Solid but trite entertainment

There's definitely nothing new here, but it was still a very reliable watch. The romance was good, there is some decent comedy, the story progresses like you'd expect a story to progress. The main draw here is probably the overly attractive male and female leads. It's fun to watch them engage with the story and each other...mostly because they are pretty and make pretty facial expressions. The story itself is superficial and seems to almost entirely exist as a platform to watch the pretty actors be pretty.

This is the sort of show you watch because it's safe and reliable, like an SUV....not as exciting as a sports car but not ugly enough to be a station wagon. It's the sort of thing you watch when you're feeling blue and want to just zone out and not think too much. There's no deeper meaning, no life mystery, no really even mysteries to solve. You just sit there and watch the pretty people be pretty and win at life....and then you smile and be like, "Ah, if only life were actually this easy/simple."

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Clean the darn phones please.

This is a pretty good drama for just casual entertainment that doesn't require a lot of concentration or reasoning. The actors were good enough, the sets were pretty, the costumes of the leads were some of the best I've seen in a kdrama. There wasn't a lot of annoying love triangle or "we can't be together because of xyz" plot hooks, so that was refreshing. The male lead was funny and engaging without being overbearing and controlling.

Aside from being a fairly shallow storyline, it was a worthwhile watch...not epic, not great, but not terrible and good enough to pass the time enjoyably. There were some dark themes and a lot of the typical kdrama life wisdom lines. The relationship between the two main leads was fun to watch and it was nice to see them support each other through hardships. The chemistry was pretty good, though it clashed a lot with the female lead's overall stiff and wounded personality, so it was hard sometimes to see the chemsitry. When they got it right though, it was pretty fun to watch them interact.

There isn't a lot else to say. My only real issue with this drama were the landline phones. The phone handset in the gallery offices were always covered in weird slimy looking grime that really detracted from the clean set visuals for me. A lot of the windows were needlessly grimy too. Apart from that, the rooftop window had some weird visual effect on its crossbars that seemed to have been pulled straight from 1980s powerpoint.

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Let's play "count the flies"...there were a LOT.

First of all, regardless of what the inspiration for this Kdrama was, do not expect anything like (or remotely close to) Killing Eve. For me, that wasn't a bad thing at all. This drama is expertly done, the characters are so well written and the interactions between all the characters are packed with so much chemistry. I've seen some less than positive reviews, but I honestly don't know what left field they came from because this drama is so engaging and well done.

The main villain was really appealing, I totally bought her 100% as the bad guy, she was absolutely insane but in the most pleasant way to watch. The music that played whenever she was going crazy was so memorable and felt exactly what her head must have felt like while she was high on the darkness within. The entire OST was really expertly crafted and matched the scenes perfectly.

The main and side characters were all interesting, there was a lot of humor, and the evil darkness of the plot was so colorfully presented with such rich character interactions. But above everything else, the FL was spectacular. Out of every single minute of the drama there was only one tiny scene at the end where I didn't buy her performance, and it was super super minor. In every other moment of this drama her character is so expertly depicted, I never once felt like her behavior was unrealistic at all. Her interactions with every single character in the drama absolutely made the show successful.

To the dude who scoffed at the dirty gamer chick aspect of things, it isn't just guilt that makes someone like this, it's depression. Living in filth, obsessing over an intricate hobby, failing to bathe, drinking, generally not caring about the world around you, these are all massive signs of depression and I thought the drama did a great job of portraying them. 500% better than dragging someone out of the gutter and having them be suddenly competent and successful. This was, in my mind, completely realistic and very much mirrors how some people deal with grief. Something like the suicide of a spouse destroys most people left behind, and I think it would have been disingenuous to represent it otherwise.

I rated this drama really highly not just because it impressed me so much while watching it, but also because the stories and OST stuck with me long after the drama had ended. I really hope there's a season 2 so we can figure out Santa's whole deal. I'm really glad the show didn't focus on "fixing the broken person" but instead molded itself around her like a blanket, allowing her to retain her eccentricities without trying to force her into some societal mold of what a functional human being should be.

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