Reel Tastes & Travels – a light dose of entertainment to wake you up

‘Irritation at First Sight?‘

What do a home shopping network host and a mushroom farmer have in common? Not much at first glance. Or even second glance as the show impresses upon us as we get to meet our protagonists, Dam Ye-jin and Matthew Lee. 

Ye-jin is a highly successful home shopping host at HIT who is the terror of her producers thanks to her maverick ways. She throws herself into her work, to the exclusion of almost all else. Her apartment is more workspace than home, filled with possible products to shill. Her date is sidetracked by the possibility of an exciting new cutlery item to promote. Her entire focus, in short, is towards getting her own prime time show on the network. But it’s not all roses – she’s haunted by some past trauma that we only get glimpses of which causes her to suffer from insomnia. It’s also the reason why she has stayed away from selling beauty products (despite the lucrative margins) to the extent of even having it explicitly written into her contract. 

In contrast, Matthew Lee is a laid-back farmer living a simple life in a village, growing his mushrooms, chauffeuring the older villagers around on his tractor, and relaxing at the end of the day before falling into a sound sleep. However, all is not quite as it seems here either. Matthew’s mushrooms are a key raw material for Gojeuneok Bio. But the show hints that Matthew’s role and influence in the company extends far beyond that of a preferred (or even monopolistic) supplier. 

So how do these two opposing worlds collide? As so often happens, it starts with best laid plans getting derailed. Ye-jin’s new show is bumped from the prime-time slot in favor of her rival who sells Beauty Song beauty products. To add insult to injury the HSN CEO gives her an ultimatum – sign up L’Etoile cosmetics or say goodbye to her show. So much for ironclad contract clauses! 

Left with limited options, she meets Eric, the L’Etoile executive who’s in town from France. Turns out Eric has a problem of his own that he ropes in Ye-jin to help fix. Gojeuneok Bio is their key supplier but they have refused to renew their contract (a decision apparently driven by Matthew though they are unaware of that at this point). He promises that L’etoile will sign up with her if she can help him fix his supply issues. Of course he has an ulterior motive as well. It’s strongly hinted that he has a shared past with Ye-jin, one that she surprisingly doesn’t seem to recall, and so he comes up with this arrangement to get more time with her. Seems like an odd way to do business and it is kind of surprising how such an unconventional offer barely draws any reaction from her. But in any case, she readily agrees and decides to visit the mushroom farm to get a better understanding of the dynamics at Gojeuneok Bio. 

Which brings us to the all important first meeting. City girl in jazzy sports car runs afoul of country boy in aforementioned tractor. Sparks fly but not the romantic kind! Uh-oh! Not the most promising start to their relationship. Then again, ‘opposites attract’ and ‘enemies to lovers’ are two of the most popular tropes in romance. So let’s see how it goes.

My Predictions for the Series

• Eric is a childhood acquaintance (former classmate maybe) who had an unrequited crush on Ye-jin. Post graduation he has remade himself into a successful, ‘cool’ professional, hence why Ye-jin didn’t recognize him
• Ye-jin’s past trauma clearly has to do with a face cream that she marketed which turned out to have a bad formulation that led to adverse reactions among users. She’s racked with guilt over it but I’m guessing she was tricked into promoting it by someone she trusted who knew the truth but didn’t care about the consequences.
• Matthew appears to have a younger relative (sister? cousin?) who keeps her face covered. Is it possible that she was one of the victims of the defective face cream and if so, will that be a hurdle in their relationship?
• My money is on Matthew being the actual head of Gojeuneok Bio, who simply prefers to spend most of his time growing mushrooms in the village (possibly in reaction to his relative suffering from the defective face cream?)