#good partner

[numerodixe]

Jang Nara & Nam Ji Hyun for ELLE Korea - June 2024

[purpleguitar]

Good Partner (2024)

At a time when we didn't have many female attorneys, Eunkyung shattered the glass ceiling above her on her own.

[durnesque-esque]

I promise, y'all aren't going to get constant relationship spam (although if people keep asking about the ex, you might get more just to make the answer obvious), but there was a post I read somewhere (if I find it, I'll link) that's been on my mind. The gist of it was that being in a relationship should make your life overall easier. Not that relationships don't require work (they do, they absolutely do), but your partner shouldn't be increasing your work load.

Ex, if you live together, you're not suddenly doing double chores because you've become a second parent to your partner.

Last night was another show night (I run a live, interactive D&D Battle Royale show at a local bar and streamed to Twitch). My partner showed up early and just began to help with set-up.

We got done so much faster than I usually do on my own! I had the time to sit down, order, and eat food before my cast started showing up.

It was such a relief and so appreciated. But also, he's unobtrusively helpful. Times when I've said, there's nothing you can do to help but listen to me vent, he listens. He's not trying to solve my problems for me, but lifting where he can lift, listening where he can't.

Anyway, he's also cute so this is us in our matching Rumble jerseys.

[junkobato]

Upcoming Kdrama July 2024 💚

3/7: Red Swan with Kim Ha Neul, Rain. 10 episodes; melodrama, action.

6/7: The Auditors with Shin Ha Kyun, Jin Goo, Lee Jung Ha. 12 episodes; mystery, comedy.

12/7: Good Partner with Jang Nara, Nam Ji Hyun, Kim Joon Han. 16 episodes; law, comedy.

15/7: Tarot with Jo Yeo Jung, Park Ha Sun, Seo Ji Hoon. 7 episodes; horror, mystery.

19/7: Sweet Home 3 with Song Kang, Go Minsi, Lee Jin Wook. 8 episodes; horror, sci-fi.

22/7: Serendipity's Embrace with Kim So Hyun, Chae Jung Hyup, Yoon Ji On. 8 episodes; rom-com.

31/7: No Way Out: The Roulette with Yoo Jae Myung, Kim Moo Yul, Lee Kwang Soo. 8 episodes; thriller, mystery.

Shin Ha Kyun is coming back... 😍

[dykedivorce]

GOOD PARTNER | Han Yuri and Jung Woojin being equally in love with Cha Eunkyung

[hoyas-big-head]

Good Partner Ep. 9

Case 09: A Half Apology

[elderflowergin]

why atty jung woo-jin is so important to me (alt title: why I hope the titular good partner includes jung woo-jin too, alt title @haraxvati apologies for workplace romance talk)

If you were in fandom spaces during Sherlock, you know that people went crazy for the deductions, for how they were delivered by Sherlock on the show. Who is a terrible person to most of the people around him! The surface admiration fans feel is for the way he works and not what he does for his friends (we’re talking normal human reciprocity and not lifesaving sorts of things).

So little of romance is devoted to the opposite - women who are good at tough, unsympathetic jobs and are unapologetic about it. If you were ever a woman in law enforcement, litigation or any other job coded to be aggressive or dominant, you’d find no shortage of gatekeeping men telling you how to do your job right, and there is no pleasing anyone in this.

How to speak, how to lower your pitch, what to wear, what NOT to wear, what sort of concessions you should give to the boys in club if you want to be in the club, what sort NOT to give so you don’t look like a chump. Maybe it’s better now than it used to be. Maybe some spaces are better than others. But the outcome was the same - you never win, and someone always shifts the goalposts when you’re done. You’re too sexy, you’re not sexy enough, your voice is annoying, you’re mousy, you’re loud, you’re fancy, you’re too articulate, you’re no fun, you’re a little too much and God forbid you get angry, because no one likes an angry woman.

We don’t see this sort of criticism on the show, because Cha Eun-gyeong is successful, but it’s never far from the minds of small men, be it her boss or the lawyer her husband seeks out. And we don’t have to see more of it - her husband, who by all rights should be proud of her achievements and hard-earned reputation, weaponises her work as the reason she is no longer a mother or a woman in his eyes. Who needs to hear from a shitty colleague when the call’s coming from inside the house? He hates her success, he hates that he owes his own success to her in part at least. It’s no surprise that his girlfriend is not a fellow doctor or someone from an allied or parallel position to him - she is in an admin position subordinate to Eun-gyeong. I don’t say this to denigrate admin positions, but to point out the predictability of men like him, whose anger at not being the centre of a woman’s universe is never far from the surface.

But then there’s Jung Woo-jin, who admires Atty Cha because of all the traits that make her a good lawyer. He points out to Han Yuri that she started out doing a tough job in a time few women took it on, that she took risks and was courageous in her representation of her clients. He admires her and yes, he loves her all the more for it.

If you’re asking me why it matters what a man feels about Atty Cha’s job, frankly I don’t think it does! She’s the fulcrum of her own universe. She’s never needed anyone’s approval to do what she felt was right. But I think it bears pointing out that this is a lonely job. Clients need to be handled and protected, opposing counsel are to be suspected, and judges are to be feared. There’s at least three fronts of conflict, and here is Cha Eun-gyeong, handling it all with infinite grace. And it’s great that she can do it all, but it’d also be great if the narrative could be different, for once; if she could have friends, even lovers, potentially, who love her for all of who she is, and not just the pieces of her that are useful. It’s a fantasy, yes, but a type so specific and so underserved that it had to have been written by a woman in corporate, if not a woman in litigation.

Cha Eun-gyeong is a very good lawyer, a woman who at partner level is still working her ass off to stay at the top, and Jung Woo-jin sees that; he sees HER, and the things that make her a good lawyer are indivisible from her as a person, because they are for Cha Eun-gyeong. Which is why his admiration for her is also indivisible from his love, and it’s also why he thinks nothing of it and Han Yuri catches on immediately. Because he can’t see it, but everyone else can.

But beyond that, for me it’s the moment he bodily puts himself between the CEO (yet another man waiting for her to fail) and Cha Eun-gyeong. I think it’s easy to convey admiration privately, because you don’t lose capital from that. It’s another thing to stand up for a colleague publicly. To your CEO no less, and in front of all your other colleagues, at a time of great personal crisis for Cha Eun-gyeong. (To your CEO who is also your father, no less!). It’s telling that this unassuming man who tends to smooth ruffled feathers does not appeal to his father-boss’s ego or supplicate to secure a temporary detente; what he makes is a threat that the words being uttered are defamatory, a polite suggestion that there will be consequences for careless words, and his father absolutely picks up on it. He may pay a price for it yet, going by the conversation he has later with his father.

I don’t know why this fantasy appeals more than the other, but I think it’s in the instinctive nature of it on both sides. It’s in the way Cha Eun-gyeong - who actively distances him from her feelings, who does not open up to him by design - allows him to act as her vanguard in a deeply vulnerable moment, which in itself is an entitlement she has. It’s food for thought, a glimpse into this bond that has outlasted her marriage.

[myechoecho]

I haven't been as active since work has been really tiring (but that should be easing) however I am watching a few things:

My Sweet Mobster - I am still watching this and it's just an easy watch. The show is corny but really sweet. Genuinely funny and an interesting take on ex cons reintegrating into society

Red Swan - I don't think many are watching but this show is a trip and I love it. It feels a bit old school and I am not entirely sure where it is going. It deserves more than 10 ep, since that would help flesh it out.

Good Partner - another one where I don't think many are watching. It's a legal drama but I am enjoying the contrast in styles between the veteran lawyer and the rookie lawyer. Eun Gyoeng divorce is going to be messy but I am here for her being cut throat against her cheating husband. I am not sure how accurate the husband's accusations are about her not raising their daughter, though given their daughter has picked up many of Eun Gyeong's traits I don't think she's as absent as he makes out. Also, the look the mistress had on her face when he mentioned wanting full custody tells she was not expecting the kid as part of their happily ever after.

Serendipity's Embrace - this one just started but I LOVED the first two episodes.

[i-got-the-feels]

good partner is directed and written by women!!!! DO I NEED TO GIVE YALL MORE REASONS TO WATCH THE SHOW

[vibes0318]

Jang Nara portrays pain in a simply poetic way.

[namjhyun]

Jang Nara and Nam Ji Hyun for ELLE Korea July 2024 promoting the kdrama Good Partner.

[purpleguitar]

Good Partner (2024) dir. by Kim Garam

#Cha Eun Kyung's trials and tribulations of getting a new hire @userdramas creator bingo - keyframes, animation

[strawberryshortcake-12]

episodes 8 and 9 of good partner were AMAZING people who are not watching this show are missing out for sure the way jang nara portrays her character is just so good; the scenes when she broke down when she found out that her daughter knew about the affair... PHENOMENAL also the girl who plays the daughter is such a good actress; its so sad that she had to witness her dad having an affair and not being able to tell anyone because she wanted to protect her mom this show really shows how divorce, affairs, and lies affect every single member of a family; the screenwriter clearly does not shy away from the ugly reality of cheating

[lamaison]

I'm sad that not many kdrama fans on tumblr are talking about Good Partner. It's so good! It's centered around a seasoned divorce attorney mentoring a new attorney who would rather be on the corporate law team.

I love seeing a story centered around female mentorship. It's also interesting to learn about Korea's marriage laws and see the show explore the problems within these laws, and how they sometimes work around the law to get the best outcome they can for the women.

[dykedivorce]

a little hilarious to me that eunkyung/woojin/yuri WORKS because to yuri, eunkyung and woojin are the same (competent senior lawyers she respects and admires). to woojin, eunkyung and yuri are the same (hard-headed women with a strong sense of justice he's inspired by). and to eunkyung, yuri and woojin are the same (in love with her in the exact same self-sacrificing way).

[krautundkimchi]

What is with K-dramas and the plotline of successful career women not being good mothers.

You can be any other type of mother - housewife, single, abused, even a ghost, but you cannot be successful in your career and a mother.

You damn well can be both!

Rage over...