I started this drama because I was missing Kim Min Jae. Yep, that was the reason I decided to give this drama a chance. The plot didn’t particularly sound appealing but I’ve been so lost in the Chinese historical drama world that I decided that this Korean drama could be a welcome change while still feeding my hunger. LOL IKR WTF WAS I THINKING. I thought that with Min Jae, I could make it through anything, even if I didn’t make it through Goblin, Hit The Top, or Tempted. Mmm maybe he picks shitty scripts? I dunno. Add Seungyeon as the lead and I thought at the very least, the acting would be decent because they’re both very capable young actors. Thus, I set out on my journey with this drama.

While I didn’t find the first few episodes to be atrocious, I did find them a tad boring and not like what I thought this drama was supposed to be. That being said, I wasn’t immediately turned off and kept watching. This was also due to my innate need to be petty and continue this drama because all the Seo Ji Hoon stans were mad that Min Jae was the lead. Ji Hoon did look sexy as fuck as the locksmith, so I can understand.

However, after those first 4-6 episodes………..

I have said previously that I am a fan of messy plots as long as they are entertaining. The problem here isn’t that it is necessarily a messy plot, but rather something that manage to be stagnant and arduous. There was the overarching theme/storyline that we know is there, but we’re riddled with so many other things that even though it all connects, I am just left with a feeling of why should I give a fuck. And sure enough a fuck I did not give. It sucks to say, but this is straight up fifteen episodes of buildup with a shitty unsatisfactory payoff. The tensions of the political aspect was never felt. I never felt like there was any fear in anything and I felt that maybe the writer wanted there to be more than sixteen episodes? There was this idea of “a marriage case per episode” that I found interesting, but then that disappeared. It was like everything was expected to be serious and not serious. But honestly, that is to be expected considering they literally had a scene where they played ‘It’s Me (Pick Me)’ and the women were ‘auditioning’ to join the crew.

I am having a hard time figuring out what the saving grace for this drama is. A part of me wants to say it is the romance, but I am not completely convinced. Like in the moment the scenes were all great and romantic, and I think it was due in part to the chemistry between Seungyeon and Min Jae, but it wasn’t particularly memorable. I also didn’t like the constant miscommunication between them. To me, it was so contradicting to see Gae Tong, not just tell Ma Hoon, “Yo! I wanna be a noble lady for my brother, not Soo!” I know that she didn’t tell him sooner cause she thought he would send her home, but like that was definitely contradicting to what we’ve seen of her personality. Oh silly me, I forgot that women become timid, fragile, babies when we fall in love.

Since it’s not the romance then surely it must be the characters, right? RIGHT. Yeah no.. Definitely wasn’t that at all. While everyone did a good job with what they were given, I cannot stand dramas that try to come off as modern and progressive with their female characters because that ends up being the complete opposite. We have our female lead who got coerce into this marriage with her childhood sweetheart simply because he was there and like family. She then moves on to fall in love with a guy who was nice to her, maybe four times. There was Ji Hwa , who honestly could’ve been so much more than they designated her to, and I even thought they were going to do that, but talk about zero character growth. And of course, the Queen Dowager was a moron and the palace maid who died for no reason, but to increase Soo’s man pain. I won’t give a thesis lecture on the issues with the portrayal of the females in this drama, but like if you wanna be tropey, stick with being tropey and don’t try to do something else because it comes off as insincere.

I suppose now we’re left with the music and I mean, that was about as expected. A few songs stayed in my mind after each episode, but that’s because of stockholm syndrome. After completing all sixteen episodes, I just felt relief that it was finally over and maybe I can see Min Jae and Seungyeon again in something else.