Marry My Husband Is (Mostly) Fantastic — Non Spoiler Review

Marry My Husband is a Korean drama (Prime Video) that really knew what it was doing. Delivering on both romance and revenge while also getting really deep with character and thematic development and social commentary, this drama weaves a story of growth and second chances. If you haven't watched it yet, let me tell you why you must.

Amazon Original Marry My Husband

The drama starts with our main character Kang Jiwon dying at the hands of her trash husband, Park Minhwan, after discovering he's been cheating with her equally trash best friend, Jeong Sumin. But instead of dying, she wakes up 10 years in the past in April 2013, and now has a plan to make these two awful people marry each other instead so she can live the life that she deserves. The premise alone gets an A+ because they just don't make ideas like this anymore, and plus the love interest is none other than her boss, Yu Jihyuk, who seems to know more than he lets on.

Here are some quick things to know before you binge:

This is essentially a revenge drama, but the focus is not on the revenge. Sure, we want to see Sumin and Minhwan go down, but the main goal is for Jiwon to escape her fate and to live the life she deserves. In order for Jiwon to get that life, she needs these terrible people to get their what they deserve, and the show definitely delivers on that. There's also a ton of comedy, romance, and reflection to balance the tone.

The romance is UNMATCHED. I've never seen a couple with this much chemistry. Jiwon and her boss Jihyuk are literally PERFECT together. Their relationship is so natural and their domestic scenes will have you squealing into your pillow. When they finally get together, they really give power couple, but even before then they have something truly special because no one could ever understand them like they understand each other.

They're both fully there for each other without question, and there's absolutely NO toxicity (thank goodness). With so many movies and shows glorifying toxic relationships with these obnoxiously rude "bad boy" male love interests and unbelievably unrealistic and desperate female love interests, this show flips the script with a protagonist that learns very quickly to not be a pushover and a love interest that isn't an asshole.

Revolutionary, right?

Still, there's some tension involved, of course, but you'll have to watch to see why because there's some major spoilers there.

There's some well woven social commentary about the way women are treated and their expectations in society, especially wives and working women. You also see the entitlement of some men, the internalized misogyny of some women, and the way these things can deeply affect society. We do get some elements of workplace drama as well, because work is how all the characters know each other, and it's where a lot of the plot unfolds, which ties in with the themes.

The plot is mostly enjoyable (including an excellent work excursion in the outdoors where all our characters are on a trip). HOWEVER, there's a character that shows up that sort of feels like a plot device. They could remove this person and move some stuff around to still achieve the same results. There's a couple other moments that had me kinda annoyed (you'll see in the deep dive). But they're easy enough to overlook because everything else is still so strong.

And mainly, that includes the characters. Jiwon and Jihyuk each have character arcs that help them become who they were really meant to be. Their friends and allies are really great as well with smaller journeys of their own, and the two villains are really hateable but also manage to feel human.

This whole drama is actually based on a Webtoon (which is based on a webnovel) that was genuinely unreadable so don't let that deter you from watching this. Just ignore the idiotic webtoon fans complaining about the drama changing the absolutely terrible, underdeveloped, and corny writing of the manhwa into something that actually felt real and had incredible depth.

Prior to writing this, I actually rewatched the entire drama from start to finish, even though I watched it for the first time just a couple weeks prior. That's how good the show is despite those plot grievances, and that's how badly I needed to relive the whole thing. In fact, I'm tempted to procrastinate on writing this by doing yet ANOTHER rewatch immediately. So go binge this show, and I'll see you after.

(This quick review was actually written back in Jan 2025, and since then I've decided to publish it separately it from the deep dive analysis, which took forever to complete.)

Full show Deep Dive Analysis coming soon.