Re-Visiting Marry My Husband
Photo: tvN
The story of Marry My Husband had me hooked within the first ten minutes. We’re introduced to Kang Jiwon (Park Minyoung), a quiet woman who always puts herself last, experiences tragedy for her whole life, and has been doomed with stage four cancer with a guaranteed end date nearing. I related very deeply in my soul to the main character, who only had her best friend Jeong Sumin (Song Hayoon) to rely on. If you’ve ever experienced the betrayal of a partner with your closest friend in your own personal relationships, this one is going to hit right at that festering wound. And let’s be honest, that’s the kind of wound that never truly goes away.
The first half hour of the first episode is unspeakably impactful, showcasing Jiwon’s full tragedy while including the fateful taxi ride that gives her a chance to change her fate. The symbolism of the cherry blossoms as she enters the taxi driven by her late father, the only person that truly loved and cared about her, showing her a more beautiful path home through a dark tunnel, feels like a gut punch in the beauty of the symbolism. Perhaps the message hit home so hard because it felt a bit too relatable to me personally–like looking back at a past version of myself and her experiences before choosing to walk on a different, more prosperous path.
That ability to relate to Kang Jiwon’s heartbreak made the story all the more real for me, and as it got even worse I wanted to see her world burn, I wanted to see best friend Sumin and husband Minhwan (Lee Yikyung) pay for their disgusting behavior more than anything. The ability to create such a relatable heartbreak in a character so early on had me more emotionally invested than I ever had been in a story. It was incredibly satisfying when she was transported back in time and she immediately physically attacked Minhwan, and I was foaming at the mouth for even more justice to unfold.
After experiencing her death in 2023, Jiwon gets transported back ten years in the past with a second chance at her life. Armed with the knowledge of happenings for the next decade, Jiwon begins preparing steps on how to change the course of her life after being gifted a second chance by her deceased father. The first step seems incredibly obvious: just break up with Minhwan. But even when she tries to sever ties quickly and cleanly, he doesn’t make it easy. While shaking him off is a struggle, in the meantime she’s able to ensure she doesn’t contract her cancer and works toward financial freedom via stock investing. We’re introduced to our next main character Yu Jihyuk (Na Inwoo), the general manager at her company that seems to make an appearance wherever she is and whenever she needs help.
After watching through the series once, there are a lot more subtle things you can pick up on that are easy to miss initially, likely due to fully understanding the time travel mechanic that is put into place. It becomes crystal clear as the show goes on that every action that has happened is still pre-determined, but the person it happens to can be shifted. That’s where the real power of revenge becomes apparent. The title comes from Jiwon’s hatched plan to replace her fate by giving it to Sumin. Along the way we’re introduced to other pivotal characters Yang Juran (Gong Minjung), Yoo Huiyeon (Choi Gyuri), Baek Eunho (Lee Gikwang) and Lee Sukjun (Ha Dokwon), who all play a part in the unfolding story.
There is a profound moment during the company retreat where Jiwon explains her reasoning in a way that really resonates. Sumin always takes the easy way out of situations and manipulates people to do her bidding, and Jiwon’s refusal to ask for help is a direct response to that behavior. Sumin is wrong, Jiwon is right, and she won’t stoop to Sumin’s behavioral level under any means. This felt like such a profound philosophy, especially in a world where so many people justify their terrible behavior through the lens that the truth is subjective, not objective. While Sumin’s character is an extreme version of a bad person, this philosophy felt very applicable to my own experience in a best friend betrayal–she wasn’t trying to kill me, but she was objectively wrong for her behavior no matter how much she tried to justify it to herself. Integrity is the backbone of a good person, and people with integrity maintain their morality and do the work even if it’s harder. That’s an important lesson the writer imparts onto the audience.
Sumin is objectively a bad person, she is the epitome of a mean girl and hides her terrible behavior behind a veil of fake niceness and a cutesy attitude that sways those who are shallow, like Minhwan. She’s deceiving enough that even Juran starts to believe she’s virtuous, at least for a moment. As the show goes on and more of her true colors come out, her appearance becomes more and more ragged, but it’s initially a very slow process and not super noticeable. In the previous reality she wasn’t as unhinged, but because Jiwon grows as a better person, she grows worse.
Jeong Sumin is a case study in mindset and locus of control. Rather than taking a second to look inwardly and see how her behavior and attitude affects her environment, she instead chooses to blame Jiwon and everything around her instead for her circumstances. She’s an example of a person with an external locus of control, and at the core that is the reason she’s so unhappy. Her behavior and choices are the reason she’s so miserable, but she refuses to see that reality and instead focuses all her hatred on others. That is the foundation of what makes you a bad person, regardless of your life circumstances. She will attempt to justify all of her behaviors by blaming the environment to the point of driving her to insanity, and I think that storyline plays out in a very profound way in her character from start to finish in this drama. That may be one of the most important messages of the whole plot.
It’s around episode 12 that I start to lose interest in the plot, which is a shame since the drama starts out so unbelievably strong. It does make sense that Jihyuk and Juran’s storyline needs to be resolved, but the addition of conflict in Jiwon and Jihyuk’s relationship is an annoying predictable drama trope that always seems to be added in before we can get our happy ending in any K-Drama. The wedding between Minhwan and Sumin felt like the ending since the entire storyline until then was built on reaching that climax, but more villains come out of the woodwork.
It’s also at this mark where the character writing goes downhill, in my opinion. BoA’s character Yura is just a comically bad person, even more transparent than Sumin, and it seems like she’s only thrown in as a pure villain to wrap up Jihyuk’s storyline. Jiwon’s mom suddenly appears after only being referenced in a flashback, and Sumin goes completely off the rails into insanity. While I get there were other parts of Jiwon’s storyline and Jihyuk’s storyline that needed to be wrapped up to officially end it, for whatever reason this whole part of the story felt less intense or impressive compared to the rest of the show. Perhaps because it became less about revenge and taking back control of your own life and more of the classic insane thriller plot where someone is constantly trying to kill Jiwon. It seems less realistic.
But despite any of the setbacks in the writing, I do think that Marry My Husband tells a very good and important story with interesting time travel mechanics. There weren’t huge plot holes in the time travel mechanic, which is uncommon since many times there are a lot of open-ended questions left by the end of the drama. Even after watching the show multiple times, I still feel that surge of emotion in the first episode that gets me invested, and I feel like that’s something we lack in a lot of stories these days. I feel like this will be one of those dramas I will always find myself returning to, and I hope that a lot of people can take in the more profound metaphors presented in the narrative and apply the lessons they teach into their own lives.
Edited by Bryn Claybourne