Drama Review: 'The Penthouse 2' (2021)
Korean Title: 펜트하우스2
English Title: The Penthouse 2
Network: SBS (Korea), Viki (Global)
Episodes: 13
Broadcast Period: February 19, 2021 - April 2, 2021
Genre: Family, Drama, Suspense, Crime
Language(s): Korean
Cast: Eugene (King of Baking Kim Tak Goo), Kim So Yeon (Falling for Innocence), Eom Ki Joon (Innocent Defendant), Lee Ji Ah (My Mister)
Directed by: Joo Dong Min (The Last Empress)
Written by: Kim Sun Ok (The Last Empress)
Summary
The Penthouse: War in Life (2020) is a family thriller series surrounding the secrets within the walls of ‘Hera Palace’ - the most luxurious 100-story building and exclusive only to the wealthiest individuals in South Korea. The saga focuses on the lives of three women, Oh Yun Hee (Eugene), Cheon Seo Jin (Kim So Yeon) and Shim Su Ryeon (Lee Ji Ah), and their pursuit of wealth, power and revenge in the name of their children.
This review is on the second season of the series.
The War in Life series has been confirmed to have three seasons in total:
Season 1: October 26, 2020 - January 5, 2021 (21 episodes)
Season 2: February 19, 2021 - April 2, 2021 (12 episodes)
Season 3: June 2021 (# of episodes TBD)
With a nationwide viewership rating soaring up to 29.2% for Part 2, Episode 12, The Penthouse 2 holds the title for the highest-rated Korean drama in history as of the writing of this review - dethroning Penthouse Season 1 from its previous No.1 spot.
Story & Writing
WARNING! SEASON 1 & SEASON 2 SPOILERS AHEAD
The Season 1 plot focused on uncovering the real culprit behind involving Shim Su Ryeon’s (Lee Ji Ah) biological daughter, Min Seol Ah’s (Jo Soo Min) murder at Hera Palace. But in order to set the backdrop for the next season, just before the end of Season 1, Shim Su Ryeon gets murdered as well with Oh Yun Hee (Eugene) getting framed for the crime.
Two years after Shim Su Ryeon’s death, we learn that Cheon Seo Jin (Kim So Yeon) has become the full-time chairwoman of Chung Ah Foundation and Chung Ah Arts Academy with her relationship with Ju Dan Tae (Eom Ki Joon) as strong as ever (business and pleasure).
The other Hera Palace residents get life upgrades too, including their children, namely, Ha Eun Byul (Choi Ye Bin) becoming the top student at Chung Ah Arts Academy following Bae Ro Na’s (Kim Hyun Soo) exit from the school.
As we all know, the biggest theme of The Penthouse series depicts the lengths parents will go to protect their children from harm as well as the extent of revenge they will seek to reclaim wealth, power and success. Therefore, in this season, we are greeted by yet another murder case which involve some Hera Palace kids and the much-coveted Chung Ah Arts Foundation trophy (sounds familiar?).
From there, the screenplay very closely mimics the Min Seol Ah Season wherein:
The crime is introduced;
Go back to a certain period of time before the crime;
Spend a quarter of the show watching the events leading up to the crime;
Go in circles trying to figure out who really committed the crime with the help of Logan Lee (Park Eun Seok), some new characters and a bunch of mega-bizarre and non-logical events;
Real culprit is uncovered;
Repeat;
If you’re catching the drift at this point, by the end of Season 2, The Penthouse series would have racked up a grand total of six murder cases - one of which will be the main focus of Season 3.
SPOILERS END HERE
The Review
The Penthouse 2 is a ‘makjang (막장)’ type of series. By definition, ‘makjang’ refers to a genre of Korean dramas that include bizarre, logic-defying twists and stereotypical soap-opera type plot details such as (but not limited to): kidnapping, murder, theft, extramarital affairs, corruption, birth-swaps, amnesia, or terminal illnesses.
Historically, any drama with a preliminary summary even remotely close to a makjang storyline would have me running for the hills. I was not aware of the over-the-top drama that was coming my way because I honestly started the series based on the massive hype surrounding it and the fact that I’ve personally enjoyed many of Kim So Yeon and Eom Ki Joon’s previous projects.
Having said that, this show is by far, the makjang-est of them all in modern Korean drama-era - name a makjang technique and I guarantee you The Penthouse 2 will have it but taken up to the highest notch.
This is quite literally the main selling point of the drama and no matter how irrational the plot got and how much harder I pulled my hair with every passing episode, I just couldn’t stop watching! With shows like The Penthouse 2, the charm comes from how illogical the plot progression is - you almost get a kick from watching something burn down right in front of your eyes.
Although the show was overall entertaining to watch, I do wish they did a little bit more with Logan Lee’s (Park Eun Seok) character in this season - especially after all the momentum they built for him in Season 1. I had expected his character to play a more vital role in unraveling the crimes at Hera Palace. Instead, Logan Lee was nothing but a small supporting role (an even smaller role than in Season 1). In fact, I found myself kicking the air during many of his scenes because of how little value they added to the story.
Based on how they executed on Logan Lee’s character for a majority of Season 2, I confidently believe we could've removed him from the show altogether and it would not make much of a difference. However, seeing the way this season ended, we see how the creators try to leverage Logan Lee’s character again as a backdrop for the next season - although I’m not too sure what the creators will do with that next time around.
The other regretful character of this drama, in my opinion, was Cheon Seo Jin (Kim So Yeon). With the long list of lies and crimes she was able to get away with in Season 1, it was unbelievable to see how helpless she was with protecting Ha Eun Byul (Choi Ye Bin) this season. Among all the characters, it’s unfortunate that her along with Logan Lee’s are the ones that suffer the biggest losses in character integrity - especially since Season 1 was so enjoyable because of them.
The only character who was kept in tip-top condition for this show was Ju Dan Tae (Eom Ki Joon) . They even added more depth into his character through his true love for one of the new characters introduced in this season, which I thoroughly appreciated.
The Verdict
Overall Rating: 6/10
I wasn’t sure if heavy makjang storylines still worked in today’s modern drama era, but The Penthouse 2 proves there remains a huge market for it across multiple age groups - enough to send it to the top of viewership rating charts throughout its broadcast and become the highest-rated Korean drama series of all time.
There were some compromises made in this season at the expense of some of our favourite characters and it’s disappointing, but I understand that character development is not included and sold separately when it comes to dramas such as The Penthouse 2.
Given its premise, it’s important to note the existence of highly sensitive topics in the series including mental health, sexual harassment, child abuse, corruption and bullying. The show definitely uses extreme depictions of these topics, so please do proceed with caution prior to starting this series they may be overwhelming for some.
