[Written 2/2/2021]

Time travel often asks, "If you could change anything in your life, what would it be?" Time travel romance loves to ask, “If you could trade one sweetheart for another, would you do it?”

The moral quandary of romance and time travel focusing on the idea of "fated lovers", typically ask us to sympathize with men who pursue women they like, all while discarding the agency of the female protagonist (who becomes an object or prize won at the end of the story). Temporal romances range from troubling to creepy when you start to think about the consequences of the characters actions.

Going into "Familiar Wife", the summary didn’t exactly promise a thrilling story. It sounded like your usual “husband hates wife” story that relies on broad stereotypes and revels in its sexism.

The show's first three episodes are hard to watch. Our lead is an emotionally unavailable and dismissive husband (Ju-Hyeok) who can't find the time to be present for his wife (Seo Wu-Jin), and their newborn baby. The writing (intentionally) paints the exhausted Wu-Jin as the monstrous wife who spits, and throws things at her husband like the nagging wife from a Shonen anime.

We're never really given the opportunity to see Wu-Jin's side of their relationship (divorced from Ju-Hyeok's perspective entirely), and, it’s at this point I start asking questions of the narrative. "What exactly are you saying about this woman?" Because sympathy was the last thing I felt for Ju-Hyeok. I wasn't exactly buying the idea that Wu-Jin was at all at fault, only that she was pushed to her absolute limit after being ignored for so long.

Still, the series does a fairly decent job of painting a believable picture of how a (somewhat) healthy relationship could deteriorate as badly as theirs did. But the overall impression you're left with as a viewer is that Ju-Hyeok hates his wife and can’t wait to dump her.

Like that pivotal moment in "About Time”, he trades one life for another to chase his ideal girl without consideration to the people around him. It's gross, but it only drives home how awful the character is at this point. The series focuses on the shallow emotional and material gains of Ju-Hyeok's new life, and how it impacts the people he knew.

While the credit union scenes veer into corporate piety (butt-kissing and groveling to the ninth degree), I think the show had a solid group of supporting characters. Most of them have little no impact on the greater narrative, while minor characters outside the bank and their dynamic with supporting characters don't do enough beyond fill in the time between Ju-Hyeok enjoying or hating his new life.

The positive for me is Wu-Jin's (somewhat) brand new life as a single woman. Unfortunately, the show doesn't do enough with her to sell the idea that this is a story about two people as opposed to just one man living out a fantasy. Her relationship with former sister-in-law is great, but it’s largely kept at a minimum.

Wu-Jin's troubled relationship with her elderly mother is full of strife, but the writing isn't interested in dealing with her dementia so much as using it to infantilize her. And because there wouldn't be a show without it, Wu-Jin is becomes her former husband's co-worker. Most of the tension in the show rests in how Ju-Hyeok struggles to accept the idea that he mistreated Wu-Jin and that she's probably better off without him.

"Familiar Wife" is an attempt to earn the idea that its protagonist can be rehabilitated and become a better person. That the grievances of the wife are warranted, not the butt of a sexist joke. For the first six episodes, I was buying into the premise. The performance of Ji Sung was strong enough that I could believe that Ju-Hyeok began to regret his previous life choices. And when the eighth episode dared to posit he couldn't undo his wish, I was prepared to give "Familiar Wife" all the stars.

But only if the show didn't throw Wu-Jin back under the bus as his reward. I was fully committed to seeing the two become friends (eventually). But a romantic couple (again)? No, sir. The story did too good of a job convincing me that Ju-Hyeok lost any and all right to that avenue.

I wanted the show to explore his new ties and family. But, the last episodes that I bothered to watch backtracked and ultimately reminded me that I wasn't going to get a story like "On Your Wedding Day".

A character moving on from his mistakes, and learning to live with them, was simply not in the cards. The narrative slowly devolved into the story of how Ju-Hyeok and Wu-Jin find their way back to each other. And all after he stalks Wu-Jin (played up in a romantic montage of him "being there" for her!), and meddling in her personal life to the point where he tries to bully a potential suitor out of the picture.

Most of it is for laughs (and some of it is definitely funny), but it's hard to take the show's premise at face value when Hye-won (Ju-Hyeok’s new wife) is characterized almost identically to how Wu-Jin was at the beginning of the series. There's no real effort to actually create a relationship between Ju-Hyeok and Hye-Won. The show actually strives to make sure that she's never given the same consideration as Wu-Jin. The show does a complete 180 characterization from soft-spoken, considerate cellist to a music teacher who's only personality traits is that she's rich and spoiled.

Her storyline, independent of Ju-Hyeok, is interesting, but it's definitely there to "both sides" issues in her marriage to Ju-Hyeok (since she considers cheating on him in light of his emotional neglect).

Ju-Hyeok effectively repeats the same pattern that landed in him in an alternate future, but this time the show asks us to root him (I'm actually not even sure if ever stopped asking. I was never in his corner). The last episode I watched doubled down on the "they're fated to be together" shtick, and every positive feeling I had for the show ultimately withered away in resignation.

Even reading the summaries about the last six episodes did nothing to convince me to pick the show up again.