How Bora! Deborah's Ending Is Ruined By Its Male Lead
Issue #8 when dramas refuse to let the male lead be truly flawed
“When the writer isn’t convinced by the ending, how can the audience be?”
This line by Su-hyuk to Bora in their penultimate episode might as well be a reflection by Writer Ah Kyung on Bora! Deborah’s own final stretch.
For most of the drama, our OTP spent their time and energies getting over their own exes, while also forming a support group of two. Aside from unending scenes of needless humiliation for the heroine, the drama mostly focused on how Bora makes peace with her break up and realises that her relationship had never been perfect.
Once she arrives at this space of self acceptance, we then embark on a much shorter trip to lay Su-hyuk’s romantic ghosts to rest.
The story so far had two main conflicts: Our main leads needed to accept that their past relationships were wrong for them, and that they had a part to play in why those relationships went wrong.
With both these threads neatly tied up by episode 10, all we had left was to have the two give in to the feelings brewing between them and give us a neat happy ending. Easily done in another 2 episodes. Sadly, we had 4 more to go.
What could they possibly want with this extended runtime?
Well, at this stage the drama wanted to achieve two things:
1. It really wanted to wrap up the messy stories of three secondary couples and;
2. It badly wanted to tie in Bora’s writing to the ending, which meant employing the good old miscommunication trope, so they could have it all be resolved with Bora turning in a poignant love letter as her manuscript.
I’m going to gloat a little here, cause I kind of called it by episode 10 (though should have called it earlier):
This trope turned up at end of movies like, You've Got Mail, Notting Hill, Wake Up Sid, Mean Girls, She's the Man, All the Boys I've Loved Before... All stories where the final confession comes in speech or letter formats, with the heroine pouring her heart out in one big spiel and the hero sweeping her up in a kiss.
These big final act confessions made an impact in these movies because the conflict between the couples had become impossibly knotted and nothing short of complete vulnerability could save the romance.
But Bora! Deborah had no such conflict between its leads. Bora and Su-hyuk understood and liked each other despite their flaws, and they were inches away from finally confessing their feelings!
And so, where a story of two broken-hearted comrades-at-arms could have ended with sweet flirting and a warm confession, we now required a new conflict in the final stretch.
What is this new conflict to be? We already put Bora’s past to rest with her final, graceful goodbye to her ex, so there’s no way he’ll make a come back right?
Oh no, he does.
But how would he even find a way in? Bora no longer minces words with him, and she’s been nothing but forthright through out the drama. So, surely she’ll just send him packing!
Oh no, she does not.
For bizarre plot reasons, Bora suddenly decides to extend her ex legions of courtesy he absolutely does not deserve, allowing him to linger around her, creating confusion even in the minds of her own friends about whether she’s getting back together with him.
But even so, Su-hyuk has had a front row seat to the reveal of Bora’s toxic relationship. He watched her ex cheat on Bora, watched him treat Bora like crap and make her go through emotional hell. Surely, Su-hyuk wouldn’t buy into anything the man was selling?
Oh no, he does.
At this point in the drama, character consistency had leapt out of the window and taken the natural flow of the story with it.
Su-hyuk had always been written with some amount of unevenness, but his character entirely falls apart at this point.
Where in the initial episodes, the writer and PDs introduced Su-hyuk as a bad, non-communicative boyfriend with his ex, they switched track as soon as Su-hyuk and Bora’s romantic moments started in episode 4. Then, we were told, it was all a misunderstanding, and really, Su-hyuk was an extremely sweet and devoted boyfriend. It’s just that he showed his devotion through action rather than words.
Which could absolutely work for a reticent character, maybe someone like Lee Min-ki’s Nam Se-hee from Because This Is My First Life.
Except for the fact that Su-hyuk is also shown as a very articulate man, deeply in touch with his feelings. He’s had absolutely no problems expressing his exact feeling about people and situations throughout the show.
He also comes from a loving family. With the exception of one scene where he mentions that the divorce between his parents at a young age left him aware of the intangibility of romantic relationships, we really never see any hint of commitment phobia from him.
Yet, when Bora - tired of circling around their feelings for weeks - decides to confess to him in person, he reacts to it in the most unhinged manner.
He turns his head away, like it pains him to hear that she likes him.
This after four solid episodes of heavy flirting!
The in-story justification is that Bora’s ex told Su-hyuk that they would be getting back together, and he seemed so earnest, that Su-hyuk just decided for Bora that she would be happier with the cheater.
Now, could this motive work? Yeah, sure. But only if we would have been shown moments throughout the drama where Su-hyuk displayed insecurity about his ability to maintain a happy romantic relationship.
His previous romance would have been a great starting point!
Instead of portraying him as the perfect man who was previously misunderstood, if the drama had committed to showing Su-hyuk as a guy who had repeatedly held back affection and promises with his ex, we could have come to this same ending with a lot more conviction.
In that story, Su-hyuk’s hesitation in the face of Bora’s ex’s open avowals of love makes absolute sense!
That man could do what Su-hyuk couldn’t. He could give Bora a sense of security in their relationship in a way Su-hyuk couldn’t.
I’m pretty sure this is what the drama was hoping to go for.
Unfortunately, they had shown us over 12 episodes at this point that Su-hyuk was very affection and open about his feelings towards the woman he liked.
So ultimately, it comes down to inconsistent writing.
If the drama had stuck to showing us a Su-hyuk who needed lessons to become a softer, more open lover, then this ending for the main pair would have worked.
Su-hyuk would have read Bora’s manuscript love letter, felt the gates of feelings burst open, and then run to find Bora before her evil ex won her back.
But once the drama decided that Su-hyuk was always this wonderful guy, who just hadn’t known that his ex girlfriend needed more from him, then this ending became complete nonsense.
For Writer Ah Kyung’s next project, I would love to see her paired with a completely different PD. That’s the only way we’ll find out if the problems with her writing come from her, or from the team she did her first two dramas with.
I'm glad to have read this. I have been waffling as to whether to finish the drama for finishing sake, I paused at 11 because they as a couple seem to have come to some sort of agreement about their feelings and all
I could think was 5 episodes is useless and will be full of unnecessary angst as filler( I thought it was 16 ep) and even finding out it was 14 it felt like waaaayy to much rope to hang themselves, so I'm glad to have stopped there. I love both actors so it would be best to leave it alone, I really don't want to leave with a bad taste in my mouth.