[Drama Review] 'Ddanddara' - Episode 2

A handful of events went down in the second episode of 'Dddanddara,' and we're left with even more questions than before. For example, what exactly happened between Ji Young and Ha Neul? How does Ha Neul know who Seok Ho is but not the other way around? And speaking of Ha Neul and Seok Ho, what is the relationship between the two? Why do Ha Neul and Geu Rin have different last names despite being siblings? All these burning questions and more burst into my head as I watched the second episode of 'Ddanddara,' and I'll admit that by the end of it all, I felt more lost than a goat in a herd of cattle. �.and that made no sense. But neither did this episode.

After his deposition as director of K Top Entertainment, Seok Ho tries to spring back up from the rock bottom, but rock bottom is harder to escape than Seok Ho could have ever imagined. Everyone save for his closest friends turned against him, the media has demonized him to make him out to be a monster after the drunk driving incident in the last episode, and Seok Ho is forced to learn some hard truths in what is sure to be a long and exhausting journey.�

It's not stalking if you're following at a safe distance...right? RIGHT??!

One of the hard truths is that without his power and fortune, people are reluctant to bend to his will. The guy gets so desperate that he even pleads Min Joo, his friend at another agency, to use the investment funds that were meant for Jackson on Ha Neul, the vocal prodigy (or so he firmly believes) he chanced upon in a brilliant stroke of luck in Busan. But the hardest truth of them all is that what goes around comes around eventually. Now, enough of Seok Ho on his path to betterment...

Remember how I said in my last review that I thought that Ha Neul and Seok Ho would hit it off? Well, they did, sorta kinda. At least after much stalking, beseeching, and pounding the pavement from Seok Ho and cold-shouldering, ignoring, and snubbing from Ha Neul. But Seok Ho eventually succeeds in winning Ha Neul over thanks in part to his tenacity but mostly in part to his desperation. Also, as it turns out, Ha Neul and Seok Ho share some history together, but that history is completely unbeknownst to Seok Ho, and to the viewers.�

Please help me, I suffer from RBF syndrome, aka 'Resting B*tch Face'�

Seok Ho may have won Ha Neul over, but at a price. Ha Neul is intent on forming a band, completely putting Seok Ho's original plan to turn Ha Neul into a ballad superstar out of the question. Oh, and there is also the teeny tiny issue that Ha Neul is a convicted sexual assault criminal (which we're not yet sure holds any grain of truth).�

Plus, Seok Ho's actually only won Ha Neul halfway over, since he still has to get the permission of Ha Neul's guardian, namely his sister(?) Geu Rin, to allow him to pursue a singing career. But persuading Geu Rin wasn't half so easy as trying to persuade Ha Neul, mainly because Ha Neul is the only family Geu Rin has left after their parents perished in a car accident. You can't really blame Geu Rin for getting defensive when some boisterous, cocksure, shady character suddenly butts his head into her life and tries to steal away the person she loves and cares for the most.�

Love is the moment~~~

But what Geu Rin doesn't realize is that she is doing the same thing to Seok Ho that others did to Ha Neul: making snap decisions on his character simply based on what she picked up from other people, mainly Kim Joo Han, Seok Ho's weasly ex-assistant who now sits in Seok Ho's place. If you study both Seok Ho and Geu Rin you can't help notice that the two are pretty similar despite their differences.�Ha Neul may be cold, aloof, and distant in nature and Seok Ho may be more swaggering and arrogant, but they are both misunderstood, have no idea what lies ahead, and simply trying to find their ways in the world. And Ha Neul could see that he and Seok Ho were more or less in the same boat, especially after Seok Ho spilled his sad state of affairs to him and Geu Rin.�

That weasly face is just asking to be hated.�

Getting back to the weasly assistant...Joo Han is clearly the antagonist in this story, and I get the inkling that he had something to do with Ha Neul's conviction as a sexual deviant. If you remember, Ji Young is the same actress that Lee Joon Seok, the CEO of K Top Entertainment, told Joo Han that he wanted to "use for a movie." Now Ji Young is a trainee at K Top while Ha Neul is wrongfully accused, and Joo Han is all nervous after catching whiff of Seok Ho's plan to bring Ha Neul into the entertainment industry. Something fishy's definitely going on but we just don't know what!�

What do you think about the latest developments in this episode?

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