15 Comments On “Bora! Deborah: Eps 9 & 10 Open Thread”
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
Thank you my dear @pkml3. 😘 🌷 🥝 🍌 🍅 🥑 🥕 🍵 🌷 I decided on healthier food today. It’s another no-meat Friday for me, but not boring as I like veges.
About the show …as usual I didn’t keep track either and was surprised to find that Ep 9 had dropped. I’ve watched both 9 and 10 and am still letting thoughts percolate.
I shake my head and sigh at the protagonists, but then I ask myself if what they are doing is not what’s happening in real life, and I sigh again. LOL.
🤔 🫢 😬 😱 😣 🤪 😀
Kate
Thank you @Packmule3!
I am impatient with the rate at which the episodes are available – but that’s the sign of an engaging show.
Agree with @GB and – yes, all the confusion and crossed-wires do feel real to today’s relationship world.
I was glad when FL and ML had a heart to heart after all the misunderstandings of episode 8. The ML is clearly very sharp despite being presented as someone who has difficulty with the expressive side of relationships. I like the prospect of their ‘sneaking up on them under the radar of their knowledge’ relationship.
Our ML is still in hoc to his long-suffering ex… but why could he not, in the end, give her the ring. There is something much easier about his bumpy but flourishing relationship with our FL.
I am sometimes irritated by the FL’s BFF. She is more than a plot device – but is so predictable in the way she puts her foot in it and creates problems for our FL! Her tendency to speak without thinking was, of course, helpful in clarifying the post-kiss misunderstanding that she, herself, had created in the first place! I’ve quoted it before but better a clever enemy than a stupid friend (ancient proverb and a French philosopher whose name escapes me).
Having witnessed the conversation between the now divorced couple – does anyone think they can get together if the misunderstanding is sorted out? Or will this be about reconciliation as older, wiser friends. I am slightly uncomfortable about much younger junior female colleague’s crush on the company director…
Kate
*all the misunderstandings of episode 9* – this was all the bungling of the post-kiss conversation thanks, mostly, to irritating BFF of FL>
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
Hi there @Kate!
Our thoughts are the same about these characters, especially that BFF of Bora’s. She was quite a bit of fun at first but now she annoys me.
More below …
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
Winning in a Romance
It’s mostly about image. No one wants to lose face or feel they are the weaker, more needy party. Too much ego comes into play in the relationships which makes me question if love of the other is really there or if there’s more self-interest involved. All the appearances of not caring, or not minding when they really do care and mind troubles all the relationships until the partners come clean and clarify what they really want, care about and mind.
Being True, Being in Love
I feel that the title ‘True to Love’ is more apt than ‘Bora! Deborah’. We are watching a bunch of adults, who are at times amazingly immature, struggle to navigate romantic relationships, to make sense of themselves, and to find self-worth in those relationships.
Show is examining what it means to be true to love, what to be in a love relationship means, and perhaps also when taking the words separately… what it means to be true generally … what it means to love.
We get 4 perspectives from individuals in 4 different kinds of relationships. Maybe I should say we get almost 8 points of view since it’s 4 x 2 = 8 … but Bora and Yu Jeong often share the same points of view so maybe we get 7?
1)The divorced duo (Han and Su Jin)
2)The married duo (Jin Woo and Yu Jeong)
3)The two who broke up after long-term romances (Su Hyeok and Bora)
4)Young singles who are starting out in relationship (Jin Ho and Bo Mi)
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
1)It’s hard to believe how irresponsible, immature and foolish Han Sang Jin was to have agreed to a divorce without even finding out from his wife why she suggested it. There was no attempt to avert it or make the marriage work. What Han is doing now, partially rejecting and partially encouraging the young U Ri is sending out all kinds of mixed signals. Once again he’s being stupid, careless and irresponsible.
I don’t know much about Su Jin except that she’s full of disapproval and it was an acrimonious ending of the marriage on her part. She probably wanted a proper marriage but made the big mistake of mentioning the ‘D’ word too carelessly and stupid Han went along with it mindlessly.
(Sidenote: One of the best pieces of advice about fighting between married couples is to NEVER mention the ‘D’ word in the heat of anger. Once used pride is at stake and it’s hard to back down.)
2)Jin Woo and Yu Jeong seem to be the married couple who are seldom on the same page. Jin Woo has his secret alone time in his lair to watch or play games. It seems Yu Jeong is not really aware of how much time he spends there when he should be sleeping. He even gives Jin Ho access to his lair and shares things with him that he does not do with his wife.
Yu Jeong is too much on the side of her girlfriend Bora instead of being more loyal to her husband. She does not allow her husband to meet his close friend, Ju Wan, because of how he treated Bora, but this makes YJ controlling and Jin Woo henpecked. Jin Woo speaks of trust in marriage, but he should then have used words first, to check on what was happening, rather than use violence against Han.
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
3)@Kate, I like your phrase: ‘sneak up on’. Yes, I like how with SH and Bora, the camaraderie and many sharings will just land them in a romance whether they notice it or admit it or not. It’s time for them to stop playing the pretend they don’t care about each other games (see the note on Winning above) in order to keep their pride, and to say what they really want with each other.
At first I wanted SH to have had a second chance with Yu Ri because the breakup was too sudden, but now we see that Yu Ri was actually two-timing him, so I have no regrets wanting him to find a partner he can trust in Bora.
He’s really seen the worst she has to offer and still likes her and they both know what it is to have a broken heart. I wonder if besides the shallow, showy stuff that’s going into Bora’s new book, they will inject into it more weighty considerations in coming out of heartbreak to love again. Since the book is partially autobiographical, it will be great that in the making of the book together, they both gain resolution from past hurts and grow into a new relationship, with the publication of the book as a project to give them healthy catharsis.
4)The naïve love of Jin Ho is so simple, I hope Bo Mi treats him well. They may be gauche and awkward at times, but perhaps they can teach their seniors a thing or two about being in a love relationship.
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
Unspoken/mismatched Expectations
We get all the misunderstandings because the communication is lacking. Even in the area of communication itself, we see the difference in how men and women regard it. What it means to the man or woman to reply/acknowledge every text, to answer every question to the satisfaction of the other party, and how it’s interpreted varies, especially with a non-communicative soul like SH.
Communication gone awry, or information assumed or not given is the crux of many issues keeping characters from being on the same page. The repeated trope of the friend (yes I’m thinking of Yu Jeong) or partner only getting part of the story and assuming they know enough to take action to the detriment of friendly relations crops up.
Both Bora and friend Yu Jeong have this disease of giving advice as if they are know-it-alls, when it’s ill-advised, and based on insufficient data. They repeatedly cause more problems than they should, but always out of the misjudged goodness of their hearts, and don’t get called out for it. I’m thinking perhaps this happens in real life more often than we want to admit. However this trope is getting old, and I hope we don’t get yet another instance of it in the last 6 episodes.
Clarified Expectations
When Bora talked through with Su Hyeok what her fears were after the kiss, I thought quite cute, the analogy of Scully and Mulder (the FBI partners of the TV show, X-Files) and Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet (co-starred in two movies opposite each other). These are examples of duos in a work relationship with a frisson of romantic excitement (and a kiss or more) together, but who did not become a couple and who remained colleagues on good terms with each other.
I liked how comfortable SH and Bora were after clearing the air, but of course we know that this ‘platonic’ partnership will not last long… Scully and Mulder did sort of get married later, didn’t they? 😜
Kate
@GB – great stuff!
Enjoying the detail about texts and acknowledgement of communications … I like the attention to that type of detail in other K and C dramas. The significant minutiae of personal romantic communication.
Love the idea of the book being enriched by the blossoming partnership/friendship/relationship between our leads.
I – again – so agree on the point of badly given advice from an ill-informed standpoint. You are right that this strikes closer to home than we all care to admit. So much well-intentioned pooled ignorance around! I can only tolerate so many of these types of happenings in a drama before getting the urge to hit ff.
One query… yes indeed to Scully and Mulder… but Di Caprio and Winslet – was he referencing them as actor and actress (with a c 10 year age difference) or as their characters in ‘Titanic’ who have a passionate encounter during the voyage?
Re our ‘not on the same page’ married couple – it is difficult to see who is the main reason for this downbeat marriage of regular disappointment… Do her angry responses to his lack of emotional intelligence kick him into wanting to do the right thing to keep the peace? Or is he simply lazy and she is acting out her hurt by stomping on his feelings looking for reaction? Or? He was stung into expressing his feelings when his wife appeared to be looking elsewhere in that scene in the nightclub? A little more space given to him might be what is needed.
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
@Kate
As to DiCaprio and Winslet, I believe it was a reference to them as real persons because they have acted in more than 1 movie together and have remained friends. It seems that for the second movie, it was Winslet who sent DiCaprio the script and suggested he take the role. I don’t think the age gap had any bearing on this choice of couple for the analogy.
I’m not sure about Jin Woo and Yu Jeong what their dynamics shows. Perhaps YJ being the more aggressive of the two, has forgotten to factor in how different hubby is from her. She obviously admires him for all the things he can do which she cannot, but she also wants him be more similar to her.
This show has most of the women being empowered beings who are go-getters, unafraid to lord it over any men who happen along their way. At times I find that the women can be over-bearing and I pity the men-folk (except those like Louse) who are often simpler beings.
What @FGB mentions above is true. How men and women measure the health of their relationship may differ. The worst case difference is between the divorced couple where one is overly complacent and the other too extreme.
Jin Woo probably feels that all’s well as is, as long as he can tide over the issue when wife finds fault. Wife will not be satisfied until she gets husband to change to nearer what she wants.
He still should let her know his secret delight in game playing or game watching. I believe he does not tell her because he already knows she will disapprove. It’s more like a child-parent relationship then, in his trying to get away with as much as he can without alerting her.
Kate
@GB – yes re your comments about the couple… critical parent and child! That sums it up nicely.
So, she has to change the dynamic for him to encounter other feelings… and that is what happens, accidentally, when he finds her with ‘another man’ at the night club!
Thanks for the information re Di Caprio and Winslet.
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
Hi @pkml3, please open a single thread for the last 6 episodes, ie Episode 11-16. I feel we do not need to separate the threads since there are few of us commenting on this show.
I am enjoying it heartily though, especially Ep 11’s pre-wedding photo event. The preview for Ep 12 has gotten me all excited for tonight’s episode!!!
Kate
@GB …me too!
GrowingBeautifully (GB)
Hi @Kate, isn’t the anticipation for Ep 12 just delicious?!? LOLOL. 😂 ☺️ 😇
Thank you my dear @pkml3. 😘 🌷 🥝 🍌 🍅 🥑 🥕 🍵 🌷 I decided on healthier food today. It’s another no-meat Friday for me, but not boring as I like veges.
About the show …as usual I didn’t keep track either and was surprised to find that Ep 9 had dropped. I’ve watched both 9 and 10 and am still letting thoughts percolate.
I shake my head and sigh at the protagonists, but then I ask myself if what they are doing is not what’s happening in real life, and I sigh again. LOL.
🤔 🫢 😬 😱 😣 🤪 😀
Thank you @Packmule3!
I am impatient with the rate at which the episodes are available – but that’s the sign of an engaging show.
Agree with @GB and – yes, all the confusion and crossed-wires do feel real to today’s relationship world.
I was glad when FL and ML had a heart to heart after all the misunderstandings of episode 8. The ML is clearly very sharp despite being presented as someone who has difficulty with the expressive side of relationships. I like the prospect of their ‘sneaking up on them under the radar of their knowledge’ relationship.
Our ML is still in hoc to his long-suffering ex… but why could he not, in the end, give her the ring. There is something much easier about his bumpy but flourishing relationship with our FL.
I am sometimes irritated by the FL’s BFF. She is more than a plot device – but is so predictable in the way she puts her foot in it and creates problems for our FL! Her tendency to speak without thinking was, of course, helpful in clarifying the post-kiss misunderstanding that she, herself, had created in the first place! I’ve quoted it before but better a clever enemy than a stupid friend (ancient proverb and a French philosopher whose name escapes me).
Having witnessed the conversation between the now divorced couple – does anyone think they can get together if the misunderstanding is sorted out? Or will this be about reconciliation as older, wiser friends. I am slightly uncomfortable about much younger junior female colleague’s crush on the company director…
*all the misunderstandings of episode 9* – this was all the bungling of the post-kiss conversation thanks, mostly, to irritating BFF of FL>
Hi there @Kate!
Our thoughts are the same about these characters, especially that BFF of Bora’s. She was quite a bit of fun at first but now she annoys me.
More below …
Winning in a Romance
It’s mostly about image. No one wants to lose face or feel they are the weaker, more needy party. Too much ego comes into play in the relationships which makes me question if love of the other is really there or if there’s more self-interest involved. All the appearances of not caring, or not minding when they really do care and mind troubles all the relationships until the partners come clean and clarify what they really want, care about and mind.
Being True, Being in Love
I feel that the title ‘True to Love’ is more apt than ‘Bora! Deborah’. We are watching a bunch of adults, who are at times amazingly immature, struggle to navigate romantic relationships, to make sense of themselves, and to find self-worth in those relationships.
Show is examining what it means to be true to love, what to be in a love relationship means, and perhaps also when taking the words separately… what it means to be true generally … what it means to love.
We get 4 perspectives from individuals in 4 different kinds of relationships. Maybe I should say we get almost 8 points of view since it’s 4 x 2 = 8 … but Bora and Yu Jeong often share the same points of view so maybe we get 7?
1)The divorced duo (Han and Su Jin)
2)The married duo (Jin Woo and Yu Jeong)
3)The two who broke up after long-term romances (Su Hyeok and Bora)
4)Young singles who are starting out in relationship (Jin Ho and Bo Mi)
1)It’s hard to believe how irresponsible, immature and foolish Han Sang Jin was to have agreed to a divorce without even finding out from his wife why she suggested it. There was no attempt to avert it or make the marriage work. What Han is doing now, partially rejecting and partially encouraging the young U Ri is sending out all kinds of mixed signals. Once again he’s being stupid, careless and irresponsible.
I don’t know much about Su Jin except that she’s full of disapproval and it was an acrimonious ending of the marriage on her part. She probably wanted a proper marriage but made the big mistake of mentioning the ‘D’ word too carelessly and stupid Han went along with it mindlessly.
(Sidenote: One of the best pieces of advice about fighting between married couples is to NEVER mention the ‘D’ word in the heat of anger. Once used pride is at stake and it’s hard to back down.)
2)Jin Woo and Yu Jeong seem to be the married couple who are seldom on the same page. Jin Woo has his secret alone time in his lair to watch or play games. It seems Yu Jeong is not really aware of how much time he spends there when he should be sleeping. He even gives Jin Ho access to his lair and shares things with him that he does not do with his wife.
Yu Jeong is too much on the side of her girlfriend Bora instead of being more loyal to her husband. She does not allow her husband to meet his close friend, Ju Wan, because of how he treated Bora, but this makes YJ controlling and Jin Woo henpecked. Jin Woo speaks of trust in marriage, but he should then have used words first, to check on what was happening, rather than use violence against Han.
3)@Kate, I like your phrase: ‘sneak up on’. Yes, I like how with SH and Bora, the camaraderie and many sharings will just land them in a romance whether they notice it or admit it or not. It’s time for them to stop playing the pretend they don’t care about each other games (see the note on Winning above) in order to keep their pride, and to say what they really want with each other.
At first I wanted SH to have had a second chance with Yu Ri because the breakup was too sudden, but now we see that Yu Ri was actually two-timing him, so I have no regrets wanting him to find a partner he can trust in Bora.
He’s really seen the worst she has to offer and still likes her and they both know what it is to have a broken heart. I wonder if besides the shallow, showy stuff that’s going into Bora’s new book, they will inject into it more weighty considerations in coming out of heartbreak to love again. Since the book is partially autobiographical, it will be great that in the making of the book together, they both gain resolution from past hurts and grow into a new relationship, with the publication of the book as a project to give them healthy catharsis.
4)The naïve love of Jin Ho is so simple, I hope Bo Mi treats him well. They may be gauche and awkward at times, but perhaps they can teach their seniors a thing or two about being in a love relationship.
Unspoken/mismatched Expectations
We get all the misunderstandings because the communication is lacking. Even in the area of communication itself, we see the difference in how men and women regard it. What it means to the man or woman to reply/acknowledge every text, to answer every question to the satisfaction of the other party, and how it’s interpreted varies, especially with a non-communicative soul like SH.
Communication gone awry, or information assumed or not given is the crux of many issues keeping characters from being on the same page. The repeated trope of the friend (yes I’m thinking of Yu Jeong) or partner only getting part of the story and assuming they know enough to take action to the detriment of friendly relations crops up.
Both Bora and friend Yu Jeong have this disease of giving advice as if they are know-it-alls, when it’s ill-advised, and based on insufficient data. They repeatedly cause more problems than they should, but always out of the misjudged goodness of their hearts, and don’t get called out for it. I’m thinking perhaps this happens in real life more often than we want to admit. However this trope is getting old, and I hope we don’t get yet another instance of it in the last 6 episodes.
Clarified Expectations
When Bora talked through with Su Hyeok what her fears were after the kiss, I thought quite cute, the analogy of Scully and Mulder (the FBI partners of the TV show, X-Files) and Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet (co-starred in two movies opposite each other). These are examples of duos in a work relationship with a frisson of romantic excitement (and a kiss or more) together, but who did not become a couple and who remained colleagues on good terms with each other.
I liked how comfortable SH and Bora were after clearing the air, but of course we know that this ‘platonic’ partnership will not last long… Scully and Mulder did sort of get married later, didn’t they? 😜
@GB – great stuff!
Enjoying the detail about texts and acknowledgement of communications … I like the attention to that type of detail in other K and C dramas. The significant minutiae of personal romantic communication.
Love the idea of the book being enriched by the blossoming partnership/friendship/relationship between our leads.
I – again – so agree on the point of badly given advice from an ill-informed standpoint. You are right that this strikes closer to home than we all care to admit. So much well-intentioned pooled ignorance around! I can only tolerate so many of these types of happenings in a drama before getting the urge to hit ff.
One query… yes indeed to Scully and Mulder… but Di Caprio and Winslet – was he referencing them as actor and actress (with a c 10 year age difference) or as their characters in ‘Titanic’ who have a passionate encounter during the voyage?
Re our ‘not on the same page’ married couple – it is difficult to see who is the main reason for this downbeat marriage of regular disappointment… Do her angry responses to his lack of emotional intelligence kick him into wanting to do the right thing to keep the peace? Or is he simply lazy and she is acting out her hurt by stomping on his feelings looking for reaction? Or? He was stung into expressing his feelings when his wife appeared to be looking elsewhere in that scene in the nightclub? A little more space given to him might be what is needed.
@Kate
As to DiCaprio and Winslet, I believe it was a reference to them as real persons because they have acted in more than 1 movie together and have remained friends. It seems that for the second movie, it was Winslet who sent DiCaprio the script and suggested he take the role. I don’t think the age gap had any bearing on this choice of couple for the analogy.
I’m not sure about Jin Woo and Yu Jeong what their dynamics shows. Perhaps YJ being the more aggressive of the two, has forgotten to factor in how different hubby is from her. She obviously admires him for all the things he can do which she cannot, but she also wants him be more similar to her.
This show has most of the women being empowered beings who are go-getters, unafraid to lord it over any men who happen along their way. At times I find that the women can be over-bearing and I pity the men-folk (except those like Louse) who are often simpler beings.
What @FGB mentions above is true. How men and women measure the health of their relationship may differ. The worst case difference is between the divorced couple where one is overly complacent and the other too extreme.
Jin Woo probably feels that all’s well as is, as long as he can tide over the issue when wife finds fault. Wife will not be satisfied until she gets husband to change to nearer what she wants.
He still should let her know his secret delight in game playing or game watching. I believe he does not tell her because he already knows she will disapprove. It’s more like a child-parent relationship then, in his trying to get away with as much as he can without alerting her.
@GB – yes re your comments about the couple… critical parent and child! That sums it up nicely.
So, she has to change the dynamic for him to encounter other feelings… and that is what happens, accidentally, when he finds her with ‘another man’ at the night club!
Thanks for the information re Di Caprio and Winslet.
Hi @pkml3, please open a single thread for the last 6 episodes, ie Episode 11-16. I feel we do not need to separate the threads since there are few of us commenting on this show.
I am enjoying it heartily though, especially Ep 11’s pre-wedding photo event. The preview for Ep 12 has gotten me all excited for tonight’s episode!!!
@GB …me too!
Hi @Kate, isn’t the anticipation for Ep 12 just delicious?!? LOLOL. 😂 ☺️ 😇
Yes!!!