DramaAjumma

With regards to Jun-won, in the early days he wasn't actively trying to be a pain in the neck and he was just stumbling around in the dark and came across as arrogant in his ignorance. But he was arrogant. But now, he is deliberately trying to push Dong-sik's buttons and challenging him so that DS gets fired up, doesn't completely fall apart and just keep plodding on until everything single deep dark secret of Manyang comes to light. Because he knows as well as the rest of us, that what happened with the finger-tips women was just the tip of the iceberg.

If anyone expects this to be a standard police procedural in which righteous, smart cops solves case after case following clues and the baddies get caught, you'd probably be disappointed. This isn't it.

The reason why some of us here think that this is a masterpiece or a work of art is because it reminds us of a really good bit of writing that plumbs the depths of the human condition. There is none righteous here. Just a lot of flawed, angry human beings stumbling around in the darkness trying to get to the bottom of things carrying their own scars, regrets and baggage. Because they're cops and know the law, it doesn't mean they act accordingly.

Plus I always appreciate what Shin Ha-kyun brings to the table.

Yeah. I have that problem too.

Which nowhere near the quality of this one.
It was disappointing especially when it was supposed to be a Luther adaptation.

I also highly recommend The Good Detective which was also brought out by JTBC last year. Really good stuff which also features a two phase storyline and two strong male leads. The banter between them is wonderful. It's one of the best shows of 2020 in my opinion. Like Beyond Evil it isn't strictly a police procedural and more about police officers as human beings. Netflix had it in their catalogue not long after its broadcast.

To be fair, Ju-won is written as a by-the-book OCD investigator. He's pain-in-the-neck rigid but seems to be softening.

I think he always suspected Jin-mook but he had no evidence. That's why he's curt to him especially when he visits his mother suspecting him of ulterior motives. It's in SHK's performance. He never entirely trusts Jin-mook but he probably never expected him to kill his own daughter.

Probably for tampering with evidence and doing all kinds of illegal things with police files etc.

Shin Ha-kyun in a stellar performance here brings to life every facet of Dong-sik. The darker tortured side balancing the sometimes cheerful even whimsical side. This is no super cop but a deeply flawed human being who wears the badge uneasily, walking on the wild side but there's no doubting that he is a man in search of answers. For me, the drama is worth the watch just for his wonderful performance. It's a fascinating study of what goes on inside his headspace as the audience alternates between doubt, sympathy and perhaps even revulsion.

Fortunately there's much more to this than just Dong-sik or a whodunit that cast long shadows over a 20 year period. Sure there's a home grown killer lurking about but this is more about the impact of crime on people. Individuals certainly but the community at large absolutely. Every time a body is buried it is a festering wound carried silently by the community that refuses to go away. Time doesn't help. Changing the landscape on the surface won't until the mysteries are unearthed one by one. So talk of redevelopment seems laughable when the town's biggest mysteries remain unsolved.

Perhaps it does take the outsider to shake things up. Ju-won is as much an unreliable perspective as anyone else but what he does have in spades is resolve. He has his own baggage but in an unlikely partnership with Dong-sik, they are both able to gradually dispel the dark cloud that haunts Manyang.

Kudos to JTBC for bringing us this gem of a psychological thriller. There are hardly any action sequences in this but the conversations, interactions keep one on the edge of one's seat. It is for these kinds of stories that I continue to tune into Kdramaland.

Shin Ha-kyun is a veteran of the stage and screen. He's amazing. Absolutely.

This isn't just a gender flipped version of Kairos. Whatever that means. Please. Kairos isn't exactly the first drama or K drama for that matter to use this dual timeline device to change past events. Remember Signal? Here both leads are journalists with a connection undoubtedly but this involves political conspiracy and corruption in high places. It has an entirely different context to Kairos even while having a police procedural backdrop.

For me this is one of the best K dramas currently airing. It's tightly scripted and there's so much psychological depth to the characters. The cat and mouse dynamic between the leads really throws up a number of ideological and moral issues. The respective insider vs outsider competing agendas is, to my mind, extremely well done. Although SHK's character seems to have something of a saviour complex.
This is not about who the killer is. I don't think there's much question about who that is but it's about small towns and the kind of skeletons that lie in the cupboards of different homes. They're all interconnected and Dong-sik sees himself as its sentinel.
I wouldn't be surprised if that town has an even bigger, more explosive secret. There's something about the mental state of all these men that seem to indicate that.

I understood the plot fine. Nothing especially difficult or groundbreaking. I'm a sci-fi fan from way back.
And yes, I don't have to like everything just because others do. It's called having an opinion different from the crowd. Maybe you haven't heard of it before. But at least try to engage in respectful discourse without throwing insults. It's a poor reflection on you.

Everyone suddenly smartened up in Episode 5. Really? That first act took too long and was too repetitive. But Episode 5 was very decent. Definitely a turning point.

Ah... I see so this is really a Frankenstein story. Yes, it makes more sense to think of it in this way.

Because he had reached Level 4. That's when the host and evil spirit become one.

I'm not sure why you're attacking me personally. But yes, there are good C dramas out there just as there are bad ones. Maybe you haven't come across any.

I have no idea what the whinging and whining is about. It was a decent enough episode.

It is over-the-top.

So far so good. It's a sad indictment of modern mainstream journalism not just in SK but everywhere. Very well told.