Can We Be Strangers is a poorly done lovers-to-enemies-then-maybe-lovers-again story that makes it difficult to root for any of its characters.

Can We Be Strangers Again (also called Strangers Again) follows Oh Ha-Ra (Kang So-Ra) and Eun-Beom (Jang Seung- Jo)after a messy divorce where the latter confessed to having an affair and was subsequently court-ordered to pay a monthly reparation fee of 3,000,00 KRW.

Ha-Ra is living her best life as a divorce attorney and a regular talk show guest until her ex-husband slithers into her workplace and her life because he's out of a job. In the first couple of episodes where Hara and Eun-Beom are at each other's throats, the show balances humor and divorce cases quite well. It's easy for viewers to see that Eun-Beom is still very much in love with Ha-Ra and their divorce is more of a misunderstanding than him willfully cheating on her. But as the truth behind their divorce is revealed, the story slowly starts to unravel at its seams.

Spoilers ahead.

You start to notice quickly that Ha-Ra is written quite pitifully and a tad contradictorily -- while she's a successful divorce attorney with a tv reputation (a plot point that only comes into play in the first episode), she repeatedly pines after Eun-Beom after finding out the real reason he needed a divorce. Any woman in her shoes would be upset and nursing a hurt pride after finding out that their husband set up an elaborate ruse (and involved an outsider!) just to get a divorce - and then confesses to this publicly in court! But Ha-Ra gets sad for only a few minutes and is back to shamelessly running after Eun-Beom for attention and talking to him about all her relationship woes and her boyfriend's failings. The Jae-Gyeom/Ha-Ra/Eun-Beom dynamic was extremely difficult to watch.



There is also very little character development in Strangers Again. Eun-Beom still has his pre-divorce habit of being incapable of communication and the second female lead Kang Bwi-Chi (Jo Eun-Ji) is not exempted from this questionable writing choice. 
Bwi-Chi is written as a strong independent woman but in reality, she really is a selfish and casually cruel person. She encourages a casual relationship with Si-Wook (Lee Jae-Won) without informing him that it's casual, repeatedly gets upset with him when he tries to clarify via conversation and then keeps very vital information from him. But somehow, when he proposes to her out of responsibility for the situation, Miss Forward and Independent Bwi-chi who hasn't until that point confessed to liking Si-Wook, accepts the proposal. And throughout the course of their engagement, despite Si-wook's willingness to give up everything to make her comfortable, she threatens to call off the engagement at every small misstep from him.

Some sort of character development is attempted with Eun-Beom's mother but it comes off as rushed and meaningless. On her near-death bed, Eun-Beom's mother tells him that he's not to blame for the death of his sister but a confession like that is out of the blue and bound to leave viewers a little baffled as in the episodes before that, we see her repeatedly blame him and call him ungrateful. So was this a near-death realization or is it some elaborate misunderstanding? It also might have made this scene more believable if she had apologized for being such a terrible mother to Eun-Beom.

The most meaningful conversation about love in this romance drama takes place in the finale between Ha-Ra and her mother but still ends up being quite useless. In the end, Eun-Beom still can't communicate, Ha-Ra is still pining over Eun-Beom after promising herself that she wouldn't and telling her mum she deserves better, Bwi-Chi is still quite ungrateful to her lovely husband and we have no idea why CEO Seo (Jeon Be- Su) is part of this story. Is he simply there to cater to Eun-Beom's feelings and be extremely unfair by firing an employee who has contributed more to the company?

None of it made any sense and by the time the credits rolled in at the twelfth episode, I was upset that I had invested time into a show that couldn't even stick to its own plot points.


For a well-written legal romance kdrama, watch Extraordinary Attorney Woo. For a sweet, progressive romcom with a strong female lead, watch Love to Hate You.  Both shows are currently streaming on Netflix.