Strong start, but fails to follow through

What is a real shame about this show, is that it had the makings of greatness. I couldn't stop raving about -- and bingewatching -- the first few episodes. The plot was strong, the mystery kept me begging for more, and it set up various threads that I literally couldn't wait to see untangled.
But once you reach the halfway mark, and more specifically, once you get to about episode 7, the initial sense of enthusiasm quickly wanes. The writing becomes a mess and the potential falls through, never to be seen again.

Things that make the first impression so good and then completely unravel:

- The games
At first they seem pretty well-thought out and have you excitedly wonder if there could be a 'winning strategy'. However, as the show goes on, the games become lacklustre and by the end of the show the writers hardly seem to care about the games anymore. More time is spent on melodrama and the overarching mystery plot, and the games become an afterthought, with a rinse-and-repeat sort of pattern. The final games aren't even about lying anymore. (Most notably the Russian Roulette game and the Poker17 one, but arguably also the Border Patrol one.) And it quickly becomes obvious what the results of the game will be, even if you're not quite sure how they'll get there. (Nam Da Jung urges to all help each other, the odds are stacked against her team, but then Ha Woo Jin swoops in to save the day.)

- The characters

Strong female characters don't necessarily have to be physically strong or ruthless or highly intelligent in order to be a smart character. In this case, Nam Da Jung's strength as a character comes from her kindness. Except, instead of it being her defining trait, it becomes her sole trait, and it devolves into a ready-made excuse for a sort of naivety bordering on stupidity. She fades away into Ha Woo Jin's shadow and is utterly unable to think for herself. She becomes a very passive victim who undergoes the plot but whom the secondary characters grow to love -- I say 'grow to', but there is no proper evolution when it comes to this, they just do a total 180° between one episode and the next.

Kang Do Yeong who seems undefeatable gains most of his 'wow'-effect through the sheer stupidity of the secondary characters. Seriously, if you (re-)watch this show, pay special attention to it, and notice how none of the secondary characters have to think for themselves for a moment, and when they do, 95% of the time it's so they can fuck up and stack the odds against Nam Da Jung so Ha Woo Jin can have his savior-moment again. Kang Do Yeong's character is not very rounded. His backstory to become a villain is lazily written and as a villain he is fairly predictable.

Ha Woo Jin's actor is pretty good, but by the end of the show his character becomes a shadow of who he started out as. I have the least to say about him, because I really did like his acting, and compared to the other 2 mains and to the secondary characters, his character was the best of the bunch.


Long story short, they start off the show with offering a bunch of different threads and the unspoken promise that it's all going to lead to something more, but when it comes to actually following through, they leave half of the threads dangling, unsolved. In general, it's like they put in the effort to hook the audience in and then took the audience's investment for granted and couldn't be bothered to come up with more than a hand-wavey vague explanation for the unveiling of the backstory and the resolution.

The reason why I still gave 6.5/10 stars, is because I genuinely did like the first half of the show and Ha Woo Jin.

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