"Golden Tower" Episode 4

It turns out that farm life is still boring. I honestly don't care how often"Golden Tower"repeats that joke just as long as it keeps being funny. The setting for the drama continues to be extremely well-suited to the kind of scattershot parody that's become the backbone of the humor. Absent any other circumstance, the imagination of a farmer will get carried away. And so it is that moving into a new, old decrepit home turns out to be a questionable idea.

I really love the comedic dynamic betweenLee Yong-jooandSamuel Okyere. It's not that they have good chemistry- the opposite really. They never have any idea what's going on with each other. But whereasLee Yong-jooconstantly evinces clear feelings of paranoia, often in irrational circumstances,Samuel Okyerejust acts outrageously upbeat all the time, obviously not having any idea what's going on with his comedic opposite.

It works especially well because I, at least, have been in both those positions. Both freaking out over dumb stuff, and also acting really weird because it hasn't occurred to me that another person is watching whatever unusual thing I'm doing at the moment. It makes for imminently relatable comedy, because we're never really laughing at either one of them. Their behavior mostly serves as a reminder of the apparent absurdities of life and how they're never really that big a deal.

The greater ensemble's purpose this episode mainly centers around it being market day for the lettuce, which follows a pretty typical narrative arc here. At first everybody squabbles over the best way to sell the cabbage, failing to realize that by competing with each other they're just driving away the customers and driving down the profit margins. This leads to the final game of oneupsmanship which...well, let's just say it dovetails well with the recurring horror parody jokes.

Just to be clear, the rest of cast is doing a good job too. We've still got gender imbalance dynamic going on, as well as a fun scene at the school with an excellent awkward interruption. About the only complaint I have at this point is that we're really not seeing much ofGuzal Tursunova. I know she can act- the woman was one of the brighter parts of "Marriage Blue". Still, if the preview is any indication, there's plenty of other good comedic fodder to get into so I don't mind too much.

Review by William Schwartz

"Golden Tower"is directed byMin Jin-gi, written byJeong In-hwan,Jo Seung-heeand featuresChoi Jong-hoon,Lee Yong-joo,Kim Jae-woo,Baek Bong-gi,Hwang Je-seongandBae Seul-ki.