49

Oh! Master: Episodes 15-16 Open Thread (Final)

Well, we made it to the end of our tale, and we’ve got some making up, making out, and moving on. Oh! Master does its best to give us a satisfying ending and a meaningful moral to linger on, but like many of this drama’s good intentions, those intentions fall flat.

 
EPISODES 15-16 WEECAP

Alas, the high note (passionate rain kiss) upon which we ended our episodes last week came to naught. Bi-soo, in flashback, pushed Joo-in away yet again, and we open Episode 15 with them moping together, separately, in the house. Yay.

On the bright side, production on Guitarist, Female Killer finally starts! We get to see the cast and crew prepping and finally shooting, which is what I’ve been wanting to see all along. Sadly, it’s mostly used as yet another plot arc — viz., that Bi-soo is randomly accused of plagiarism, the production is on (figurative) fire, and Bi-soo continues to push Joo-in away. And yet, she persists.

Joo-in saves Bi-soo’s neck, and reputation, by doing a live stream and talking about how the script was inspired by… her (and really, their romance). Long story short, Joo-in eventually, finally cracks through Bi-soo’s noble idiocy and they not only cry together over his impending “disappearance,” but make out and then sleep together.

It’s racy stuff for a K-drama and the two are pretty frank about the new dimension to their relationship; they also agree to just enjoy the present and not worry about the impending doom of the future. I kinda wish they had come to this conclusion about 5+ episodes ago, but clearly the writer of this script doesn’t agree with me.

With the return of lead couple cuteness comes the strange decision to bring Yoo-jin into the plot and house yet again. His marriage proposal has been rejected, he knows the two are back together, and yet he still insists on being the third wheel. He even stays over, interrupting the couple’s precious (and dwindling) hot nights together. You would think this would annoy them more than it did, since the sands of time are literally racing against them, but nope. They brush it off.

Then we get to our “big twist.” As Bi-soo is looking through his late mother’s box of random keepsakes, he finds a tiny photo of a young man’s face. Bi-soo knows him as the angelic guy that gave him a warning and second chance at life, but overall, it takes our crew way too long to realize that this is his biological father.

Then, apropos of nothing, Bi-soo heads to a beautiful riverbank where he again meets his guardian angel father. They have a moment of recognition, and then his father explains that he gave Bi-soo a second chance at life because he didn’t want his beloved (Bi-soo’s mother) to spend her final days alone. So, the whole purpose of this “you have 49 days left to live” thing was for Bi-soo to be a comfort to his mother, and to become a better man after experiencing the sublime love of Joo-in.

Bi-soo now fully accepts his fate, doing good to the people in his life, and treasuring his final days with Joo-in. This culminates to a tearful scene where they are holding each other in bed, waiting for the clock to strike midnight and end Bi-soo’s final day on earth. He disappears at midnight on the dot. Joo-in weeps uncontrollably.

When we next meet Joo-in, it’s a year later, and she has the hair color change to prove it (and looks even more gorgeous, if you think it possible). She’s still as bubbly and bright as ever, even though we learn that Bi-soo has been gone for a year now.

Joo-in receives his letter that was written the year prior, and though she’s spending her life without him, she’s at peace. She’s grateful for the love that he gave to her, and that’s enough to last her the rest of her life. The end.

Dramaland is not a place where a couple usually ends up separated, so I have to give Oh! Master points for that. That being said, this is certainly a case where I would have preferred any other ending, from Bi-soo’s magical return, to the entire drama being a dream nightmare while in his coma.

Instead, we have a vaguely strung together story that’s so desperate to insert a positive message about living in the present, that it does anything but that. Not only did the characters get cheated out of a good story, but we viewers got cheated, too, since the drama ignored its potential in favor of something that was practically incoherent. But oh, the drama this should have been.

RELATED POSTS

Tags: , , ,

49

Required fields are marked *

I just can't believe they didn't tell anyone he's dead/ disappeared. Is he going to be "travelling" forever?

I'm assuming it's meant to be kind - to allow people to live their lives happily or some such (how convenient that everyone else got a happy ending AT THE EXACT SAME TIME) - but just feels self-centered.

At least I got a laugh out of Yoo-jin and his kdrama-style run-in with the faceless woman.

3
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

I couldn't understand why he had to disappear as if he never had existed, or why she told everyone that he was traveling. But anyway... did anything made sense in the drama?

5
reply

Required fields are marked *

Thank god this is over. I’m never watching anything by this writer ever again, good riddance.

9
6
reply

Required fields are marked *

I have realized it is the same writer from fated to love you. I hope I don't offend anybody by saying that show was not so good, I mean, it was, I watched it, I loved it, and because I was loving it so much I was hurt and upset when the stupid noble idiocy came. Mostly, that scene when Jang Nara's character, even though askew lost her baby, begged him to start over, and he said no. I hated it.
And it was so upsetting because I loved Jang Hyuk's character to death, except back again, when he started to think that not letting her know he was sick was the best for the two of them.
Stupid writer.
And then you break the charm of the show making them see watch other after some years.
Sorry for all the spoilers, but I suppose everybody knows.
I feel upset even to think about it.
I agree: let's boycott this writer and never watch anything he/she writes. 😡😡😡

3
5
reply

Required fields are marked *

It’s the writer of Fated to Love You? No wonder this drama was a mess. FtLY also started out brimming with potential and a truly great pairing, only to waste that immense talent and chemistry of the actors, and a simple light-hearted story. I hated it all those years ago and I hate it now.

I seriously doubt I would’ve watched Oh! Master if I knew it’s that writer. I’m never, ever starting something by them again. I refuse to become a victim to their inability to create a sensible story.

3
2
reply

Required fields are marked *

I love Fated to Love You so much including all the angst and noble idiocy. Don’t even compare this mess to that. But I’m glad i’m not watching this. 😂

3
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

FtLY is MUCH better than this drama, for sure. I’m just saying that the troubling signs and patterns were there if we knew to look.

2

@javinne Isn’t Fated to Love
You a remake of the 2008 Taiwanese version? I’m assuming the Korean version’s script is based on the original.

Anyway, I loved FTLY in spite of the noble idiocy. Oh Master is so disappointing.

1
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

Yeah, I think the original fated to love you is Taiwanese... I have only watched the Korean and I am even watching the Chinese version (have never watched the original then), and yes, in many many aspects it is better than this one, but honestly the noble idiocy there was artful and that is why I mentioned it. I mean, it was an awful case of it, precisely because the drama was soooooo goooood😡😒😓😟

1
reply

Required fields are marked *

Just curious for those who made it through this drama, what's the reason? By all accounts this drama sucks ass.

2
3
reply

Required fields are marked *

I did - stayed purely for Lee Min Ki and Nana. can't believe I wasted my time but I did. and you're right, this drama sucks

5
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

Me too... watched only for Lee Min Ki... i was happy in d beginning to see Lee Min Ki again and d 1st few episodes were ok too...but illogical scenes starting up since Han Bi Soo's biological father appeared 😤😤 totally disappointed wid d ending and d plot... only Lee Min Ki made me stick to it... 🥰

0
reply

Required fields are marked *

I skipped several episodes and watched eps 15 & 16.

0
reply

Required fields are marked *

Since I stopped watching long ago.... can somebody tell me what happened to both moms.????

3
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

BiSoo's mum died, as expected.
JooIn's mum Alzheimer is in progression and she sometimes remember JooIn and sometimes doesn't.

1
reply

Required fields are marked *

Reading this final eps recap....did the writer take inspiration loosely from Hi Bye Mama?

4
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

I suspect that the biological father/Man in White was inspired by the 2015 Korean film Wonderful Nightmare, which was remade into an even better 2017 Chinese movie, Beautiful Accident.

There, the central character is an adult woman who learns her death from a car crash was a heavenly administrative error. I highly recommend the Chinese version.

They're different flavors of Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) and Heaven Can Wait (1975).

0
reply

Required fields are marked *

OMG, where's @mindy? It was her fave drama... but she's kept busy! She will be miss this show.

3
2
reply

Required fields are marked *

I don't think anyone will miss this drama, not even Mindy.

8
reply

Required fields are marked *

i think mindy's absence from these open threads alone speaks volumes

4
reply

Required fields are marked *

This was a rough one...only finished off the last set of episodes for the bean. For two actors I really like, they sure picked a real clunker here. I often wonder how much of the script they’re given beforehand, and this just reinforces that wonder. How much of this could they have possibly read and thought it was a well written, well thought out script.

The initial episodes at least showed some fun fluffy promise, and there were glimmers of goodness throughout. But for every step forward, it felt like two backwards. The chemistry between the leads was pretty good, so let’s have them bicker and fight and break up for the same reason 3+ times...oof.

I’ll definitely be watching out for this writer in the future. Most likely in a “stay away from this one’s work” kind of way unfortunately. He wrote one of my favourites in Fated to Love You, but I guess that was an adaptation of someone else’s work as it was a remake of the 2008 Taiwanese drama.

I haven’t had such a hard earned bean since...Melting Me Softly. Another show where I loved both the leads in prevous works who just left me soul crushed afterwards.

7
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

My understanding is that an actor gets either a summary or one or two scripts to review in considering whether to take an offer for a series. It is one of the problems with the live shoot Korean filming system: production starts filming with a few scripts so writers can be rushed to finish the next one because of the tight shooting schedules. However, with streaming companies funding series, more are becoming pre-produced which I think leads to a better script quality.

1
reply

Required fields are marked *

Thanks so much for your weecaps, they were the best about this drama, along with gorgeous Nana and LMK.
I still wonder why and how I finished it. But I did. Very, very deep sigh.
I'm not even mad about the drama, just indifferent. I wonder how it was even filmed, but anyway... hope I can enjoy Nana and LMK in another drama where their talent is not wasted.

6
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

I second your last sentence!! they're so gorgeous together this drama was such a waste of this great pairing

4
reply

Required fields are marked *

Congratulations @missvictrix, you did it !

7
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

@missvictrix

Yes, congratulations, respects, and consolations.

1
reply

Required fields are marked *

I gave up at around ep10 when I realised I was gnashing my teeth at some parts of the show and - even worse - dozing off at others. Had a peek at the last few minutes of the finale and was shocked to discover that it all boiled down to the old "carpe diem" cliche.

I dunno. Maybe the writer thought he was subverting K-drama tropes - disappearing into thin air instead of dying of cancer; every couple except the leads getting a happy ending; a happy Alzheimer's patient; etc. But even subversion needs to be believable. Is everybody including friends and colleagues going to accept that Bi-soo is on an eternal Grand Tour? Is taking care of Joo-in's mum really as easy as just parking her at the record shop?

In any case, the latter half of the show was in the grip of the biggest tropes of all: Noble Idiocy and The Woman Who Just Keeps Giving. Bi-soo, so unexpectedly kind and considerate at the start, became an arsehole in the name of love, while Joo-in's initial feistiness dwindled into slavish devotion.

I suppose my main beef with Oh Master is that its supposedly fresh, quirky use of tropes has turned out to be both laboured and unconvincing. For a truly subversive treatment of terminal illness, grouchy hero and noble idiocy, viewers should watch the superlative Marriage Contract.

8
2
reply

Required fields are marked *

Marriage contract was sooooo good! Like... real good, and had both: terminal illness, and cohabitation (more or less), but brilliant, really brilliant.

5
reply

Required fields are marked *

This:
"In any case, the latter half of the show was in the grip of the biggest tropes of all: Noble Idiocy and The Woman Who Just Keeps Giving. Bi-soo, so unexpectedly kind and considerate at the start, became an arsehole in the name of love, while Joo-in's initial feistiness dwindled into slavish devotion."

Absolutely nailed it. What a disaster.

2
reply

Required fields are marked *

Didn't watch the show, just here to know how it all ended, after seeing Beanies reaction through the weeks..pity it seems to have been a disappointing watch for most ><
Speaking of, I just noticed the rating: 2.9?!?!
Wow! I don't think I've ever seen such a terrible one on this site before 😅

1
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

2.9 out of 5 stars feels generous.

2.9 out of 10 points feels about right.

3
reply

Required fields are marked *

I had dropped it at episodes 10. I thought the writer thinks and writes like "viewers are morons."! How come these 2 famous lead accepted that script!

2
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

Ah—you've touched on something here. Why bother stomach the writer's disdain for his own audience?

0
reply

Required fields are marked *

For a rom-com, it was a "wrong-rom." Everything after the initial premise set-up went wrong. It seemed like an 11 year old wrote it for a creative writing assignment by cutting and pasting a wikipedia article on Kdrama tropes. There was nothing funny. There was nothing romantic. It was just terrible, cruel and sad waste of everyone's time.

There was no understanding of stages of a relationship. There was no coherent understanding of Bi-soo's life extension. How can his dead father give him the "gift" of 49 days to ruin another person's life for the selfish desire that his son at least experience love? We are left with Joo-in pining for her (secretly?) dead boyfriend just like Bi-soo's mother did during her life. That was not a gift of love to her but a curse.

And what happened to Bi-soo's dead body from the TOD accident? In the end his 49 day body had to be existential, metaphysical because in the end he and his clothes vanished in thin air. That means he was not real but a physical ghost. From that perspective, the show is actually creepy.

The show could have been fine if it just focused in on the two leads in the original set-up as an odd couple under one roof. But the relationship and love triangle were dull. The secondary characters added nothing; there school yard crushes added nothing to the leads story line. Joo-in had a very cardboard cut-out character; flat emotional scale and no depth. Bi-soo had no real growth or redemptive qualities. We were thinking the only way to save the show was a "it was all a coma dream" experience but the writer was too dumb to think about that Hail Mary pass. For those who bailed on the show, no regrets. For those of us who finished it, we should get combat medals because each week was a war on our nerves.

10
4
reply

Required fields are marked *

I normally loath "it was all a dream" and yet, even I thought that might be the only way to salvage this series. But nope. Bi-soo really was emotional regressive and cruel. Everybody loses.

3
reply

Required fields are marked *

The show could have been fine if it just focused in on the two leads in the original set-up as an odd couple under one roof.

Nailed it right there. This drama was so incredibly easy to not screw up because, had they stuck to this exact premise, it could have run on autopilot fueled by Nana and LMK's chemistry.

3
reply

Required fields are marked *

it was just in the writers imagination and got it mixed up with reality? didn't get my bean i just couldn't sit thru it all

0
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

No, there was nothing clever to salvage the script ending of Bi-soo vanishing into thin air.

0
reply

Required fields are marked *

I had joked earlier that I suspected the director of 'Melting Me Softly' had bribed someone to tank this series so his show would no longer be the worst series of the decade.

6
0
reply

Required fields are marked *

The medal for valour in truly dire circumstances is yours, @missvictrix. Well done for emerging from the disaster zone that this was - I only wish it were unscathed!

Simply couldn't believe that episode 15 continued with Bi-soo *still* being a complete moron. What was the writer trying to achieve by this? Did he think it was charming? Realistic? An opportunity for Joo-in to shine brighter? What a horrible, horrible own goal: it achieved nothing but to make me ever more certain that Bi-soo was toxic. As others have said, Joo-in's devotion to such a person was not heroic, beautiful, or admirable - it was simply blind, and did nothing to endear her to us.

When they tried to play with the audience at the end by suggesting that alternative endings might happen (eg. it might just be a mistake and life would carry on for another year as if nothing had happened), I couldn't even muster up the energy to get irritated, as none of the endings presented (including the real one) made sense or explained what had gone on. Seconds after mouthing, "What?!" at the screen, I simply concluded that I didn't care.

Kept going because I desperately wanted to believe something would happen to raise it back up to the promise it had in the earliest episodes - learnt my lesson there. I reckon that's my hardest-earned bean ever.

7
0
reply

Required fields are marked *

@missvictrix, thank you for taking this one for the team. I mean this sincerely—your writing has helped me give better "velvet hammer" critiques at work.

Oh! Master one of the worst dramas I've ever seen. I've dropped shows for many reasons: dull stories, bad haircuts, wrist grabs, boorish men, terrible costumes, etc.

But this show was a carnivorous plant that lured its viewers with the sweet scent of charming actors only to slowly kill them with an incomprehensible script and the most loathsome of tropes.

As a UX (user experience) designer, one of my main tasks is lessening the user's cognitive load. When I watch dramas, I want to be engaged in understanding and enjoying the story. But, by episodes 10-11, the show sucked out all the joy because of its unbearable cognitive load—my brain kept trying to fix the script while I was watching it!

Good storytelling is hard and it feels magical when everything aligns. The failure of this drama reiterates what we already know—the SCRIPT is the foundation of a good drama! It's possible that the writer had a lot of script interference but—let's be real—the foundations were wobbly from the start.

My main regret was not dropping it sooner. I stopped watching full episodes after Ep. 11 and skimmed the rest out of perverse curiosity. Once shit-posting lost its allure, I was left with regret and disappointment.

11
0
reply

Required fields are marked *

i did not earn a bean for this show and... im ok with that.

oh, the drama this should have been indeed :(

8
0
reply

Required fields are marked *

So, people that loved Bi-soo aren't allowed to get closure, to say goodbye to him? Will all of them believe forever that he is travelling?

The saddest thing is that Joo-in has lost every loved ones, and her (forced?) brightness seemed not healthy.
Despite the voice over, I had the impression she won't get over him and go on with her life.

Also, it seems to me that all this thing of the second chance was only to benefit Bi-soo, while Joo-in suffered all the time but a week or so.
And how cruel of the father/angel to allow his son to live mostly to comfort his dying mother? If he had had some concern for Bi-soo, I didn't feel it.

This is sadly the worst show of the year to me, I hope better dramas await us.
I still believe Melting is worse, but it wasn't as a torture to watch as Oh! Master, because in that case I had not the impression that it could be better or that they were wasting a great chemistry between the leads.

5
0
reply

Required fields are marked *

I watched the first 2 episodes of this show and decided to drop it. I wanted to read the final recap to see what happened and all I can say is HUH? This show had promise to be cute and fluffy, but I couldn't connect with the characters right away. Glad I dropped because this seems to have turned out anything by light and fluffy. Classic dramaland bait-and-switch.

0
0
reply

Required fields are marked *

I heard K-drama podcasters recently, discussing another series, snidely make the statement "It was obvious a man wrote this".

0
0
reply

Required fields are marked *

This show was perfect in the beginning, I seriously don't know what happened to the writer. Everything was such a mess. I feel really sorry for the cast because they obviously, I'm 100% sure, didn't know how this drama was going to develop. The message OML wanted to pass is just not executed right, and the reality was: how to destroy a life of a beautiful and powerful woman, making her traumatized with the loss of her loved ones. That's it.
The positive thing about this show is the incredible chemistry between Nana and Lee Min-ki. I only stayed til episode 16 for them, for their interaction. The skinship and kissing scenes were so well done, you can see they are giving their all to the story. I would love to see them reunite in a decent and well written drama, it would be fire.

2
2
reply

Required fields are marked *

I agree - if any OTP pair deserves a do-over with a better writer, it's this one for sure.

3
1
reply

Required fields are marked *

YESSSSSS. I'm patiently waiting. Maybe in some years?

1
reply

Required fields are marked *

I really liked the first couple episodes. Then, I stopped watching and completed a 56 ep drama in a couple days. I came back and tried to watch it. It was so painful. I decided to google the ending to see if was worth continuing. I found this blog post. I'm dropping it. Thank you for saving me from more misery and an icky depressing feeling.

1
0
reply

Required fields are marked *