Before reading other people's reviews and speculative blog posts, I thought this drama was a very high-quality production of an engaging story with an oddly weak ending. After finding out about all the clues I missed (hint: always watch the credits), I can certainly appreciate the brilliance of the storytelling but have some quibbles with how it was done. I also don't particularly like the "secret twist" because it is boring to me. That's just personal preference, of course.

Spoiler-free complaint: I think there are better ways to mislead your viewers by mixing multiple characters' perspectives than how this drama did it. To be honest, finding out that it was based on a book made me think the book was probably better because text is a more suitable medium for that sort of thing. But of course I haven't read it, so I don't know if it's actually better.

Spoilers below:

I can easily believe that the ending was just Zhu Chaoyang's wishful thinking. However, in that case they might as well have thrown in a scene showing Pupu alive, if it was all fake anyway. Instead we got many scenes featuring Yan Liang that I doubt Zhu Chaoyang would imagine in such detail. At some point, in their quest to make the mystery difficult for viewers to figure out, the creators of this drama unfortunately went overboard and starting including contradictory evidence instead of mere red herrings.

I still think it's a fascinating story exploring many interesting themes. The acting is phenomenal, I love the animated intro, and the soundtrack is very unique. But before I understood the complexity of it, I thought the ending was weird and underwhelming, whereas afterwards I just felt disappointed because "nerdy loner kid who seems so nice and polite on the surface is actually evil" is such an overdone trope. If I had known I was supposed to be watching out for hidden clues to a secret twist, I would have figured it out immediately because that is ALWAYS it.

A certain other drama recently surprised me by pulling a "guy who seems suspicious is actually just a nerdy loner kid" instead. XD

In conclusion, I have very mixed feelings about The Bad Kids. Aesthetically, it's so well-made that I wish I could like it more.