"It's Okay, That's Love" almost a homerun!

This drama was one of those that had been on my list early on. Other than my list being so long, I'm not sure what held me back from choosing it earlier to watch.

This was my first drama with Jo In Sung and Gong Hyo Jin and I enjoyed them both, especially Gong Hyo Jin. She is just an effortless actress. I need to watch more of her work. Not my first drama with everyone's favorite Reply series father, Sung Dong Il, but with a departure of roles for him he gained even more respect from me as a drama watcher. The rest of the cast was mostly familiar to me. A few I had seen in supporting roles before. It was a cast that worked well together.

I think the most memorable moments from this drama will be the love and acceptance that was so easily given to Jae Yeol by most. By the time his illness had been discovered, he had formed this tight knit group of people he loved and that loved him. They didn't give up on him even when he walked out of the hospital to heal himself and the bond they shared just continued to get deeper even after he realized he couldn't do this on his own. I think that's what anyone really wants out of life is that shared love and connection to others. If he had had that when he was 16 and getting beat up every day maybe things would have turned out differently for him.

His and Hae Soo's relationship was a bit surprising to me. It started out adversarial as most do but they quickly fell in love even with her anxiety. Far quicker than I expected actually. Given his background, Jae Yeol was pretty deeply grounded in how relationships worked and he was a really good boyfriend. For him there was really no wavering really once he made up his mind (except for the blip at the end) and oh how he was patient with her.

The support cast was fun and the writer did a really good job of weaving their story lines into every other one though often at times it felt like the most "normal" person there was Hae Soo's father who was confined to a chair and had significant mental challenges. I liked seeing more of the treatment side of things. I think support and love are so, so important in dealing with mental health but most of the time I think there does need to be a stable plan from the medical side. Jae Yeol was days away from killing himself even if he wasn't realizing that was what he was doing. The forced hospitalization went better than I thought it would but here's where some of the things started to fall apart with me.

His mother was his guardian. Makes sense. He's not married and she's alive but did the medical team really think she was the best person to make medical decisions given the fact that she's still not aware that she committed murder? And even to the end, no one told her of that and never was dealt with. When she decided Jae Yeol could go home after he lied to her about not seeing the visions still and she and the brother would take care of him, I was just shaking my head. That was a disappointment. Although the brother in the end was getting help he needed, I am not sure I would be able to embrace him back into my life after all the beatings he gave me.

The next big disappointment was with Hae Soo's mother. Seems to be a "mom" thing in this drama for me huh? I never really understood Hae Soo and her mom's relationship. Half the time it seemed like the mom resented Hae Soo and the other half Hae Soo resented her mom. Maybe it was both? When Jae Yeol decided to end things with Hae Soo and told her to go on her trip so that she could be "loyal" to her mother's wishes I wanted to throw things. The mother didn't want Hae Soo to be tied down to a sick person like she was. I get that as a mother but why would Hae Soo even agree to that? She didn't consider Jae Yeol a burden. And Jae Yeol to make that decision for her kinda irked me.

When they all got back together after a year time jump and then another year time jump, they were married and everyone was all happy. Most were in therapy and that was needed but in reality most families aren't going to all agree to therapy. Jae Yeol and Hae Soo's mom were best buds with no explanation given on how and why her mind changed. Maybe just seeing him "normal" made the difference? I needed a bit more explanation.

Overall, it was a good drama. It was good to see supportive friends of people with mental health issues. Those issues weren't romanticized and you get to see how truly and deeply it affected Jae Yeol, almost to the point he would have killed himself. The romance was good. The secondary stories were good. I just longed for a bit more onscreen explanations of things.

I give this drama 4/5. "Loved it but there were just one or two things that really stuck out as needing to be done better."