InspectorMegre

G is a snowflake, a slippery rat, he will bail out again... he is too weak and keeps changing his mind and essentially playing with EA's heart and feelings... He is seducing her but has no intentions to stick around....

So yeah there WILL be problems.

i agree. She is a good mom to Bit Na

I cant help it but I keep remembering Bit Na Judge from Hell lmao

why? She can find someone else. Also, why do you find him boring?

I do hope it happens like you said. Great script idea :)

Of course food matters. That is obvious. A bunch of relatively young adult males physically active outdoors every single day 24/7 - that requires calories that count. Without good food, they are literally dead. Food is THE fuel for them and has to be good quality. And yeah one of the few nice things to look forward to.

I think you did not read my post correctly. I was addressing GOURMET FOOD

"Food matters" is a very different issue than GOURMET FOOD :)

and where did you get the idea that I ***dismissed*** the drama bc it advertises military? I mentioned all those things the drama exposes as the bad sides of military. yes the drama advertises for military and also exposes some of its faults that everyone knows about. The drama is not that stupid to ignore everything :) It would not be fun

Seems like you do not want to see any critique related to military :) Bye :)

Of course he is annoying, pursuing Chloe as if he loves her but in fact wanting to own her, meddling where he shouldnt - grabbing Chloe although he knows she loves MJ.... He is conflicted about his mother, his father, and his "love" for Chloe, throwing his family for his obsession with Chloe, yet never doing anything real to care for her, and finally doing somethng bc she FORCED him to... and what they are doing is STUPID and he still dutifully goes along... and in all that. treating Adelle like it was a lollypop, totally oblivious to the company, employees, etc -

the only thing that matters to him is to grab his favorite toy, Chloe

And he disregards that Chloe lied, she said she will TRY to love him and she never did - she keeps pushing him away and being an abusive slave driver - and he eats that sh.t without a word... it is like watching a dog coming to his master and being beaten, over and over and over again...

HJ is a very pathetic character, very immature person, bc of his upbringing a very weak person, yet magically by a stroke of luck still an inherently a good person, but also a spoiled brat mama /papa boy, wanting to grab what he wants to grab.... and now finding himself up to his knees in sh.t he created with his entitled greed

SO YEAH HJ IS ANNOYING!!!! but also, you have to give credit to the actor for making you feel annoyed, that is good acting :) Imo that actor is becoming a star actor, the complexity of his acting is marvelous

Ok I can put it into one sentence what killed First Man: **** very few good dialogue scenes and almost no working out of internal conflicts. There is no character growth.**** That makes the drama flat and shallow and that is always boring. Most dialogue is about paperwork details of how to catch HJ gang or Ma gang. There is almost no DEEP dialogue

An example of a good dialogue scene that leads to working out the inner conflict and then character growth is Mophead Professor scolding BH and his mom about bothering the delicate HJ and framing her lmao he is speaking out of such deep conviction.... and then Mom and BH scene, Mom telling BH she has to let go and divorce the Dad, although she is so clingy and competitive and has to win. THOSE ARE RARE MOMENTS OF SELF REFLECTION AND CHANGE, SO LACKING IN FIRST MAN.
And I bet perhaps the more experienced actors Mom and Dad made that scene :) bc it is too rare... and it stuff like that happens only with them. Imo their subplot story is the only one that has depth and change. Everyone else is about the same as they were in ep 1.

Chairman overcame some slimy and disdain but is more in the open evil, JH is more in the open evil, SH can speak, but really most characters are inwardly almost the same as in ep 1. There is no confrontation, nobody standing up to anyone, even when BH stood up to JM when he took her away from the wedding was just glossed over and JM stayed the same old parasite as before, nobody thinking to themselves (except Chairman) "omg I need to change". THERE IS NO CHANGE, NO CHARACTER ARC. EVERYONE IS FLAT AND STALE. That makes it boring.

And example of a deep meaningful dialogue scene in Pearl in Red is Jin Ju and HJ at the grave of her father and herself, and JJ telling HJ about the past and confronting his loyalty to his family and his lack of action, .... and then his reaction. HJ actor is making himself into a new star.

Pearl in Red is a very raw soap and it is clear from the start that the Chairman and his wife are serial killers and very primitive crude CRIMINALS. So - putting people into basements is a legit part of that drama. And it makes it such a raw soap.

Pearl in Red is quite crude in many ways, but on the other hand, a lot more sophisticated than First Men bc characters there are shown in their dilemmas and working them out, there is a lot more emotional work and communication shown through acting - the characters are CONSISTENTLY shown in struggle with their loyalties and trying to reconcile it with other ppl and the actors are ALLOWED to act it out - and it is NOT primitive yelling matches but very sophisticated deep dialogues - and so we got a new star, HJ actor - and also - despite all basements, NO bloody scenes - which makes the drama quite more sophisticated

First Man was a more sophisticated drama where the villains were more in gloves. HJ was ah so polished and Chairman Ma sat quietly on the side like a parasite, not moving a finger. Now we see him as the Gang Ma leader, beating ppl up in his basement. Oooook.... it could pass... IF the people were not beaten to bloody mess without water and food for days.... but the scenes in the last episodes are as if they were taken from say Made in Korea kdrama..... ... or Weak Hero... or something like that...

So First Man went totally out of character and became a thriller about two gangs trying to kill each other off

PhD means Permanent Head Damage lmao how true

yeah those lines of the Prof are just .... wow lmao
Imo Porf and his wife are about the only well done substory

BH is not terribly smart. He is like... B- or at best B student.

Min Jun actor is just unskilled actor, just like JH actor here, so he makes his role so flat. HJ actor is a lot better so he makes his role more interesting

the stares are bc Pearl in Red is quite a raw soap and meant for a lot slower and more crude audience than First Man, so the stares give the time to the audience to figure out what is going on, and to enjoy the feeling of superiority of the "good" characters

Pearl in Red at least has some inner and outer conflicts that the actors do act, so to me it is a lot more interesting than First Man although it is a lot more raw soap
First Man has stale stuck characters that behave in the same way they did from ep 1, nothing changed in the characters

exactly

EDITED LATER BASED ON FEEDBACK: I replied "exactly" to just "As if the military is a vacation with 5-star food service". I was too lazy to disagree with the previous sentence on its own. I took the two sentences together to mean "MILITARY SHOULD NOT REQUIRE 5-STAR FOOD SERVICE" and I stand by that

I do think that supervisors must pay attention to what soldiers eat, bc it is important for their health and performance.
But i do think that the food should NOT be 5-star luxury gourmet food. It should be a very good healthy nourishing tasty food, but not luxury gourmet food. Especially officers, eating gourmet food every day.... wth it is ok for the drama but ... it is ... not how it should work

Does the military want to advertise itself as "come work here as a professional officer and you will be eating 5-star French cuisine every day"? So we get a bunch of fat ppl who then go into field or god forbid any war, and cannot eat bc it is not gourmet... Well if there will be no more wars, then yeah, feed them gourmet foods :)

Maybe that is the solution for world piece - all military globally gets to eat gourmet foods, get fat and happy, and refuse to fight bc then they cannot eat. I am all for that plan. Go ahead, proceed.

Ok so you just lost credibility. Both pieces of Korea, N Korea and S Korea, are both in Asia. Open the world map.
So I dont trust you anymore.

And I suspect you are not from N Korea. N Koreans cannot be on social media like this. And an immigrated N Korean would know that Korea is in Asia

And if you are some kind of immigrant originally from N Korea, then everything is forgiven to you bc you came from a very rough place

Hm, I disagree, He is a perfect "spice ingredient", without him the drama would not be it. Each drama needs AMAZING support roles or else it doesnt work. So he is that in this drama. He is portraying a super complex character with total mastery and conviction. The plus is his "beautiful" well kept sleek-urban baby face, which adds to totally convey the absurdity of that character. HE IS PERFECT IN THIS ROLE.

His role is that theoretician, that sofa general without common sense and skills, that someone who wants to get promoted no matter what happens to soldiers, that suave as# kisser, that someone who pretends to stick to the books yet does NOTHING and then takes all the credit, that someone who hides behind the "rules" to do nothing and throw soldiers under the bus.
He is portraying it *perfectly*.

****** His role is calculated, greedy, ambitious, cruel nasty SLIMY henchman and indirect-villain on one hand, and on the other hand, a naive little good boy***** Someone willing to do anything to benefit himself, and delulu enough to convince himself it is ok bc the superior said so; someone who HAS some compassion for his comrades but does not move a finger to help the situation. Someone who puts HIMSELF FIRST regardless of the post and soldiers, while not being a truly bad guy.

This is a complex role. And Lee Sang Yi is so good at it!!! it is fun to watch him! he portrays so many layers of this role.

His role is not just a comedic element. The commander is a satire on such military... ppl who went to military school but have no aptitude for it, and enlisted ppl who try to climb higher. Why did that soldier decide to become a commander, is a good question. He is certainly a fish out of water - however, he is there, chasing some fame honors and ranks, and the soldiers are stuck with him.

The drama is clearly portraying some core issues with the military - the corruption of stealing food supplies, the pecking order, the bullying by rank etc, lack of women, etc etc and Lee Sang Yi's sofa general character is one of chronic military problems.
The sofa general problem is a huge problem for military bc a sofa general is TOTALLY incapable of solving anything and only causes problems.
In this case, he let soldiers starve under the previous chef, he had no idea about bad food supply, in the mock battle he was useless, in a real battle he would cause deaths of millions of people. He is ... a clumzy naive dumb greedy guy in a wrong job.

Plus they let Lee Sang Yi keep his sleek urban look. So... the commander's manicured perfect baby face is a visual of what he stands for :) His face is like the visual signal from the drama as to who this character is :)
In the same way they picked the ML actor bc he looks so young, feeble, frail and vulnerable, a skinny tiny guy
Also, Lee Sang Yi's character face provides a stark contrast to the other guy in charge of the barracks, the big fat guy with the round wrinkled face who always plays villains and here plays the typical "rat" soldier who goes against the rules, keeps eating everywhere, and keeps cutting corners, while maintaining alliances with people he needs to be friendly with to continue going. In this drama, he turned out to also be someone who actually cares to do something to help when the times are rough. The visual for that soldier, the actor's face and body, are also picked to visually signal what kind of character he is.

The complexity in Lee Sang Yi's character - and thus the MASTERY of the actor in portraying many layers of it and thus the FUN of watching him in the role - is that he is not a bad evil guy, like the guy above him who is the master mind of stealing food supplies and who used that other soldier - The Inspector - for his purposes.
He is a naive genuinely decent honest guy but a COMPLACENT guy and also a GREEDY guy, SO HE ACTS LIKE THOSE 3 MONKEYS - no see, no say, no hear -
a pion who feels kinda helpless and also super ambitious. So, he deludes himself that everything is all right as long as it comes from the top. So he deludes himself that the lower level guys are justly scorned.
--> So he actually cares about the female Platoon Leader, but on the other hand, keeps shutting her up and going behind her back and doing things that harm the soldiers... He is concerned that the food is bad but he says nothing and even scolds ppl who bring it up .... he does NOTHING ever to help anyone, although he sees them suffering and even feels some concern - but it does not matter to him - bc HE WANTS TO GET PROMOTED.

He is too dumb to think about what he is seeing and to think ahead
and he is smart enough to see what he needs to do to get ahead
and he is slimey enough and ah so eager to please so that he gets promoted, so he is totally willing to ENTHUSIASTICALLY act as an umbrella and fit into the as@ of his commander and then open inside and never come out... He keeps bowing down and obeying blindly and ENTHUSIASTICALLY, no matter what
He is naive enough to believe his superior
He is evil enough to just throw the soldiers under the bus so that he can get promoted
He is slimy enough to delude himself that everything is ok bc the superior said so

And he is good enough and smart enough to remember what happened to Major Lim and to feel bad about it, and native enough to ask questions and dumb and naive enough to believe the answers

So he is like a babe in the woods, like a Little Red Riding Hood meeting the Big Bad Wolf - but the complexity is, he is also Little Red Riding Hood who willingly jumped into the wolf's mouth and willingly burned grandma's house bc the Wolf said so

And so this commander is a PERFECT example of what really exists esp in the military - a similar type is common to every hierarchy/red tape organization and big corporation, but in the military bc of ranks and order to blindly listen to superiors it is even worse.

Military has to take in essentially everyone healthy enough to qualify, bc they need meat in numbers, so then they are stuck with so many ppl being below par, and so the whole situation is quite tricky... and this ineffective sofa general commander realistically exists in that environment bc SOMEONE has to watch over the post and a few soldiers. That is why military is ok with losing ppl here and there .... as it is impossible to ensure quality everywhere.... and so ppl are just numbers.... This is a sad and realitic quagmire of military... Companies lose money but military loses lives... . So it is in their interest to somehow ensure that proper people are commanders - but ... as you can see in this drama, it does NOT always happen...
and esp when some evil dude realizes how much space there is for personal benefiting and then starts exploiting the system... e.g. the Pentagon's $14,000 for individual 3D-printed toilet seat lids and $1,280 for single utility cups... the higher commander here who steals money on food supplies... and a lot lot more a lot bigger amounts..... This drama is only about essentially petty stealing...

Lee Sang Yi is a perfect example of such a sofa general commander, he really brought it to life, made it real.
So, imo, without Lee Sang Yi, the drama would have been so bland. He spices it up ah so well.

what happened with that young lady that liked KSJ? She was just a reporter doing her job and never ever showed up in any ways later?

The drama is clearly an advertisement for joining the military, but seems like most of the soldiers do not go home, only the .. was it Batallion? commander was shown to have a wife and a dog at home. Who else in the drama goes home every day?

Also, the corruption scandal... is way too realistic... and usually uncovered. So it is good they are bringing it up

But what I am concerned about is the military as a place for gourmet meals, and all the high ranking officials being gourmets lmao eating gourmet every day in the officer's cafeteria..... So if they go to war... what will they eat? lmao

As for the soldiers who are there bc they have to be there, imo it is ok they eat gourmet stuff and get fat, since they are not really going to any war any time soon - well we hope, since there was about 350,000 Korean troups in Vietnam war. Korea had most soldiers there after the USA.

I think pulling out his "magical" skills was necessary because he needs to be ready to be a master cook anywhere, not only at Kanglim. It is like pulling the feather away from the flying Dumbo elephant in the Disney story. He can still fly without it. ANd he needs to find that out. And so he will, in ep 12.

The program/"video game" in his head is his own fabrication and imagination, something that helped him to visualize the connection with his ... well.. let's use the term "guardian angels" - and thus save himself from grief and depression, and now he needs to grow up and realize this Connection to Something Divine is ALWAYS there with him.

He instinctively knew that when he went on the leave, he still had skillZ and was studying well under the other guy.
Perhaps being with his family and feeling like a part of Kanglim was the trick for him - he needs to feel like he belongs somewhere and has a meaning somewhere.... that he has a "family" backing - and that is the part of the propaganda of this drama, military as a big family that you can fall on - so yeah ... I predict that will wake up in him in ep 12 :)

which minute of ep 8? or at least - was it near the start, middle, or end? I want to find it bc I dont remember it lmao I watched all this too late at night

I am not worried about youngest daughter having a crush on a handsome young stranger who takes such good care of her and winks at her. He is doing it 100% as just a proud father, and she just doesnt know he is her father. I trust that will get resolved. He will have to tell her.... or the young guy will "come back" and there will be some amnesia plot to explain why he doesnt remember his business skills lmao and then she can pounce on him. So - I am not worried.

WHAT I AM WORRIED ABOUT IS THAT THE CHAIRMAN HAS NOT INWARDLY CHANGED MUCH, HE IS STILL ***ALMOST*** THE SAME OLD GREEDY CRUEL DISTANT DINOSAUR So far the plot is about his revenge, and his personal growth is on the back burner.
He has not shown much change as a person, has not significantly progressed to be a more loving, caring person EXCEPT being nice to his daughter for a change. He is still pretty much ignoring the grandma and in general, being cold and distant with the people.

you are right, he is still the same old greedy cruel distant dinosaur
He has not shown any change as a person, as a more loving, caring person EXCEPT being nice to his daughter for a change
Did he show a tiiiiiny tinny bit of care for grandma?