Perfect Marriage Revenge: Episode 1 (First Impressions) MGG

Perfect Marriage Revenge: Episode 1 (First Impressions)

by Unit

MBN’s newest makjang on the block is here, and typical of the genre, there is no middle ground. Get ready for a heroine who is as spineless as they come, and villains who make your blood boil at every turn. But when pushed to the wall, even the meekest of individuals will find their voice and push back. And this is what our revenge story is all about.

Editor’s note: This is an Episode 1 review only. For a place to chat about the entire drama, visit the Drama Hangout.
 
EPISODE 1

The premiere episode of Perfect Marriage Revenge explores the theme of family — what the institution means to different people, and the lengths they’re willing to go to protect their idea of a family. The story begins with our heroine, HAN YI-JOO (Jung Yoo-min), in the middle of painting a family portrait. At a glance, a happy family smiles back at us from the portrait. But we soon see the first signs of a crack in Yi-joo’s idea of a happy and loving family.

At her in-laws, Yi-joo slaves away like a maid, but her efforts are very much unappreciated. But in-laws are kinda distant family, right? That’s why they don’t get to be in her portrait. Sadly, Yi-joo gets similar treatment from her immediate family members — yunno, the ones who are actually in her portrait. And worse, they don’t include her in their family pictures. At the in-laws and back at home, there is really no place for Yi-joo.

Despite not fitting in anywhere, Yi-joo maintains a positive outlook on her situation, and life generally. It’s probably a combination of actress and character, but Yi-joo just gives off this meek and spiritless vibe almost to the point of being a doormat. And from a viewer’s standpoint, even though we’re just starting out, I’m already tired on her behalf. It gets worse when Yi-joo’s husband, YOO SE-HYUK (Oh Seung-yoon), quits his job without informing her — only to spend the day fanboying over her younger sister, HAN YOO-RA (Ji Jin-hee), with love bullets shooting out of his eyes. Sigh. Even in her husband’s heart, there’s no place for Yi-joo.

Yi-joo brings the portrait to the exhibition at their family’s art gallery — which they don’t even bother informing her about — but her mom doesn’t like the portrait. Yoo-ra also taunts Yi-joo for attempting to attract attention to her painting skills. But unlike Yoo-ra who derides Yi-joo covertly, Mom’s hostility is more pronounced. Poor Yi-joo just wants a family — even if only in picture form. But Mom tells her to “Go be a ghost in your husband’s family if you married him.” Ouch! Still, Yi-joo remains eager to please Mom, which is why Mom sees her as an easy target.

At this point, we’re introduced to our male lead, SEO DO-GOOK (Sung Hoon), who strides in like the hotshot CEO he is. But to be honest, I did not get the chaebol CEO vibes from his loose fitting suit and weirdly buttoned shirt. My goodness, Stylist-nims, you have Sung Hoon and this is what you stick him in? Come on! He could do so much better. Thankfully, his face saves the get-up.

Do-gook analyzes the style of Yi-joo’s family portrait as hyperrealism. According to him, the goal of hyperrealism is not to portray the subject of a painting as they are in reality, but to reveal the fact that any portrayal, however real, is ultimately fake. “Therefore, this painting is fake no matter how real it looks,” he concludes. And truer words have never been spoken. Just like the painting is not an actual photograph, the happy smiles and impression of a close bond between the family in the portrait is all fake.

I get the sense that Do-gook’s words carry a deeper meaning than just a mere analysis of Yi-joo’s painting. But in typical Yi-joo fashion, she takes everything at face value.

Since she’s got her sights set on him, Yoo-ra tries to warm herself up to Do-gook — even going as far as using Se-hyuk to make him jealous. But Do-gook only has eyes for Yi-joo. Not that she would notice. Heck, the woman doesn’t even notice that her husband is visibly in love with her sister!

Do-gook is irritated by how highly Yi-joo values her family and how little they value her in return. “Does your family think of you as family?” he wonders. “Do you not know or are you pretending not to know?” he asks in frustration. But it’s clear that she has no idea what he’s talking about. Do-gook apologizes for his outburst before leaving, and this is the only time we see him in this episode. It’s definitely not enough Sung Hoon for me, but this is enough to be intrigued by his character.

Like his analysis of Yi-joo’s painting, Do-gook’s “Do you not know or are you pretending not to know?” comes off as more than just a question about her obliviousness to her family’s dismal attitude towards her. It’s like there’s something he expects her to know, and his disappointment at the realization that she’s clueless as to what he’s hinting at reaffirms my suspicion that he knows more than he’s letting on.

When a painting is exposed as fake during the gallery’s auction, Mom and her minion throw Yi-joo under the bus as the mastermind of the forgeries. Yikes! Per Mom’s instructions, Yi-joo had been innocently making copies of famous paintings so that people in social welfare facilities could view a semblance of these paintings instead of just seeing them in print. These “copies” were supposed to be for a good cause and definitely not for profit. But guess who’s been selling them behind her back?

Unlike Yi-joo whose idea of protecting her family is to bend over backwards for their sakes, Mom’s idea of protecting the family is to sacrifice Yi-joo for the “greater good.” Mom promises to get her a lawyer while she faces police investigation, but the scales have finally fallen from Yi-joo’s eyes and she realizes that she has been had.

To make matters worse, Yi-joo overhears her husband confessing his feelings to Yoo-ra. Of course, Yoo-ra already knew that he likes her, but she shuts the confession down so fast. How dare he covet her? He should know his place, she’s not for the likes of him. Lol. But now that everything’s out in the open, Se-hyuk hands Yi-joo divorce papers. Apart from getting an opportunity to be close to Yoo-ra, Se-hyuk married Yi-joo because he felt sorry for her. Ouch! This is the ultimate betrayal, and Yi-joo runs away in tears.

As Yi-joo drives off, Mom calls to remind her that the family adopted her when she had nothing. Ah! So Yi-joo is adopted. Mom pulls the “we are family” card in the hopes of getting Yi-joo to turn around and surrender to the police, but the Truck of Doom is far more persuasive. Sigh. And just when I think the day can’t get any more worse for Yi-joo, Mom unplugs her from life support. This is criminal!

While Yi-joo fights for her life, Mom tells her that she never liked her. Not at the orphanage, and certainly not after her adoption. Mom found Yi-joo’s struggle for love and acceptance pathetic, and she never liked how Yi-joo seemed to exhibit no greed. Wow! I never thought I’d see the day when contentment is regarded as a bad thing, but here we are. “In the next life, don’t be so good. That just makes your life harder,” Mom advises Yi-joo, before instructing her minion to plug back the life support machines.

As Yi-joo’s life flashes before her eyes, she goes into self-reflection. She only ever strived to be good because it was her sole survival weapon as an abandoned child. But to what end? Despite her many sacrifices for the family that raised her and the family she married into, no one ever truly loved her. As Yi-joo closes her eyes in death, she makes a desperate prayer. “Give me one more chance. I will give everything I have and get my revenge.”

Next thing you know, Yi-joo awakens to her ringing alarm. She’s surprised to find herself in her maiden home, and when she sees the date on her phone, she realizes she has gone back a year in time. There’s a date stamped on Yi-joo’s wrist: 2023.7.20 — the day she died. But she’s the only one who sees the stamped date. In the meantime, she’s back to the day of her wedding dress fitting with Se-hyuk, and the events at the bridal shop play out exactly the way she remembered them.

Yi-joo recalls Mom’s last words for her to not be so good in her next life, and as always, she decides to listen to Mom. She slits her wedding dress with Se-hyuk’s fountain pen (and I’m not even going to lie, the dress became 100% hotter with the slit), and with that, she frees herself of her family. Phew! I felt a burst of catharsis when Yi-joo ripped the dress, and it was really good to see her smile — and not that weary looking “good girl” smile, but a real one that came from a place of freedom! The pushover Yi-joo is dead, and I’m here for Yi-joo 2.0!

Yi-joo calls off her engagement to Se-hyuk, and informs him that she’ll notify the family and “Han Yoo-ra, the one you love,” accordingly. Haha. You go, girl! Drag that ex-fiancé of yours by his cowardly balls. I’m so ready to follow Yi-joo’s journey in this new life of hers. And I eagerly anticipate the change in dynamics in her relationship with her family now that she has seen them for the awful people they are. Hell hath no fury like a scorned woman, so let the revenge begin!

 
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