I really despise choi hong joo character, i feel like she doesn't add anything to the story even if she wasn't…
"she doesn't add anything to the story" – while I agree she's mostly annoying, she's actually the person who has the biggest understanding of the shows mysteries for the longest time. She just doesn't tell anyone or interfere much. In one scene, she waits for her family member to almost kill an innocent person before doing anything. It's also generally very hypocritical when she complains about other characters.
And yes, she perhaps has the lowest acting range among the core cast.
"And even if Daniel Lee wasn't responsible for how everyone behaved after, he was for sure responsible for the power of the suggestion. Not all psychopaths are criminals. It's a fact that some psychopathic traits link to success. So, rather than work so hard to try and pass into law aborting fetuses and whatnot, wouldn't it have been more meaningful if they'd worked just as hard at ensuring they became upstanding members of society as they did, making them into predators."
The gene test was not used to find anyone with psychopathic tendencies but the "top 1%" who very likely become 'predator serial killers' later on.
"All Ba Reum ever wanted was for someone to love him, hug him, and let him know he wasn't a monster."
The 'real' JBR (before being implanted emotions) gutted rabbits without remorse and murdered fish and a dog simply because his father adored them.
Wha~ thank you so much for reading my messy long review. I didn't think anyone would read it before I finish all…
(warning: fully spoilerific post!)
As the truly last person to watch it (a good year after you), I found it a bit hard to follow the 'reckless' writing. I'd like to reply to individual points if that's still useful to you. For example, re Ep10 you write: "the criminal didn't have father at first but now has?? huh; the criminal's mother supposed to give birth after Yohan's mother in the early ep but now she did it before for 6-7 yrs??" I don't know who 'the criminal with no father' is, but I think regarding giving birth, you confuse the mother visible at 02:14 in the episode with the one dead at 02:30. The mothers of the three OZ-monitored psycho kids are in the same place at the same time, and it can be unclear that there's three mothers and not just two.
Or you write: "- The conflict is A wants to kill B who is a criminal treated at a hospital, but B is protected by two polices standing guard at the patient door at all time. - Resolution of this series to let A kill B is to let C who is another police says via the walkie talkie that there's some incident happening near the hospital area and he needs some support at the moment." In the show, A and C and D all separately want to kill B. C uses his police status to remove the two guards so that he, C, can access B unseen (which is indeed lazy writing in the sense that it happens several times during the show). Instead, A and D arrive there before him. In the end B is dead, as C intended, just that C did not get to do it, which is why he smears blood on himself and reports himself as the murderer.
Btw, I think the truly ridiculous level of fated, predestined teenage encounters and such is something you did not mention as a complaint. It's way over the top how everybody knows everybody else and all of them are connected, or how virtually every "top class serial killer" lives in the same area. In a later episode, they even declare that their two people police evidence crew (technically three, but their boss never shows up for work) oversees "the evidence of every case in Korean criminal history" and somehow the two have enough time to go and solve all open murder cases too.
"I still don't understand when in the timeline, PD Hong Ju had her baby and why no one would notice that she was pregnant"
Essentially she found out she was pregnant when Yo Han, the father of her child, died. Because he's a reviled murderer at that point, Choi Hong Joo wants to have an abortion, but jumps up in the last second to go fact-finding instead. Eventually she meets Daniel Lee who has been without food and water in the abandoned hospital where Sung Yo Han evacuated him to, then goes off to kill herself ravaged by guilt about her role in her love's death – and if she had done so, Daniel Lee wouldn't have had anyone to provide him with food and the like ^_^. Then some 10 days after the brain surgery, she and Daniel Lee hatch the plan of using Jung Ba Reum as their personal assassin, to kill other serial murderers and such.
Some ~9 months later she delivers her baby. This happens during the one year time skip after Jung Ba Reum wakes up from his surgery with amnesia.
I was also VERY hyped for this show because I sincerely hope that Choi Ran will one day write a drama that doesn't have my fists shaking at the wasted potential.
(Moo Chi) "And it isn't even like he's a good detective - he's very slow to piece things together."
That's just not true. Beyond the psychopathic geniuses, he's the smartest character around, and makes all sorts of logical conclusions, even in a high pressure situation like during that TV broadcast for the killer's amusement. What makes absolutely no sense is that he's both the 'mad dog' kind of detective caricature that just loves to punch someone, and fittingly a raging alcoholic, but also ridiculously good at figuring out cases to the degree that everyone else in the department has to defer to him when he comes up with any sort of logical conclusion. His alcoholism has an on/off switch – much like that of the mother of Yu Na, a would-be rapist victim later on.
"they feel like they were written just for the plot and don't exist outside of it."
99.99% of K-dramas have 'best friend of FL' type characters that only hop out of her pocket to give emotional advice and then disappear back into that pocket.
"psychopaths are determined at birth and they all need to be aborted because the only route they'll take in life is murder!"
No, the 'top 1%' of psychopaths are declared 'predator serial killers' and those are to be aborted before birth. Not (necessarily) the other 99% of psychopaths. It's a bit absurd that those 'predators' spring out of the ground like mushrooms later in the show, with every half-baked rapist being declared one. The non-'predator' psychopaths don't really appear in the show at all. Perhaps one young child is one, but that is not elaborated on much.
I honestly dont get the whole "they have no interests" thing personally, they seemed fine to me. And if moochi…
"They arent saying that all psychopaths end out in murder, the whole point of yohans existence and the show to some extent, was to prove the opposite."
Yo Han's character is NOT a psychopath. He's a genius that the gene test cannot distinguish from one. See 13:00 to 13:20 in EP 01.
"like some guy petting a dogs butt being proof of him hating dogs."
Not necessarily hating dogs, but not having genuine well-meaning experience of how to treat dogs. It's a matter of someone treating animals the way 'you should'. For example I've had cats for a good lot of my life, so I easily see when other people touch them in a less than ideal way.
Towards the end this has more unreleased scenes revealing a bunch of previously unseen information, and some tacked on 'happy end group party' content like is common in mediocre romance dramas. (The middle part isn't that exciting.)
It's useless. I mean, it's not the worst when you're looking to find when roughly something was in the timeline, but so many crucial things are missing or left out (and so much less relevant stuff is included) that it doesn't really serve that purpose, either.
I guess for people who like to rewatch shows this might serve as a diet coke one-evening rewatch?
The second half (= second episode) of this is super uneventful and repetitive. Pretty much just re-playing old scenes with no changes or new information.
There are a lot of things to consider, so I'll list them down.- Seo Kyung realized that something was off. As…
You have one bug here: "But since this alien-Chief kept on taking over other Worlds, things kept on repeating for her son because her way of thinking was exactly the same. The true World #2 Chief would have done things differently 12 years ago."
She went through like five sons in as many worlds, and in that time time flowed normally for her, meaning she can't have spent 10 of those 12 years in the same world. She was always world-hopping and (most importantly) getting more and more desperate to "protect" her son.
We also saw that she (some version of her) initially tried the idea of arresting him, or at least started handcuffing him.
This is a VERY derivative drama. If you've watched a double-digit number of shows, you'll keep thinking "oh, this part is like in <...>". Unfortunately Korean writers struggle creating investigation-mystery ("whodunnit", as well as how to find evidence) dramas that don't end up with mostly contrived and convenient plots, or the most ridiculous red herrings that just make absolutely no sense in retrospect. It's why I never watched Lost, I hate when filmmakers ask you potentially intriguing questions that they themselves don't have an answer for.
On the plus side, murder mysteries aren't that suited for flooding the viewer with sponsored products, and it's nice to see the characters that are substantially different in other dimensions.
It's also generally very hypocritical when she complains about other characters.
And yes, she perhaps has the lowest acting range among the core cast.
The gene test was not used to find anyone with psychopathic tendencies but the "top 1%" who very likely become 'predator serial killers' later on.
"All Ba Reum ever wanted was for someone to love him, hug him, and let him know he wasn't a monster."
The 'real' JBR (before being implanted emotions) gutted rabbits without remorse and murdered fish and a dog simply because his father adored them.
As the truly last person to watch it (a good year after you), I found it a bit hard to follow the 'reckless' writing. I'd like to reply to individual points if that's still useful to you. For example, re Ep10 you write:
"the criminal didn't have father at first but now has?? huh; the criminal's mother supposed to give birth after Yohan's mother in the early ep but now she did it before for 6-7 yrs??"
I don't know who 'the criminal with no father' is, but I think regarding giving birth, you confuse the mother visible at 02:14 in the episode with the one dead at 02:30.
The mothers of the three OZ-monitored psycho kids are in the same place at the same time, and it can be unclear that there's three mothers and not just two.
Or you write:
"- The conflict is A wants to kill B who is a criminal treated at a hospital, but B is protected by two polices standing guard at the patient door at all time.
- Resolution of this series to let A kill B is to let C who is another police says via the walkie talkie that there's some incident happening near the hospital area and he needs some support at the moment."
In the show, A and C and D all separately want to kill B. C uses his police status to remove the two guards so that he, C, can access B unseen (which is indeed lazy writing in the sense that it happens several times during the show). Instead, A and D arrive there before him. In the end B is dead, as C intended, just that C did not get to do it, which is why he smears blood on himself and reports himself as the murderer.
Btw, I think the truly ridiculous level of fated, predestined teenage encounters and such is something you did not mention as a complaint. It's way over the top how everybody knows everybody else and all of them are connected, or how virtually every "top class serial killer" lives in the same area.
In a later episode, they even declare that their two people police evidence crew (technically three, but their boss never shows up for work) oversees "the evidence of every case in Korean criminal history" and somehow the two have enough time to go and solve all open murder cases too.
Essentially she found out she was pregnant when Yo Han, the father of her child, died. Because he's a reviled murderer at that point, Choi Hong Joo wants to have an abortion, but jumps up in the last second to go fact-finding instead.
Eventually she meets Daniel Lee who has been without food and water in the abandoned hospital where Sung Yo Han evacuated him to, then goes off to kill herself ravaged by guilt about her role in her love's death – and if she had done so, Daniel Lee wouldn't have had anyone to provide him with food and the like ^_^.
Then some 10 days after the brain surgery, she and Daniel Lee hatch the plan of using Jung Ba Reum as their personal assassin, to kill other serial murderers and such.
Some ~9 months later she delivers her baby. This happens during the one year time skip after Jung Ba Reum wakes up from his surgery with amnesia.
(Moo Chi) "And it isn't even like he's a good detective - he's very slow to piece things together."
That's just not true. Beyond the psychopathic geniuses, he's the smartest character around, and makes all sorts of logical conclusions, even in a high pressure situation like during that TV broadcast for the killer's amusement. What makes absolutely no sense is that he's both the 'mad dog' kind of detective caricature that just loves to punch someone, and fittingly a raging alcoholic, but also ridiculously good at figuring out cases to the degree that everyone else in the department has to defer to him when he comes up with any sort of logical conclusion. His alcoholism has an on/off switch – much like that of the mother of Yu Na, a would-be rapist victim later on.
"they feel like they were written just for the plot and don't exist outside of it."
99.99% of K-dramas have 'best friend of FL' type characters that only hop out of her pocket to give emotional advice and then disappear back into that pocket.
"psychopaths are determined at birth and they all need to be aborted because the only route they'll take in life is murder!"
No, the 'top 1%' of psychopaths are declared 'predator serial killers' and those are to be aborted before birth. Not (necessarily) the other 99% of psychopaths.
It's a bit absurd that those 'predators' spring out of the ground like mushrooms later in the show, with every half-baked rapist being declared one.
The non-'predator' psychopaths don't really appear in the show at all. Perhaps one young child is one, but that is not elaborated on much.
Yo Han's character is NOT a psychopath. He's a genius that the gene test cannot distinguish from one. See 13:00 to 13:20 in EP 01.
"like some guy petting a dogs butt being proof of him hating dogs."
Not necessarily hating dogs, but not having genuine well-meaning experience of how to treat dogs. It's a matter of someone treating animals the way 'you should'. For example I've had cats for a good lot of my life, so I easily see when other people touch them in a less than ideal way.
One could say there's a redemption arc.
(The middle part isn't that exciting.)
I guess for people who like to rewatch shows this might serve as a diet coke one-evening rewatch?
"Restart" goes after episode 10. (It's behind the scenes stuff.)
The King Eternal Monarch: uh, I don't think the plot is TKEM's strong point
Tomorrow With You: plot issues ( https://mydramalist.com/18882-tomorrow-with-you#comment-7614685 ), the lead couple's romance/intimacy is really good though
Train: plot issues ( https://mydramalist.com/discussions/train/81299-spoilers-things-that-made-no-sense-to-me )
Tunnel: plot weaknesses, the writers clearly didn't know how to explain time travel implications later on towards the end – so they just didn't bother
"But since this alien-Chief kept on taking over other Worlds, things kept on repeating for her son because her way of thinking was exactly the same.
The true World #2 Chief would have done things differently 12 years ago."
She went through like five sons in as many worlds, and in that time time flowed normally for her, meaning she can't have spent 10 of those 12 years in the same world. She was always world-hopping and (most importantly) getting more and more desperate to "protect" her son.
We also saw that she (some version of her) initially tried the idea of arresting him, or at least started handcuffing him.
Unfortunately Korean writers struggle creating investigation-mystery ("whodunnit", as well as how to find evidence) dramas that don't end up with mostly contrived and convenient plots, or the most ridiculous red herrings that just make absolutely no sense in retrospect. It's why I never watched Lost, I hate when filmmakers ask you potentially intriguing questions that they themselves don't have an answer for.
On the plus side, murder mysteries aren't that suited for flooding the viewer with sponsored products, and it's nice to see the characters that are substantially different in other dimensions.
(Though I gave it a vastly lower overall rating myself.)