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My read on poisoner is that she hyped up Kingfisher in her head, got into the field of assassinating because of her, and is disappointed to know that this woman who was supposed to be super cool, ruthless killer is playing house with a whole family. She probably thinks said family is holding her back from her full potential (which may have some merit considering she took a three year hiatus).
I don’t know much of the source material but I expect her character to eventually mesh well with the team. She fits the profile of a potential protege (or at least I hope that’s where the story goes).

While i certainly don’t believe he’s dead, it’s a bit more believable than when other dramas do this (simply because it’s fun to imagine the show letting him be a ghost at least for a while), so I’ll allow myself to get swept up in the emotions and pretend he is, at least till next week

I guess it's just me who sees Taeju as a giant awkward nerd who has honestly gone much further than I expected him to. Like episode 3 was honestly hilarious to me (also because the cops suck).

I thought the kidnapper couple were quite the foil to our leads. Psychopaths and likely serial murderers having a better marriage than a neurosurgeon and a chairwoman.

I don't disagree that she shouldn't believe what the kidnappers tell/show her, but I do think that in light of everything she's experienced, coupled by the fact that she was already somewhat distrustful of Taeju, it is not only unsurprising but actually somewhat expected that she hesitated for a brief moment upon seeing him. I don't think she is going to be completely logical or rational in her current traumatized state. She's honestly been fairly resilient with finding ways to escape from what appeared to me as basically a bare cell, especially when she almost broke her foot.

Towards the end of the episode, I got tense and kept waiting for them to show up. I was fully prepared for him to open the door and they're just waiting for him and arrest him for the kidnapping with how they've been moving so far.

Seyun's story in the show show far:
- Marriage on the ropes. From her perspective, Taejoo has changed since when she first met him, including being distant, staying out late, coming home not wearing ring with a suspicious excuse. The loss of their child worsens this. They now barely get along, he asks for a divorce.
- She is kidnapped in the middle of the night from her bed.
- Kidnapper tries to kill her on a video call with Taejoo and her parents.
- She is trapped in some bunker somewhere for what I assume is two days at this point, barely any food or water.
- She fails her first attempt of escape, partially because she risks it to save a co-captive.
- She (thinks she) hears said co-captive killed, very gruesomely in the room right next to hers.
- She finally escapes, she is literally chased down by him, she thinks she's rescued but gets knocked out, wakes up right back where she was, staring at the man she just ran away from.
- Also finds out that not only did the woman she risked her life to save and then thought she heard being brutally murdered is alive, she is actually working with the man that kidnapped her.

So in the past few episodes, she has gone through so much physically, emotionally, psychologically (both her and Taeju have). At the end of the realization that her co-captive is actually a co-conspirator they show her a video of Taeju commissioning her kidnapping (something she had already previously tried to push back on). I think her having an emotional reaction and hesitating upon seeing him is perfectly normal.

I guess they meant his first project after completing his military service.

I’m not one to rewatch things I finish, but I somehow ended up rewatching this and it remains the only drama I have rewatched. It was honestly better on rewatch since I wasn’t as preoccupied untangling the mystery/time travel plot. The chemistry between Shin Minah and Lee Jehoon remains one of the best I’ve seen, it’s incredible how underrated and underappreciated this show is on mdl and just in general.

I actually thought that behaviour was fairly reasonable for parents worried about their kidnapped daughter. It wasn’t like the ML had an escape considering the cops were about to be revealed. Overall didn’t even matter since the kidnapper knew cops were already involved anyway

I mean, people want kids. I don’t see it too differently from cops or firefighters or active army or intelligence agents or anyone in a ‘dangerous’ line of work tbh. It’s definitely a fun trope/subgenre

Part of Kang’s ‘revenge’ is disrupting/destroying Munoh’s marriage. The subplot of his wife concurrently happening with the main plot (though not shown as it is not the point) is learning to liberate herself from her loveless marriage. But something similar happens to Munoh at the end. By Kang destroying Munoh, he also frees him. The Munoh we meet at the beginning has his hands shaking when he attempts to write. He is very stuck up and full of him of himself as a way to wall himself away from his insecurities. So Kang ends up challenging and having a positive effect on him. When he pushes him to steal the competition problems, he notes that it was actually quite thrilling. He runs through the school because of the adrenaline rush. He sleeps in the same bed as his wife for the first time in years. In the last episode, Munoh, who has been unable to write for decades, ferociously starts typing and finally produces something. A person who hasn’t been confident to do something about the crazy things he’s reading and believes to be true finally rushes to the house to do something. The overall goal that Kang achieved might have been to shatter the walls Munoh built and display his insecurities for all to see, but Munoh has been reborn, and in a way those insecurities can no longer hold him. I know the “to be continued” ending is kind of cringe, but it fits in the context of the show. I didn’t take it too literally to imply another season (honestly, I don’t think there is much else to tell). And I absolutely get why Munoh upon seeing Kang again would take him up on his proposition. The kid destroyed his life, but it was a transformative experience and he is writing again.

To me, it was just further emblematic of his character. There’s a scene, I think when Suhun crashes their post-movie dinner date, where Suhun mentions that Munoh would sit in the last row of class observing people. Munoh himself is a voyeur and lurks behind watching people. He kind of shelves it behind “seeking objective truth” as he explains to Kang, but he is never himself confident to actually make a move or do things which is why he lives vicariously through the writings. He spends most of the drama just hovering around, he has this scene where he stalks and tries to approach Eunjoo but ultimately backs off. There’s another scene where he approaches Seyun but is unable to say anything. He is a deeply insecure man who spends his time judging people because of his inability to do anything. It is not till the end when Kang finally pushes him that he finally does something. Also really interesting to me, for how much presence in the narrative Eunjoo has, Munoh does not actually meet her till the last episode. A woman he reveres and was never confident to approach, when he finally meets her it’s when he is breaking down and screaming like a mad man.

He also believes everything within the story because he wants to believe it’s true. I think he initially latched onto the story because Kang’s envy of Seyun mirrored his envy of Suhun. But even then he still had some push back until Kang revealed that Seyun’s dad was Suhun. It’s like learning someone you despise who has a very good reputation is actually secretly a horrible person and providing justification for your hatred of them, and Munoh’s character was perfect for Kang to take advantage of.

Basically. The student picks up on the professor’s insecurities surrounding his failed writing career compared to another successful author who also married his first love and writes an elaborate story shitting on the author. The scenes are a mix of depicting the student’s writing (where we the audience are left to wonder how much is real and how much is fabricated, at least till it’s revealed at the end) and the professor’s personal life where we witness his descent

Loser professor gets too engrossed in his student’s writings and ruins his life in the process

The atmosphere/vibe of this reminded me of The Trunk. I also liked that there was a bit more to bite into here, compared to that or The Art of Sarah that released earlier this year

It’s a very lighthearted easy watch. I liked it for what it was

Their initial meeting is not exactly friendly, but she does eventually decide to approach him with the goal of being involved in her daughter’s life and genuinely falls for him.
From what I remember there isn’t a clean/straight fake relationship to true feelings transition on her part, which I think was due to her very early on realizing he was a genuinely good person and her past trauma playing a role

Yes. I can go into more details if you’d like

I see many in the comments mentioning Flower of Evil, and I can see why, but reading the premise the first dramas that came to mind were actually Undercover (a very low watched and basically unknown drama) and Family: The Unbreakable Bond (a reunion drama between Jang Hyuk and Jang Nara that performed lower than expected). There are a few others that I also thought of that may be tangentially in the same vein, but I think these three here are the strongest in similarity based on the short premise blurb.

I wish more kdramas explored established marriage dynamics between leads (and not in a “my cheating husband” way). There’s been a few over the years since Flower of Evil, I think the most popular off the top of my head being Big Mouth, Queen of Tears and When the Phone Rings. With all the talk Ive heard about kdramas supposedly trying to spread marriage propaganda I’d have expected a bit more of these.

Romantic thrillers are one of my favorite subgenres/hybrid genres. It’s such a shame that kdramas as a whole seem to have a relative dearth of these, especially since so many people on this platform seem to fall strongly in either purely romcom vs thriller (no romance whatsoever/not needed) camps. I’m not familiar with the source material, but I hope this drama gives proper weight/depth to the marriage between the leads (if not it might as well be more like Healer and a few other dramas in that line. Their marriage has to add something to the dynamic). If it could be half as well written as Flower of Evil that would already be very solid.