Read on Mobile

"Family Outing" Episode 17

"Family Outing" Episode 17

The abrupt disappearance of Kkeut-soon doesn't...create a crisis exactly, but her actions do make it quite clear that the inheritance game is soon to come to an end. Interestingly, in contrast to the antics that have characterized"Family Outing"to date, everyone's instructions are actually to behave like mature adults and plan for their long-term future. And it's hard to escape the fact that the family really is having fun, thinking about a future where they can live instead of bumming around from one paycheck to the next.

If this sounds familiar, it's because this is Joon-hee's exact character arc. That's worked well to date, when kept in close perspective, and it also does a lot here for the sake of showing what the characters have learned. Unfortunately I'm not really sure how they learned it, given the scattershot storytelling"Family Outing"has used so far. Be that as it may, the general fluffiness here is welcome and cheerful.

The closest we get to scheming is when two characters discover that their happy future basically requires that other characters be happy too. But because these characters are Dal-soo and Jeong-sook, that forces them into the position of scheming parents who try to bully their kids into finding romantic partners. It's a sequence that's cute in how well-meaning it is, even if Dal-soo and Jeong-sook are completely failing to take into account that their kids really aren't in the mood for this right now.

There's a nice balance to the characterization on this end as well. I appreciated how the actual blind dates actually seemed like perfectly decent, well-meaning people who are briefly and uncomfortably dragged into the drama that surrounds the actual important characters. On some level pretty much all the characters have realized that their jerks. It's what gives Joon-hee's actions a genuine redemptive end, such that it's easy to see why Kkeut-soon still has faith in the confessed scam artist.

This is a good episode. Not great perhaps, mainly because the writing still relies very heavily on lots of drama staples- as it turns out, there are still television dramas goofy enough to make cliffhangers out of a character simply not saying the last word of their dialogue. All the same, there's nothing wrong with pleasant cheerfulness in the wake of mental betrayal that may or may not warrant forgiveness. A very nice tone is struck here, and I'm hopeful that it can be maintained all the way through to the end.

Review by William Schwartz

"Family Outing"is directed byJoo Dong-min, written byKim Sin-hyeand featuresLee Jeong-hyeon,Jin I-han,Oh Sang-jin,Park Won-sook,Jeong Han-heonandPark Joon-gyoo.

Source from :Hancinema