Early Access: A Couple's World E1 (Patreon)

E1. This show is immediately compelling. It reminds me a lot of how VIP started out, with us vicariously exploring the mystery of who's engaging in the affair with our female lead's cheating husband. Except, this show seems to throw down the gauntlet and amp up the drama in a way that makes me think that they're taking the scale on which VIP did pretty solidly, destroying it, and then doubling it, with plans to smash that new limit too.

This feels like VIP, The Truman Show, Secret Love Affair and The Last Empress all got together and made a baby. This feels makjang, but elegantly so. It's.. intriguing.

To think that Sun Woo's closest friend is actually Tae Oh's spy. What a blow. This is doubly worse than Sun Woo finding out that Tae Oh is cheating on her. This is an actual conspiracy where people that she knows are all in on the secret, and are working together to keep her in the dark. This feels like an extra dark version of The Truman Show, if the producers had decided to plant an affair, in order to spice up the show and raise ratings, and the audience is just waiting to see how long it will take Truman to figure it out, and how.

That recurring motif, of Tae Oh repeatedly dripping his mess - rainwater or food scraps and gravy - all over the beautifully neat and perfect home that his wife takes care to keep clean without seeming to take notice at all, of the mess he's leaving behind, is so symbolic. He's literally leaking his dirty second life all over this perfect life, without a thought about what this is doing to his wife.

It's disturbing that Tae Oh's not just cheating on his wife, but has set up an entire system to allow him to do so. He has that daily window of time between work and the alleged time he gets home from work, to mess around, and he's got a spy (or spies?) in place to help ensure he doesn't get caught. He's got a secret compartment in the boot of his car, with a bag of supplies, including condoms and spare pairs of underwear. It's so meticulous, and that's what makes it extra sickening. He put thought into how to hurt his wife.

The fact that Tae Oh's not doing well in his career is quite possibly a contributing factor, though there's no excuse for the systematic cheating - or any kind of cheating - that he's engaging in. He looks embarrassed telling Sun Woo that they can't afford to make any mistakes in front of the president(?), and then he is humiliated when his efforts to engage the president are ignored. To make it worse, it's only when Sun Woo steps in, that he gets some attention, as a spillover. I do think it's very emasculating, so the cheating might be his way of feeling powerful, under the circumstances.

Sun Woo's pretty much doing a great job at living up to any and all expectations of a perfect wife and mother - she's successful and beautiful, takes care to keep a lovely house, makes dinner regularly, is caring and loving to both her husband and her son - and yet, her husband cheats on her. You could be the perfect woman, and it wouldn't be enough to keep the attention of a cheating husband.

Je Hyuk is so nonchalantly insulting to his wife. The way he compliments Sun Woo is consistently at a cost to his wife. That's terrible.

Why is Myung Sook loyal to Tae Oh instead of Sun Woo? I'm curious. Does Tae Oh have something over her, does she do this to protect Sun Woo, or is she just a terrible person?

One of the swiftest 1.5 hours of drama I've watched.