Love in Contract might not be everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed watching it each week, and I felt immersed in the storyline while I watched it - especially the relationships surrounding Choi Sang-Eun (Park Min-young) and Madam Yoo (Jin Kyung), the stone-cold woman who raised her. This relationship is the water that runs along most of the plot, and was the most compelling - abid frustrating - part for me.

Not sure it has the emotional “punch” that most people are expecting from a romantic show. The main relationship between Sang-eun and Jung Ji-ho (Go Kyung-pyo) was very simple. It was a story of her experiencing her first love, after years of faking it, and him returning his faith in relationships after a failed marriage. I think they did the best with what they had. Truthfully, although Kim Jae-Young did an excellent job portraying Kang Hae-Jin, he just never seemed like a realistic secondary lead. I liked him, but I didn't believe in him. He never stood a chance as a real romantic interest. He was juvenile, and unimaginative. A Hallyu star and a Chaebol heir - who wants to escape from his straight-up-abusive family, but never manages to do it completely? I felt for him, but only as a friend.

Let's all agree that Gwang Nam (played by Kang Hyung-suk) is the best boy, and I want only happiness for him from now on. His friendship with Choi Sang-eun meant that he was often the only one able to call her out on her INCREDIBLY self-destructive, self-sabotaging behaviours. He was CANONICALLY gay :rainbow: which meant he could do a lot of interactions with the female lead without the seedy best-friend-but-more bullsh*t Kdramas try to pull sometimes. He acted excellently with every other lead on the show. From his interactions with Madam Yoo - mostly being impossible to keep it together, and spill all of Sang-eun’s secrets - to his rival-to-friends relationship with manager Yoo Jung-han (Kim Hyun-mok). I would be lying to myself if I didn’t secretly wish that they ended up as a couple in the end. He stole every single scene - can he be in a BL now??