Title: 식샤를 합시다 2 Siksyareul Habsida 2
English Title: Let's Eat 2
Country: South Korea
Language: Korean
Year: 2015
Episode: 18
Cast:
- 서현진 Seo Hyun Jin
- 윤두준 Yoon Doo Joon
- 권율 Kwon Yul
- 김희원 Kim Hee Won
- 황승언 Hwang Seung Eon
- 조은지 Jo Eun Ji
- 황석정 Hwang Suk Jung
- 이주승 Lee Joo Seung
SYNOPSIS
서현진 Seo Hyun Jin feat. Risso - Up & DownGoo Dae Young left the city of Seoul for various reasons. He relocated to Sejong, which is incidentally his hometown. He moved in to a new apartment building, and he set about getting to know his new neighbors.
Bae Soo Ji works as a freelance writer, and she lives next door to Dae Young. She is actually his classmate from elementary, but she's angry with him because he befriended her so that Soo Ji would frequently eat at his mother's restaurant.
Lee Sang Woo is a high-ranking government employee who lives alone in an apartment in Seojong during weekdays and goes back to his family in Seoul during weekends.Sang Woo supervises Soo Ji in her writing projects with the Department of Culture, Travel and Tourism, but he often forgets her name.
REVIEW
Let's Eat 2 is basically about food and eating. It isn't always the case that a sequel is an improvement, so I'm surprised that this drama is an exception. It is like its prequel 식샤를 합시다 Let's Eat, except it is set in a different city, and there is a different set of characters, save for one.
I love that this time around, the drama shares at least two ways of eating a certain dish. Goo Dae Young presents one way of eating, and Baek Soo Ji counters with another way. I think it's great that any one particular method of eating is not glorified as the right way because how people enjoy food can be subjective.
I find the characters in Let's Eat 2 more fascinating because they have various issues with food and eating. I liked the characters in the prequel but they all loved food, and they don't seem to have any conflicting concerns about eating.
Soo Ji has a complicated relationship with food because she used to be fat and miserable. Although she has gotten thinner, she's very worried about gaining the excess weight back. She monitors her weight closely, she's obsessed with exercising, and she's very fussy about consuming calories that she sometimes goes on a strict 'one meal per day' diet.
Lee Sang Woo is indifferent about food, and he doesn't see eating as a fun activity but more like something he needs to do in order to live. I think it's interesting that there's a character who is not fixated with eating, because there are people who are just like him.
Anyway, I really like the close friendship that developed between Dae Young and Sang Woo, and I wish they didn't have to deal with having a girl come between them. It's hard enough to meet good friends and maintain relationships as an adult, so the additional complication of a love triangle is quite a letdown.
Honestly, I don't really know if I want Soo Ji to end up with either Dae Young or Sang Woo because she has a lot of issues, and I think it's important that she address all her personal concerns first before she engages in a serious relationship with another person.
Soo Ji has a distorted sense of self because of her weight issues in the past, and she needs to evaluate how she sees herself, both as she actually is and as she wants herself to be. She wants to be with someone because she feels lonely, but she should learn that being alone doesn't necessarily mean that she couldn't be happy. Soo Ji also wants to get married to someone with a stable income because she's always had financial difficulties, but she should assess how she views money, and she should focus on attaining financial stability by herself.
Dae Young is someone Soo Ji is comfortable with because they knew each other when they were younger, but I don't really think that's enough of a reason for them to be together. I hate that he continues to call her the unfortunate nickname of Pig even though he is aware that she hates it.
Aside from being fed up with the much utilized childhood-friends-to-lovers trope in Korean dramas, I'm aware that a continuation of the Let's Eat series is possible, and I don't want Soo Ji and Dae Young to end up together in Let's Eat 2, only for Dae Young to be with someone else again in the next drama.
Although Sang Woo has been Soo Ji's crush for the longest time, it's hard to root for them to be together because they only know each other on a superficial level, particularly their carefully constructed professional images, and they don't really know each other as they truly are, which includes their faults and insecurities.
It took some time for me to warm up to Sang Woo because I can't believe that he couldn't be bothered to know his colleagues' names even though he has been working with them for a few months. I think a person's name stands for that person, naturally, and if you don't make an effort to learn a person's name, it implies that you couldn't care less about that person.
Even though they have very different lifestyles, I think a romantic relationship between Sang Woo and Soo Ji can work out if she was honest with him about her financial limitations, and how burdensome she feels when Sang Woo spends a lot of money on her when she cannot do the same for him.
Eating is another issue that Soo Ji and Sang Woo have to deal with as they are dating, but I think Soo Ji is also responsible for any misunderstanding. Soo Ji knows how Sang Woo feels about eating and she's willing to make some allowances for him, so she should understand that she also needs to tell Sang Woo about her situation.
If I have to pick a pairing to root for, I'd rather Soo Ji and Sang Woo end up together because their relationship seems more interesting. As long as they are both willing to share their true selves to each other, I think it's possible for them to really get to know each other, and to eventually become comfortable with each other as intimate lovers.
Related:
식샤를 합시다 Let's Eat
식샤를 합시다 3 Let's Eat 3
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식샤를 합시다2 Let's Eat 2
