Interesting exploration into marriage without intimacy, before nosediving into absurdity.

This series took an interesting look at marriage and how things can break down over a lack of communication and intimacy.

Considering how things went for the two couples profiled in this, I thought their marriages had reached the point of no return. Makoto's wife was more interested in her career than having a family, and in turn denied him emotional and physical intimacy.

And Michi's husband did not want kids at all and rather work a mediocre job and play video games, while at the same time denying her emotional and physical intimacy for more than two years. In the mist of all that he decided to physically cheat on her with his colleague and had little remorse for it until she (Michi) started to pull away from him.

Makoto and Michi became emotionally involved due to their loveless marriages and ultimately divorced their spouses, but break up with each other after the divorces. Still they continue on with their lives. Makoto working on growing his career and Michi doing the same, but also learning how to stand on her own. I thought the story ended in a good place at the end of episode 10 and should've stopped there. I didn't understand why another episode was needed.

Imagine my surprise when the main couples spent all of episode 11 ignoring what had destroyed their relationships in the first place, some of which were things that could not be overcome i.e. one person in the relationship wanting kids while the other didn't and extreme selfishness by one party in the relationship. Only to get back together in the end.

It was good to see Michi try to work on herself. Thus, it was extremely disappointing to see her reunite with Yo just because he told her he loved her. SMH. Very elementary and immature of her. This guy never worked for their relationship, except when that work would result in him getting what he wanted from her. Their relationship was never about them or even her. It was always about him. Moreover, he was unambitious, emotionally stunted and extremely selfish. In no way a match for what she envisioned for her life. It made absolutely no sense that he'd suddenly decide to leave the coffee shop and open his own. Honestly, I don't know how the shop he was working for stayed in business when there was never any customers in there.

This had to be one of the worst series I've ever wasted time watching and it was all due to the ending. I honestly had no investment in Michi and Makoto. I didn't care whether they ended up together or not.

However, I did think enough had been shown to logically conclude that both of their marriages were irreparably damaged and that they needed to move on. What a cop out to have them a) still interacting with each other, not just their exes, but the exes of their former "lovers" and b) to have the suddenly realize they belong together and reunite with their spouses. It made no sense whatsoever. Overall, the only good thing about this was the acting, which was actually pretty good. That aside though, this is not a series I would recommend and is obviously not worth a rewatch.

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Ready Set…Should’ve Been So Much More Than Love

This started off like it was going to be light comedy built around a love story with all the bright set colors and silly incidents with the FL. But once the story started to unfold I found that there shouldn’t have been anything light and fun about this series. Or if there was going to be comedy it should’ve been used to lighten the story when it got too heavy.

The premise of the show was interesting and original, but the writers failed to do a deep dive on the themes they were throwing out. For whatever reason the birth of boys had severely declined. We are never given a reason why or even if research was being done to determine why they were rarely being born. As a result of this decline, there was a shortage of men in the world, so the government’s response was to essentially hold every boy that was born hostage at “The Farm”. They had this national reality game where women would compete to marry a man , but then we are told that’s just a scam and the marriages don’t actually happen.

It seemed as if TPTB were forcing the men to be with women whom they chose, for the purpose of…we’re never told why? The assumption was also if a girl was born, she was allowed to be out in the world and free. It was said that some women’s son’s were stolen from them and taken to The Farm if the they failed to comply with the law in giving up their sons. And those women would then be drugged and imprisoned. But if all men were held hostage at the Farm, who was impregnating these women in the outside world?

So again, it wasn’t clear what the government was hoping to accomplish with imprisoning boys at the Farm and marrying them off to what appeared to be wealthy families. As previously stated, this show had an interesting concept. There were many social commentaries at play ie “fake” vs “real”, population decline, human rights just to name a few.

With all the other more pressing story threads going on the love story was really irrelevant. And at times it seemed as if two shows were being explored within one, but the writers didn’t know how to merge those stories into a coherent show. The leads looked good together and had nice chemistry. It was sweet that they got their HEA but it seemed so out of place within the context of the story, much of which was not properly explored.

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A Compelling Journey of Peril and Perseverance, Abandoned for a Ridiculous “Love” Story

Started off as a brutal look into the struggles in immigrating from North Korea. The journey was tough to watch as Loh lived off the grid with his mother in China while she worked to raise enough money for them to escape to some European safe haven. Things don’t go exactly as planned when they are discovered by the Chinese police and his mother is killed while they’re attempting to flee.

Loh makes it to Belgium but continues to encounter some very difficult hardships. Though his encounters with the locals always escalating to violence, on their part, was heavy handed and unrealistic, his struggles for work and warmth and a roof over his head were authentic.

The part where this story goes off the rails is with Marie. A woman whose rebellion against her father over the death of her mother involves doing drugs and being the pawn of a Belgium gangster. It’s not love at first sight with these two being that she steals his wallet, which has all he has left of his mother and what little money he earned from her death. But soon their lives become entangled when she promises to get his wallet back and gives him a tip which results in a job.

There’s nothing more to their love story except a shared meal over which they didn’t talk but spent the entire time stuffing their faces, but somehow they came out of that being deeply in love, with Loh willing to do everything from OD on drugs, face off with gangsters and risk his ability to gain citizenship to save Marie. It was utterly ridiculous.

The movie seemed to have spent more time on the “love” story and Marie’s drama than on what should’ve been the focus of the story, Loh’s journey to freedom. In the end he finally gets citizenship in Belgium and in a voiceover states that he faced “many storms to get there. It would’ve made for an excellent story if we’d actually seen it. Instead his story became about saving Marie, then giving up his citizenship to go be with her on some island in the South Pacific. Needless to say I was left a bit perturbed by this waste of two hours.

I will say the Korean actors were great in this, but the premise advertised is not what this turned out to be.

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An Ambling Story of Glory

This show started off interesting even with the typical cliches of the leads having met in high school years before and one having a crush on the other. In the beginning I was concerned that the story would spend too much time on the ML training the FL on gaming but thankfully the show pulled back from that as the series progressed.

The leads are attractive, most especially Yang Yang who is beautiful. They had nice chemistry and looked good together, but the story just wasn’t there. The gaming training provided some story as did the conflict that arose when one of the leads wanted to date while the other didn’t. Then it was just episode after episode about the everyday boring minutia of one of the leads lives. Seeing this had nothing to do with the overall story and was time wasted on nothing. This went on until the leads finally got together. Then when they got together the story was over. The series was basically about the leads happily dating without any conflict.

I can appreciate a show not going the typical route of interloping exes or people who never dated the leads but think they are more deserving of their love. I can appreciate a series showcasing a healthy and loving relationship. However, they didn’t need 32 episodes to do this. Most of the episodes was a hodgepodge of poignant moments in the mist of meandering story threads. Honestly there were no story threads. In essence this was boring.

The writers could’ve done a lot with the FL being a famous actress/singer and the ML being a Aerospace Engineer, but they squashed any story potential in the first few episodes. I will say the writers/directors and actors did a good job making the coupling of the leads believable. They actually kissed, hugged, slept together etc. they acted like adults in a romantic relationship which ironically enough is oftentimes not displayed in these romance dramas. But that was about the only thing that was really good about this series.

With the lack of conflict and story, this series could’ve wrapped in 10-12 episodes rather than 32. But more importantly this series is not worth watching.

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A Foursome of Friends strives to be Fabulous in the Fashion Industry

This is a simple, yet engaging series that gives a peek into Korea’s fashion industry. What holds this show together is the friendships between the four leads. They’re all 20 somethings either working to find or maintain success in the fashion industry. Their friendship is endearing as they support each other through their triumphs and struggles.

The career storylines floated between the monotony of the day the day for those working in the fashion industry, but also spiced things up with demanding celebrities, strategic failures and business relationships overlapping with personal entanglements, which resulted in a few awkward situations.

The love story at the center of the series was okay. Woo-min and Ji-eun were certainly cute together and the will they won’t they had some entertainment value, but I honestly didn’t get why Woo-min broke up with her in the first place. I enjoyed their friendship more than their romance. The storyline with Ji-eun’s boyfriend (Nam-Jin)then ex-boyfriend, then boyfriend again was one of the worst plot contrivances I’ve seen in a while. He broke up with her early in the series. It wasn’t just a break up, but what he said to her during the breakup. He was cold and condescending. He basically told her she wasn’t good enough for him. Then not even a week after he breaks it off, he’s desperate to get her back because he realizes she’s “different just like he suspected.” Ji-eun takes him back because she wants to “make it work.” Why? Is beyond me considering what he said to her when he broke off the relationship and her not seeming to be all that into him in the first place, considering she cheated on him with Woo-min. It was obvious their reunion was solely to stall the ship that was Ji-eun/Woo-min, which is not unheard of in a romance drama but this was poorly written.

The storyline with Doo-young was pointless. The character and the stuff he got up to was only there to fill out the hour of the episodes. I get what the writers were trying to do with him, show a character’s initial entry into the fashion industry as the other characters already had some type of established career in the industry. But though the actor was cute, he did not have the face or charisma that made him becoming a model believable. Moreover, he was meant to be comic relief but more often that not he was too chipper, and just annoying. Lol.

I liked Seon-ho the best. She was tough, yet could be vulnerable. She didn’t take any sh*t from anyone. I like that when her successful modeling career started to wane she was proactive in thinking about what was next for her professionally once her modeling career was completely over. What was disappointing was the writers backed off this story thread having her miraculously revive her modeling career after being blacklisted. I think it would’ve been more interesting had we seen her go all the way in exploring a new career away from modeling.

The eight episodes were just enough, and really I think they could’ve tightened the storylines and stopped at episode 6. This is a fairly entertaining and feel good series. If you’re looking to watch something that’s light with basic storylines and minimal drama, you might like this.

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Tried to be risqué, but failed

The idea of a guy whose secretly into S&M finding a Master at his job could have been an interesting setup for a hot and steamy story about pleasure and pain, but this was just bad.

How it was discovered that the ML was into S&M was so contrived. Why would he have a submissive collar delivered to his job when he lives alone? The FL suddenly becoming curious about S&M and thus willing to be a Master seemed random, considering she’d never participated in or been curious about such behavior before. And though she was interested in the ML had only just met him.

The leads had no chemistry whatsoever, and the S&M scenes were tamed at best. The office storyline was boring and many of the scenes between the ML and FL were silly. The best thing about this was looking at Lee Jun-young’s pretty face. He’s an attractive guy who has talent. He can do drama and comedy well, but he could not elevate the material here. Neither could Seohyun, who is also a very good actress.

Going into this I knew that the chances of it being good was going to be a long shot because Korean dramas just don’t do well with risqué material or anything involving a couple being sexual with each other. However, I watched because I like the actors and thought the synopsis sounded interesting. Unfortunately this was a fail.

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The Past Outshines What Should've Been An Intriguing Present

There seemed to be a crisis every episode with this series, especially during the present day. The historical storyline from 1500 years earlier was way more interesting than the present day story. The present day had promise until the ML became possessed, then he spent most of the series walking around with an "evil" look on his face, brooding about why he was delaying in completing his mission in killing the FL. That got old fast.

The leads had nice romantic chemistry in the historical storyline. Perhaps due to the kind of star-crossed lovers aura and thus angst that embodied their love. Strangely the present day version of them lacked the same emotion and connection.

I found myself mostly fast forwarding through the present day storyline because it just wasn't that interesting, so that I could continue the story from the past. But once the story from the past finished, circling back to where it left off in the first episode I just couldn't garner the interest to keep watching. So I stopped.

If this was only a historical drama I think it could've been really good. Would I rewatch what I did watch? No.

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An Incoherent House of Potential

It’s difficult to give a coherent review on this one because the story was so disjointed. So in short the Fuma who are apparently an ancient Ninja group of Japan wants to remove those who are currently in power to install their own puppet master to do their bidding. What that bidding entails is never explained. But then in order to reach this goal, they kill a bunch of innocent people and are fixated on some ancient scroll that details the genealogy of the Hojo clan. The belief is that as long as they have the scroll they will succeed in their goal to rule Japan. Again, we are given no history on these clans and ninja groups. Some things are implied but never explained.

We spend several episodes on Haru and the reporter investigating all the mysterious deaths and disappearances only for the reporter to become irrelevant halfway through the series.

In the final battle the Tawaras are fighting the Fumas and are about to lose the battle when a group of ninjas whom we’ve not heard of or seen, show up to help them out. There were many story threads not fleshed out, that didn’t make sense or just there it seemed to fill time with no connection to the overall story.

The actors had strong performances in this, and there was the potential for a good story but it just wasn’t well, written.

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The Princess, the Hot Werewolf and their Strange Kingdoms.

This series had some fun moments and a cast that played well off of each other. However, if you look beyond the surface there’s not much to this series. The premise was strong. A king from a beastly kingdom needs a princess from a human kingdom to save his life and subsequently his people, with the requirement of love between the savior and the one to be saved being included in this very cliché story setup. For this reason, the beastly king kidnaps the princess and off the story goes…well sort of.

The show spends a lot of time setting up the relationship between Qi Pan and Kui Mu Lang, but not much else. We only see Qi Pa’s kingdom very briefly before she is kidnapped and there’s no insight into how the kingdom works who is on the royal court? Is there a royal court? Who are Qi Pa’s friends etc. We see her parents who of course want her to find her soulmate and that’s it. After she is kidnapped we don’t see how her kingdom is dealing with the kidnapping of their princess, only the royal guard looking for her when it becomes convenient to the story.

In the Beast kingdom, we do learn why many, not all, have beastly features, but beyond that, no insight into the inner workings of the monarch and the society it serves. Kui Mu Lang, the king, only has one right hand man and apparently no royal guards as people can access the palace grounds and the king (and Queen’s) quarters at will, to do nefarious things. Kui Mu Lang had powers but apparently no one else in the kingdom did. This was never explained. Did he have powers because he was the king? Or did he have powers because it was convenient to the story? Additionally, there were individuals who tried to kill the king numerous times, but when caught received a punishment of planting trees, copying the laws of the kingdom numerous times or no punishment at all. Odd.

Moreover, though the beastly city appears to be your typical Chinese kingdom, Daxia which is Qi Pa’s home seems to be a mix of modern experiences and historic Chinese customs. For Qi Pa mentions haute couture, makeup sets, high heels, having jet lag etc. while still dressing, for the most part, like a princess from the 16th century. Very strange. Additionally, when the audience did see the palace grounds for Qi Pa’s home, there was no one around. Just her and a couple characters, who seemed to only be around to prop her relationship with Kui Mu Lang. When she returned after going missing, there were no scenes of her reuniting with her family and when she decided to return to the beast kingdom, she did not inform anyone, but left her kingdom without a word.

There were a couple of antagonists in this series, Kui Mu Lang’s brother (Jing Mu) and some mystery man. Both spent the series failing at their nefarious schemes while Jing Mu whined like a 2-year old about no one paying attention to him. The endgame of their nefarious schemes wasn’t revealed until the last episode and even when revealed it still made little sense considering the mysterious man spent most the series mustache twirling and vowing to make Kui Mu Lang pay while Jing Mu whined.

Despite the storyline and world building for this series making absolutely no sense, the actors did the best they could with the material and seemed to have fun. Chen Zhe Yuan was pretty hot and looked good with Wu Xuan Yi. All of the couples had nice chemistry and worked well. With the leads being most interesting together when Qi Pa was interacting with Kui Mu Lang in his wolf/beast form. The series had a few really good scenes. Specifically, when Qi Pa and beastly Kui Mu Lang were arguing or angsty and there were some scenes that were funny. However, overall, the story was a disaster and execution just okay. Would I watch this again, nope. But I wouldn’t say it was a complete waste of 30 hours due to the actors being fairly charismatic which made the series, at times, entertaining.

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CSI Meets Crime Solving in 16th Century China

A disfigured woman is shunned by society due to her “ugly” looks and knack for reading the dead becomes a lead investigator in unraveling a myriad of conspiracies in the town of Heyang. The cases and her investigative methods (along with the help of her love interest, the ML) were interesting as were the layers surrounding the crimes that revealed a bigger conspiracy.

Even better was the big conspiracy was simple, yet intriguing. However, in the last 10 episodes the story started to lose steam. The episodes begin to drag and spent too much time on story threads that were boring or made the main story thread more complicated than it needed to be.

Though the leads were passible as a couple, they looked good together. I actually preferred the ML with the original actress who played the FL when she was scarred and “ugly.” They had good chemistry and I liked the idea of the FL not being this raving beauty. When the storyline called for the FL’s face to change it took several episodes for me to warm up to the new actress in the role. Moreover, when I did warm up to her, I begin to find interest in her interactions with the SML. I liked the potential that was their relationship. It was too bad that there was no chance for them to explore a romance considering their natural chemistry, which wasn’t quite there with the ML.

The acting was good from everyone. Both FLs were the strongest actresses out of the younger cast. The actor who played the ML struggled, at times, when he had to get emotional. The “love” story was anemic at best. I think the leads worked best when they were in that mode of distance and “sexual” (though there wasn’t much sexiness going on. lol) tension rather than when they became a couple. Some of their “romantic” interactions were awkward. I think because their chemistry was mediocre at best.

Thankfully the series didn’t spend much time on their “love” as the focus was on solving the conspiracies at hand. The show started off really good but meandered towards the end on unnecessary storylines. The story could’ve been tightened and completed in 18-20 episodes, rather than 32. That said, this was worth watching. Is it worth a rewatch? Maybe.

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A Bloody Hand of Fate Facilitates Love

The story starts with a bloody hand molesting the face of the ML. We later learn it is a curse stemming from some indiscretion in his past life. This made for an interesting start but the story wasn’t as intriguing as expected. This series turned out to be your typical K-drama romance with a bit of sorcery thrown in.

The leads were the saving grace of the series as all the storylines were somewhat messy. Rowoon and Bo-ah Jo looked beautiful together and had wonderful chemistry. Their characters, Shin -yu and Hong-Jo, not only had great chemistry and thus were believable as a couple but were interesting on their own. Shin-yu was smart, funny and caring. And Hong-Jo was passionate about her work, fun -loving, vibrant and intelligent. They were a perfect match as their bickering had just as much chemistry as their kisses. They had some really hilarious moments, but could also be passionate and loving with each other. Moreover, they both, at times, could be annoying and make really stupid decisions but still remained likable.

Though for a while there was the question as to whether Shin-yu’s feelings for Hong-Jo were real or due to the love spell she had cast, it was clear to me that he had an interest in her before a spell was even thought about. The love story in the present was well written and tied nicely to the past, but the story struggled with incorporating the side characters in an interesting manner. The office bullying and romance was boring as was the drama with the SFL. The corruption storyline could’ve been better, but played as if the writers needed something to fill the minutes not focused on the leads.

The stalker storyline would’ve been okay if the story had been better written, but the series implied that he was practicing sorcery. However, it was never apparent whether his spells worked. Moreover he was an individual who was apart of the leads’ past life but his role in their past life was never tied to the present. This was a missed opportunity and a major plot hole.

I did enjoy the budding relationship between the ML’s mom and his BFF. I didn’t need to see them start a romance, and they didn’t. Thank goodness. But I liked the confidence he inspired within her. It’s too bad she decided to stay with her verbally abusive husband instead of divorcing him.

Despite the weakness in some of the storylines, I enjoyed this series. Rowoon and Bo-ah Jo were fantastic in this. I could feel the happiness, the heart break and the love between their characters. This was all due to them giving their all in every scene. Their characters had some awesome hugs and smoldering kisses and one of the best sex scenes I’ve seen in a K-drama in a while.

This show was far from perfect. Nonetheless it was enjoyable and one that I will rewatch.

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Little Substance, Save for the Beautiful Eye Candy

Not much going on with this series except the hotness of the ML. Lol. I did like how he was immediately attracted to the mousy FL, but the storyline was somewhat ridiculous. The FL’s mom is running a modeling agency and tricks her into becoming the ML’s manager under the guise that he needs an interpreter. Mind you she’s never been a manager in her life. She is a teacher, but somehow she’s able to be the ML’s full-time manager while also being a teacher. SMH.

She lives with her grandparents. With her grandmother being a sweetheart while her grandfather was just insufferable. The way he constantly scowled and was so overbearing was annoying. When he was having his health crisis, I was hoping he’d kill over rather than live on, that’s how annoying he was and a hinderance to what little story was happening in the series.

The ML’s storyline of moving to Thailand from the U.S. in search of his sister was questionable. There was no explanation as to why he and his sister were living on the streets in the U.S. and an even bigger question, why his sister was white, blond-haired, blue-eyed woman. Of course, the ML had a shady past that was literally keeping him awake at night, but it was nothing that I cared to know about. Again, the story just meandered from modeling job to modeling job for him why he and the FL went through their push pull thing.

There was the required interloper or two who were inserted into the story to cause unnecessary and oftentimes silly drama. But again, there was no substance to the storyline. The ML (Luke Ishikawa Plowden) was stunning in this. He is a beautiful specimen of a man and was very believable as a male model. Probably because that’s his day job. ? Lol. Overall, this was just okay. Would I rewatch? Perhaps some scenes to see the ML shirtless and gazing longingly at the FL. Lol. But other than those shallow reasons, no.

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A Human Liar Detector and her Musical Genius Find Love In the Mist of Lies and Crime

This started off interesting. There were some entertaining “cases of the week” where the FL had to decipher lies from truth. I like how she used this “gift” to make a great living. I also liked the music business storyline with the ML (Dong Ha). Dong Ha, living a secretive life due to his shady past was quite intriguing as well.

It was nice to see him become human again once he moved outside of the city amongst people who didn’t know that he was famous and his relationship with the FL was cute. However, this series started to loose momentum about halfway through.
Though the ML/FL looked good together they didn’t have any chemistry. Both were kind of flat. Though Min-hyun is doing a good job at spreading his wings into acting, he needs more work in order to become a believable ML as there was hardly any charisma exuding from him here, and perhaps that was due to the lack of chemistry with the FL.

I was expecting more to happen with the ML’s life once things started to come to a head about his past but besides a few paparazzi snapping pictures of him as he left a hospital that was it. The media who’d been relentlessly trying to track him down at the start of the series seems to have gone on holiday. There was virtually no impact to his songwriting career. The mom’s burgeoning political career was thrown in for good measure to add drama that was essentially window dressing, but not much happened with that either. Honestly, I didn’t think that storyline was needed. It served no purpose except to try and make the audience think the ML had indeed killed his ex, when we all knew that was not where the story was going.

The FL skills did come in handy in clearing the ML’s name. But then once it was obvious, he was innocent the show went from somewhat entertaining to downright boring. They really could’ve tightened the story threads and ended this series in 10 or 12 episodes. Unfortunately, they took it to 16 episodes, with the last 3-4 being pointless. Those episodes were so boring I ended up fast-forwarding through most of them.

Despite the lack of story, the ending was nice. Those who are fans of the main couple will be happy. Is this worth watching? It’s one of those shows where I think viewers will fall heavily across all spectrums as to whether they liked this, hated it or feels it okay. This wasn’t the worst series I’ve ever seen, but it wasn’t really good either. Just okay. Would I rewatch. No.

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The Price for Heaven, is the fury that can be Hell

This was an interesting drama about cheating. The neglected cheater , the bored cheater and the indifferent cheater. All can be callous with their actions but the reasons for those actions can at times be understood.

This series took a realistic view at how easy it is to slip into cheating as well as how deliberate it can be. Though I don’t condone cheating I could understand why Ji-eun cheated. She was resolved to living the rest of her life miserable with her husband - Chang-gook until Jung-woo walked into her life and stirred an awakening within her. And how could he have not? He was young (her age) good looking and the first person I’m guess in ages who actually showed genuine concern for her. Considering the neglect she’d endured from her husband for three years in him refusing sex with her, showing what seemed like no consideration for her feelings at all and his over the top obsession with their pet birds, no wonder she instantly became intrigued with Jung-woo.

Chang-gook was an awful husband. Severely neglectful and completely inconsiderate of her feelings. I found him extremely annoying . His obsession with those birds made him insufferable, along with his intrusive mother who was more concerned about Ji-eun catering to her son, than them having a balanced marriage. Jung woo’s reason’s for cheating were less understandable, but it was easy to see how he got caught up. He had a savior mentality as evidenced by why he became involved with his wife, but with Ji-eun it went way beyond being her savior. He truly felt a deep connection with her which grew into love.

The chemistry between the leads was perfect. It started sweet and gentle, then evolved into this intense love affair. I enjoyed the push pull of their relationship and the progression of their connection, which became more soulful, deeper over time.

Though I could understand Ji eun’s decision to cheat , I had a harder time understanding Soo Ah’s reasoning. It wasn’t just that she was cheating with one man, she was cheating with multiple men until she found her “true wuv”. And in addition to this she was proud of her cheating and didn’t mind sharing her cheating ways with new women “friends”. Her callousness made it difficult to sympathize with her considering it wasn’t just her husband she needed to consider if she got caught but her children. When her infidelity was discovered her horror and realization at what she’d done was well done and realistic of someone who did care about their family but was selfish and reckless in their actions. However, I never completely bought her relationship with the artist and never thought it would work as they were at different places in their lives.

The focus of the series was on the leads cheating, but their spouses weren’t saints, save for Jung woo’s wife. Ji eun’s husband was behaving inappropriately with the intern and Soo Ah’s husband seemed to be on the verge of cheating with the rising female artist who worked for the gallery. So in turn everyone had wandering eyes and it begs the question what level of intimate activity with someone other than your spouse is considered cheating?

The love and the angst in this was well done as well as the fall out from the cheating. However, I thought the series became overly dramatic in the last few episodes and lost its way. It seemed like one of Soo Ah’s kids went missing almost every episode. Then after neglecting Ji eun for three years Chang-gook refused to allow the marriage to end and just like he’d always selfishly done, wanted to force her to bend to his will, what he wanted without any consideration for her feelings. That had been easy in the past as she was resolved to being miserable so she complied with whatever he demanded of her but in this situation she refused which angered and baffled him.

His ongoing fight to save their marriage was down right ridiculous. Same with Min-Young, Jung Woo’s wife. It was blatantly obvious that he did not love her, had no desire to be with her whatsoever and wished to end the marriage. He told her this flat out. But she was hell bent on forcing him to be miserable with her. The spouses initially attempting to fight for their marriages may have been understood but to dig their heels in and try and force someone to stay with you who absolutely doesn’t want to be with you made no sense. And seemed like drama for dramas sake.

The ending was predictable. I knew Soo Ah and the artist would never work out. I was glad that Ji-eun went off and found herself. She was happy living her life on her terms, which was significant growth from when we first saw her. Though she and Jung Soo didn’t runoff into the sunset, at least their ending implied that this was a
strong possibly.

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Revenge Served with Absolute Perfection

Sometimes with revenge stories the plot ends up half a**ed or it gets bogged down in some silly love story where the person wronged has an epiphany, and decides that revenge is time wasted. But not here.

I liked what Yeo-jeong told Do-yeong, that some people move forward from trauma with forgiveness while others seek revenge. In this case Dong-eun sought revenge and had every right to do so considering the torture she suffered.

Yeon-jin, Myeong-O, Jae-joon, Sa-ra and Hye-jeong were some of the most narcissistic sociopaths I’ve ever seen on streaming. They cared about no one except themselves. Nearly every decision they made, every utterance was about their desires, their life, getting what they wanted or humiliating and ridiculing each other or torturing those whom they deemed beneath them.

Dong-eun’s plan to take down these sociopaths was clever, and the execution brilliant. They were all such horrible people that all she had to do is be a catalyst for their destruction by simply nudging at their weakness. A couple of nudges and their houses of cards came crashing down resulting in them turning on and ultimately destroying themselves and each other.

There were so many great take downs in this series but my favorites were:

Dong-eun going the to visit the teacher who’d beat her for reporting abuse from her classmates. All she had to do was show up which set off a chain of events that cost him his life. It was ironic that
his prestige as a teacher was what led to his demise.

Dong-eun expelling her mother from her life forever. This woman was her MOTHER but she cared not one iota about her. And was an utter menace in Dong-eun’s life. She was almost as bad as Yeon-jin and her crew of bullies. So Dong-eun having her committed to an institution was needed and well deserved.

Yeon-Jin being abandoned by her mother. Everything done to her was sweet justice, especially her ending up imprisoned and now a victim of bullying herself. But her losing her mother who was always her ally, always cleaned up her messes, always supported and encouraged her depraved behavior was an absolute befitting reward for all the horrible things she’d done.

I really enjoyed Dong-eun’s intellect. She knew where to secure allies and how to use them. Moreover, she was always respectful to them and at times helpful. Which was a wonderful contrast to the bullies in this. They had people in their corner but were just as nasty to their allies as their enemies, which in part resulted in them having no one loyal to them when they most needed support.

What was great about this series is that the revenge was always driving the story. There was romance between the leads but thankfully it was sprinkled throughout the series and didn’t overwhelm the main story. And though I thought Dong-eun and Do-yeong had incredible chemistry, making she and Yeo-jeong look like two cold fish together, I was happy that their interactions were kept to a minimum as anything more would not have made sense.

There were very few moments I didn’t like in this, obviously the bullying and torture. I also didn’t like that they kind of left Yoo So-hee’s story up in the air. The audience knew what happened, but they rushed Yeon-jin’s arrest and made it all about M-Yeong-O’s murder with no more mention of Yoo-So-hee. I would’ve liked to have seen her deaf mom learning that her daughter was finally getting justice and also her daughter’s name being cleared in the media considering Yeon-jin had cried and lied on nationally TV saying she killed herself and implied that she was promiscuous by revealing that she was pregnant.

Overall this was a great series. One of the best revenge stories I’ve ever seen.

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