This show is quite cute/funny, but not one to be taken super seriously. Also, not to be compared to strong woman do bong soon at ALL,, bc it would get like a 1.5 comparatively. Thinking of it as a standalone drama: the first half started pretty strong/quirky, and I enjoyed the buildup to the story. My main problem with the drama was the second half of it, it really falls apart the last few episodes closer to the end.

SPOILERS: There are so many side plots that end up hastily tied via just killing characters lmao. I feel like it derailed itself so hard. It made the villain the most interesting character in the show and then did nothing with it like he kills himself in the end no recourse. Like they wrote him super interesting and made us sympathize w his upbringing just to shoot him in the skull?I believe a strong part of why so many rooted for the villain in strong girl was due to Byeon Woo Seok and his character's chemistry with the FL (watch Lovely Runner if you want to see more of him!).
The main girl gets annoying/grating after a while bc she wont take anything seriously and her mom is almost more of the main character than she is. The ML is just boring after a while tbh like he has less chemistry with the FL than her and the villain do like ur shows kinda fked if everyone's rooting for the bad guy. They tried to set up for another season at the end bc they left so many sub plots open as well.
There was this whole subplot that was so lame like this girl was an evil orphan who pretended to be Nam Soon and tries to kill the real Nam Soon, but then the mom's like we can live happily w u as my daughter too if u change ur ways and she DOES and its like a really sweet happy ending about redemption and stuff and then second to last episode villain kills her in an alley like what was the messaging there: don't turn good bc u think it'll be happy ever after but it won't and you'll diE??? I saw the vision in the story before that, it was like teaching u the lesson that if u choose good, good things will come to you, which was a really nice message even with the story being a bit unrealistic, but to toss it out like tieing down a loose end seemed poorly thought out.
I think that was a lot of ppls complaints with it is like they had so many sub plots and shit they panicked at the end and were like how can we tie all these loose ends down? ah yeah; death
villain story? dead. second daughter story? dead. love story? (they've been together for 2 months) marriage.
Its like u took some highschooler, hired them as an intern, and they're practicing basic story concepts but they're like well we need to have a happy ending w no complications.

All in all, I think it could have been executed much better and the only reason I'm giving it a non zero score after flaming it so hard is that I really enjoyed the first half as a comedy, and appreciate the actors and team's work on the show. Just wish the script/storyboarding was thought out a little better on the grand scale of things. I will say this show introduced me to Byeon Woo Seok as a compelling actor so I'm appreciative of that! I don't think I would have watched Lovely Runner if not for that, and that's a really nice romance show~