This drama is going to be interesting as it seems that something significant led to a change in both women’s attitude towards the rights of mother’s in the work place. The added pressure of the family finances will make any thoughts of backtracking on the agreement even harder for Haera after the very real wake up call of the premature birth and subsequent resignation.

We also saw all the male managers loitering with no intent while the rest of the staff were literally running around picking up the slack. The competitive nature of the women in the work place makes it more frustrating to see them fighting each other rather than the real problem of lazy men being promoted into senior roles they do not deserve.

I do wonder about the status of Haera’s marriage with their lack of open communication as the husband did not flag up the issues when they were discussing his promotion and she did not raise the issue of her struggles to return to working in a position that reflected her skill set.

I will see how week two goes but I think this will be like a lot of my watches this year; it is a watchable drama but not one I can really root for any of the main characters.

I'm not really ready to sit down to watch this despite the promise of comedy which I'm sure will be delivered explicitly because of what @reply1988 mentions both here and in the WWW page. I'm already having contemporaries display that kind of attitude and work ethic, from the men I mean, and more importantly, I'm not ready to watch two competent women tear themselves instead of polling heads together. This has to turn out like Agency or something better.
I can't root for any of them either... everything screams "go far away from this" immediately thier character descriptions came came out.

But, I'll give this a 4 episode grace to see what will be.

Usually, I love women centered dramas and I would enjoy rooting for their empowerment, but there is something lacking in the way the two main female characters are written makes it hard to care for them or overlook the annoying male characters. Also, the comic scenes added to lighten their plight are not funny.

Ra Mi-Ran and Uhm Ji Won are very good actresses and they did not disappoint in the first hour. It sets up as a basic work discrimination, ruthless office politics drama. Hae-Rae is conflicted about going back to work after 7 year leave; starting at the bottom makes her envious and determined which Ji-Won exploits by trying to de facto impose a no-pregnancy policy at the company. Both know that putting company profits over worker welfare is wrong and evil but that is the moral, ethical and humanitarian conflict that the series will try to address. Hae-Rae knows how cold one must be in order to make it in a corporate world. The pregnant worker’s stress that led to her resignation was a shock to Hae-Ra who blamed the premature birth crisis on herself. She does not know how important it is that she gets back her manager position with her husband losing his job. The show sets up for a bitter and sad drama.

Ji-won’s management philosophy is to rely on human desperation to get things done her way. Manager Jae-Seob is rightfully worried that Intern Go will turn into an office tiger, but So-Jin gives her an assignment, she learns she has lost her basic skills to do a presentation and survey. It puts her in her place, an uncomfortable place since Choi is relying on her past brilliance to become a supervisor. So-Jin appears to be a clever corporate survivor who will not resign and lose her well-earned benefits. The game of office assassination is uncomfortable to Hae-Ra and the viewers. When Geum’s product test fails, it seems Ji Won will credit Hae-Ra with the victory even though it is her family stress that is making her performance go down.

Hae-Ra has a plan to save Geum and herself, she is too late. It is when her own child problems blow up is when Geum decides to stay at work - - - and Choi is upset that she did not quit. Hae-Ra’s compassion lost her managerial promotion as Choi wanted Geum off her team. I think the plan is have Hae-ra help eliminate ALL the team members, one by one.

I think the story has settled into a compact paper bag situation: you know what is in the lunch bag but you don’t know if it will be in tact after several bus transfers and the summer heat. It is clear that Ji Won has no intention of giving Hae-ra a full time job or be part of her “dream team.”

The show is all about manipulation which is a hard topic to digest.

Episode 5 turned an unexpected corner for me. I thought that the writer would lead us down the path where Choi’s supervisor would find Go a better director than Choi since he is cunning, behind the scenes boss who has the power in office politics. The idea that Go is now conflicted about being a “bad” person, and that Choi only hired her to be that old “bad” person (weaponizing her to clear out her team deadwood), hit a gut punch when Go was suddenly fired for being Choi’s “old self.”

No matter what your position, apparently everyone has financial problems. Choi’s ruthlessness with her parents and at work was born from Go’s heartless management skills. She knows no other way to get her own way. Ironically, terminating a changed Go will mean Choi has no means to change herself.

The idea that work family and family family are the same: seniors just want to not feel guilty when they use you for their own benefit is how Choi feels trapped by her situation. Her father’s constant drain on her finances took away her chance for happiness. She turned ruthless to get the career she wanted but sacrificed her own family/kids to become a cold, heartless single woman. She has regrets but at this point not enough to change. The fireworks man gives her an opportunity to change but she does not realize it. This moment was to give us a sympathetic look into Choi’s life, but it did not hit as well as the Go couple hustling part time jobs together, as a team, to keep their family afloat. Choi's pity party is self-induced.

The plot to return Go back to the office was clever, but the ending of Episode 6 was a strange red herring probably to infer a new set of work place rules, or perhaps my initial plot twist is correct: Go has taken the other GM position for the guy who was exiled to Busan. In any event, the issue of trust is at a low point in the office.

Episodes 7 and 8 continues with the sleazy office politics and apology fest for business reasons, but the women in planning unit 2 have come together on the same work page. Hae-Ra is now more desperate but determined as the sole breadwinner to get a full time position. But Choi’s path to promotion has been blocked by an ill-fated nepotism hire. The fireworks guy is playing emotional mind games on Choi by faking a romance to get her guard down. I suspect the only way she gets that promotion is to grind her team either turn her staff into super star employees with blockbuster products or elite corporate spies to torpedo the VP’s son.

Of course, Hae-Ra is the star of the company soccer game without knowing how to play. Of course, Choi’s is taking dirty orders from her boss in an attempt to get a promotion she will probably not get. She knows she is being used. Of course, Hae-ra tells her not to trust upper management but Choi says she is using them. Of course, Episode 9 ends with a medical emergency for Hae-Ra to handle. Of course, it is waved off at the beginning of Episode 10 only to conclude with the past coming back to haunt both Hae-Ra and Choi. This show is running its course in a very, very basic format.

The takedown of Manager Ju was par for the course, but it lead to Ji Won leaving the company, having worse health issues, all in the midst of a misplaced three month time jump. Hae-Ra finishes her apology tour and remains with the company while it begins its employee welfare reforms. But the show suddenly ends with a new CEO, the villain from Hae-Ra and Ji Won’s first company who ruthlessly got no pregnancy policy first established to the detriment of women workers. Clearly, this final set up was a cue for a second season since so many loose ends were not tied up, but I don’t think there will be one. I like the cast of Team 2, and that the fact that women were featured as having decision making control in their own lives (not waiting for men to make moves, professionally or personally). This was a vertical in-house pre-production by CJ (it produced the series and main leads are agency artists). It is probably most cost-efficient way to do a series. It was an average series with a good cast.