ShaveenZvi

The Early Spring, My Problem With Luke & Flora 😭

I’m going to be honest: I was really enjoying this drama, especially Luke and Flora’s relationship. I still like Luke as a character, but somewhere around episodes 17–18, I started getting extremely frustrated with the way their relationship was being written.

And I don’t think the problem is that Luke is supposed to be perfect. He absolutely isn’t.

Luke’s biggest problem is honestly his mouth. 😭 He can be unnecessarily harsh, insulting, discouraging, and sometimes say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time.

But his actions? Almost always gold.

That’s why I liked him. He has an actual personality. He’s clever, strategic, competent, and has his own way of caring for Flora. When he realizes he has hurt her, he notices it and tries to make it up to her. Falling in love didn’t completely turn him into another person.

But then Flora started frustrating me badly.

For example, when she made a mistake at work and gave the wrong print, Luke punished her with six months without promotion or something like that. Flora herself admitted that he was right as her boss, but she was upset because she expected him to be biased toward her.

And I was sitting there like… 😭 Girl, he is your boyfriend AND your boss.

He had even approved the budget for the new printing. He wasn’t making her personally pay for the mistake. He was simply dealing with a workplace mistake professionally. I honestly don’t think every boss would have been that reasonable.

Yet the way the scene was presented made Luke look almost villainous for doing his job.

She ignored him completely after that. When Luke asked about the New Year weekend, secretly hoping she’d want to spend it with him, she casually said she was going with her friends. Later, she saw a woman’s post with Luke and, already feeling insecure, became jealous. Without asking for an explanation, she confronted him and directly accused him of cheating.

Then came the harassment situation.

Luke had previously complained that he was always the last person to know when something happened to Flora. Then he warned her that she was an easy target. I agree that the way he said it could make her insecure, but when the GM actually harassed her, she still didn’t tell Luke.

She came home, went into his arms, and didn’t tell him. Then Luke found out through an email. After the whole office already knew. And when he asked her why she didn't tell him, she simply said she was tired and wanted to rest.

That scene actually hurt me for Luke because this was something he had already expressed as a problem in their relationship.

And what did Luke do? He let her go.

He called her that evening and waited outside her building. He apologized, comforted her by hugging her.

That's actually a very good Luke moment.
Because he doesn't say: “WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME? I WAS RIGHT.”
He realizes: She was hurt and I chose the wrong moment to confront the issue. That's character development.

But there was still no real resolution to the bigger problem: why is Luke constantly the last person to know important things about his own girlfriend?

Then the ex-boyfriend situation made me want to throw my phone. 😭

They go abroad for a business trip, and while entering the hotel, Flora casually tells Luke she's having dinner with a friend, who happens to be her ex.

Why didn't she tell him earlier?

Then the ex shows up with very obvious feelings for her, and Flora introduces Luke as her boss. Fine, their relationship is supposed to be secret because Flora wanted it that way.

But the ex starts starts reminiscing about their past. And Flora doesn't clearly establish: “I'm with someone now.”
Not even: “There's nothing between us anymore.” She just gives awkward expressions throughout the car ride.

So she's simultaneously:
protecting the secrecy of her relationship with Luke,
failing to reassure Luke,
failing to give her ex a clear boundary,
and allowing the situation to become increasingly ambiguous.
That's not Luke's fault.
That's Flora's unresolved relationship management.

Then her ex drops her back at the hotel and she gives him a warm hug. And Luke sees it. And again, Luke doesn't throw a tantrum. Then the conference happens and he's still capable of being professionally proud of her. This detail is actually important. Because it shows that his love hasn't disappeared just because he's hurt.

Then she's drunk.
Luke takes care of her.
The ex comes to the room.
Flora is sick, and the ex immediately rushes in, carries her, touches her waist, moves her hair.
Luke is standing there watching this.

And when the ex says he'll take care of her, Luke's response is essentially:
You're her ex. I'm responsible for my employee's safety.
That is such a Luke response. 😭
He doesn't claim ownership.
He doesn't make a scene.
He doesn't reveal their relationship.
He simply refuses to leave because she is currently his responsibility.

Then morning:
Flora wakes up.
Ex beside the bed.
Luke on the sofa.
And what does she do?
RUNS AWAY.
😭😭😭
Girl, PLEASE.
Talk to one of them!

And THEN the marriage confession. It completely deserved “what the hell?” reaction.

Because Flora has spent multiple episodes communicating something completely different from:
“I want to marry you and have children with you.”
Her behaviour has repeatedly communicated:
“You're my boyfriend, but I'm not fully treating you like my boyfriend.”

And then suddenly:
“I want a future with you.”

Luke's confusion is completely understandable.
He has basically been given:
no consistent relationship status,
no emotional reassurance,
information about important events after everyone else,
an ex suddenly appearing,
ambiguous behaviour with that ex,
no explanation,
and then a marriage-and-children proposal.

So when Luke says:
“I don't have such a plan.”
I don't read that as him saying:
“I don't love you.”
I read it as:
“I don't understand how we got from this to marriage.”
And honestly?
That is a completely reasonable reaction.

And this is where I have a bigger problem with the writing.

I feel like the drama is whitewashing Flora's mistakes while villainizing Luke for his.

Again, Luke has flaws. His words hurt her. He can be arrogant and insensitive. I'm not asking the writers to make him perfect.

But Flora also makes mistakes in this relationship.

She avoids difficult conversations. She keeps important things from him. She doesn't properly establish boundaries with her ex. She expects emotional understanding from Luke while repeatedly failing to give him the same clarity.

Those things should matter too.

I don't need a character to be morally perfect. I need the story to say:

“This person hurt the other person. Therefore, they need to understand that and grow.”

I don't want:
Character A hurts Character B → Character A gets miserable → audience feels sorry for A → therefore Character A is absolved.

I want:
Character A hurts B → consequences → A understands exactly what they did → genuinely changes → becomes worthy of B again.

If a character makes mistakes in a relationship, I don't need their best buddy to die before I sympathize with them. 😭 I need them to understand what they did, take responsibility for it, and become worthy of the relationship again.

And the trailers are making this even worse for me because it looks like after the breakup, Luke becomes the one carrying all the guilt.

He's crying.
He's regretting everything.
He's apparently visiting her for years.
He's blaming himself.
And he's the one who eventually tries to repair the relationship.

Meanwhile, the story seems to be using Flora's tragedy and suffering to make the audience forget the things she did to Luke.

That makes me really sad because I liked Luke precisely because he wasn't pathetic. He was smart. He was capable. He had a spine. He could read situations. He could handle crises. He had an actual personality outside of being Flora's boyfriend.

I don't mind seeing him heartbroken. I don't mind him regretting his mistakes. I don't mind him still loving her.

But I do mind if his character becomes:

“Everything was my fault. I'll wait forever. I'll chase her no matter how she treats me. I deserve all of this.”

Because that's not the Luke I liked.

Let Luke suffer without making him stupid. 😭

And then there's Flora's acting.

This is another thing that became much more obvious to me because Luke is actually very good with subtle expressions.

Luke can communicate an entire emotion through his eyes, a pause, his voice, the way he looks at her, or a tiny change in his expression.

But Flora, at least in this drama, often has the same blank expression whether she's angry, hurt, sad, confused, or emotionally overwhelmed.

I don't know how she acted in her other dramas, so I'm not judging her entire career, but her acting in this particular drama doesn't work for me.

And unfortunately, when you put her opposite an actor who is constantly giving these tiny emotional changes, her lack of micro-expression becomes even more noticeable.

Luke can be standing in front of her with ten different emotions happening across his face, while Flora looks like she's waiting for someone to tell her when the scene is over. 😭

It genuinely affects the romance for me because I need to feel what both people are experiencing.

One important note: If you’re not planning to read the novel and are just watching the drama, don’t read or listen to opinions from novel readers. 😭 They’re messed up in the head, they don’t know how to differentiate between the novel and the drama. They’re reviewing the drama while judging it through the novel’s Luke. 💀