it's okay not to be okay

even before this drama was finished, people were crazy about this. no wonder because this is the first full drama that kim soo hyun would be playing after leaving military service. he did a cameo in "crash landing on you", but people want more of him, so that's why this drama was soooo hype. i obviously waited until it was almost two episodes left before started watching it, because i'm not good at waiting. and i'm glad i waited. it was worth to watch it marathon. 

title: it's okay not to be okay

cast: kim soo hyun (moon gang tae), seo ye ji (go moon young), oh jung se (moon sang tae), and many more

genre: melodrama, psychological drama

go moon young (seo ye ji) is a famous children's book writer but she has antisocial disorder that she has kept secret for years, that's why she can't express any emotion or feel any emotion. then there's moon gang tae (kim soo hyun). a psychiatric ward nurse that is super competent in his job but he has to move almost yearly because of his autistic brother. he has to care for his brother and all his patients with love and care, while he, himself, didn't get enough love from his childhood. moon sang tae (oh jung se) is gang tae's older brother that has highly functional autistic syndrome. he loves art and was fans of moon young, but he had nightmares about butterfly that had connection with their mothers' death. apparently, sang tae was the only witness of their mother's murder. coincidentally, moon young met gang tae, and since she saw him, she was interested in him and didn't want to let him go. that's why she followed him back to their hometown (apparently, they were both had the same hometown) even though she had bad memories about their hometown.

moon young apparently also has an antisocial disorder mother, so she never received any love from her mother. her father even tried to kill her mother. she was still young girl, so she thought her mother was died, but apparently her mother was disappeared and managed to stay alive and then changed her face and came back into her life and even threaten moon young, gang tae and sang tae. her father also tried to kill her since he was afraid that moon young would grow up to be like her mother, that's why she abandoned him in psychiatric hospital where gang tae moved into.

gang tae always tries to look tough, but deep inside he was craving for love. growing up, their mother always put sang tae first due to his condition and always demanded gang tae to keep his brother safe. due to sang tae's nightmare, they had to move everytime sang tae had the same nightmares. funnily, he has this one friend that keep moving with them and loyally help gang tae to take care of sang tae. after meeting moon young, he decided to open up more and later, she managed to change him almost completely.

while sang tae is a highly functional autistic that has good sense of art. somehow he likes moon young's book a lot and adores her. but when he found out that moon young loves gang tae and vice versa, he didn't want them to get together at first because he was afraid that gang tae would leave him alone. especially when he remembered that back in their childhood day, gang tae has once tried to leave him almost drown in a frozen lake, but later gang tae helped him and even left gang tae while gang tae tried to save himself after managing to help sang tae out of the frozen lake. this was when young gang tae met young moon young. moon young helped gang tae out of the lake, and somehow young gang tae had a crush on young moon young. but scary moon young's mom managed to scare gang tae off. but that's not the only reason. later they'd find out that moon young's mom had a part in gang tae's mom murder.

if you're into psychiatry or psychology, this is a good film to watch as in earlier episodes you will see the story of the patients in the hospital. they would suffer all kinds of psychiatry disease because of a reason. like the bipolar man, he was considered dumb in his family, thus he never felt love and that leads to his condition. and also a depression mom that saw her daughter got killed in accident in front of her eyes. and also how an abusive mom can make a little girl to have a split personality disorder. this is really a good drama to watch so we can get more insight about psychiatry or psychology condition and how to avoid it. especially in terms of child abuse. it seems normal for a mom to scold her child. but we never think that it could cause problem to the kids mentally. 

what i like:

- super acting skill from all the casts. even moon young's manager was the hospital director in "doctor romantic 2" and i would have no idea if i didn't see an information about him in some ig account that i stumbled into. and oh jung se. i was just finishing watching "when the camellia blooms", so i was shocked watching him changing style so quickly. witty and afraid of his wife in camellia, and brilliantly acting autistic in this drama.

- all the cast clothing/style was put together with great consideration. like gang tae always wear ordinary clothes like t shirt and jeans because he was always put in number 2 after sang tae, so growing up he tend to put others first and didn't think much about clothing. and he was tight in money because they keep moving, so no nice clothes. while sang tae was autistic so he wore striped shirt a lot. autistic people love repeated pattern, that's why stripes shirt. while moon young is famous in young age. she was egoistic and she had the money, so they dressed her super stylish and extravaganza. 

- i don't think there's any plot hole. everything is answered. though there would be questions about how moon young's mom managed to get away after being thrown away into the lake and still being alive. then how could she find the money to get plastic surgery and then get her nursing degree? 

- this drama offers something new. though basically this is a love story, but with those psychiatric stories, this drama clearly offers something new, something that people don't usually talk about. however, it's a bit troublesome that moon young's book is considered children book since her stories were quite dark.

cons:

- some scary horror scenes. gee... i always watch drama late at nights, so i hate to see jumpy scary scent at night. 

rating: 9/10

binge worthy: yes

recommended for: all the cast's fans, especially KSH. people who doesn't like typical love story and want something new. don't mind scary scenes, or troubling scenes related to mental disorder. don't mind watching how small seo ye ji's waist is and how gorgeous they styled her in the drama.