Who’s the enemy? Park Il-do or stupidity?

I love horror movies a lot. I get creeped out really easily and cheap scares work on me so well. But I still love anything horror related. So naturally, I was excited about this show and I’m somewhat glad I watched it. But, ultimately, I feel like what’s supposed to be a straight up horror mystery got messy and boring because of the main characters.

What’s good.

- It’s a horror show. 😊
- I liked the way the show set up the main bad demon and the folklore of Park Il-do and the possession of Hwa-pyung. It established the character’s motivation and you sympathize with him.
- I liked having a main demon spirit that’s controlling other spirits. It’s fun to guess which spirit is which.
- The way all three characters had shared tragic history.
- Great side characters even though I think they were definitely under used, especially, Yuk-gwang.
- At the end, the least suspected character turned out to be the bad guy… and then there’s another twist! It was clumsy but still pretty good.
- Some possession cases like the one with a little girl were great.
- I liked Park Hong-ju character who’s just evil without being possessed.
- Some twists were good and unexpected.

What’s not good.

- Three main characters almost ruined it for me. Their initial character traits basically remained the same. A hot head, a stiff emotional priest who shows no emotion and an angry detective who demands evidence after evidence to believe.
- The way characters argue about same things episodes after episodes. It took so long for Det. Kang to believe even after Hwa-pyung was right over and over again.
- The same mistakes over and over again resulting in people’s deaths. They would interview victims/witnesses and leave them unprotected over and over again. Sure enough, they get killed. Almost as if they press reset button at the end of each episode and start fresh every time. It gets old fast.
- These people have no detective skills. They can’t deduce anything. They just can’t put two and two together! Sometimes, evidence is staring at them but they don’t see it. When people act strange, nobody notices like when Det. Koh got possessed and Det. Kang had no clue sitting in the same car!
- This show has the worst chase scenes. Main characters are strangely slow but the bad guys are super fast. If they’re chasing someone, 100% guaranteed that bad guys will get away.
- Cases got unnecessarily dragged out because people kept others in the dark for no reason. Just another lazy way to advance the plot.
- Characters just stand there with mouth open instead of reacting to what’s happening around them.
- They ignored conventional wisdom when convenient. Like how busy hospital is virtually empty just so the bad guys can go in/out undetected.
- Park Il-do seemed to be a few steps ahead of the main characters at all time. How? Is he omnipresent or does he have his underlings everywhere watching them? It’s not explained well. Toward the end, you wonder if Park Il-do is actually omnipotent, too, as he can “possess” multiple people at the same time.
- Understandably, they try to keep you guessing on who Park Il-do is but the way they try to bait and switch is pretty clumsy. If the show wants you to believe something, you know it’s not the case.
- Once again, people at the top are corrupt and cowardly. What’s new? Koreans really hate people in power, don’t they?
- Please, please, turn the lights on! Wait until the daytime to do things.
- The ending is kinda wanky. It would’ve been better if they left Hwa-pyung dead but I guess they wanted a happy ending for everyone.

Overall, it was a serviceable horror show with some good moments and a lot more WTH moments. I wish they had a clear way to end the show but after meandering for 14+ episodes, they realized they only had one or two episodes to tie it all together. They ended up spending way too much time on exposition as they basically had to explain all their plot holes just before the show was over. And that ending… it’s like everything was for naught after what they all went through. This seems like an ongoing problem with lots of K-drama.

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Outrageous but interesting plot led by three unlikable sisters.

My final review after the series completion. I’ll just list some questions and comments and end it.

1. Deep down, I knew they were going to bring back Hwa Yong. I was so hoping not but they did it. And the explanation about another woman who was suicidal she met happened to be at her place to be killed? Maybe I missed some details but major sigh.

2. So everyone saw Sang A murdering someone. I get that it was a video they couldn’t verify but at least, she’d get detained for investigation? She just walked out of the courthouse and business as usual. This enabled her to go on (almost) a murder spree.

3. Speaking of Sang A, how is she so powerful and rich? I get that her dad set up some stuff and his people infiltrated the society at different levels for a long time but I’m not sure if that explains the influence and wealth. Does she own Samsung? Hyundai or both?

4. If she’s so powerful, why did they try so hard to be the mayor and then the president? Apparently, it wasn’t that important at the end because she casually “killed” her husband.

5. Is the Orchid Society a cult? How do they control the members so that they would just give their lives? What were they promised? Eternal life? Maybe some members may feel like they owe a lot to the general but really?

6. If Sang A owns the police and the media and whatever else, why didn’t she own the judicial system?

7. When Haw Young entered the courtroom, she was given the most underwhelming response to her being alive by other characters, especially by Sang A. I would’ve fallen off the chair and screamed at the least.

8. I think, ultimately, the writer and director just fell in love with their crazy ideas and kept adding more and more shocking/convoluted stuff and things got away from there. I wish they actually thought about how all these ideas would work together or were even remotely feasible in that fictional world before they kept adding.

9. Maybe Kim Go Eun’s movie career is winding down? I think she’s great and she’s acted well here but this show feels like it’s beneath her?

10. So Sang A was so nuts that her father’s people didn’t choose her as the successor. But they left her to do her crazy stuff and risked ruining everything? Which she did. Hmm.

Review after Ep. 10

So I came to realize that this is a soap opera rather than a drama. Soap operas often sacrifice logic and realism for the sake of sensationalism. Storyline has gotten more and more convoluted and extreme with constant bait and switch. Rating lowered to 5.

Review after Ep. 8

This show just became one of the dumbest show ever.

The main character is literally the dumbest person ever. She thought her friend was alive after seeing her dead. She walks in to her dead friend’s apartment and drinks an iced drink without asking why or who made it. OMG.

And, of course, it’s the wife of the bad guy…. I knew it. This is nuts. I see the rating dropping but we’ll see.

Initial review after Ep. 5

For whatever reason, I thought this was a comedy. So I was a bit dumbfounded after the first two episodes. I’m looking forward to how the storyline unfolds. I do think it’s a bit coincidence heavy with every sister being involved with the villain’s (?) family but it is K-drama’s favorite way to advance the plot so…

I hope the villains don’t turn out to be the usual bad people. I hope they try a bit harder to be creative this time. But so far, the shadowy villain seems all powerful so most likely not.

Kim Go-Eun is such a great actress. She’s so natural but I feel like she’s overacting here, especially, when she’s in trouble. The way her face contorts basically shows she’s guilty. Also, the character she plays isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. She can’t put two and two together and can’t act cool if her life depended on it and it literally depends on her trying to hide the fact that she’s got the money. And the way she just brought a pile of cash to a strange woman right after being told to be careful with money! Wow. It’s like she wants everyone to know she has a pile of cash.

And by all means, let’s talk about the secret ledger in the middle of a freaking cafeteria loudly! But the plot must advance, I guess.

I can’t figure out the middle sister. She seems like the smart one but we’ll see what role she plays here. The youngest one seems to be there just to play the impressionable kid acting like a pawn. Not interesting at all.

The biggest flaw of this show, so far, is that none of three sister is likable. The oldest is dumb and clueless, the second is a drunk, pseudo-activist hothead and the youngest one lives in an alternate reality. It’s like she’s not affected by the way her friend’s parents act. She’d rather live with violent rich people rather than her poor sisters. They want us to sympathize with them but failed miserably.

Where are they going with the orchid? Is it super natural? Drug induced hallucinations? They keep digging deeper and deeper to make everyone suspicious but I hope they know what they’re doing and tie all this up in a satisfying way.

Hope it goes well. It’s promising that it’s a 12 episode show so hoping for a tight storyline without much fluff.

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Game of suspects

I must say this show was nothing like I expected. I didn’t know what to expect, honestly, but definitely not what I got. 😂 One thing I will say, though, is that unlike most K-dramas I’ve seen, the show actually started out terrible but got better.

Beyond evil was a perfectly serviceable “whodunit” script. I thought the way they introduced the murder of Dong-sik’s sister was very effective and it immediately set up Dong-sik was the prime suspect. After the time jump, though, it started to suck. The problem is that the writer tried too hard to make everyone seem like a suspect early on. First 5-6 episodes were wasted setting everyone up as crazies but instead of creating suspense and mystery, it only made the characters extremely unlikable and cartoonish. Even after that, the show continued to play cheap tricks and introduced distracting story threads to make the story unnecessarily complicated and confusing. This actually mirrored what two main characters did throughout the show in which they kept playing tricks on other characters to get themselves deeper into the case and find the “whole” truth. By episode 8-9, I started to not believe what’s being said and done because I knew in a few scenes, they would show a completely different version of the story than what they led you to believe. Once you realize the trick, there’s no going back. What’s sigh inducing about it was that the story itself was such a simple one. Just another cliche cover up story involving powerful people. A simple murder case turned out to be much bigger kind of story. You’ve seen this many times. Bad guys might as well have name tags saying “I’m guilty”. Although, there were some twists along the way but by then, the show already burned through too many false twists that I wasn’t moved or shocked. There simply isn’t much going on in this world they created to warrant 16 episodes which seems like a common K-drama problem. Also, I must say that what took place in Han Ki-won’s house at the end was probably the most cringe worthy scene in TV history.

As for two main characters, they went way overboard to fulfill their respective nut job roles. Dong-sik has the crazy laughs and bulging eyes with red eye make-up to go along with it. I’m guessing he was channeling the Joker??? Joo-won, of course, has to be the opposite so, naturally, he has no emotion and social skills. He basically sees suspects everywhere and flat out asks people if they committed the crime!!! It’s hard to go along with any of this because their motivations and backstories were not disclosed early on. I was constantly wondering why they were acting that way and put off by their strange behaviors.

The secondary characters did fairly well. I liked Chang-Jin, Jae-i and Ji-hwa. Chang-jin was a stand out as the former gangster turned CEO/killer/Russian quipping all around entertaining guy. Ji-hwa was great as a childhood friend turned detective who’s basically only calm and settled character in the show. I’m liked Jae-i as the sad deli owner but felt like she disappeared towards he end.

Music in this show was atrocious. What’s the deal with the weird crying/wailing music? Once again, another cheap attempt at creating a creepy, uncertain atmosphere but off putting.

Like I said, it’s not a bad show but it could have benefited by cutting out 5-6 episodes to make the story tighter and not waste viewers’ time with cheap tricks. Viewers are not as dumb as some of these writers seem to think. Just give us good stories and we can figure things out by ourselves. Hopefully, they’ll learn.

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Not so lovable losers - the most unsatisfying liberation.

I’m writing this as I’m watching the episode 16. It’s so bad that I couldn’t wait to review it.

I think the writer was hoping that somehow, we would connect with these people. We can either empathize with these characters or identify with one of them blah blah…

I’ll just make it short. The main character has no character. She’s dull and ultra passive. She basically doesn’t speak up at all and her dull personality was, of course, pushed to such an extreme that my blood would boil. She also wears gray and beige exclusively just to make sure we visually understand that she’s dull and depressing. Her siblings and parents are losers as well. It’s so frustrating watching them going through their lives fumbling around. Nothing endearing about them. I could go on and on.

In the end, nobody got liberated from anything. The most unsatisfactory liberation ever.

I’ve seen some bad k-dramas but this tops them all.

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Cliches and secrets central

I guess I saw where this was going from the first episode but i figured it was ok since the premise was new and unique. So the show wants to tell us to slow down and be kind to ourselves by doing what we want to do. The main character always wanted to learn ballet and finally decides to go for it. While at it, he touches younger people around him, especially, the young ballet guy, Chae-rok. Of course, as this is a K-drama, we find out that he’s diagnosed with the Alzheimer’s and doesn’t have much time. Sigh.

The good.
- Thank God for the absence of a love triangle.
- I loved the main character. Basically, he’s really the only one that was fleshed out. He’s gracious and easy going. Character traits I typically don’t associate with Korean men.
- As mentioned, I really liked the message even though I doubt hyper-competitive Koreans would ever change. Also, is it even possible to slow down and enjoy life in Korea?
- I gained a new appreciation for ballet. But is ballet any popular in Korea?
- I loved seeing Na Moon Hee. She’s almost 80 and she’s still doing her thing.
- I’m glad the main character achieved his dream but I wonder what real ballet people think about the old guy learning ballet so fast that he was able to do a solo/duo performance.

The bad
- Its annoying that once again, this K-drama writer resorted to secrets and miscommunications to push the plot forward.
- Keeping the Alzheimer’s hush hush made no sense as the affected person becomes a danger to himself. Let’s see how it goes attitude by his family and Chae-rok is absurd.
- The yellow haired kid’s victim mentality went a little too far, especially, when he started physically harming Chae-rok.
- I’m surprised that Chae-rok’s dad went to prison for corporal punishment in Korea.
- I’m not sure if there were any meaningful growth in characters. People were changed with little motivation. Just kinda happened.
- The entire time, I wondered what made Chae-rok special in ballet? They imply that he’s special but you never find out why. He’s way behind his peers at the beginning and you don’t see him getting anywhere.
- Young people in this show (except part time jobs at restaurant) don’t seem to need any job to survive.
- Main character’s family doesn’t add much to the show. They’re just cliche characters and represent different stereotypes.
- Please don’t let your elderly with the Alzheimer’s wander around alone. This keeps happening throughout the show.
- I feel like the show started strong but like most K-dramas, they had to take things too far once they introduced the Alzheimer’s angle. Please figure out a way to make things interesting without pushing things to the realm of absurdity. Lazy writing never works.

All in all, it’s a shallow, predictable story with enough cliches to fill up your room but I didn’t find it terribly except for the bit about how the characters handled the reality of the Alzheimer’s.

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Middle school romance played by adults

After a few more episodes in, this show is rapidly turning into a major disappointment. Besides my initial concerns listed below, every characterization and plot decision has been childish and terrible. I am getting so tired of back and forth between Jang Uk and Jin Bu Yun. It’s like a middle school romance being played out by adults. So cringy. The infamous Hong sisters are famous for not knowing how to wrap up story threads and it was evident toward the end of the last season. They obviously gave themselves an out by doing a time skip without much explanations and we’re just supposed to go with whatever.

Every episode, I see either Jin Mu or Lady Jin, I’m reminded of their crimes and how everyone knows about it. But they treat these two like some annoying neighbors instead of treasonous criminals. All they can do is take shots at them and make sarcastic remarks. So stupid.

Initial concerns:

What bothers me is how Jin Mu and the Lady Jin are still around even after all they’ve done. Like they kidnapped the queen and swapped her body??? Maybe they’ll explain later but that’s a big plot hole to start the new season with. But what I’m thinking is that by keeping the same villains intact, they’ll recycle the same plots and schemes? I hope not. I initially thought Jang Uk and Jin Bu Yun will take a while to meet but they met right away and ended up “getting married” right away. Anticlimactic, it was.

I also wish they just picked up where they ended. We shall see how this goes.

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Great potential ruined by terrible writing

Update after the ep. 11.
All I can say is that this is such a terribly written show. Plots are all over the place. Like I said before, story gets made up as the show continues on. The fight scene between two Bulgasals at the well was so ridiculous and it proves my point. There were some cringey dialogues leading up to the fight which was expected and I actually liked the way Hwal tricked Eul-Tae so he could stab him in the chest to disable him. AND THEN!!! As Eul-Tae is basically crawling away, Hwal just stood there watching him instead of putting him in the well. He just stands there and the next scene somehow takes place way outside the enclosure. Let me remind you that Eul-Tae was basically disabled and crawling at that point. Sure enough, Eul-Tae gets away with a new revelation about their past that’s more convoluted than before. Infuriating!

Also, it’s like the show forgot that Si-Ho was Hwal’s wife and Hwal had feelings for her earlier. Maybe something else will come out of it but not likely since they’re pushing the romance between ML and FL. And why the hell are they pushing this romance?!?! It makes no freaking sense. The only thing that came out of it was the weird relationship between Si-Ho and Do-yun. Is it mother- son attachment? Bro-sis? There’s a weird tension there that seems inappropriate considering their past lives. Maybe that’s why they made her “pregnant”.

I was hoping the show will get better but it’s going the other way.

Original review after ep. 5.
I love Asian ghost/monster hunt genre so I was intrigued and excited. The first couple of episodes were pretty decent but between terrible and robotic dialogues and clumsy way the plot progressed, I started to get concerned.

Once the story fast forwarded to the present, the concern became real. The twist about the twin souls was pretty good at first but it was basically just a convenient plot device. In fact, to me, most of settings and characters seemed to have been made up along the way when the writer ran into any logical deadlocks. I’m not sure if the writer put a lot of thoughts into characters’ conversations and how people would react in certain situations and what impact those actions/reactions would have later. As if whatever sounded good at the time was just written without much thoughts and some other plot device was invented to cover up the logic gap later. Well, you get the point.

What my wife said about the show perfectly sums it up. She said “this show depends too much on people’s stupid actions to move the story forward, especially, the female lead.” I’m really hoping it will get better so I can give it a better score.

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Shame of an ending.

I didn’t know Koreans were/are great at fencing and that it was even popular there?

I’m just going to focus on the last two episodes since everyone knows that the first 14 episodes were great. Well, there were some ridiculous coincidences like Hee Do and Yu Rim turning out to be online chat buddies and Hee Do’s mom and her coach being old frienemies. Sigh…

Anyhow…. What happened to this show at the end? Did they change the writer for the last 2 episodes? Once Yi Jin, who was just a local news reporter and not a FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT!!!, was sent to New York, the story went down hill fast. I’m willing to overlook this small point to focus on something more grave.

I get that he was sad and depressed in New York but it was never really explained why he wanted to stay in New York. I get that the writer wanted them to break up but it was such a lame and cowardly way to force a break up. Especially, if Yi Jin was having such a hard time there but they want us to believe he wanted to stay in NY? To hide? Because he wasn’t thinking clearly? Then he came back after 6 months and tried to be wishy washy about breaking up???

When Hee Do lost her diary, I just knew it would somehow end up with Yi Jin. And, sure enough. Sigh…

I really hate that they ruined Yi-Jin’s character at the end without any meaningful explanation just to break them up. He was upbeat and he was a fighter. I get that the writer had a message in mind but this turn of event didn’t seem like it was planned well as if he was forced to change the way it happened at the end. I feel like this break up could’ve been more meaningful. Even till the end, the writer was holding us hostage while we were hoping they would get back together. Ugh… Oh, well. They just couldn’t leave well enough alone. What a shame.

So, everyone, your childhood friendship and love, really don’t mean much. Just move along.

K-drama writers love surprises that are not surprising. Not even remotely clever.

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Just way too much of everything

So my first thought was about what kind of messed up society Korea must be that they made a drama like this??? A lot of K-dramas seem to insert some type of social commentary here and there but this show brought down the house with it. I get it. From what I understand, the lack of any meaningful laws against juvenile crimes is a serious problem over there. But the problem is that the writer and/or director took everything to such an extreme, you basically get numb to it all.

Here are some of my thoughts after finishing it. Mainly about the main character, really.

1. Main character should be likable or at least relatable. They failed at this completely. Kim Hye Su is basically an emotionless robot who’s not afraid to proclaim her hatred for juvenile criminals.

2. Can’t comment on Korean justice system but based on the show, it’s pretty loose. Anything and everything is basically allowed.

3. The main character is a judge except that she also investigates, chases people down to arrest them all night and shows up to work early. She goes to creepy parts of the city at night looking for bad guys alone. She has no fear and she physically recovers like she’s an anime character. Toward the end of the series, she gets a serious beating and stabbed in her arm. Instead of going to an ER, she somehow goes back to her office to confront her boss… with blood gushing from her arm and all. What’s funny is that her boss actually tries to patch her up without calling an ambulance. I don’t think she eats, either. Can’t make this up.

4. Not only she’s a judge, she’s always right. In fact, she is so right, part of her MO is to make her superiors kneel and admit that she was right all along.

5. The last episode was so nuts. You need to watch to believe it.

6. The way Korean and its people are being portrayed in K-dramas, how accurate is it? It’s not flattering how violent and shallow normal everyday people are in these show.

7. It’s as if every scene, every conversation and situation was designed to hammer us with lessons and overwhelm us with emotions. Its just too much. Let the viewers read between the lines and give us some room to breathe and feel. We’re not idiots. We just need a nudge. Constant onslaught of what I should learn and how i should feel completely failed to connect with me.

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Show about nothing but at least it’s cute

Predictable and loaded with cliché. I would love to see how pitch meetings go for shows like this. It’s been done a million times and you can see it coming a mile away. It’s mainly about two grownups acting like middle school kids not knowing what to do with the opposite sex and being awkward. This happens a lot in K-drama and I seriously wonder why. But here, it’s kinda cute and inoffensive.

I do find two male leads being passive aggressive pretty annoying after a while.

The main male lead suffers from the sudden-silence syndrome where he can’t say anything intelligent or intelligible whenever he’s being misunderstood and/or accused. It is a common disease among a lot of K-drama characters. They portrayed him, in the beginning, as someone who’s rigid and inflexible but that kinda went away and he became indecisive.

The second male character so far has no storyline other than making snarky remarks to the main guy and generally making it difficult for him to be with the main girl.

The female lead is great. She basically is everywhere and does everything. Most importantly, she’s likable. I do wish she was a bit forthcoming and assertive when it comes to the male lead but then we wouldn’t have a show. She’s a cop but mainly spends her time doing everything except her cop duty. It’s kinda funny.

We’ll see how they end this show.

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Communication hell

First two episodes were cute and funny. Then, the plot got progressively uncomfortable because of main leads’ glaring communication issues. This really is a common plot device used in Korean shows and it, once again, reared its ugly head here.

ML is passive and immature. FL is passive aggressive and has trouble telling the truth about how she feels. Then you throw in their friends who are either clueless (ML’s) and negative nellys (FL’s) and their respective parents with their own prejudices and issues, you get a train wreck of wedding planning. The title is pretty accurate.

Don’t get me wrong. What they’re going through is understandable. It’s stressful to get married but their struggles didn’t get all the way relatable for me. Like the FL being stressed to match the $80K dowry from the ML’s family and buying a $10K watch as a present for the ML. I found it to be a super first world problem in an elitist way. Well, I guess everything could be categorized as first world problems. Another reason for not relating to their problems was because I almost felt like they deserved their heartaches caused by their own shortcomings. I stopped caring about them after a few episodes.

Before I end this, here’s a PSA for Korean people. I feel like this is a real issue in Korean society. Korean parents and children (that are adults, especially), please go on your separate ways. Parents, let your adult children go. Stop interfering! Stop guilt tripping them into being your little children forever even after they marry and have their own children. Korean adult children, your parents are done raising you. Stop depending on them for money and directions in life. You’ll thank me later.

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Directionless and incredulous show with a psycho mom

The show started out pretty good. Initially, I figured the show would be about a prosecutor on a path of revenge or a path of corruption that took away his father’s life. Either way, both interesting. Then the accident happen which was an unexpected twist that could’ve made things more interesting.

But once Kang-Ho came back home, the story devolved into a bunch of country bumpkins acting like fools. There’s no clear direction and the writers just randomly tossed in every known K-drama cliche such as family car death, major illness and unnecessary misunderstandings. All happening at once! Once country bumpkins take over, we see less and less of two villains who are much more interesting. They’re wasting so much time adding incredulously improbable plot lines during Kang-ho’s “recovery” process, it’s gotten hard to watch. The show constantly switches from comedy to cringy drama trying to make you cry.

What really gets me about this show is how Kang-ho’s mom comes across. I get that she’s had a hard life but she’s an absolute nut job! The way she treats Kang-Ho is way past child abuse and she should be jailed for it.

Speaking of child abuse, how Min-Joo lies to her two kids about their father is a next level psychological abuse. How will they recover from this?

We also cannot forget newly discovered ways to treat quadriplegic people. Starve them so they can use their own hands and then throw them in water so they can start walking. Someone actually wrote this crap.

Who else is so sick and tired of the main character losing her crap every other scene?

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(Manufactured) Story sadder than sadness…

So if the current state of the world isn’t enough to get you down, you found the right show. I was very much looking forward to this ever since it was announced. The possibilities seemed endless with such a stellar cast. Like, they put everybody in the show. But sadly, we were given sob stories after sob stories. I understand that Koreans are sickly obsessed with sad stories but, really? Just go watch the news. To make things worse, stories were so manufactured and phoned in, it was hard to have any empathy for anyone. Nothing seemed organic at all as if the writer wanted to one up the last scene and storyline. Let’s see how many different sad stories we can tell in one show! And all of that happen to just a handful of people who all know each other!

To be fair, not all plot lines were created equal. I liked the first story where Cha Seung Won played a desperate dad who wanted to vicariously achieve his lost dream through his daughter. It got frustrating watching him stubbornly hanging on but all in all, it was a nice start. The other standout was the high school kids’ story. Their storyline was a bit jarring and came out of nowhere but I really liked how Hyun didn’t give up on his unborn baby and ultimately convinced Young Joo to keep the baby. But her sudden change of mind happened a bit too fast in my opinion.

I’m a huge Shin Min Ah fan but she was terrible here. She’s just not an emotional actress, sad to say. Maybe Seo Hyun Jin would’ve been great for this role. She needs to stick to happy roles where she smiles and laughs. She couldn’t give us a convincing crying scene even if her life depended on it.

I don’t think other storylines were even worth mentioning. Some side characters were better than others but nobody memorable.

I think I have 5 more episodes to go. We’ll see what happens.

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What were they smoking?

I don’t know what they were smoking but must’ve been good for them to come up with this. The main characters seem like they’re pretty well known and for them to be in this show, they were smoking something good, too.

I’ll get to the main story later but this show is mainly about watching two nutty and not so bright women acting crazy. They spend a lot of their screen time sneaking into places and hiding. They’re always in danger of being found out but they somehow get away and it’s mainly because of dumb luck. You get to see them standing around with their mouths open in shock. Like every other scene shows their dumbstruck faces at something or someone. After staring at their open mouths for about 5-7 seconds, the show finally let you see what got them so spooked. Sometimes they’re pretty funny but mostly absurd. Completely unrealistic behaviors do get repetitive after awhile. It’s hard to root for them when they act like such idiots. However, I do have to give them major credit for committing all the way. Professionalism at its finest.

So the main storyline started out as your typical alien abduction stuff and it followed. that formula pretty well. There’re flashbacks, bright lights, levitation and little green dudes. You see the main character collecting old articles about UFOs and missing people, etc. It’s strongly implied that the main character came into contact with aliens in the past. She runs into her middle school friend while looking for her lost (ex)boyfriend and the absurdities start. Then, after a couple of episodes, you kinda lose sight of the plot watching two women doing crazy stuff and next thing you know, it’s become a show about a cult. Huh? But then, hey, why not?

The side characters, especially, Bora’s friends are atrociously stupid and useless. They’re cartoon characters and it’s infuriating to watch them doing their things. The worst of them all is the skinny dude with long hair. You know which one and why. The muscle man isn’t much better but at least he knows how to drive. Speaking of, what are the chances of only one person being able to drive in a group of 5-6 adults? Is this for real?

I must say, this was one of the most frustrating shows I’ve ever seen but also one of the most interesting. I see some reviewers calling this show “misunderstood”. Maybe. But otherworldly absurd behaviors propelling the story forward isn’t good.

I see three huge faults of this show. First is that the main character isn’t smart enough to navigate the complex world of cult and go up against a cult leader. Second is that the writer also isn’t smart enough to keep up with all plot holes and inconsistencies. Third is the main character gets less and less likable as the show goes on because they pushed her stupidity and craziness to such an extreme.

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Shaking my head

Started watching Korean dramas on Netflix during the COVID pandemic. Some were pretty decent but most shows ranged from ‘meh’ to ‘um...what?’ But this show topped them all as far as ‘what the ?!?! is going on?’ department. So much so that I’m actually writing a drama review for the first time. For your info, I’ve watched up to Ep. 15 or 16.

I’ll just write down a list of my comments/thoughts/questions I had while watching the show to keep things simple.

1. I’ve never not liked both female and male leads but wow! They assigned the FL to be sheepish and the ML to be hotheaded and goofy. Ok, I’m ok with that but they turned up the unrealism dial all the way to 100. It’s so hard to like them and root for them because they’re cartoon characters.

2. So basically people act crazy and ignorant because they’re all just country bumpkins. Very convenient. I see why they chose a podunk town.

3. The ML can’t control his mouth and fists? He’s on live TV and starts beating up a suspect? He’s a cop? He got reassigned but still can’t control himself?

4. Is this a Rom-com, drama or murder mystery? Every couple of episodes, they shake things up.

5. I still can’t get over the fact that they introduced a serial killer and s/he is after the FL? What?

6. Side characters like the landlord and the kid’s dad are absolutely unnecessary. Could have cut at least 6-7 episodes easy. Also, the girl that blackmails.

7. It doesn’t matter who it is, the FL has time for them all. She’ll eat/drink with male characters no matter how badly they treat her. She tells them to leave but still ends up eating/drinking right after. I guess that’s because she’s sheepish.

8. So the serial killer resurfaces but only the country bumpkin cops are investigating. No Feds getting involved?

9. The serial killer breaks into FL’s business multiple times but everyone seems to forget that he’s around. Nothing major gets done. Very nonchalant about it. Episodes come and go but it’s like they’re investigating a missing dog case. If someone’s after my life, that would be my #1 priority and I would get everyone and everything involved but not the FL.

10. I don’t think the writers bothered to do any research on dementia at all. When you first meet FL’s long lost mom, she urinated on herself. Then she seems pretty normal except that she’s a bit crazy.

11. I’m getting a sense that whenever they run out of drama, they bring up the serial killer.

12. My wife just asked “so how big is this small town?”

13. A famous pro baseball player keeps coming around in his Audi but I guess nobody notices this

14. Now everyone’s suspected of killing the blackmail girl. Ridiculous.

15. The town bullies are nice to the FL all of a sudden because she wore a red dress?

16. Oh, now we’re supposed to feel bad for the Instagram wife.

17. FL keeps doing stupid stuff and asks why her fate is so mean to her or something like that. It’s called bad decisions. Not fate.

18. This show has something against men. Men are portrayed as idiotic, weak, greedy, insecure, spineless and/or hotheaded.

19. Would you hide your dad if you thought he was either an arsonist or serial killer?

20. So now the FL’s mom doesn’t have dementia. Her idiot daughters the only one who fell for it. So hard to like this woman.

21. They keep introducing new side characters that are irrelevant. Trying so hard to drag the story along. Sigh.

22. The FL just walked into an abandoned shopping mall with the entrance chained shut. She knows she has a serial killer after her. These people are cartoon characters.

23. The FL’s way of dealing with her bratty son is to just appease him. She breaks up with the FL because her son is turning into her? What??? Maybe the writers never had kids of their own or they have bratty kids themselves?

24. Show runner: Ok, now we found the serial killer but we still need a couple more episodes... I know, let’s have the FL dump the ML after all he’s done! Brilliant!

25. Er... so now the bratty son is the narrator of the show? He’s all grown up? What?

26. It’s like this show had 3 different writers taking turns to write different episodes without reading what the others wrote.

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