During the fall of 2020, a time fraught with racial unrest and fear/fatigue due to a global pandemic, Apple+ released their hit series, Ted Lasso. Caroline Framke of Variety reviewed Ted Lasso saying, “At a time when just about everything feels catastrophic, there’s something undeniably satisfying about spending some time with good people who are just trying to be the best they can.” On a similar note, Lea Palmieri from Decider praised Ted Lasso saying, “Every step of the way, Ted Lasso proves to be comforting and entertaining and somehow both a distraction and a reminder that kindness is out there, not just on this fictional show.”
Ted Lasso was a show praised for the kindness and hope it brought and on a very similar note in the spring of 2021, KakaoTV and Netflix introduced audiences to Korea’s counterpart of a show brimming with kindness and hope, Mad For Each Other. The half an hour comedy follows Min-kyung and Hwi-oh, who unbeknownst to each other live next door to each other and share the same psychiatrist. Hwi-oh is a detective put on leave from work due to his anger issues, and Min-kyung is a woman trying to deal with the outcome of being in an abusive relationship. Much to each other’s chagrin, they keep on bumping into each other resulting in numerous hijinks as they try to navigate their respective lives and mental health.
Mad For Each Other had a shaky start, relying on slapstick and physical comedy combined with little to no context about the characters or their lives. However, under a great script and direction, Oh Yeon-seo and Jung Woo quickly won audiences over with their natural chemistry. One of the great things about Mad For Each Other is the fact that Min-kyung and Hwi-oh feel like real people they are awkward and unsure of each other. Once they stop being ‘enemies’ and start trusting each other, Oh Yeon-seo and Jung Woo shine as they become fiercely caring and protective of each other.
While Ted Lasso was an incredibly earnest and kind character that saw the best and hope in every situation, Hwi-oh almost seems like his exact opposite. Incredibly, angry and frustrated at almost everyone Hwi-oh is a detective who is put on leave for his violent outbursts at work and forced to meet with a psychiatrist. In comparison to Min-kyung’s very real issues of PTSD, delusions, OCD, Hwi-oh’s have been seen as superficial and shallow. Yet, it is through Hwi-oh that we see the most earnest and hopeful of scenes. From the scenes where he defends Samantha, a character presumed to be a pervert because they are dressed as a woman, to the scenes where he encourages both Min-kyung and Min-kyung’s mother to trust and believe Min-kyung despite her mental health issues and insecurities.
Min-kyung on the other hand is a very troubled woman. Through Min-kyung, the show depicts the reality of victim-blaming and slut-shaming, as she is blamed as being a home-wrecker (though she was unaware of her ex’s marital state) and though he was the one who abused and beaten. As a result, she suffers from PTSD, delusions, OCD, trust issues and paranoia and has few allies. Min-kyung is just trying to live her life managing her illnesses, without drawing negative attention as a fallout of her past abuse.
Many fans of Mad For Each Other have noted the importance of K-Dramas like Mad For Each Other and Law School for depicting the reality of abusive relationships and misogyny as well as their trauma and red flags. According to a static released by the South Korean police from 2019, women accounted for 98 per cent of victims in the nearly 10,000 cases of crimes against intimate partners. According to a different estimate taken by Korea Women’s Hotline, a woman was killed or nearly killed every 1.8 days that year. Korean women account for more than half of all homicide victims, making it one of the highest rates of female murder in the world. Korea has been described as one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a woman, and shows like Mad For Each Other, Law School and even Nevertheless are bringing these realities to the forefront of the conversation.
Mad For Each Other depicts another stigmatised group of individuals in Korean society, those who are mentally ill. Research has shown that there was and continues to be a stigma against seeking help for mental health issues in Korean culture. Those who do are mentally ill are often thought of as weak. As a product, to keep their family’s face, many South Korean’s refuse to seek treatment or do so in secret to not have that stigma associated with them and on their records. According to research done in 2015, reports showed that only seven per cent of those affected by mental illness sought psychiatric help.
However, Mad For Each Other has no qualms with depicting the reality of those who are mentally ill and the reality of their illness. Both Min-kyung and Hwi-oh meet with their psychiatrist regularly throughout the drama. The show delves into different elements of their mental health issues from showing scenes of Min-kyung obsessively worrying about things or repeating motions as her OCD surfaces. However, the show never condemns Min-kyung for her illness or depict it as a weakness. It is simply an element of her life, as seen in the scene where Min-kyung and Hwi-oh discuss her medication and the effects of it.
The other thing that Mad For Each Other manages to accomplish is the idea that love is the cure to different mental health issues. While Hwi-oh and Min-kyung undoubtedly are a positive influence on each other’s lives, they still attend their sessions with their psychiatrist and still find themselves dealing with their respective mental illnesses by the end of the show. Their love doesn’t cure their mental health, it is just another aspect of their life.
At one point in the show, Hwi-oh tells Min-kyung that they are probably the sanest people who live in the building and that everyone else is crazy. This moment depicts the reality of its minor characters, showing that it’s not only the two leads who are learning to find healthy coping mechanisms. The elaborate and endearing cast of minor characters are also depicted to be dealing with their own issues and coping mechanisms. Hwi-oh mother deals with the uncertainty of her son’s future by visiting a psychic/shaman to find some form of reassurance (though she knows that the psychic/shaman is probably lying).
The ladies of the Neighbourhood Watch/Apartment Association are dealing with their issues in different ways. Lee Joo-Ri, a young mother, has taken to drinking since she feels like she has lost/sacrificed her purpose and identity when she became a wife and mother. Choi Sun-Young takes to trolling/gossiping on the Internet and Kim In-Ja is always a busy body in an attempt to find their purpose and deal with their issues. Min-kyung mother is depicted as a harsh woman, yet as the series goes on, the audience gets to see that she truly does love her daughter though she may not know how to shot it.
Kateknowsdramas on Tumblr pointed out another great aspect of the show and this group of older women, the fact that they are shown constantly learning. This is perhaps one of the better aspects of the show, that the trope of older, judgemental women, who want to keep the status quo, is flipped in Mad For Each Other. All of these older women though they initially may have started as incredibly judgemental, are allowed the time to learn and change their views about the people around them.
However, the minor character that, in my personal opinion, deserve the most discussion is the character of Samantha. Samantha is a character that initially suspected of being a flasher in the neighbourhood and is almost arrested by the ladies of the neighbourhood watch because Samantha dresses as a woman. However, Hwi-oh is very quick to defend Samantha and as previously established the women of the Association learn from their mistakes. From then on Samantha is a character that is supported and treated with kindness and friendship, instead of being sidelined to being comic relief. The best part of Samantha’s character is that they have their own side-plot that has to do with their friendship with Su-Hyun, which was one of my favourite minor plots in the show.
While I have much love for Mad For Each Other, as the show wound to an end, I found myself finding two faults in it. The first is the scene where Hwi-oh and Min-kyung has sex. The scene starts with Hwi-oh and Min-kyung getting drunk, before making their way home. Hwi-oh, inebriated and unable to take her medication, asks Min-kyung to stay with her while she tries to fall asleep, a thing she struggles with due to her PTSD. Min-kyung eventually does manages to fall asleep and, in a classic Asian drama move, Hwi-oh chooses that moment to lean in for a kiss. While I appreciate that Min-kyung wakes up before Hwi-oh kisses her, I still find the fact that this encounter leads to them kissing and eventually having sex an issue. There are many aspects of consent, and it is generally agreed that someone inebriated cannot consent.
My other issue with the show comes from the way that the show concludes its narrative and Hwi-oh and Min-kyung relationship. By the last episode of the show, Hwi-oh and Min-kyung have broken up twice. Firstly, when Hwi-oh doesn’t believe Min-kyung’s allegations that her ex attacked her dog. Secondly, when Min-kyung concludes that with her PTSD, paranoia, and history of intimate partner violence, she doesn’t believe that she can be in a healthy and loving relationship.
Instead of trying to comfort Min-kyung’s very real fears or respect her wishes, the writers have Hwi-oh fall back into the way that he was characterised throughout the narrative, by being an angry man. He retorts by threatening her her by telling her if she leaves him, he will become an alcoholic and return to beating up people who anger him. In the following scenes, Hwi-oh follows through on his threat by beating up a random pedestrian who bumps into him.
This leads to Min-kyung to run back to him and beg him to stop fighting, which inadvertently leads to her revealing her true feeling for him. While this scene is an attempt at the comedy aspect of the rom-com (seeing this moment sets up a joke, reveals that Hwi-oh is arresting a criminal from earlier in the season, and establishes the most absurd confession of love) it still enforces certain very redundant, ridiculous, and dangerous ideals.
In a show that focused so much on mental health and intimate partner violence, I would have hoped that the main couple wouldn’t have stayed together because one of the characters guilted the other into staying with them. In my opinion, this depiction of Hwi-oh shows very little character growth on his part. Up to this point the whole point of the show has been about Min-kyung and Hwi-oh learning to deal and find healthy coping mechanism for their respective struggles. By having Hwi-oh react in anger and have his anger lead to Min-kyung returning to him, affirms his angry reactions as beneficial and even good, which completely undoes all of his previous characterisation and progress.
Hwi-oh’s anger issues also wind up helping him and others around him, so that, as far as mental health is concerned, his aggressive male personality is ultimately painted in a positive light.
Pierce Conran, South Morning China Post, K-drama review: Mad for Each Other
An even more damaging aspect of his threat is the fact that Min-kyung’s ex was abusive and manipulative, a thing that she has just told Hwi-oh before he threatens her. The show goes to great extents to show how Min-kyung’s ex abused her and gas-lit her in an attempt to control her. By having Hwi-oh threaten Min-kyung to keep her by his side, we see the same acts of violence done by Min-kyung’s ex acted out by and reinforced as a positive thing through Hwi-oh. This either shows that Hwi-oh is either not listening to what Min-kyung is saying (the thing that led to their initial break up, in the first place) or shows that the writers are affirming acts of guilt-tripping and manipulation as a healthy aspect of relationships. To add salt to the wound, Hwi-oh only stops beating up the criminal because Min-kyung acknowledged her feelings for him.
Ultimately, Min-kyung is not responsible for Hwi-oh actions. If Hwi-oh decides to react in anger and assault people because Min-kyung left him, he can blame no one but himself. Guilt trips are often carefully crafted forms of psychological manipulation and abuse. Though the scene ended up being a moment of comedy, it still affirmed the guilt trip and had Hwi-oh depict an act of manipulation and abuse found in Min-kyung abuser ( a thing that the entire season seemed to depict as wrong).
All of this being said, I enjoyed Mad For Each Other slapstick humour and all. I felt like the show may have suffered from the shorter episode (30 mins runtime) and shorter season (13 episodes), which led to a rushed conclusion and many missed opportunities. For example, I would have loved to see Min-kyung and Hwi-oh’s mother’s meet, knowing who each other is. Yet, these issues didn’t stop me from enjoying the show and I cannot wait to see what other shows the writer of the show releases.
Additional Aspects of Mad For Each Other that Deserves a Shout-Out
- Samantha and Su-Hyun serving that fake dating trope
- The fact that there isn’t a secondary love interest
- The comedy of this show is honestly so funny, I cannot
- Hwi-Oh and Min-kyung’s mothers are so funny/lovely and I love them dearly
- The fact that Hwi-Oh and Min-kyung are lowkey destined/made for each other
- The fact that the show never tries to redeem Min-kyung’s ex
- The way that Hwi-Oh and Min-kyung’s relationship progressed from enemies, to friends, to lovers
ERICA TALKS SH*T 