LilMeggs
San Jose, CA
This review may contain spoilers
Short and sweet, I really liked this drama. It was one that has been on my list ever since I saw the trailer pop up on Netflix, and I would say it exceeded my expectations far beyond what I thought.
I thought this was going to be a cute romance between a mother and her daughter's tutor, but instead ended up being about finding first and true love in your mid to late 30's (I assumed that is their age), about the high expectations that society and parents put on students to be the top of the class, and about chosen family (one of the only times I have seen a non-traditional family in a korean drama).
We need to normalize/have more dramas with mature adults who have their shit figured out (even if they don't have everything figured out, they are confident in the basics). There have been so many instances where I have watched a drama about two 20-somethings, and they make dumb decisions because of dumber reasons. Whereas in this drama, the ML and FL have a set of personal morals and stick with them throughout. Their morals are challenged, but as the characters evolve and begin to understand what is most important to them in life and what they want to fight out, only then do their morals change, for the better.
I was also surprised that this drama hit me as much as it did - me being a single female with no kids, but still trying to put myself in our FL's shoes, trying to understand what it would be like if I had a child and they were going through everything her daughter was. How frustrated I would get whenever the "mom squad" would show up on screen and gossip and plot how to get their child to the top, even if it meant starting scandals about their child's classmates/friends.
This drama definitely hit the feels.
I would say the only thing that made me not give this a perfect 10, was because of the whole serial killer side plot. They did a good job of blending it into the main storyline and plot, but I feel like it didn't hold any weight. The only person who seemed to be stressing about it was the lawyer because she had to deal with it directly, but even when her part in the murders is "resolved" she moves on to her next controversy. I felt like everyone and their mom was fine with this serial killer going around and murdering students and teachers who were linked to Pride Academy like it was a normal Tuesday. And the way the serial killer was ultimately caught and how that whole side plot was "solved" was so anticlimactic... that it was never mentioned again and everyone moved on like there wasn't some person going around murdering people and was in the middle of kidnapping one of the mains. There was only one person who seemed to grieve, but even that was a short minute or two until a whole different subplot was introduced.
The last episode was super random as well, with the introduction of a separate last-minute plot. I would have rather watched an episode or two of the main characters grieving and healing from this serial killer who targeted them and kidnapped one of them, with the intent of killing them. Instead, we get a random subplot that made the daughter act super out of character and was honestly not needed. I understand it was a way to introduce what the FL wanted to do after her daughter got into college, but that could have been introduced in a completely different way.
Other than that, I liked it. Everything else was great and I binged watched the whole thing in 2 days.
I thought this was going to be a cute romance between a mother and her daughter's tutor, but instead ended up being about finding first and true love in your mid to late 30's (I assumed that is their age), about the high expectations that society and parents put on students to be the top of the class, and about chosen family (one of the only times I have seen a non-traditional family in a korean drama).
We need to normalize/have more dramas with mature adults who have their shit figured out (even if they don't have everything figured out, they are confident in the basics). There have been so many instances where I have watched a drama about two 20-somethings, and they make dumb decisions because of dumber reasons. Whereas in this drama, the ML and FL have a set of personal morals and stick with them throughout. Their morals are challenged, but as the characters evolve and begin to understand what is most important to them in life and what they want to fight out, only then do their morals change, for the better.
I was also surprised that this drama hit me as much as it did - me being a single female with no kids, but still trying to put myself in our FL's shoes, trying to understand what it would be like if I had a child and they were going through everything her daughter was. How frustrated I would get whenever the "mom squad" would show up on screen and gossip and plot how to get their child to the top, even if it meant starting scandals about their child's classmates/friends.
This drama definitely hit the feels.
I would say the only thing that made me not give this a perfect 10, was because of the whole serial killer side plot. They did a good job of blending it into the main storyline and plot, but I feel like it didn't hold any weight. The only person who seemed to be stressing about it was the lawyer because she had to deal with it directly, but even when her part in the murders is "resolved" she moves on to her next controversy. I felt like everyone and their mom was fine with this serial killer going around and murdering students and teachers who were linked to Pride Academy like it was a normal Tuesday. And the way the serial killer was ultimately caught and how that whole side plot was "solved" was so anticlimactic... that it was never mentioned again and everyone moved on like there wasn't some person going around murdering people and was in the middle of kidnapping one of the mains. There was only one person who seemed to grieve, but even that was a short minute or two until a whole different subplot was introduced.
The last episode was super random as well, with the introduction of a separate last-minute plot. I would have rather watched an episode or two of the main characters grieving and healing from this serial killer who targeted them and kidnapped one of them, with the intent of killing them. Instead, we get a random subplot that made the daughter act super out of character and was honestly not needed. I understand it was a way to introduce what the FL wanted to do after her daughter got into college, but that could have been introduced in a completely different way.
Other than that, I liked it. Everything else was great and I binged watched the whole thing in 2 days.
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