team as of late.

Review by William Schwartz

"Madame Antoine" is directed by Kim Yoon-cheol, written by Hong Jin-ah and features Han Ye-seul, Sung Joon and Jeong Jinwoon

 

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