Air Dates: October 13th to November 18, 2017 on JTBC. Airs Friday and Saturday
nights at 11:00 pm. Episode rating: 1.75%
Main Cast:
Lee Yeon-Hee as Yoon So-So
Jung Yong-Hwa as San Ma-Ru
Yoon Park as the Mysterious Man... will refer to him as MM as he has no name!
There are three main couples, just the bottom pair are married
Ha Shi-Eun as Han So-Ran
Choi Woo-Sik as Kim Gyung-Jae
Ryu Seung-Soo as Jung Yeon-Sung
Park Yoo-Na as Na Hyun
Jeong Gyu-Su as Oh Gab-Soo
Lee Ji-Hyun as Han Book-Ja
Knew I'd eventually watch this as Yeon-Hee has the lead role. It's just a twelve episode drama and thought about waiting until the show had finished it's run but when the subs for the "Black" series weren't done figured that must be an omen to start this show. The omen was a good one for a change as this episode was one enjoyable watch and this series could end up being a sleeper. Reason for the lowish rating is that JTBC is a cable network, 11:00 pm on a Friday isn't exactly prime time either.
In the very beginning we saw a wall calendar of April 2012 though think this drama is set in 2016, there's some details which haven't been explained yet. For instance the opening scene with Yeon-Hee as So-So(what a name!) was with her having a flashback to a wedding, possibly 2012? That flashback quickly zoomed to present day and So-So is no longer married or at least she's not with her husband. There's two main parts of the story which haven't been explained yet but the details will eventually be told to us, that wedding is one of them and did it take place in Paris?
Paris is now where So-So resides, she's a tour guide there for Korean tourists and she's kept quite busy as that's a popular tourist spot. So-So is also a student and she's not what you would call well off, a minor thing not told to us yet is how she ended up living in Paris. So-So's French is also quite good so it appears she's been living there for many years, just trying to catch everyone up with a bit of her background but as mentioned there are some holes we don't know of yet.
After we're introduced to So-So, she was asked later on in the show what her name meant but she couldn't answer it, the scene shifts back to Seoul. At the airport are nineteen tourists ready to depart for Paris, there was supposed to be twenty but one woman skipped the trip and will explain what happened to her later on. Of the nineteen there were three couples, one single male and a group of older ladies that totaled twelve.
Those twelve middle aged ladies were so obnoxious and irritating, think they would have brought the show down but luckily they were stranded at the airport. The most irritating one of all was in charge of the passports, as you can see in the above screenshot she didn't bring the right bag with her as the twelve passports were discovered by her husband in the refrigerator. That leaves just seven tourists, the smaller number works out much better and there's still a wide range of people.
So-So is waiting anxiously at the Orly airport and the plane finally arrives but a bit late because that passport problem ended up making the plane delay it's departure. So-So is a very efficient tour guide and has so much patience. Some of the seven tourists seem quiet and easy to get along with but not all are so agreeable such as the older man Gab-Soo.
He's been complaining even before the plane took off from Seoul, on the other hand his wife
Book-Ja is such a nice lady who has to keep apologizing for her husband's outbursts and both appear close to sixty. The two other couples are much younger with the youngest pair being So-Ran(the woman) and Gyung-Jae(the man). They're not married but they've had discussions about it, don't know what his profession is yet but she works in an office as a web designer.
Second biggest role in the drama belongs to Yong-Hwa who is a member of the group 'CNBLUE' and seems to have a lot of female fans, he's 28 in real life. His character's name is Ma-Ru and he's traveling by himself. He was supposed to be on the trip with his girlfriend Oh and they work for the same company. More on their relationship is revealed in the second recap but the night before the trip was to begin the couple broke up.
Ma-Ru had packed some of her lingerie in his suitcase and that would be the cause of a very embarrassing situation for him. Ma-Ru was detained by airport security, there had been a Korean tourist with the same name who was wanted for sexual harassment. It took some time but finally he was able to clear his name as the airport security had to call up Korea for info and had talked with
So-So many times.
When security checked his suitcase it was filled with his ex-girlfriends lingerie, Ma-Ru insisted he wasn't a pervert but eventually said he wore those things just to be able to leave. Meanwhile the other six tourists are getting a bit antsy, Ma-Ru's detainment has set them another two hours behind. They do have ten days in France so it's not like a few hours will wreck their vacation but try telling that to Gab-Soo who is the biggest moaner of the seven.
Two other smaller incidents out the tourists even more behind but finally all seven are assembled and it's time to travel around Paris. So-So is very informative about the history of France, she seems to know every detail of an event that took place centuries ago. She is quite funny and easy to listen to though on the bus all of the group don't pay attention to a word she says, think a few are still a bit upset at all of the delays.
The group grabs a fast dinner, none of them had French cuisine and why bother eating exactly what you would at home. Ma-Ru is not a fave of the other six tourists, besides the two hour delay at immigration he also can't stop taking pics of himself and even does it while he's eating. It's a bit late but the group has to see at least one major attraction before they go to their hotel, what most want to see is the Eiffel Tower.
And the tower is where they go and it looks much more impressive at night as it's all lit up. Personally don't know much about French history but you do learn much about it in this show and they do travel to many famous landmarks. The final couple who we haven't discussed yet is
Yeon-Sung(man) and Hyun(woman). He's much older and the other tourists including So-So think the pair are just having an affair. Seems as though Yeon-Sung may be married with children, he makes many calls back to Korea and it sounds like he's talking to his family. As of yet we don't know much about Hyun, seems like she could have done much better than him.
Coming close to the end of the first episode, it's a sixty minute show and the first forty or more were about departing from Korea and the long scene at the Orly(?) airport. There is a little mystery that we were introduced to but don't know much about it yet. We see a man released from prison in Korea, I'll call him MM for now on meaning Mysterious Man. He has no name in the series and all of the cast lists refer to him as MM.
Is he the man So-So married back in 2012 and if so what happened to the two? MM has manged to find out that So-So is on Paris and is making plans to go there, we'll see much more of him in the next show. In the final scene we see Ma-Ru enter an adult shop filled with extremely kinky things, he says he's not a pervert but that remains to be seen!
Unknown to him So-So had also entered the store, the pair bump into each other when they're about to make their purchases. Ma-Ru says he's buying all of the kinky items for his friend, a likely story but So-So also has a few adult pleasures. She also says it's for a friend but she is telling the truth as there was a couple who had to stay with her for a few days.
Went in thinking this would be an overly sappy drama and very surprisingly it isn't. There is a bit of suspense plus it's more interesting than you would think, some of the tourists really add to the drama's enjoyment. Granted it's only one episode but really did find this first show extremely entertaining, second episode was also quite good and the recap for that is the next post. Took an overabundance of screenshots and they're worth a view to help you follow the story better.
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