The Glory Part 2 (2023)

Intense, gripping, enormously satisfying...a must-watch!!

For anyone who has been on the receiving end of bullying and oppression, and would love to see their oppressors get what's coming to them, this is the series you'll love. It's a hard watch, especially the beginning which sets the stage showing Dong Eun's history of being bullied, which was really being tortured at the hands of classmates. Planning and preparing for years, the remaining storyline is about what she sets into motion to seek her revenge. There are twists and turns, additional characters and secondary storylines that add layers and complexity to the main plot. It will have you on the edge of your seat as you watch episode after episode. You will be shocked, be angered, be scared, then be relieved only to have the story take you through all those emotions again. It was quite a ride, and well worth it. I think it's the best Kdrama of 2023 so far.

The production was top-notch from start to finish. The cast were perfect in roles that could not have been easy to portray. Kudos and applause to both cast and crew for this outstanding series!!

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A rather unsatisfactory revenge

Let me first talk acting:
• I think a lot of the actors/actresses acting made me embarrassed in this second part, where everyone was shouting for no reason at times, or laughing hysterically in place where they are supposed to convey emotions.
• The female lead generally has one facial expression. I know that the character of Moon Dong Eun our female lead, doesn't have much reason to be happy in life but there are different flavours to acting than just staring plainly in every scene.
• The male lead (which was completely unnecessary and a character just created to add romance where romance wasn't necessarily needed) only knew how to act cute, even in front of Dong Euns enemies he can't help himself but act cute.
• That said both main leads need acting classes.
• The supporting actors were far more better, for example Kang Hyeon-Nam played by Yum Hye-Ran, the housewife with an abusive husband had more acting skills than the two of them combined.

Onto the storyline:
• I hated how slow it took, it took 8+ episodes for the revenge to really start off and when it did it was terrible slow.
• The villians forget to use their thugs when it comes to the female lead, Park Yeon-Jin who has killed twice does not even try to kill her even when she threatens to bring her child into her revenge plan.
• There was more chemistry between the FL and Park Yeon-Jin husband than between the male lead and her, and they didn't even intend to happen.
• I found the female leads mother to be a bad actress, her acting was exaggerated and didn't feel real enough.
• The plot twist of suddenly turning Park Yeon-Jin husband into a killer just so that the drama summarizes does not make sense, what we know of his character is that he is an organized businessman, someone who uses his brains and not his fist.
• The script writers were extremely lazy on that one.
• I recall the FL promising to kill Kang Hyeon-Nam husband in exchange for her help, but the poor woman had to do it herself, she promised to help teach her child and she does that, but instead she sends her abroad and tells the mother she can't go with her.
• If I also recall, the FL had abundance money at the end of the show and since they were done with revenge she could have let her meet up with her daughter.
• The shaman story wasn't properly concluded, they were never exposed by the public so young girls will still be fooled into going there. The FL knew but I guess it wasn't her buisness since she's not part of the revenge.
• The female lead just had so much good luck in her revenge, people from all sides kept popping up to help her. Where were all these people many years ago?
• The ML dropping his whole life to help her didn't make sense when he barely even knew her. That last speech of ML mother saying FL saved her son was... strange, because it's been him helping her in her revenge, funding the revenge, stalking her to join he revenge even when she was but a stranger.

Did I regret watching? No
Would I rewatch this? Also no.

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Not the best but definitely not bad

The story set up was really good from season one. I was looking forward to the revenge execution. First off, how did Dongeun manage to save so damn much money. There are too much plot holes like ...What happened to Soohee's case? How did Jaejun didn't know about Meyongo's ipad in his own car? How come Yeonjin easily agreed for a procedure in the dr Joo's hospital, it was like the story was going the way it is cause the writer wrote it that way. How did Do yeong know those thugs who worked for officer Shin? It felt like everyone knew everything. When Yeonjin found out about Mrs Kang I thought something interesting was coming up but Yeonjin was stupidly betrayed by her cause she was just verbally and casually threatening her. Things like how Dongeun know the mother of the guy Hyejeong was going to marry? How did Joo's mother know where Dongeun was and she happened to reach at the perfect time to save her? Who is the lady at the shrine in the end? Wait, that naked boob job scene was so unecessary. If you use your brain a little you'll understand it's the writer's world you're in not anything as near as realistic.

Things I liked are....Doyeong's unconditional love for Yesol even after knowing the truth. How everyone turned blades against each other, lol it was so fun to watch....that lady Dongeun saved....and the actors' and actresses' acting. It was a good watch but I won't rewatch it.

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The actors and actresses all did well in this drama. I just had a problem with the storyline. I don't know where the writers got their idea to write this script. I mean the main lead, Song Hye Kyo character Dong Eun was very cunning and slick to avenge her family's murder. That part of the storyline I did like. The part that bothered me was that the police didn't believe anything she said when that murder happened. It reminded me of the Law Enforcement officers in the United States, most don't believe what the Black and Brown people have to say. I learned that through experience. In the storyline, if the investigating officers believed her as a victim, she wouldn't have gone through all the sneaky and cunning ways to get revenge. The writers did a great job in writing Dong Eun's schemes. What I did get out of this storyline is a Mother will do anything for her children. I loved the house of Choi Kang Ho played by Lee Do Hyung.

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Well...I guess it was better than season one?

Well this season was a bit better than the first one I suppose, but it was still more on the boring side to me. I don't know why, I just didn't feel as hyped and immersed as many other watchers in the plot nor the characters and at some point I became more interested in ML than FL.

Most of the villain characters were kinda one dimensional to me including their leader Yeon Jin, I liked Jae Jun the most among all of them (I loved all his outfits. Personality-wise he was the most realistic, and to be honest, he is really hot lol that mullet hairstyle fit him well). I was a bit surprised by how he instantly became all affectionate towards his daughter and acted like an actual father when he realized she was his child. Also most of them constantly cursing and acting as vulgar as they can was cliché as hell, they were all cartoonish evil at some point.

One is a selfish drug addict who swears more than she breathes, one is a gross and perverted thug who supposedly likes the slut, one is a pure evil bitch, one is a dumb slut that is into the narcissist, and the last is a narcissist who pretends to love the evil bitch. (I seriously found the addict, thug, and the slut gross as fuck as characters, not because they were bad guys, I do like some evil characters more than main ones at times when they are well written, but the way the characters in Glory were written was gross and lame to me, got tired of seeing them instantly, the actor and actresses done pretty good though acting-wise)

Another gross character is that male teacher with heidious hairstyle who liked to bother the FL, he was a pedophile, and gave massive sexual offender and incel vibes lmao why did he exist in first place?? Yes it's okay to show these things in dramas to raise awareness about such problems, but we didn't need more drama and fillers in the plot, not literally everyone needs to be a piece of shit and harass the FL.

Besides what was the point of the scene where the slut/Hae Jeon takes off her shirt and shows off her boobs, now she indeed has nice boobs and I'm all for nudity and mature content/graphic and kinky sex scenes in dramas/movies, but when they have a point and serve the plot. Some examples about what I'm talking about are A Frozen Flower, Call Boy, The Naked Director, and . All these movies/dramas had nudity, graphic sex scenes, and even BDSM stuff but they never felt gross or odd cause they helped the plot a lot and were the focus. Some of the scenes were even hot and enjoyable.

Here this scene was just for shock value and that's it (Netflix just love to fill shows with pointless nudity and sex scenes out of the blue, that even includes animes), so it made me a bit bothered, I really like this actress and I know she was a member of SNSD/Girls' Generation, which all made me even more uncomfortable having them make her show her chest out suddenly.

If the actress is fine with it, that's the most important thing, but I just don't like it when they use women naked bodies and private areas for "artistic", shock value, or fan service purposes (Yeah I know they also do fan service with guys, but they mostly show their abs and upper half of body which aren't private areas, sometimes they show their asses which isn't that big deal to me, but they never show their dicks at least). If this was a drama about mature romance, porn/sex related jobs, sexual crimes (Like the movies/dramas I mentioned earlier)...etc then I wouldn't care even if they literally show someone's dick or vagina, but it's not so why?

Yeon Jin's husband was a boring character, he just existed. Like he literally realized his wife is a cheater, sociopath, murderer, and liked to do heinous stuff, yet he still didn't instantly divorce her. Like really?! Who cares if she is his wife or his daughter's mother, such a woman shouldn't be out on streets, let alone raise a child (Yeah, I know he also did something bad at the end, but well Jae Jun earned it in a way).

That middle aged woman who helped FL in exchange of getting rid of her husband was stupid as hell, grew tired of the melodramatic sub-plot about her and her daughter pretty quick. Yes domestic abuse is an awful thing, but I just couldn't get into it in the drama. One good thing about her is that she knew her daughter didn't have any fault at what happened and she shouldn't pay the price for her mother picking to marry a shithead.

The romance between ML and FL...I didn't feel it at all. First it was quite clear that ML is way younger than FL (I mean the actors, I know their characters supposedly are of close ages in the plot, but it was still clear that the actress is way older than him). Well, it's not a big deal as long as both are adults I suppose, but wish they made them fit more.
The ML tried his best to play the obsessed, loving boyfriend role, his acting was pretty good and convinced me.

The chemistry though was barley visible to me. Even when they said "I love you" to each other, the FL seemed dead inside and ML was trying hard to make it convincing, but it didn't work. They should've just made them partners in crime/revenge and that's it instead of the forced romance that didn't really fit with the overall plot. I know they added it cause they are obsessed with adding romance to everything and maybe to have the FL be less lonely and more humane, still when it comes to horror, thriller, psychology, action, sci fi, and crime genres it's better to not add any pointless romance that might effect the plot negatively. It's fine when it helps the plot, but not when it doesn't.

Honestly I couldn't help but think that the ML and Yeon Jin's husband wouldn't give two fucks about FL if she wasn't pretty...it's her beauty and mysterious vibe that lured them into falling for her charm, then since ML is a bit of a psycho himself (And it's clear from the fact that he latched to FL too much even though they didn't interact that much or long to begin with, too much that his mother knew he would kill himself if FL dies and had to chase after FL to make her get back with him, that whole part made me dislike the romance more).

He became even more into her since he realized they both had serious mental issues and dark past, so basically put two utterly broken and suicidal people together and make them a couple since misery loves company, that is a toxic concept lol they both need serious therapy sessions instead. Making your whole life revolved around someone, and if that someone breaks up with you or dies you kill yourself as response, it's creepy and sad, not romantic. I personally have experience with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts so I know damn well this type of shit isn't the best solution/cure.

Yeon Jin's husband liked the intelligent and serious aura of FL, she is quite different than his materialistic, fake, and shallow wife.

Anyway it felt the plot was trying so hard to be as complicated and dark as possible, and the characters were supposed to be as disturbing and smart as possible, but everything fell flat. Everyone were either evil, or self-loathing and mentally crippled. I couldn't like the FL, yeah her story is sad, although they tried to make her a bit overly tragic by adding her mother being a scum as well, like we get it, she is miserable! But I still couldn't like her. I just couldn't like any of the characters that much.

Only interesting thing about the plot is that it's inspired by a real case in South Korea and that's it. The scene when that shaman died due to that girl "ghost" made the plot more stupid to me. I thought they were trying to be more on the realistic side, why add supernatural elements to it?!

The ending was well...happy? Everyone bad got punished, everyone good kinda got revenge, FL and ML supposedly will live happily ever after, yet it didn't feel that happy nor greatly satisfying yeah, it was just depressing and cliché, I guess that fits since the plot is overly gloomy anyways.

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I think it gets worse...?

I feel like this show started out strong and with a good idea but (imo) it slowly went downhill.

I’m such an empathetic person so watching the first episode was very hard, however I was intrigued enough so I persisted.

All of the flashbacks to Dong-eun’s past made me so sad for her and to hear her cry out in pain and just see the burn marks that remained on her skin for life was truly devastating. How messed up would you be if that actually happened to you!?

I just want to know what the real motive for abusing her was. I get that kids bully others to make up for their own insecurities, but this was horrific violence! And the fact that Dong-eun wasn’t the first victim? Why were these kids torturing innocent classmates? I mean, they displayed psychopathic traits but I don’t believe that’s what they truly were as they did show other emotions.

It’s really sad that Dong-eun’s adult life has been planned around getting revenge, but I guess if she didn’t there wouldn’t be a show about it lol. However, it does seem like an awfully long time to wait around to get ‘revenge.’ Practically 20 years! And then for Dong-eun to suddenly confront and talk openly with her past abusers and they don’t even lay a finger on her? If these four bullies truly hated her (for whatever reason) wouldn’t they have just killed her now? In the present?

I have to add that I feel very mislead by the clip Netflix provides as the trailer. I thought it was going to be about Dong-eun carrying out her revenge on the children of her perpetrators. That would have been far more twisted.

I LOVED the part where Dong-eun got her mother committed! Oof I was like, ‘in your face, bitch!’

That was so sad in episode 14 when we saw So-hee fall from the building whilst she was on fire.

Some anomalies I noticed were:
* In the flashback, Jae-jun and Yeon-jin made Ye-sol, and immediately after Jae-jun said something about Yeon-jin’s upcoming wedding to Do-yeong. In the present, Yeon-jin has been married to Do-yeong for 10 years so are we expected to believe that Ye-sol is 9 or 10? I swear they said she was only 8 at some point, but there is no way she is that old! So yeah, the story doesn’t add up there.
* Can someone tell me why Yeon-jin is in prison yet she has eyeliner on? 😂 it’s very minimal but it is definitely there lmao

Towards the end it became very apparent that the writers were trying to make Dong-eun and Yeo-jung have some kind of love story but… it was non-existent. We arrive at the final episode and they just kiss? Like, what? It just seemed so out of place when this drama is trying to represent a dark and twisted revenge scheme. We did not need that at all. I was simply here for the revenge.

Revenge we got, but it didn’t seem all that powerful to me. Myeong-o got killed so he didn’t suffer. Hye—jeong lost her voice which could come back. Yeon-jin ended up in prison (we don’t even know how many years) and she will be released one day and didn’t experience any physical harm?

I don’t know, I feel like the the revenge should have involved more harm and pain inflicted on the perpetrators, like what was done to Dong-eun. The only revenge I felt satisfied with was Jae-jun and losing his eyesight, but then Do-yeong pushed him into…wet cement…? And he drowned? Honestly, it was unclear to me - maybe I was just losing focus. I guess I am happy that Do-yeong got to play a part in Jae-jun’s downfall but I would have liked to see Jae-jun suffer eternally like Dong-eun had intended.

Because there were so many concurrent storylines, I feel as though it is likely that I missed some information or answers to questions that I had throughout the show.

I think all of the actors did a brilliant job, especially child and adult Yeon-jin. It was quite compelling to watch her character go crazy and then fall apart. It was funny when Sa-ra tore her down with the video of her bullying the other girl when they were in high school.

I thought the music was matched well to the scenes, and I particularly liked the rapid staccato on the violin. That was especially eerie.

I probably wouldn’t bother recommending this to anyone, but I’m glad I gave it a go.

-E

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It’s good I guess ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

I have a tangled mix of thoughts and feelings about this show. Overall I think it’s good, and it’s extremely watchable (I binged Part 2 in three days). I’ll attempt to do a pros/cons list.
Pros:
- the writing is overall pretty solid. Dong Eun has quite a few iconic lines of dialogue, and a lot of the character interactions are interesting. The plot is generally well paced and moved quite quickly, which helps keep you engaged. Part 2 delivers on quite a few things that Part 1 sets up, so that’s good. As a fast paced thriller you do need to suspend your disbelief, but that usually just comes with the the territory.
- Dong Eun = A+ protagonist. I love that there is no hand wringing about whether she should get revenge, she is allowed to be dark and go all out on these awful people. Song Hye Kyo does an amazing job portraying the character’s quiet strength but also vulnerability.
- The acting all around is very good. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for Im Ji Yeon, she was truly a memorable and extremely hateable villain. Yeom Hye Ran also gave a great performance. The younger actors were also fantastic.
- Cinematography was excellent.
Cons:
- The romance. It’s so confusing how it just did not work for me. I don’t know at what point in the creative process the male love interest came in, but it felt tacked on. Which is odd, because it doesn’t seem like late addition: the character has an important role in the story and has his own backstory. A big problem might be the fact that the actors have no chemistry, which once again is odd since both of them are good actors. I’m having trouble explaining this, so I’ll use an example: the first time these characters say “I love you” to each other (I hope it’s not a spoiler to say that these two characters say this to each other at some point) they say it in the most bland way, in a scene where it doesn’t feel totally appropriate and there’s no real inciting event to cause them to say it. I don’t know, it seems on paper like this romance should be good but in reality it just didn’t work for me.
- The male love interest has some good lines of dialogue and his backstory is somewhat intriguing but it just never landed for me. Maybe they built too much of a puppy dog image of him initially that I just really had trouble taking him seriously. There’s also just way too much focus on him. In one sense this is a good thing, so he’s not just a one note character and serves no purpose in the story, but the last episode of the show is largely dedicated to him when this is Dong Eun’s story! I just thought that was silly.
- The violence and nudity seemed really gratuitous. I’ll once again use an example to help illustrate my point: there is a good portion of one episode where Hyun Nam is abused by her husband. We already know by this point her husband abuses her, and the scenes were so long that I was questioning why on earth we were still on this plot point when there seems like plenty of plot we needed to get to. The repeated instances of nudity and violence seemed unwarranted and like they were there for shock value, and I found it off-putting.
- Oh also the fact that this was clearly a normal 16 episode show split into two parts just annoys me on principle.
That’s mostly it. Like I said, I think objectively the writing is pretty solid, and I appreciate the unique angle on a revenge story. But the “romance,” main male love interest, and the gratuitous violence/nudity really lowered my opinion of it.

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Slow start, rewarding middle and deserved end

The Glory's part two is unarguably better than Part 1. The unravel of the story, the way every vengeance is planned and executed is extremely calculated. Also, I couldn't see other end if not the ending of Dong-eun's life, however in the last episode the series proved to be a little humane in letting her live and love. Although the last episode was interesting to watch, I think it could have followed the original premise of a cold hearted Dong-eun or else "warming" her heart throughout the episodes. Episode 15 was the best in my opinion, as it displayed the consequences of the perpetrators' actions.

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