This show is perfection! There! It has been achieved. Arguably one of the best shows I have ever watched, Lost is a profound, philosophical, and incredibly romantic masterpiece that examines its characters in a moment of personal crisis. Depending on how you look at this show it’s about a couple falling out of love, about people falling in love, about finding your self-worth, about letting go of the residue of your trauma, and about healing your soul and stepping back from the edge to find a new meaning in life, in yourself, in your relationships. This show deals with death and death ideation with such patience and natural care that despite the heavy subject, the show never felt claustrophobic or bleak. The story follows its main characters through a crisis of humanity, yet it doesn’t make you feel miserable and nihilistic. Instead, it inspires warm feelings of being understood and seen and appreciated on a journey to find a new facet of oneself.
Granted, this is not your typical drama or even melodrama watch. It requires a bit of a commitment from the viewer to pause and absorb the emotions quietly. The show does not have loud emotional moments that will have pay-offs of cheap reactions. There is no melodramatic event in this show. There is no grand gesture, no epic confrontation, no shameful and over-the-top confession. The biggest and most impactful events happen and pass by as you would expect them to in real life; with little noise and then life keeps going. That’s perhaps the most profound narrative climax that the show has achieved: that life goes on. It keeps going even if it feels like it should be over. All will pass and you will feel better soon. The calm and serene way that the camera follows stress-inducing events manages to truly reveal a new side to the story of its characters. It doesn’t communicate the distress and anxiety but the empathy to cheer the characters on as they survive the mundane hardships of everyday life. This might just be the best show I have seen all year long.

This show has everything:
1. A beautiful, profound friendship formed with delicate care and harmony
2. Kindred spirits healing together
3. The most beautiful father-daughter dynamic in any show I have seen
4. The hardships of everyday life
5. Dealing with loss and grief
6. The best romantic development I have seen in a long time
7. But very little physical romance (so don’t expect Eros love. It’s more of a platonic love, in the PLATOnic sense…I’ll elaborate later)
8. Suicide and depression and how to come back from the edge of life
9. Complex human relationships in which no one is a clear villain/victim
10. A very subtle and well-expressed reference to privilege and abuse in the entertainment industry
11. Profound symbolism and metaphors

Summary: Lee Boo Jung has hit rock bottom. She is working as a cleaning lady getting treated like crap, refuses to deal with her clueless husband, and now she even has a possible criminal record hanging over her head. At forty years old, Boo Jung feels like she has reached the end of her potential and has amounted to absolutely nothing. Her elderly father is the very last thing she cares about. Lee Kang Jae is only twenty-seven and has his own successful stand-in escort business but he is so ashamed of the person he has become and is so far beyond caring about himself or life that he wears apathy as a second skin. The two of them live at the threshold of each other’s lives. Then one fateful night, after the suicide of a friend and one lawsuit later, the two of them see each other for the first time. Really see each other. In a way that no one else in either of their lives has seen them. Fate, destiny, enemies, or money conspire to further entangle these two’s lives together. It might sound like a recipe for disaster but it ends up being a blessing in disguise.

Plot: There are multiple amazing facets to this story and I think the show has managed to execute each of them to perfection. First of all, this show does suspense and mystery better than all mystery shows I’ve seen out there. The story begins in medias res so when we find the characters, it feels like they are already in the middle of a bigger crisis. There’s a lot of information that is kept hidden from the viewer and they unravel as we learn them along with some of the characters and with each revelation the picture becomes more and more clear. This creates an excitement and anticipation that is usually not there for slow-paced and quiet shows like this. On the other hand, there are the journeys of the characters themselves. While Boo Jung and Kang Jae are the unrivaled protagonists, the show also has a plotline for all the side characters. Everyone seems simple and typical at first, like the evil mother-in-law or the bumbling husband. Yet, the show manages to follow their stories and reveal inner depths for them to the point that with the exception of two or three characters, all are extremely sympathetic. Even in the case of the unlikeable characters, there is still depth so that I couldn’t bring myself to be enraged by them. It’s just an incredibly human story. I came to care deeply for all characters and the writing is so amazing that by the end of it, all the characters get satisfying albeit realistic ends. There’s just something irresistible about a narrative that is so harmonious from the beginning to end. In a lot of ways, the experience of watching this show was more akin to reading a good novel, rather than watching a show.

The romance: Oh yeah, it gets its own category because I want to rant. This is not a romance-centered show. There’s romance in every cell of it. Love oozes out of the characters like tears. Everyone in the story is desperate to have it, to find it, to hold on to it. One of the less-likable characters in the show says: “Love? Is there still such a thing?” and I think that was the ultimate way to show how pathetic that one character was because everyone else was vying for love and struggling for it but this person was blind to that sensation and isn’t that the worst punishment of them all? Side-romances aside, the profound love between the two main characters truly surpassed what I have witnessed in a TV show so far. When we talk about platonic love, we usually think of a friendship of sorts, not romance. Yet, interestingly enough, platonic love as defined by Plato himself is not one that excludes sexuality and physical love but one that goes beyond it. In fact, there is a distinction to be made between amour platonique and amour platonicien. Here, the love was platonicien in the sense that it did have a physical aspect but it grew beyond that. Instead, it depicted two people coming together as kindred spirits.
Usually, in older woman/younger man dynamics or affair plotlines, the focus is on the sex. It’s on the physical chemistry between the characters and it’s usually not surprising when things fall apart. This show bypasses all that messy sh!t. Instead, it has the characters connect because their souls call out to each other. Their interest in each other helps them open up and express themselves even if ultimately words are left unsaid between them, they are forever changed for their connection together. That’s why it’s better than all the other stories. It’s a love that does not judge but elevates the soul and it was gorgeous. Even when typical melodrama hurdles get in the way, they float above those pesky things and focus on that authentic dynamic between them. I can’t praise the show enough for this.

Acting: A bunch of giants acted in this show. The acting was just…beyond amazing. So subtle and natural. From the male lead's heart suddenly beating faster in overwhelmed emotions to the slowly growing smiles of the female lead, to the tears that formed in Kim Hyo Jin’s eyes but just wouldn’t fall to the tired disappointment in Jo Eun Ji’s drooping shoulders, the cast out-acted the pants off each other! Just wonderful. Ryu Joon Yeol looks ethereal. He’s handsome, yeah but also not conventionally handsome? Like he’s beautiful in this beyond reproach way and that’s exactly the energy his character has. Then with a mature and seasoned performance, he slowly unravels that icy veneer of his character, and he becomes so human and vulnerable in the show and I just loved that. Jeon Do Yeon was beyond outstanding. She just brought Boo Jung to life in such a heartbreaking and natural way. Her character doesn’t have to say anything to express the most complex and difficult emotions. Her gaze is enough. I am truly in awe of her and this cast.

Music: I finally figured out my issue with music in East Asian productions. Unlike western shows that have soundtracks for each episode, East Asians have an original soundtrack with a few songs that are created specifically for the show and used for different scenes. Now, this will be fine when you watch one episode a week but if you binge it, then it’s like listening to the same songs straight for 4 days and everyone knows that’s the fasted way to hate a song! Here, they had more music than you usually expect from a Kdrama and they masterfully use them in tandem in such a way that nothing gets repeated so much that it’ll be irritating. I mean just as I thought they were going to play Hallelujah to death, the show stopped playing it altogether and it only came back once, many episodes later. An impactful return if there ever was one. In addition, the show uses silence as well as it uses sounds and so the calm and measured playlist melds perfectly into the pattern of storytelling and truly elevates the watching experience instead of interrupting it with loud bursts of noise or dramatic screaming by a singer.

Production: The aesthetic, the camerawork, the creation of spaces, lighting, attention to detail were all amazing. Time passes in this show!!!!!! I know, a shocker! There’s continuity. There is a timeline and the show stays true to it. It’s just a very well-thought-out production with great attention to detail. You can tell it was made with care and not just to make profits.

Rewatch value: YES! I already want to watch it all over again. This is a story I will definitely come back to when I need some feel-good but not boisterous watch.

Overall: What’s left to say? This is a story about not being able to go on living and then finding a way to do so anyway. It was just a joy and a privilege to watch it. I am so glad that I made the choice to watch it and I hope others will give it a chance and actually like it. It might not be for everyone though, I acknowledge that but it was definitely the perfect watch for me.