Having solved a problem with some fairly gratutitous violence, Nan-gil quickly goes back to...sulking. It's hard to believe that for the first half of "The Man In My House" Nan-gil was the guy with the ridiculous upbeat attitude, never much caring how much he irritated the people around him so long as it was in the name of love. Not just with Na-ri, but with every other character too Nan-gil is frustratingly non-communicative and generally incapable of participating in genuine large-scale collaborative efforts.

This is a fairly significant problem since the gangster conspiracy has finally decided to get serious. And by get serious I mean finally explicitly acknowledge that they've been in cahoots with Deok-bong and Deok-sim's horrible family this entire time. How exactly this is supposed to exacerbate the threat is unclear. Public explosure is precisely the outcome that will destroy the antagonists most irrevocably and the more they fight the more their shady activities become public knowledge.

Not that this is a particularly consistently applied tone anyway. Nan-gil's main problem from being in a huge fight is less his gaping physical wounds and more that the restaurant does not open on time. No, seriously, we cut from big dramatic life threatening scenes to Nan-gil's employees being hassled by irate customers as a joke, and then back again. For the record, it's not that big a deal for a restaurant to take the day off even if it was showcased on television.

Na-ri's storyline is even less inspiring. She knows that her father is alive. We get some hints about what's going on with that situation, but Na-ri just talks instead of engaging. I'm consistently puzzled by how "The Man In My House" manages to switch from low-stakes situations to high-stakes situations at the slightest notice. It's very difficult to get a good handle on where the climax in this drama is supposed to be coming from.

Deok-bong, for all his general uselessness lately, has the most consistently defined arc in that he has been slowly becoming more exasperated with his family's behavior as time goes on. This is why his big moment of confrontation is the only one this episode that has much impact. Deok-bong has been working up to this, and the situation with Nan-gil and Na-ri has only been an excuse for him to renege on an errand he never especially wanted to do in the first place. Everyone else, I just don't know.

Source:HanCinema