This review may contain spoilers
I had a lot of fun watching this drama...it was similar to The Girl from Nowhere in the best of ways. Mysterious, supernatural being punishes evil doers, but one can't tell if she's entirely good herself. I could tell Park Shin Hye was really having fun playing Justicia and I had a lot of fun watching her. I like how the stories ("cases") were presented in an episodic format, which fits this type of genre. I also worried it would get formulaic, but they managed to have other things going on, as well as an overarching plot line that gets resolved in the end.
One of the advantages this drama has over TGFN is that its story has closure. I know they're going to have a second season, but to be honest, the ending already felt like a proper one.
The male lead felt superfluous, though. I get that he's a supporting character and while I didn't expect him to have a bigger role, he didn't really contribute anything* whatsoever to the plot. Justicia does all the physical fighting, which was expected...but he was a detective in charge of some cases. I thought he would at least discover a few things or solve a few things...or at least provide some useful information to her...but he really doesn't do anything.
He was one of the victims of the whole serial killer plot, but there were other victims as well whose trauma was explored better and showed the POV of the serial killers victims sufficiently. If they took him out of the script, nothing would change.
There's a theme in the story where Justicia gets punished because she starts to develop feelings and starts to care for people...so I thought this was where the male lead (I can't even remember his name) could contribute (Why not? There are plenty of traditional stories where the girl love interest brings 'light and emotion' to the male lead's life, so no problem with the role reversal here)...but the drama easily shows how Justicia learns to develop feelings caring for her neighbors* and even some of the victims of the cases she handles...so the male lead's role again becomes useless, because Justicia can learn to develop feelings and empathy even without him.
There's a part where Justicia loses her powers and I would've liked to see how she handled that challenge more, but it's relatively brief and unexplored. She also has two likable helpers in Valak (his discovery of religion and use of devil allergy powder was funny) and Grimory (loved how she seemed like an evil backstabber, but turned out to be just an overly loyal fangirl to Justicia) and I loved the trio they formed.
There's an overarching plotline where they kept hyping "Satan" up as one of the main antagonists, but while his end fight with Justicia was decent, it was a bit anticlimactic. He wasn't really the main villain, but I think he could have been developed more or posed a bigger threat. As a fan of mysteries, I also wanted more of a treasure hunt when it came to them searching for that dark stone Satan was after. It was another part of the drama that had the potential to be interesting, but fizzled out in the end.
Overall, this is an entertaining watch if one can turn their brain off and appreciate the over-the-top punishment of criminals and their comedic send-offs where Justicia literally sends them to hell. The sets and costume design in "Gehenna" also looked good, but we only catch a glimpse of it. One interesting thing is that while the characters are based on Christianity, the depiction of devils/demons is slightly different. In here, they aren't really evil, they just happen to be in charge of handling bad people, while the angels are in charge of taking care of the good ones.
One of the advantages this drama has over TGFN is that its story has closure. I know they're going to have a second season, but to be honest, the ending already felt like a proper one.
The male lead felt superfluous, though. I get that he's a supporting character and while I didn't expect him to have a bigger role, he didn't really contribute anything* whatsoever to the plot. Justicia does all the physical fighting, which was expected...but he was a detective in charge of some cases. I thought he would at least discover a few things or solve a few things...or at least provide some useful information to her...but he really doesn't do anything.
He was one of the victims of the whole serial killer plot, but there were other victims as well whose trauma was explored better and showed the POV of the serial killers victims sufficiently. If they took him out of the script, nothing would change.
There's a theme in the story where Justicia gets punished because she starts to develop feelings and starts to care for people...so I thought this was where the male lead (I can't even remember his name) could contribute (Why not? There are plenty of traditional stories where the girl love interest brings 'light and emotion' to the male lead's life, so no problem with the role reversal here)...but the drama easily shows how Justicia learns to develop feelings caring for her neighbors* and even some of the victims of the cases she handles...so the male lead's role again becomes useless, because Justicia can learn to develop feelings and empathy even without him.
There's a part where Justicia loses her powers and I would've liked to see how she handled that challenge more, but it's relatively brief and unexplored. She also has two likable helpers in Valak (his discovery of religion and use of devil allergy powder was funny) and Grimory (loved how she seemed like an evil backstabber, but turned out to be just an overly loyal fangirl to Justicia) and I loved the trio they formed.
There's an overarching plotline where they kept hyping "Satan" up as one of the main antagonists, but while his end fight with Justicia was decent, it was a bit anticlimactic. He wasn't really the main villain, but I think he could have been developed more or posed a bigger threat. As a fan of mysteries, I also wanted more of a treasure hunt when it came to them searching for that dark stone Satan was after. It was another part of the drama that had the potential to be interesting, but fizzled out in the end.
Overall, this is an entertaining watch if one can turn their brain off and appreciate the over-the-top punishment of criminals and their comedic send-offs where Justicia literally sends them to hell. The sets and costume design in "Gehenna" also looked good, but we only catch a glimpse of it. One interesting thing is that while the characters are based on Christianity, the depiction of devils/demons is slightly different. In here, they aren't really evil, they just happen to be in charge of handling bad people, while the angels are in charge of taking care of the good ones.
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