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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Marry Him If You Dare" Episode 9

I find myself questioning the accuracy of "Marry Him If You Dare"'s portrayal of the broadcasting industry. I know that broadcasting companies produce a ridiculous amount of content, and that not every minute of it is going to be a part of a high-class production, but pettiness really should be avoided. This episode sees the creation and abrupt solving of a villainous subplot involving writing credits.

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But since the drama is polite enough to quickly move on from this, so will I. The conflict described above ends up providing the catalyst through which future Mi-Rae's plan finally comes to fruition. She's finally found just the right circumstance of crisis, allies, and emotional manipulation to get the people close to the present Mi-Rae acting in such a way that present Mi-Rae finally buckles down and makes the proper decision.

Or does she? Interestingly, the new threat to future Mi-Rae's final success comes from a person who should theoretically be on her side- Yoo-Kyeong. There's an interesting scene here where Yoo-Kyeong runs into future Mi-Rae at an unexpected moment, and future Mi-Rae gloats- a decision which makes no sense in context since as far as Yoo-Kyeong knows, they're not actually fighting over anything. This leads to the series of event that makes up the cliffhanger.

It's a fairly appropriate turnabout. From the very beginning this drama has challenged the validity of future Mi-Rae's plan and it's only just now we're getting a good look at the context of that plan from a place aside from future Mi-Rae's own biased words. At first I questioned the ease with which Yoo-Kyeong was able to discover future Mi-Rae's secrets- then I realized, future Mi-Rae's top priority is almost certainly to keep her younger self in the dark, not worry about Yoo-Kyeong's reactions.

This is the main flaw in future Mi-Rae's manipulative operations, is that they only work to the extent she's able to get other people to go along with them without question. Future Mi-Rae is able to successfully frame her entire master plan as being a series of noble sacrifices people should make to help present Mi-Rae- it's actually really selfish if you think about it, since she's really just asking people to help her indirectly for no reason. But it works in context and I don't even hate her that much for it. Mind, this may just be a failure of the drama- while I like the way the story is constructed and it keeps me engaged, it's been lacking in particularly strong emotional elements. I hope Yoo-Kyeong's discovery leads to more serious, intense call-outs along these lines.

Review by William Schwartz

"Marry Him If You Dare" is directed by Kwon Kye-hong with Yoo Jong-seon and written by Hong Jin-ah and features Lee Dong-gun, Yoon Eun-hye, Jung Yong-hwa and Choi Myung-gil.

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