Solid script, light soundtrack and a director who knew just the right balance between coziness and a little cross-cultural leavening. Overall not as wildly unpredictable as classic romedies nor as melancholy, but it nevertheless seductively steals your heart. The whole cast were brilliant professionals, wait til you meet little Yeondu! The musical precision with which they hit their marks, neither over-playing nor underplaying their parts, made me so happy.

The joy of watching formulaic drama is watching how the variations are used and guessing what they will be; actually advancing the formula is a long slow collective process but if one person can normalize happy and mildly suggestive scenes in bed it is Jung Hae In. Even his back radiates joy as he disappears behind a kicked-closed door. Anther personal favourites...Jo Han Chul (an excellent villain in other shows) blew my socks off as a true sweetheart dad.

I think an underlying theme of respect for women's career choices and aspirations (whatever they might be) is a key to understanding the script, non-dogmatically. Each person in a brilliantly nuanced way works through various aspects of this dramatic nexus, from the acknowledgement of changes in the arranged marriage trope (usually performed by older women) to undercutting the high-school take on sexuality trope. For ex., the FL obviously weighs changes caused by her health but also her lack of a support network in the USA, and her decision is to return to SK and find a new career, even tho it means facing her mom's fury. In another way, this is developed comically into the amazing and funny devolution of Jang Young Nam, as Seungho's mom, from elegant diplomat back to her roots in the group of high school friends known as Lavender.
Seukryu's mom, played by the great Park Ji Young, is living happily bec of her success in raising a successful daughter, and her stubbornness is a sign of her strength of character, a traditional trope, altho pretty heavy for a western audience. Her character arc as she adjusts to the new family reality is one of the mostheartbreaking if looked at this way. Take a look at all the others....

Two problems for me: I almost didn't make it past poor Seokryu being actually beaten by her mom. Threats would have sufficed for the comic lift. I had also a serious problem with architectural mismatches in shooting locations, which I am not usually fussy about.