Mediocre. What a mediocre series. I have so much to say but I'll start with my headline.

What a wasted potential. I'm not saying she should have ENDED up with the villain because the way this was written, it would NEVER WORK. In order for it to be a good "Enemies to Lovers", it needed the villain to be the male lead so HE is the focus of the story. Some people will say they didn't like him and that is completely valid because he was written to be UNREDEEMABLE. If he was written to be LIKED, people would have changed their mind about him. All the writer needed to do was make him smarter, make the female lead smarter too in the way she spies on him, slow burn it a little and then build it up from there into his redemption or a anti-hero ending. Then you will have the greatest progression for a love story that is refreshing and not boring. And for people who hate villainous characters, I promise you, one story that doesn't conform to the standard isn't going to make all the usual romance in kdrama fade into oblivion. There is always wholesome drama that airs EVERY season. We are not running out of stock from those to watch. So there is no need to be agitated that people liked a bad guy as if there isn't thousand of dramas with cute good guys characters. There is something for everyone. For this one in specific, the enemies to lovers would have done it WONDERS.

Despite what I said, I have to say, this drama, even without the romance, was TOO MESSY. It started out good. The first 4 episode were pretty enjoyable but the writers decided to half bake everything else. Too many side plotlines that go NOWHERE. The story was BARELY moving forward. So many unlikeable characters taking the spotlight for no reason. I wish the male characters were more well put together. None of the male characters had more to their story than being useless (except the dad) and don't get me mentioned on the brother constant target for fatshaming. It made me roll my eyes. I thought his story would conclude well as a life lesson that if you fatshame your child, you can endanger their life which is a message I don't mind seeing depicted but then they kept showing scenes of him eating or just talking about food as if that's his only trait... it feels like even the writer didn't learn a lesson from their own storytelling.

Also the FL doesn't feel like a FL here. Her mom and grandma took most of the spotlight away from her. It would have been more enjoyable to see both mom and daughter work and plan together but still have the daughter as the MAIN focus. Instead, she got sidelined in her OWN story. She have all these super powers and abilities yet all of it disappeared in the other half of the story. As for the grandma, if she was the character who ALWAYS save the day when her daughter and granddaughter in trouble, she would have be a badass character.

As for the romance, it was BAD. What is the point of watching a romance drama where the male leads already in love by episode 4? Let's say, okay, we like the early romance because some dramas actually do them too... but... there is no build up? No confession leading up to being together? One day, they are together. They just throw a scene with both of them and hope they convince you into liking it. The kiss scenes are all randomly placed and the grandma have MORE of a romance storyline than the FL. People only like the romance because it's the male lead and female lead. Not because it's actually well written.

I gotta give it to Byeon Woo Seok's. His back must hurt from trying to carry this drama. The villain was the only interesting character in the show. I loved the FL at the start but like I said, she got SIDELINED SO HARD, there is nothing to say about her. I've made a character analysis of Ryushio if anyone's interested. https://mydramalist.com/729535-strong-woman-kang-nam-soon#comment-15450791

The villain got all the package. Good backstory, goals, ambition and was even soft to watch him when he wasn't being a menace to society. He progressed the story when nothing else was. They made him dumb in not figuring out the FL identity so they can extend this to 16 episodes but that can be forgiven because without it... OOOOOF. Would there be a story??? The villain is the best thing about this show. He brought a good amount of the international watchers. I was never going to watch this show if I didn't come across his edit. My sister also WASN'T going to watch either if it wasn't for these edits. There is too many good dramas airing to be wasting it on a mediocre one like this one.