Our characters get their happy endings after suffering for too long but it feels rather bland. Still, I guess that is what happens when the drama postpones the romance for too long in favor of unnecessary angst.
Love Next Door Episodes 15 and 16 Highlights
We spend the first part of the finale week with the families. The mothers are set against their children dating and their recent fight only adds fuel to the fire. As we come to know later, neither Mi-suk nor Hye-suk have anything against Seung-hyo and Seok-ryu, respectively. Hye-suk was just taken aback for a bit, but she never opposed the idea of having Seok-ryu as her daughter-in-law.
Likewise, Mi-suk only opposed our leads’ relationship, assuming Hye-suk was against it. After all, you know, Seok-ryu was sick and recently broke off her engagement and Mi-suk wrongly thought Hye-suk would use that against Seok-ryu. But after the two mothers sort out the misunderstanding over an honest rooftop chat, they are best friends again and our leads get their parents’ blessings to date happily.
There is only one thing left to sort out before we can move over to our leads’ wedding, Seok-ryu’s cooking career. Making videos is good at all, but Seok-ryu wants other people to taste the food she makes. So, in a convenient plot line, Seok-ryu’s father decides it is time to call his snack shop quits.
In a touching scene, the whole neighborhood gathers up to help Seok-ryu’s father bid farewell to this chapter of his life. Then, in a predicted move, Seok-ryu takes over her father’s diner. I think the only one who was surprised by this turn of events is ironically Seok-ryu since her father and Seung-hyo worked on this plan secretly to gift her a renovated restaurant to make her food in.
Anyway, we can get to the wedding now, right? Well. We do get a wedding but the ones getting married aren’t our leads but Seung-hyo’s parents who are getting a second wedding because plot. Instead, our leads agreed to postpone their wedding by a year so that Seok-ryu could focus on her new restaurant and they also get to catch up on the 30-year missed-out romance.
Better yet, Mo-eum would be back by then (Our girl landed the researcher’s position) and could attend the wedding. That arc had me worried about Dan-ho and Mo-eum breaking up after getting together recently. (They got Dan-ho’s daughter’s blessing and are officially a couple now.) But Dan-ho encouraged Mo-eum to achieve her dream. They call each other regularly and Dan-ho also plans to visit Mo-eum under the pretext of covering a story.
As we send off our leads, they are bickering as childishly as they did when they were young. But with the 30-year-old love they have for each other, the drama assures us that no matter how hard their life gets, our leads will get through it while holding onto each other.
I know this is supposed to be a happy ending. But the thing is: I don’t feel excited. The last episode had too many fillers and was boring rather than interesting. At least it is now over, and we can move on.
Love Next Door Episodes 15 and 16 Musings
It pains me to say this but Love Next Door was more of a disappointment than a sweet romcom. It is mostly on the writing since it felt like we were getting a trope fest. I feel bad for the cast as it is palpable how hard everyone worked in their respective roles. But let’s hope we can see them in better projects soon.
Photos and Videos: tvN Drama
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