Business Proposal: Episodes 1-2 Open Thread

by DaebakGrits

The new contract relationship rom-com Business Proposal is off to a hilarious start. Excessively tropey in the best way possible, our new characters are full of charm, laughs, and witty dialogue, and I’m here for every millisecond of it.

 
EPISODES 1-2 WEECAP

Perhaps it’s a bit too soon to declare my undying love for Business Proposal, but if this drama wanted to enter a contract relationship with me just so I’d give it the opportunity to woo its way into my top-five list, I’d invite it upstairs for ramyeon and sign the paperwork without reading the fine print.

That’s how much I enjoyed the first two episodes of this webtoon-inspired drama, and trying to condense all my fondness into this — slightly longer than normal — weecap has been downright painful.

Unapologetically tropey and meta, the opening scene sets the tone for the rest of our story as we’re introduced to our leading man KANG TAE-MU (Ahn Hyo-seop). He — like many leading men who have come before him — is so damn attractive that he stops women in their tracks. His hair is perfectly styled and so dark it absorbs planets. His legs are long enough to step over skyscrapers. He’s fantastical, with a face and body that are too perfect to be real!

Oh wait…

He looks fictional because our first glimpse of Tae-mu is of his webtoon counterpart, as he struts through an airport looking so fine that he gives whiplash to every woman he passes. But like all successful and handsome CEO-types, he’s indifferent and conditioned to having people fawn over his appearance and wealth.

While Tae-mu can part seas with his appearance, our leading lady SHIN HARI (Kim Se-jung) can clear a path with her stench. A researcher and member of the food development team at GoFood, she has the occupational misfortune of smelling like her current ingredients. And the odor of her newest mackerel-based recipe has people covering their noses as she and her team members arrive at the inauguration of their new company president. Rumor has it that he’s ridiculously handsome, but Hari is doubtful since the new president is the grandson of the company chairman KANG DA-KOO (Lee Deok-hwa).

A hush descends upon the crowd, and long legs stride across the stage. The camera pans up, and… it’s CHA SUNG-HOON (Kim Min-kyu), Tae-mu’s equally attractive friend and chief secretary. With a blank face, he reads Tae-mu’s prepared speech, which begins with a verbal middle finger to his grandfather for arranging a ceremony he didn’t want.

Grandpa is none too pleased with Tae-mu’s workaholic behavior, and decides it’s time to propose a special project for Tae-mu. Eagerly assuming it’s an opportunity for more work, Tae-mu leans in close, and Grandpa happily reveals that the project is — wait for it — marriage!

It is this proclamation that sets our plot in motion. Tae-mu does his best to convince Grandpa that he’s uninterested, but Grandpa is as feisty as the chaebols in his favorite drama and won’t take “no” or “leave me the hell alone” for an answer. Perhaps the only thing that could slow him down is if Tae-mu was in a relationship with Sung-hoon, but Sung-hoon deadpans that, even if he was gay, Tae-mu isn’t his “type.” Tae-mu pouts over the discovery that his bromance is one-sided. It’s not often that Tae-mu is rejected, but when it happens — as we’ll see later — it’s not something that he easily forgets.

Although Sung-hoon may not harbor a secret crush on Tae-mu, he’s still willing to offer up some sagely advice and suggests that Tae-mu lean into his grandfather’s matchmaking scheme. Go on the twenty blind dates, and if you find a lady worth marrying, you don’t have to waste time on any more. Sung-hoon just hopes that Tae-mu will find a marriageable woman within the first ten dates. Otherwise, they’re going to have to do some international traveling.

Tae-mu grows silent, but his expression indicates that his inner wheels are turning. It’s clear to us that Tae-mu has taken Sung-hoon’s advice slightly different than he intended, and he suspiciously agrees to go on the first date. And who is he scheduled to go on a date with first?

That’s right, it’s JIN YOUNG-SEO (Seol In-ah), Hari’s bestie, who is equally annoyed by her matchmaking daddy’s constant attempts to wed her off. She’s at lunch with Hari when she gets the phone call from her father that he’s arranged — yet another — blind date for her later that night. As luck would have it, though, Hari, who often fills in for Young-seo on her blind dates, is a bit strapped for cash after having the worst birthday ever.

While Tae-mu was busy refusing to comply with Step One of his grandfather’s plan to get some grandbabies, Hari got her hopes up thinking her long-time crush and part-time friend LEE MIN-WOO (Song Won-seok) was about to finally gift her with a train ticket out of the Friendzone and into Girlfriendville. Instead, he gave her a pair of concert tickets to see her favorite band. Not only were the tickets not for her favorite band, but he suggested she take a date — a man, not Young-seo — with her. So much for getting out of the Friendzone. She now has a street named after her there.

After that, her birthday continued to roll downhill. She was understandably in a foul mood when she got home, but she still helped out her family in their chicken restaurant, which led her coming to her family’s defense when they got in an argument with the restaurant owner across the street. During the altercation, Hari accidentally broke the man’s restaurant sign, and now she owes him 800,000 won, which is why Young-seo is able to bribe Hari into being her stand-in for her recently scheduled blind date.

Instead of using their tried and true fake exorcism ploy to scare away Young-seo’s date, Young-seo decides they should go with a “tough girl” image, which is essentially club wear, hair extensions, and heavy makeup. After Hari’s makeover, she shows up at the arranged meeting place, psyched to be the worst possible date ever.

She’s caught by surprise when she first sees Tae-mu’s attractive face, but after swapping business cards with her jaw-droppingly handsome date, she’s even more shocked to discover he’s her company’s new president! Eeep! Panic sets in, but she plows ahead and uses every trick in her arsenal to be as off-putting as possible.

It’s all very how-to-lose-a-guy-in-10-minutes, but he’s frustratingly unfazed by her behavior, even when she claims she has breast implants named Rachel and Samantha. If that wasn’t enough to scare him off, surely the unscripted encounter with a random woman who mistook Hari for her husband’s mistress did the trick, right? Wrong.

Hari and Young-seo’s celebratory night out at a noraebang is interrupted by a phone call from Young-seo’s father, who happily reports that Tae-mu wants to marry her. Say what now?

Given how awful she was on the date, Hari assumes Tae-mu must want to marry Young-seo for her family, but the truth is that Tae-mu decided the simplest way to avoid additional blind dates — and interruptions to his schedule — is to get married and be done with it. There’s just one problem with Tae-mu’s plan: the woman he picked doesn’t want to marry him.

Hari meets Tae-mu — for what she hopes is the last time — and cooly tells him that she’s not interested in a man who looks like an archaeopteryx. Tae-mu is properly insulated, but (as I said before) it’s not often he’s rejected — and never so creatively. So, of course, he’s unable to forget the woman who compared him to a prehistoric bird. Nah, he just has trouble recognizing her.

Despite Young-seo’s assertions that Hari won’t encounter her company’s very busy and elusive president while she’s at work, Hari keeps running into him. (It’s like the trope gods have it out for her or something.) Unfortunately, the more Hari tries to avoid him, the more she stands out.

During her first encounter with him at work, she drops her employee ID in her rush to escape, and Tae-mu recognizes her name when he picks it up. She’s an employee whose work he’s been casually keeping an eye on. Luckily, when he looks her up in the employee database, she’s wearing glasses in her photograph and looks totally different from the woman he went on a date with. Ah yes, the ol’ Clark Kent. Works every time.

Her second run-in with the boss is much more eventful — and hilarious. After spotting him across the first-floor lobby, Hari’s panicked attempt at hiding sends her slipper sailing across the room. It smacks Tae-mu right in his face, causing his nose to bleed. Partially afraid that she will be recognized and equally terrified that she will get into trouble for wounding the company president, she runs away. But Tae-mu follows!

Hari fails to outrun the former track-and-field star, and he corners her in an elevator. She nervously tries to hide her face, but when Tae-mu commends her on her previous projects, she lifts her head in pride and rambles on about her love for cooking. It’s downright adorable how her eyes light up when talking about her job, and it’s a work ethic Tae-mu appreciates… even if he otherwise finds her behavior extremely weird.

The stress of avoiding her boss is becoming too much for Hari, so Young-seo agrees to meet with Tae-mu and lie that she hired a stranger to impersonate her.

Things don’t go the way Young-seo expected, though. She accidentally backs into another car in the parking lot, and out steps Sung-hoon, the mystery hunk from the convenience store that she’s been trying to locate. Sadly, their reunion and flirting is interrupted by Tae-mu, and she has to explain that she’s the real Young-seo.

The revelation is too much for Tae-mu, who invades Sung-hoon’s apartment so he can stress cook and clean. But his chosen method of self-therapy doesn’t work, and he’s still fuming when he sits down to eat with Sung-hoon. How dare some random woman insult him and call him an archaeopteryx!

After Tae-mu’s five-second betrothal with Young-seo is canceled, Grandpa immediately ramps up the matchmaking and forces Tae-mu to go on ten dates in one day. Tired and grumpy, Tae-mu finds himself feeling a little bit nostalgic for Hari — I mean, Shin Geum-hee, as he now knows her — because at least she had some spunk and flair, unlike his ten boring dates. No, wait — make that eleven dates, Sung-hoon says as he calmly pushes the elevator button to the roof, where they then take a helicopter to Japan.

After returning to Seoul, Tae-mu confronts Grandpa, but Grandpa is adamant that Tae-mu should get married. He has another nine dates lined up for Tae-mu tomorrow, and if none of those pan out, then he will come up with a list of a hundred more. It is during this exchange that Tae-mu has an epiphany and lies to Grandpa that he already has a woman he’d been dating and wants to marry. Grandpa is ecstatic, but now Tae-mu has to convince Hari — I mean, Geum-hee — to pretend to be his girlfriend.

Impressed by her acting and willingness to do outrageous things for money, Tae-mu offers to pay Hari a boatload of cash to be his fake girlfriend. It was a hard offer to resist the first time he presented it to her, so when he shows up at her house unannounced to ask again — after she’s had more time to think about how much she could use the additional income — it’s even more difficult to reject his relationship contract. Hiding her identity as his employee is too stressful, though, so she walks away from the deal.

But Tae-mu is desperate and persistent, and he refuses to leave until she agrees. Mid-argument, Hari notices her brother approaching, and the last thing she wants is him to see her in her “tough girl” hair and makeup. She tries to hide behind Tae-mu, but she accidentally knocks him over. She reaches out to save him, but it’s too late. Gravity already won, and they topple to the ground. They land with Hari on top of him and every part of their bodies touching, including their lips.

And so the trope-filled premiere week of Business Proposal ends with a classic trip-and-fall accidental kiss, and I’m left fanning myself from all my excessive laughter. There were so many moments that had me giggling, clapping, and cheering, but most of my appreciation comes down to the dialogue and friendships.

Hari and Young-seo are such a fun pair of gal-pals who don’t let the disparities in their wealth cause friction in their friendship. In fact, when they aren’t getting absolutely wasted on soju and talking in an incoherent language only they can understand, they’ve managed to cultivate a financially symbiotic relationship when needed. It certainly helps that Young-seo, despite all her wealth, is so stinkin’ likable and down-to-earth. I mean, she nearly stole my heart when she turned the marker scribble on her skirt into a flower. It’s no wonder Sung-hoon stopped and stared.

Likewise, Tae-mu and Sung-hoon have an equally close relationship despite one being the boss of the other. Tae-mu coming over to clean and cook for Sung-hoon was not only relatable — I, too, clean when I’m stressed — but an interesting role reversal that flipped their at-work statuses. I’m in agreement with Grandpa: it’s nice to watch a K-drama without a rich chaebol character getting huffy and slapping someone in the face with kimchi.

 
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