Love Scene Number is a series of stories of four women in different stages of relationships who are struggling with their love lives in one way or another. While you would think they would have a common theme, these stories have nothing connecting them aside from one character, Jeon Jisung (Kim Young-ah). However, despite having the same name in each story, she is a completely different person each time. On top of having nothing relating each story to the other, each of the female leads is unlikeable to the point that you, as a viewer, cannot even root for them. The characters all have their own struggles, but the conclusions do not show the characters truly being resentful for their errors. All and all, while Love Scene Number had potential in showing the viewers unique stories of love, the series poorly delivers four stories full of drama that lack a central theme to tie them together.
While the series does its best in creating flawed characters who are still relatable, the female leads are all too unlikeable. For example, in the first story, Yoo Da-ham (Kim Jong-hoon) preaches polygamy but does not ask her partners for their consent on the matter. While she does acknowledge that she was using them to fulfill a relationship she previously ended, she never apologizes to them for her infidelity. Even after realizing why she dated three men at the same time, she still makes the same mistake again in letting her friend go. Da-ham’s story has a good balance of drama and entertainment in comparison to the other stories. However, it is hard to accept her change of heart when she was dishonest with all three of her partners from the beginning.
While her character is frustrating at times, Park Jung-seok (Han Joon-woo) is the only one who makes any efforts to work on her relationship. However, it all comes too late in the story after she leaves her fiance at the altar. Jung-seok is also inconsistent with her reasoning on ending her relationship. At one point she blames her mom’s relationship, and in another, she blames her fiance’s lack of passion. She cannot seem to take responsibility for how dissatisfied she is with her life. In the end, we finally see Jung-seok make an effort to save her relationship, but it feels like it wraps up too neatly after everything she had done.
Although all the leads are struggling with their relationships, “Love Scene #29” seems most out of place among the four stories. Yoon Ban-ya (Ryu Hwa-young) is the lead of the third story that has a much darker tone than the rest of the chapters. Her story has more twists and turns that take away time that could have been used to develop more of her backstory. She is haunted by her boyfriend’s suicide, and finds out the man she is seeing is her friend’s estranged husband. Like the other female leads, it is hard to empathize with her and her character flaws. After all, she was the one who gave her boyfriend the gun and decided not to call for help. She also showed no remorse after being confronted for her first affair. After almost being killed, the story jumps ahead and does little to fully explain how she resolved her problems.
Tying together each story is the role of Ji-sung. Although she has the same name and is a writer, she is a completely different person. At first, the series appeared to present her as a sort of mentor to who the main leads can seek out for guidance. It would have been nice if they kept this up, and would have made more sense if she were the same person. However, in the third story, she takes on a bigger role as the estranged wife of the lead’s lover. She is the villain in this storyline and tries to kill the main lead twice on top of blackmailing her husband. Unfortunately, we never see her be punished for her toxic behavior. In the next story, she is simply the main lead’s friend whose only role is bringing up someone else’s miscarriage.
Aside from the second story, the other three are repetitive with the concept of infidelity. While each story is different, it would have been better if they each had different problems to combat. The last story, “Love Scene #42” touches on infertility, which is a relatable issue for couples. However, instead of showing the couple struggle with accepting the wife’s possible permanent infertility problems, the story centers on both of them cheating on each other. It is a repetitive theme that does not even tie them together. Instead, it just seems like the writers do not know how to write a complicated love story without involving infidelity.
With four different stories, it is hard to even recommend any of them to watch. Even with only have two episodes each, somehow the stories still feel like they are dragging you along only to come to an unsatisfying conclusion. They only have a weak connection to tie them together, and it does not even make sense to have Ji-sung’s character in every story. Unfortunately, these love stories have little to do with love and use twists and drama to keep the viewers hooked only to conclude with a poor ending.
(YouTube. Images via Viki and Wavve.)
