The Penthouse: Is It Really Worth The Hype?

The Penthouse: War in Life revolves around three women, Shim Suryeon, Cheon Seojin, and Oh Yoonhee who want nothing but the best for their children.

Overview Of The Plot 

Season 1 (S1)

In the first season, our two main leads Shim Suryeon and Cheon Seojin are living in the Hera Palace which is the residence of the richest people in the city. Oh Yoonhee is a single mother and not financially stable. On New Year’s Eve, Suryeon witnesses the murder of a girl named Min Seola (tutor of Hera palace’s kids) also later revealed to be her daughter from her first husband who passed away. 

 

Slowly things start unfolding and many secrets are revealed which mostly centers around Joo Dantae, Suryeon’s current husband and the main antagonist of the drama. We also get to know about Seojin and Yoonhee’s rivalry since their teenage days as both of them are sopranos and have had the same love interest. However, since Seojin’s father was the head of Cheong-ah Arts School, a prestigious school for future artists, Seojin and her daughter always have the upper hand. 

Which is why it also creates a lot of problem between their kids. The drama shows the rich privileges and how the poor are always bullied. It’s up to the point where your blood starts to boil watching all the unfair actions and sufferings someone has to go through just because they are not privileged. Suryeon sets out to take revenge on those who wronged her daughter and to find out the murderer. That’s how the plot for the first season goes and thickens in seasons 2 and 3. 

For me, the first season was really engaging and interesting. The quote “Rich jerks are always greedy” goes well with the show. Another great point about the first season was that it had a number of plot twists. Writer Kim Soon Ok had us on our toes the entire time. Suryeon getting to know everything and seeking revenge from each person was my favourite part.

Never have I ever hated a character as much as I hated Joo Dantae and Seojin and this I feel speaks volumes of how well they played their parts.

Hera Palace kids were also of no good and the only thing that they knew was to bully others. Their first target was Min Seola and the second became Bae Rona, Yoonhee’s daughter. A character named Logan Lee was introduced later in the drama and although he was not in the posters, he was still a key character. S1 had the worst ending but that’s fine because S2 makes up for it. 

Season 2 (S2)

Ok now let’s talk about my favourite season that was S2. Just how S1 got my blood boiling at every point, S2 managed to calm it down. Some of the characters had monumental development while some just remained stagnant. A new character named Na Aegyo was introduced and just her existence in the drama explained a lot of things. S2 mostly revolves around Hera palace’s kids competing for the Cheong-ah arts trophy. You’ll be surprised to see far these kids go for winning the trophy.

The main spotlight of this season was definitely Oh Yoonhee and her revenge. In all this chaos, Bae Rona and Joo Seokhoon’s (Joo Dantae’s son) love story was the one thing that helped me get through the season. *happy tears*.

This season’s ending was perfect, just perfect. Everyone paid the price for their crimes by law. But obviously, there has to be something left for S3 right?

Season 3 (S3)

In season 3, those who were jailed for their crimes get freed. So now Suryeon doesn’t believe in law and justice and she sets out to punish them on her own. If I start talking about it too much, I’ll probably give out major spoilers.
All in all, S3 didn’t have the impact that S1 and S2 had. All the excitement, thrill, and curiosity was long gone. The only thing in my mind was “How are they gonna end it?” and let me tell you this, I was not satisfied with the ending. Nobody was. It was definitely a happy ending and it did make sense but the satisfaction was still missing. All that waiting for one episode each week went down the drain. 

Makjangs (literal meaning- to take things too far) are fun when there’s a proper end to it and to be honest this one should’ve ended in the second season. They dragged the story for so long that everything started sounding ridiculous. New characters were introduced with each season and some of them were quite disappointing.

But another thing that kept me going was the OSTs! The tracks from all the seasons were amazing! ‘Let Me Be‘ by Baek Ji Young and ‘Goodbye’ by Xia Junsu were my favourite among all of them. The drama has many OSTs, including opera and singles.

Verdict

In my opinion, I don’t think the drama was really worth the hype. The actors were really good but somewhere the story was lacking sense. If compared to other dramas of the same genre, ‘Sky Castle’ or ‘The World of Married’ were so much better.

Did you feel the same way too? Or do you have other perspectives? Take charge of the comment section and tell us what you think!

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