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[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Modern Farmer" Episode 10

Perhaps I was a little hard on Soo-hyeon. Like Min-gi, while she seems pretty rough at first, it's pretty clear that the woman's not a monster or anything. Just a little self-absorbed, and understandably so given the very personal threat to her well-being. But oddly enough Soo-hyeon's not especially arrogant. Note the surprise and even gratitude she shows at being helped out by people who have just suffered from her abuse. Soo-hyeon is learning, bit by bit.

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In some small part she just comes off better by contrast, though, as a new character come to take the unlikable crown- Eun-woo. You may know her better as Mee-young's daughter. She's a little jerk. "Modern Farmer" hasn't done a whole lot to establish that Mee-young is a bad person aside from that one flashback, but it's difficult to believe that a particularly good person (or at least a good mother) could raise their daughter to believe that such kind of behavior is acceptable.

But then I probably shouldn't be too judgmental on familial relationships, given the entire later plot thrust this episode is on kids being ashamed of their parents for no particularly good reason. This is, in theory, actually one of the few areas where the boy band members might be helpful. They're young enough to not necessarily be seen as unhelpful adults, and more like contemporaries, by the drama's more youthful characters.

Even this has its limits though. The whole thing with the haircut was really just a bad idea, but I can't hold our main characters too accountable for it. They probably didn't actually manage their own wardrobe or anything like that. The important part is that they keep trying to do better. Obviously it would be better if they actually succeeded, but not every conflict can be solved over the course of a single episode. And this is actually a pretty good one to finish the week off with.

The jokes are decent this time, too. Nothing too amazing, unfortunately. Well, I suppose the improbable fire does deserve some special mention here. The humor in "Modern Farmer" often tends to fall on the spectrum of dumb and obviously wrong behavior. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, it just means that for an episode to be really special there has to be a joke that manages to hit on every possible level. Right now we're only getting a few levels- even so, there's still enough good stuff here that I don't mind so much.

Review by William Schwartz

"Modern Farmer" is directed by Oh Jin-seok, written by Kim Ki-ho and features Lee Hong-ki, Lee Hanee, Lee Si-eon, Park Min-woo, Kwak Dong-yeon and Lee Han-wi.

 

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