Summary
Tastefully Yours achieves its emotional high-water mark in Episode 8, with the truth finally – and painfully – coming out.
The great measure of how much we like the characters in the shows we watch is how we respond to them being legitimately heartbroken, and that’s the territory that Tastefully Yours finally ventures into in Episode 8. We knew this was coming, of course, especially after the previous episode did away with the love triangle angle. The real meat of the drama remains – Beom-woo has to confess his original intentions with Yeon-joo, and it’s as painful for them both as you’d imagine.
This is, granted, a bit of a tonal shift for the show, but it’s an earned one in my estimation. Despite an ill-advised expansion to include more characters and places, albeit temporarily, it’s at its best when it’s being small and intimate, and there’s nothing smaller or more intimate than the profound sense of betrayal at the heart of Yeon-joo’s recipes being stolen.
There’s some meat on the bone, thematically speaking, too. Hark at Beom-woo, for instance, suddenly caring about what happens to the people who work under him, which is ironic and doesn’t go unremarked upon. He’s too late to stop Yeon-joo’s recipes from being lifted, too, and despite him being able to sneakily return the recipe book without being caught, we all know it’s only a matter of time from the jump.
There’s an argument to be made that this makes it harder to care about Myeong-sook and Chun-seung’s disagreement, with the supporting characters having naturally fallen by the wayside a bit, given the focus on Yeon-joo and Beom-woo. Even while this is going on, the walls continue to close around Beom-woo, and his telling the truth to Yeon-joo becomes increasingly inevitable. It’s revealed that the restaurant was set alight as revenge by someone he stole recipes from, and it seems very much like history is repeating itself. But all the tension comes from how reliably his efforts to confess are delayed by the trip to a monastery and his increasing closeness with Yeon-joo. How can he ruin this great thing that’s growing between them?
Naturally, the confrontation comes right at the end, and its outcome will likely determine the final two episodes, as everyone expected. But it’s handled really well and there’s a profound sense of emotional pain associated with it all, which I, for one, wasn’t really expecting. It perhaps stems from the outpouring of emotions prior; Yeon-joo interrupting Beom-woo with a kiss, their mutual attraction seeming to really be at the point of solidifying. That makes the truth more painful to swallow, and the reactions on both sides really sell it.
I also appreciate that Seon-woo’s sudden arrival wasn’t used as an easy escape route, and it was ultimately up to Beom-woo to face his own truth and spill the beans himself. This is a romantic K-Drama, so I fully expect it all to be sorted out in the final two episodes, but I can imagine the road there being a surprisingly emotional one given all this. What began as a relatively likeable but ultimately frivolous show has, after a notable misstep, found its most compelling angle. And it turns out it isn’t anything to do with food after all.
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