The flaw of most dramas and TV writing, in general, is that the entire story is not finished before production starts. LND is an obvious case of let's rely on the cast for the most interesting part of the story, and it fails in every way.

Of course, everyone was excited for this cast. Unfortunately, it's packed with veteran actors who are stuck acting out the same gimmicks in the name of dramatic suspense. Written in a story that feels like a college workshop piece. Not only does LND take a fairly easy trope,& try too hard to make it different. They somehow fundamentally make the story hate & bully its own main character. Bae Seok Ryu at every important turn of this story, is bullied into caring for herself & and tripped for her reasonable actions as a cancer patient. This was honestly my biggest problem with the story: instead of caring for a woman who decided to keep her illness from her family & work it out with her then-fiance. They utilize her decision to remove her agency concerning her medical information at every possible chance. In turn, instead of having a male lead who is gentle or kinder, when he finds out the woman he loves is sick, The story tries to force the FL into loving herself, which is psychologically speaking impossible imo.

Does the ML get punished for all his harsh words and rash decisions? No. but the audience is rewwarded with sweet nothings the last six eps with no substantial growth on the ML part. It makes the comments about the writer seeing the reaction from fans and changing things accordingly. I tend not to agree with that statement. I think the ML is the same in the beginning as the end. His problematic behavior is never addressed; he never apologizes for the stuff he said, and he is just given romance in the end because that's what we expected.

The sequence of events in the story don't make sense and doesn't utilize character & plot points in a way that makes sense. The episodes are long and the best romance & storytelling is in the secondary characters. The 2FL & ML love story was fun & cute. I actually felt butterflies in some scenes. However they did utilize a detail that uproots most of the power behind the painting. The relationship between the leads mothers was the best scenes to watch and feel anything from.

This story is void of so many things we hate like love triangles and angry mother in laws. And yet it's also void of a solid story that makes you feel anything more than meh. The chemistry during their childish arguments is some good dialogue writing. And the actors did their best with what they were given but even then, Love Next Door falls flat as you watch because it becomes a chore. If you want to hear me rant more about this, come hang out on youtube~