Story: Once again this drama revolves around a woman in her 30s and her relationships as well as her 'friends' - which are more colleagues in this case. Shin Joo-yeon works at a home shopping company. Because of some bad experiences she just accepts break-up's. She turned out cold and pretty calculating. When Allen Joo returns from the States after 17 years he can't believe that the cold woman is the same person as the girl he knew while growing up.
Lee Min-jeong, Joo-yeon's colleague, finds herself in a love affair and ends up as a pregnant single woman while Jeong Hee-jae and Lee Woo-young end up with some romantic issues as well. Since all of them are working together, the chaos is perfect when Oh Se-ryeong, a woman Joo-yeon was friends with earlier, appears. Se-ryeong was dating Kang Tae-yoon on whom Joo-yeon has a crush without noticing.
Cast: People asked me "Why do you watch it if you just found the first two seasons 'okay' or 'bearable'?" Well. Excuse you. There are four damn good reasons just in the cast. Firstly, Kim So-yeon as Shin Joo-yeon. That woman is my idol. I loved her more in IRIS and Two Weeks but she still did a good job in here, and just by looking at how different her roles in those series are I can assure you that she is indeed an amazing actress. But her chemistry with Nam Goong-min whom I really liked as well as Kang Tae-yoon could've been better. I don't think I could detect any chemistry between their characters at all. At least compared to the chemistry between Shin Joo-yeon and Allen Joo/ Joo Wan played by Sung Joon. While both of them are good at acting I couldn't really understand Allen's character that well though but then again I feel like that's me and there might have been a reason as to why he behaved that way after 17 years.
The character I hated the most in this drama turned out to be Oh Se-ryeong played by Wang Ji-won though. Geez, I wanted to beat her up. Badly. So annoying but I found myself actually liking her during the last episodes. Now I wonder what made her character change that much. Maybe I missed out on something. Maybe she changed because of hoping to get Tae-yoon back. Or maybe the writer just thought it would be a good idea. I really don't know about that.
Actually one of the reasons to watch this drama is Park Yoo-hwan as Lee Woo-young as well. I definitely hope people will stop referring to him as "Yoochun's brother" once and try to see him as an actor. He did well in this drama, especially with Yoon Seung-ah as Jeong Hee-jae. That clumsy but somewhat shy and loveable couple made this drama totally cute from time to time - and funny. Just let me mention the word "group chat" and you will understand after watching this.
Lastly we have Park Hyo-joo as Lee Min-jeong, a woman who has no intention to get married or think about having a family - until she finds out she's pregnant. And Ahn Min-seok played by Yoo Ha-jun is trying hard to become a good father even before the baby's born. He definitely deserved more time, both together with Park Hyo-joo or alone just because his acting and his character were really cute and seemed a little innocent and clueless.
Soundtrack: Thinking about it carefully, I did like one song. Well, two if we count "Now and Forever", the Allen Joo produced (at least they said so) which was originally performed by Jo Jung-hee. Sung Joon's "사랑이 웃는 것 (Love is Smiling)" made this soundtrack good to me. Now there's nothing wrong with all the other good singers included on the OST just like G.O or Lee Hyori but I sometimes just found myself thinking "Wow, that song's pretty boring..". As a huge fan of music that was and still is a deal breaker for me.
After all this drama got a rating of 8/10 from me. Except for the fact that I didn't like the music I just felt like there's nothing really memorable about the story. It didn't make me laugh too hard nor did I feel really depressed. It's enjoyable but nothing special
But I think it's not the I Need Romance we've seen in the first two seasons. Starting with the first episode, this series has a completely different feeling to it. It focusses more on the male lead than the first two series. In this one, the women aren't friends who've met each other back in school and started to work in different feels, the basically know each other because of working together. And while this is actually a charming point it just doesn't belong to the I Need Romance-series fans might expect.
So if you want to watch this because you loved the first two seasons - be warned.
