Episode Eleven Transcript - The Butterflies On The Concrete Podcast: What Got Me Through The Week?

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[Intro Music – “There is poetry all around me…”]

Hello and Welcome to this week’s episode of the Butterflies On The Concrete Podcast: What Got Me Through The Week? This week I’m gonna talk about the Korean Drama, It’s Beautiful Now. But first, I need to play a brief disclaimer, so please bear with me before we get started. 

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Alright! Now let’s get started!

 It’s Beautiful Now  is a 50 episode weekend drama that I watched on the KOCOWA App. It’s also available to watch on the Rakuten Viki App.

This drama caught my eye initially for just one reason – the lead actor, Yoon Shi Yoon. His drama, Flower Boy Next Door, used to be at the very top of my list of favorite shows, and because of that I’m always interested in his new projects. I don’t know if everyone is like this, but once I find a show that I like, I have a tendency to watch any future projects of the main actors of that show in order to support them. Sometimes their next project isn’t as great or as relatable as I would’ve hoped, but there’s always a possibility that sometime later on they’ll have another project that does resonate. And, for me, that’s the case with this show.

 The lead actress paired with him is Bae Da Bin. I thought I’d never seen her in a show before this, but then I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that she was actually a supporting character in one of my favorite dramas, My ID is Gangnam Beauty. I’ll likely continue to seek out more of her shows after this.  Yoon Shi Yoon plays Lee Hyun Jae, a skilled attorney and Bae Da Bin plays one of his clients, Hyun Mi Rae. The other lead actors play Hyun Jae’s brothers. His older brother, Lee Yoon Jae, who’s a dentist, is played by Oh Min Seok, and his younger brother, Lee Soo Jae, who works part time while studying for a civil service exam, is played by Seo Bum June. The lead actresses paired with the oldest and youngest brothers are Shin Dong Mi, who plays Shim Hae Jun, the CEO of the law firm Hyun Jae works for,  and Choi Ye Bin, who plays Na Yu Na, an aspiring pastry chef, respectively. The entire cast is phenomenal, and I’d like to give a special mention to the actors that played Mi Rae and Hyun Jae’s parents. They went through a lot and their emotional portrayals of their characters gutted me several times.

The premise of the show is that Yoon Jae and Hyun Jae don’t want to date anyone or get married but they’re  already in their thirties, so their parents decide to offer them a pricey incentive for them change their minds – an apartment! The first brother to get married gets the apartment, and while they are reluctant to go along with it at first, the parents decide to include their younger brother, Soo Jae, in the deal and when he quickly brings home someone to marry , their competitive spirit is ignited and their journey towards finding love begins. 

The strength of this show is this:  it’s romantic moments managed to make me swoon throughout; it’s perfect comedic elements were seamlessly woven into the narrative and caused me to burst into uncontrollable laughter constantly; and in the midst of it, because I felt so much affection and understanding towards the characters at various points of the story, it made me cry a whole lot tears I never thought I’d shed.

Through this show I experienced a rollercoaster of emotions, but most of them were joyful, and that’s why I’m recommending this show to you now.

When you watch a 50 episode drama, it’s a major time commitment. You never know if it’ll end on as strong a note as it began. There’s always a possibility that something about the plot or the characters will ruin things and cause you to lose enthusiasm and stop watching midway through. But this show wasn’t that kind of drama. It rewards you for your dedication and tells a sweet and heartwarming story from beginning to end.

There was only one part of the plot that I fast forwarded through – and that’s only because I’m impatient  when it comes to dramatic conflict and I wanted to know how the major conflict would be resolved in the story. In fact, I waited until the show had already finished airing before I started watching it, just in case I wanted to skip ahead when things got too tense, and find out how it was all going to end. If you don’t mind hearing some spoilers, i’ll let you know which part in particular later on.

I’ll discuss some of my favorite moments in the show now, including some spoilers I can’t help but want to discuss.

I’ll start with Episode 12. The lead up to Hyun Jae and  Mi Rae becoming a couple is endearing to watch. Hyun Jae is uninterested in falling in love again after his last break up, so when Mi Rae confesses her love for him he turns her down at first. But then his ex-girlfriend shows up and demands he handle her divorce proceedings, and she prepares a gift of sorts to thank him for his help. That gift is a lie that she tells him – she tells him that she told Mi Rae they spent the night together, when they hadn’t – and when he hears this, he gets worried about Mi Rae’s reaction to the news and what she’s going to think, so he hurries to her so he can clarify things and tell her the truth. And of course she has no idea about any of it. I don’t think it was necessarily the best method of getting him to recognize his feelings for Mi Rae, but it was definitely an effective way of handling it in the story and it’s what allows their love to start to blossom.

After they get together, their relationship isn’t all smooth sailing. He’s a great cook and critiques the meal she prepares for him (which he doesn’t know was actually prepared by her mom), and he doesn’t introduce her as his girlfriend when he should, which is during a moment when he’s a bit oblivious to the advances of a female screenwriter that shows interest in him when he’s asked to be a legal consultant for an upcoming drama. But in episodes 17 and 18, he becomes more considerate of her, and makes the proper introduction and serenades her, which is just the sweetest thing. Hyun Jae also teaches her how to drive which shows how amazing he is as a partner because her own family members argue with her while she’s trying to learn while he remains supportive and patient. He’s steadfast in his love for her throughout the show once he decides that she’s ‘The One,’ and it’s a swoonworthy thing. He consistently provides her with patience, sincerity and a strong sense of security.

Although Hyun Jae and Mi Rae feel like the main couple in the drama in many ways, I actually adored the oldest brother’s journey towards marriage even more so than Hyun Jae’s,  and that’s saying a lot because I loved those moments between Hyun Jae and Mi Rae. But I think it’s because Yoon Jae and Hae Jun share a lot of hilarious moments in their relationship.

Hae Jun and Yoon Jae meet because she’s in need of a dentist for an urgent dental problem. When she meets Yoon Jae she’s immediately smitten by him, so much so that when she finds out that he’s going to be on a dating program she sabotages it because she doesn’t want him with anyone else. Obviously, that wasn’t a good thing to do, but she pursues him until he suggests to her in Episode 12 that they should casually date. The thing is, she’s older than him by a couple of years. He’s 39 and she’s 42. And she doesn’t want to be dating casually, but she agrees to it because she likes him so much.

One funny moment is when they go bike riding together at her suggestion. When she daydreams about it she imagines them being on one shared bike, and her sitting on the back while he does all the work, which is what happens in dramas. However, in reality, they ride two separate bikes and she isn’t very good at riding a bike at all, but he is, so they stop along the way because she gets frustrated. One adorable moment is when he pulls her close unexpectedly while they’re talking and he figures out that that’s what makes her heart race faster for him. Another great moment is when they dance together in her apartment building’s parking lot after they get denied entry by a nightclub – clubbing is another date idea that she suggests to him. Those are just a few moments that show how cute they are together. Although she’s in her forties, her desires when it comes to love are quite innocent in some ways. She’s successful in her career but relationships weren’t always a priority in her life so now she’s trying to make up for it with Yoon Jae.

Episode 18 is a favorite because Hae Jun and Yoon Jae have their first kiss. He takes her on a date to a restaurant he once went to with another woman, and that woman shows up unexpectedly and flirts with him in front of Hae Jun. Hae Jun tells him they should never meet again, but he runs after her and tells her he can’t do that, not see her again, which is the lead up to it.  It’s such a sweet moment.

The last aspect of their relationship that I’ll mention is that after they get closer, Hae Jun gets nervous that Yoon Jae will find out that she’s the one who sabotaged his appearance on that dating program. The way it’s resolved is so well done. It’s a spoiler but I’m going to say it anyway because I was so surprised while watching. It turns out that he knew all along that she was the person who ruined his opportunity and he got to know her better because he wanted to figure out why she would do something like that to him. Quite an unexpected way to remedy the conflict, but it worked so well for this particular story. I don’t know if many people would try to get to know the person who denied them an opportunity. Most would probably walk away from that person. I’m not saying it’s a good thing or a bad thing either way,  I’m just saying that as a viewer it’s a unique resolution that I appreciate.  And it shows how good of a person Yoon Jae is - that he’s willing to allow that information to bring them closer to each other instead of letting it tear them apart.

As for the youngest brother, Soo Jae, I would say that if there’s one aspect of the story that I would change it would be his relationship with Yu Na. He convinces his friend Yu Na to lie to his parents so they can get married and then sell the apartment to pursue their personal goals. He wants to stop studying for the civil service exam so that he can start a business because his friend offers to sell him his gym. She has a passion for baking and would get $100,000 to use towards that. In the process of lying to his family, they fall in love with one another and have some really saccharine moments together, but then Soo Jae finds out that his friend had him sign a fake contract to take over his gym business and then took his money for the down payment and fled. Mind you, he took out a loan for that down payment. It’s sad and a total mess when Yu Na tells Soo Jae’s mom the truth about their contractual relationship, and as a result of everything that happens the parents cancel the original get married - get an apartment deal. Soo Jae and Yu Na also end up breaking up because the mom doesn’t want Yu Na anywhere near her son, even though the scheme was all Soo Jae’s idea.  

Still, none of that has anything to do with why I’m upset that they get back together in the end. After all, Soo Jae learns from his mistakes and becomes a better version of himself in the aftermath. It’s actually quite a beautiful and redemptive story arc and I’m genuinely happy that he ends up happy and fulfilled at the end of the story.

But, with that said, my  issue is that I really, really liked the chemistry that Yu Na had with Mi Rae’s brother, and I would’ve preferred if Soo Jae had been given a new love interest instead so that Yu Na and Mi Rae’s brother could’ve been together. Mi Rae’s brother is Yu Na’s boss for a short time while she works at a restaurant - he’s an executive in the family business who’s at the restaurant temporarily in order to find ways to improve its performance- and though they don’t get along at first, he ultimately tries his best to be supportive of her dreams and to understand her as a person. He wants to be there for her as best he can throughout the show and even after she leaves the restaurant and starts working at a bakery as a pastry chef after passing the required exam, he goes to visit her and buys macarons as a way to cheer her on. I just think he would’ve been a better fit for Yu Na, because I’m fairly certain he never asks her to compromise who she is for his benefit like Soo Jae did. Soo Jae knew she didn’t want to lie to his parents and she told him no several times but he was persistent and managed to change her mind. And so, while I want Soo Jae to be happy, and I’m glad that he’s grown as a person, I just don’t think that that happiness has to be a reconciliation with Yu Na in particular. He could’ve had a fresh start with someone new. But, alas, it isn’t my story to tell.

There’s a lot more that happens in this show. There are two characters with adoption story arcs, there are two health scares, there’s the death of a loved one, a divorce and a false positive pregnancy result. There’s hesitation about falling in love, misunderstandings between characters, annoying conversations with nosy in laws  and break ups and feelings of regret.  I mentioned I skipped ahead earlier, didn’t I? It was during the main conflict involving an adopted character who learns who their birth parent is, and it affects another major plot line so I needed to know that everything would be okay which is what made me fast forward and confirm before I continued watching the rest of the show. So, yes, there’s a lot of sadness and there are moments that aren’t easy to watch. But there are also a lot of good and sweet and happy moments, too.  Just like life.

It’s Beautiful Now is the type of show that makes you feel something. If you’re numb, or empty inside, looking at a couple episodes will have you smiling to yourself or laughing hysterically all of sudden. And if you haven’t cried in a while, as if stuck in a deep, hollow sadness, certain moments of this drama likely will have you lying in bed bawling cathartically with handfuls of tissues. I say all of this from personal experience, of course. And I’ll take the time to reassure you now, if you weren’t already aware, that there’s a happy ending. Because of all this, I believe this show is worth watching all the way through at least once if you have the time, even if you have to fast forward through some parts and then go back and watch like I did.

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to me talk about It’s Beautiful Now I’d love to hear your opinion of the show if you’ve watched it, so please leave a comment on this episode’s post on our Instagram page at WhatGotMeThroughTheWeek, or send an email to whatgotmethroughpodcast@gmail.com. The transcript and audio for this episode will be posted on HyssopandEbony.com.

Until next time!

[Outro Song – “Ocean waves on busy streets, butterflies on the concrete. The beauty I could not see becomes a deeper part of me. You remind me, You are present in every single thing.”]

Intro & Outro from Magnified (a cappella) © Amber Eboni