Summary
The source of Moo-jin’s fortune is finally revealed as Romance in the House gets all its ducks in a row in time for the finale.
When Romance in the House first started airing, I thought its 12-episode season order was on the shorter side for a K-Drama, and wondered whether that might be a bit of a problem down the line. As it turns out, it’s the opposite. As of Episode 11, there’s nothing more to do than tie up a perfunctory ending, and one gets the sense this could have been handled a couple of episodes ago in all fairness.
The main order of business here is establishing, finally, how Min-joo came upon his fortune, which is a mystery that has been teased out for the entire run. With it revealed, though, it becomes quite obvious that there’s nothing more left for the show to explore other than the dual romances, which one imagines will be wrapped up as safely and romantically as possible.
Anyway, let’s talk about Moo-jin and his money.
It’s important to remember that Moo-jin has always been well-intentioned, but through a combination of arrogance, irresponsibility, and outright bad luck, he hasn’t had a great deal of financial success.
This was certainly true when he got scammed out of his downpayment on the snack bar. The scammer, Jae-mun, is who led Moo-jin to Thailand. Ruined, he followed him in the hopes of revenge and hopefully getting his dough back, though in the end, he fared a little better than that.
In Thailand, Jae-mun was a very wealthy bar owner, but he had ripped off many other people too, including a woman scammed out of 4 billion won. In exchange for Min-joo handing Jae-mun over, she gives him all of her money – she’s a fan of his from his baseball days – and urges him to go back to Korea and redeem himself as a parent.
Since then, he has certainly lived up to that instruction.
With this revelation out of the way, things mostly settle back into Tae-pyeong and Mi-rae’s relationship, which goes through some ups and downs in Romance in the House Episode 11.
Things begin well enough, despite the pair of them trying to keep it a secret at work. Mi-rae is working on a new product launch and impressing the CEO; there may even be a promotion in her future.
However, predictably, word gets out. And it is a bad look, to be fair. Workers rightly assume that Mi-rae’s career success is her being granted favors for dating the CEO’s son. With the optics admittedly not great, Mi-rae’s professional reputation seems to be in tatters.
It’s Mr. Park, of all people, who speaks up in Mi-rae’s defense and reminds everyone how hard she has worked to get into the position she’s in. And after a stern word from Tae-pyeong, CEO Nam shows up to give the kids his blessing, welcoming Mi-rae into his family.
The episode ends with Moo-jin arriving and getting into a bit of a spat with the CEO, ending on a note of chaos that probably won’t make much difference to the finale. We’re almost there now, and the show is certainly starting to feel that way.
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