Alright, so music has been fairly slow, with no new releases piquing my interest since Everglow, but a decent amount of exciting stuff is on the horizon. Likewise, gaming has been quiet, with the two big consoles releasing next week, which I will likely be reviewing. So while we wait for all that, I’m going to get a new piece of Homemade Love Story content out. This is a primer for people who want to jump into the show, but don’t want to watch every minute to catch up, this will also be a good tool for those of you looking to introduce friends to the show. Lastly, I have opened up a twitter, https://twitter.com/KpopManely, so be sure to give that a follow to keep up with all the new content, this will be the main source of ManelyKpop news. Two parts to this, the first will be the story so far, and the second, predictions for the near future.
The Story So Far, by Character
Lee Bit Chae-woon (Jin Ki-joo)- Our leading lady, Bit Chae-Woon is a freelance designer for houses, and has entered and won a clothing design contest to go learn in New York! Well, until one of the judges, an old classmate, Jang Seo-ah accuses her of plagiarism. Eventually Bit Chae-woon proves her innocence and gets to join the company as an intern. She then strikes out to resolve her issues with Seo-ah and prove her innocence in the accusation that she bullied Seo-Ah, which got her kicked out of school. She manages to pull that off too, and things seem to have stabilised for her. She is also working with Woo Jae-hee’s construction company, and has a budding romance with him that she’s holding back from because Seo-ah likes him, and Chae-woon doesn’t want more conflict. Also, she calls him Koala, and he calls her Headbutt, so that’s fun. Last thing of note, Bit Chae-woon and her siblings, Lee Hae-deun and Lee Ra-hoon are not Lee Soon-jung’s biological children, and Bit Chae-woon went a journey trying to find her mom, but eventually resolved to just be happy with the fact that Soon-jung is her loving mother regardless of blood, choosing to no longer search.
Woo Jae-hee (Lee Jang-woo)- Our leading lad, Jae-hee is a good natured guy who has set out to strike his own path after being kicked out of the house by his basically awful father, Woo Jung-hoo. Eventually while helping fix something at Samgwang Villa, the house the Lee’s are living in, he comes to end up living there, not realizing that it is his hired freelancer, Bit Chae-Woon’s, home. He becomes a well liked and welcome member of the house though, serving a brotherly role to Ra-hoon, and driving people around, since he actually has a vehicle. He has been struggling to accept his parents divorce, and the sadness of his mother Jung Min-Jae, but has slowly been coming to terms with this reality. Additionally, he has been trying to make a clear line with Seo-ah, who likes him, but whose interest is unrequited, and has ultimately confessed his feelings to Bit Chae-woon twice, getting rejected both times.
Lee Soon-jung (Jeon In-hwa)- The loving mother of the Samgwang Villa people, the show opens up on her running away from somebody in the night holding a child, clearly Bit Chae-Woon, and she seems to have discomfort about her daughter’s origins in her house, hiding the truth, which is clearly that she stole the child. The grandmother of Bit Chae-woon has been revealed to have been the motivator behind the theft, convincing her to do it and keep quiet. Despite this dark past coming to light, she is a positive force for the people living in the house, providing top tier cooking and a sense of peace and positivity. She has also been reconnected with old friend and recently divorced Min-jae, who had also been her rival for Jung-hoo’s affection, and Kim Jung-won, who happens to be the CEO of Bit Chae-Woon’s company, and Seo-ah’s adoptive mother. Lately she’s been taking care of a man that she saw get hit by a car who has amnesia that’s currently going by the name of James. She ended episode 14 dropping the biggest bomb of the whole series, revealing who her real mother is.
Lee Hae-deun (Bona)- The middle child of the Lee family, Hae-deun is a failed idol trainee who seems to be shallow and sneaky. She has a lot of pent up fear, having been abandoned twice by adoptive families, so is afraid to admit any fault at all, lest she be given up again, even knowing deep down in her heart that Soon-jung wouldn’t do that to her. Since the start she has failed a second time to join an idol group, but luckily, out of nowhere, a top man from an entertainment company scouted her. This turned out to be a fraud who almost took a massive sum of money from her, only to be stopped at the last second by Jae-hee, her brother Ra-hoon, and other Samgwang villa young man Hwang Na-ro. Her lies about her progress as a trainee came crumbling down, but her family supported her anyways, and she’s now picked up a part-time job at Subway.
Lee Ra-hoon (Ryeo Un)- The youngest of the Lee family, he is a university student. Well, he’s a delivery driver, but his family doesn’t know that. His story hasn’t moved too much, except when maintaining his cover he ran into Cha Ba-reun in a classroom and has since rebuffed her advances and confessions to him. Ra-hoon does have a keen instinct for people so far, not trusting the fraud that Hae-deun had met, or Na-ro who is definitely devious, but loving his family and building a brotherly feeling with Jae-hee.
Woo Jung-hoo (Jung Bo-Suk)- Ruthless businessman in the luxury bed business, and an altogether awful man, husband, and father. He quickly has everything begin to unravel around him, his son having walked out before the series started, and his wife deciding to get a divorce soon after. He does seem like he’s starting to learn and grow a little, which makes what happens next disappointing. He gets a character reset, being hit by a truck while biking and hitting his head against a rock, getting amnesia and becoming James. He is taken in by Soon-jung, who he seemed to love in the past, but neither knows who the other is for certain. He has been discovered by Jae-hee since they are now in the same house, who doesn’t believe the amnesia at first, but has since decided to believe it and let his dad continue being James for a while, because it has set him back to being a good and hopeful man, which seems to be his natural state based on flashbacks.
Jung Min-jae (Jin Kyung)- She doesn’t have too much going on besides what has already been touched on in her son and husband’s sections. She was asked about Jung-hoo by Soon-jung, who was trying to see if he was missing, which would have explained James’ resemblance, and pretended that all was well with their marriage, even though it has been over for weeks at this point. She is a jealous woman after all, but she is sad and has been broken by her husband over time. Currently she’s trying to build up a new life, and is going to run a store in Jung-hoo’s business, but is struggling with depression in the midst of all the drama.
Kim Jung-won (Hwang Shin-hye)- CEO of LX fashion, a top brand across the world. Despite being hard-working and in charge, she is good natured and fair, showing love and support to basically everybody around her at every turn. We have learned that she had a daughter that she lost, who would now be right around her adoptive daughter Seo-ah’s age, oh, and Bit Chae-woon as well, who is of course a stolen child herself, she hasn’t made any connections yet, but does find herself favoring Bit Chae-woon at every turn, including giving her the internship after the plagiarism accusations. This will all be coming to light though, Bit Chae-won has been told by Soon-jung that Jung-won is her real mother. She has also been supporting Seo-ah in her fruitless attempts at gaining Jae-hee’s favor, not realizing that he likes Bit Chae-woon now.
Jang Seo-ah (Han Bo-reum)- I can’t shake the feeling that Seo-ah is the most important character in the flow and progress of the show. She is the only character without a bunch of extra information to solve Bit Chae-woon’s parentage, and she did it just by being smart and putting the pieces she did have together. I think that despite her negativity towards Bit Chae-woon and being presented antagonistically, that she is probably going to end up as one of the more likable characters, she just keeps getting swept aside by everybody else’s plotlines, so she’s reaching underdog status. Most of her plot has been touched on by other blurbs to be honest, but she has seemed to be warming up to Bit Chae-Woon a little, being more neutral than antagonistic. She also refers to Jae-hee as her boyfriend, as does her mother, so the rest of the Samgwang Villa people think that they are actually dating.
Lee Man-jung (Kim Sun-young)- Soon-jung’s sister, she had been put through med school by Soon-jung’s hard work, but has had an on-again-off-again relationship with another doctor that has resulted in constantly being in and out of work with him. Bit Chae-woon sees her as an ungrateful leech and they’ve fought a few times, including once where Man-jung left the house for a while, but she has come back. She was confronted by the doctor that she had been dating, but was bailed out by Kim Hwak-se, who she had bailed out from an impending fight at his old place of work.
Kim Hwak-se (In Gyo-jin)- A lounge singer, Hwak-se is goofy and positive, and the de-facto second-in-command at Samgwang villa due to his age, kind of behaving as a fun uncle to the kids. He loses his singing job after a group of patrons get mad at him, and is only stopped from being beat up due to Man-jung throwing her shoe at the angry people and getting chased away. He is the first person Soon-jung tells about James, as she had also helped him at his worst, when he was homeless on the streets, so she knew he would see her logic in helping James. He has a budding romance with Man-jung, but neither can admit it to themselves yet, although it is growing stronger.
Hwang Na-ro (Jeon Sung-woo)- Na-ro is some sort of snake, he knows the truth of Bit Chae-woon’s parentage, and has been working to slowly get that information revealed, but not before convincing her to fall for him so he can get a piece of that business empire for himself. In spite of this, he has done some good around the villa, like coming to Hae-deun’s rescue with the fraud. In that case though, unlike Jae-hee, who was doing this due to being a good person, seems more calculating, potentially hoping to use it as a way to curry favor with Chae-woon (we can assume this wasn’t Jae-hee’s intention because he honestly doesn’t seem that forward-thinking). He has more or less lost as Jae-hee’s rival for Chae-woon’s love however, and he’s starting to come to that conclusion himself I believe.
Cha Ba-reun (Kim Si-Eun)- The best character in the show, she’s the girl who fell for Ra-hoon. She immediately figured out that he wasn’t a university student and didn’t care, following him everywhere like a crazy person. She does seem to genuinely like him, but her over-the-top antics are hilarious if you don’t think about how stalker-y she is. She has moved into the house by having a male friend get the room for her but not staying there. She has just been staying hidden under the blankets whenever anybody is near her, and sometimes hovering over Ra-hoon in his sleep, and pretending to be a nightmare when he awakens.
What Comes Next?
The obvious point in the coming episodes is the fallout of the truth of Bit Chae-woon’s parentage. It looks like Soon-jung’s guilt may drive her to lean into her self-doubt in her own good and become fairly treacherous, trying to use the situation to get herself enough money to be set for life, although I’m sure she’ll rescind that after a few weeks. Seo-ah will be even more jealous of Bit Chae-woon, and their relationship will become rocky again, although I think they’ll eventually come to see each other as sisters by the end of the show next year, but that is a long way off, for now, antagonism. Jae-hee will continue to pursue love, but maybe feel guilt more than ever due to Bit Chae-woon and Seo-ah’s new relationship dynamic. Jung-won however will handle it fairly gracefully, although she will probably show anger for the first time at Soon-jung for stealing her baby, that said, if she figures out her mom was the one who made Soon-jung commit the act, then maybe her anger will be driven that way, which would be more fair.
Na-ro’s plans are about to go down the drain, so his character arc is extremely open ended, although I have a feeling that he’ll either pursue Seo-ah now, or fall for Hae-deun. Hae-deun’s world will be rocked, and she’ll pursue her genetic mom, which she has already been doing a little, thinking that maybe her’s is as good as Bit Chae-woon’s, but will also be jealous of her adoptive sister in the meantime. Ra-hoon, he’ll figure out his relationship with Ba-reun eventually, and something in the next few weeks will eventually prompt him to reveal the truth about his university student status. I also could see Ba-reun helping him to actually get into the university, or to help him maintain his cover at the least, but they will fall in love. James is going to get some of the truth revealed to him, bit-by-bit and the amount of drama that will cause with the older generation will be interesting, but I think we’re a little far from that due to the biggest plot point up until now getting revealed. Hawk-se and Man-jung will be appalled by Soon-jung’s truth, but will ultimately come together because of it and be among the first to forgive her. Min-jae has taken the biggest side role of any of the main cast, and I can’t say for sure what will happen with her, besides the jealousy she’ll feel as James and Soon-jung inevitably fall for eachother.