[HanCinema's Drama Review] "Love Next Door" Episode 3

The third episode of "Love Next Door" has the lowest ratings for the series, with 4.276%. While this quickly rebounded to a series high of 6.581% for the fourth episode, this does speak to how the first couple of episodes only really established a backdrop, not a premise. We know that Seung-hyo is a successful architect, but we have little notion of what he really wants. We just saw him interact with Seok-ryoo's unemployment situation with a sense of strained empathy.

Advertisement

Well, the third episode shows that Seung-hyo is still struggling with his first love- not Seok-ryoo, but swimming, about which he was very passionate before a traffic accident forced Seung-hyo to give up his aspirations for the national team. "Love Next Door" has an excellent nostalgic depiction of this story. First we see Seung-hyo dreaming about swimming before subsequently moving into flashbacks. The script rather cleverly has Seok-ryoo be such an important part of these sequences it's difficult to tell whether Seung-hyo is dreaming about swimming or just her.

Of course, Seung-hyo is dreaming about both of them. Seok-ryoo inextricably occupies a huge part of Seung-hyo's life as a swimmer because she was unapologetically his number one fan and supporter. The contrast between that and how Seok-ryoo treats him in any other context is striking. Seung-hyo is generally annoyed with Seok-ryoo because she's very bossy and always telling him what to do.

This attitude reads very differently when what she's telling him to do is be the number one swimmer in the world because she believes in. Alas, who will believe in Seok-ryoo? On paper, she's had a very successful career, and agrees to do a high school career talk on this basis. Yet the entirely reasonable questions the students ask, about what she wanted to do with her life when she was in high school, force Seok-ryoo to reconsider her lifetime of careerism, as well as what she wants to do going forward.

Seok-roo loves planning in general, yet we can plainly see she's not satisfied dedicating time out of her day to something as petty as video games. What makes her romance with Seung-hyo compelling is the sense of purpose to their actions when they're together, even over issues as blatantly sentimental as tussling over the time capsule and teasing each other. For all their stated irritations, Seok-ryoo and Seung-hyo both appreciate how purely assertive they can be when they're together.

Written by William Schwartz

___________

"Love Next Door" is directed by Yoo Je-won, written by Sin Ha-eun, and features Jung Hae-in, Jung So-min, Kim Ji-eun, Yun Ji-on, Jang Young-nam, Jo Han-chul. Broadcasting information in Korea: 2024/08/17~Now airing, Sat, Sun 21:20 on Netflix, TVING, tvN.