'Love On The Menu' Lee Ju-yeon finally bade a heartbreaking farewell to her first love, which she had cherished for 23 years.
Lee Ju-yeon portrayed Jang Seo-hyun in episodes 13 and 14 of the KBS 2TV weekend drama "Love On The Menu" (directed by Hong Seok-gu, written by Lee Kyung-hee), which aired on the 5th and 6th, and delicately depicted Seo-hyun's deepening emotional arc from collapsing in the face of a shocking truth to the moment she lets go of the one she loves.
Jang Seo-hyun began to suspect the reason after her mother Go Yoon-hee (Yoon Yoo-seon) repeatedly opposed her meeting with Kim Moo-jin (Ha Seok-jin). She eventually asked directly, "Is Moo-jin oppa your father's son?", and confronted a shocking truth when her father Jang Hoon-tae (Kwon Hae-hyo) admitted it. Stunned by the unbearable fact, Jang Seo-hyun froze and could not speak for a while, and Lee Ju-yeon subtly expressed the character's emotions, engulfed in confusion and shock.
Afterward, Jang Seo-hyun went to Park Jung-woo (Min Jin-woong) and confessed her anguish, saying she wished she had never known about the relationship between Jang Hoon-tae and Kim Moo-jin. Anger and regret surged as the love that had not even properly begun was ended by a family secret, and she ultimately poured out her long-suppressed emotions in a torrent of sobs. Lee Ju-yeon conveyed Seo-hyun's deep wounds intact as she exploded with blame and fury after the shock.
She also placed her last hope in her father Jang Hoon-tae. Jang Seo-hyun went to him and pleaded, "You're joking with me, right?" asking him to say it had been a joke. But when Jang Hoon-tae expressed his intention to step down from management, Seo-hyun turned away coldly, asking, "Are you cowardly running away?" Seo-hyun's sense of betrayal at facing yet another disappointment from the father she wanted to trust landed more heavily through Lee Ju-yeon's restrained expression and voice.
In the end, Jang Seo-hyun proposed that she and Kim Moo-jin run away together. But Kim Moo-jin rejected that with a suggestion to meet sometimes, and Seo-hyun vented her frustration at having to end a love that had accomplished nothing. After sulking, "Don't meet anyone and live alone for the rest of your life," Seo-hyun steadied herself. She then calmly told Kim Moo-jin to go to Han Gyurim (Ahn Heeyeon) and conveyed their parting.
It was the moment she let go of the love she had kept for 23 long years. Lee Ju-yeon added poignancy by delicately expressing Jang Seo-hyun's complex emotions, torn between wanting to hold on to the love and knowing she must let the other person go for their sake.
In this way, Lee Ju-yeon fully absorbed Jang Seo-hyun's emotional shifts from the confusion of learning a shocking family secret to the loneliness of letting go of a long first love. She drew viewers in by convincingly portraying emotions mixed with resentment and betrayal toward her family, lingering attachment and resignation, rather than merely the sorrow of losing love.
[Photo] KBS 2TV "Love On The Menu" broadcast screenshot
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