meidreams

I'm not saying I'm losing hope... but a crumb of news, just a tiny tiny crumb, would be lovely.
It's been so long now!

I wish I could pin this review for everyone to read

What really pisses me off is how the residents of Green Home did all they could to survive in s1, and by episode 2 literally half of them died in the most unnecessary and dumb ways. What was even the point of everything that happened in the previous season?

This feels like an entirely different show, not a sequel

You put into words exactly what I thought and felt upon finishing season one.
Albeit it never lost its grip on me, this show really started strong with the gore and a sense of dread and threat in the first couple of episodes, but it really lost its focus as it went on. Perhaps the writers struggled to deal with so many characters? I don't know, it feels like they were all introduced at a surface level and most of the time just disappeared and were never mentioned until they were needed for a certain scene.
And with the way the monsters inside and outside the building sort of vanished for half the season (the survivors were living pretty normally and being loud, so how did they not attract more attacks?), the dread and suspense of the opening episodes were pretty much lost.
But I did love the interactions among the characters and seeing so many different people trying to coexist and grow closer. They were all interesting and complex (albeit underdeveloped or forgotten in some cases and a bit ooc in the last episode) and I think that messy found family was the saving grace of this drama, because the writing and execution moved between slightly decent and pretty bad, nothing above that... did you also feel like some scenes were abruptly cut or missing entirely?

I don't know if it's a problem of the latest dramas or if it's just me growing stronger opinions and criticisms the more dramas I watch, but I often find that after a certain point in the drama (second half, usually), it either loses my interest or there's a drop in the quality of the writing concerning plot or characters or both.
This show is still pretty decent and they are wrapping arcs nicely, even if sometimes they rush it, but it kind of lost me at this point and I'm no longer counting the days for the newest episode.

I'd say it's up to you
What made you drop it? If it was for a flaw you think you can overlook this time around, you can give it a second chance, but I'd say don't force it if you don't feel like it. Episode 7 is more or less halfway through the drama, so by then you'd already have an idea/opinion about the characters and plot and whether it's worth it to stick around until the end.

I trust we'll find out more about his character in the last few episodes. They might lose the plot in filler scenes at times or rush some arcs, but so far they explained the actions (albeit briefly in some cases) of humans and spirits alike and gave closure to all the characters introduced so far.
He always felt like the real mastermind. Always lying and playing mind games with nobles and ghosts.
Even when he was still answering to the Premier as his "master" and begged him for forgiveness and one more chance, his fear never felt much sincere, like he was playing weak and subjugated like he did with the Dowager Queen. He's a very sly character.

I believe Bi Bi explained that the way to leave the body he's possessing is by killing it (and it looked like he knew that too, with the way he was trying to hurt himself and jump off buildings in the first episodes)
Gang Cheol didn't kill the body because Yeo Ri still held hope for Yun Gap to get it back, but now Yun Gap decided to cross to the Otherworld, so he could technically get rid of it and go back to his more powerful spirit form? I don't know whether the writers forgot about these details or whether they'll come back into play in the last two episodes. We'll see, we'll see

I know! And he also has such a benevolent appearance, you would never believe he's basically evil incarnated. He's really the one pulling the strings in this show.
Yes, this makes sense, actually. Not speaking the language and having to rely fully on subtitles, sometimes I have this felling of "have I missed something or was it just bad translation?" But the mother's love explanation really fits her character.
Yun Gap deserved to be at peace, at last, and his moments with his mother were probably the best part of the episode and quite sad, knowing how it would have ended.
But I wasn't expecting it to be over so soon, not gonna lie. I don't know, half an episode to resolve that arc feels a bit rushed.

Two questions:
1) why is that blind shaman so purely evil? This is more rhetorical than not, but he acts so evil it actually gets on my nerves (the actor's great tho, he's really making me hate the character)
2) did Yun Gap's mother... know? That her son was dead and another spirit had taken his body? Or were the subtitles just weird? She always acted as though she thought he had lost his mind (and even bought medicines to cure him), but in episode 14 she acted as if she knew it wasn't him. Her reaction when Yun Gap came back could be read in a more "metaphorical" sense: you had lost your mind and finally came back to your senses and old self.
But when Kang Cheol got the body back, her reaction really confused me.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree much with this.
While it is right that fantasy works allow us do dream and play with our imagination, a fantasy world actually needs a lot more thinking process on the creator part precisely because it's not real but it has to feel so to the viewer/reader.
I grew up with fantasy books and movies, I've been writing fantasy novels for years, and to make a good fantasy story you need it to be believable and consistent. You are creating a whole new world and it needs its own rules and laws to function, especially with any sort of magic system involved. Lore and worldbuilding are essential for it to work and feel like a place you could actually get sucked into.
Yes, some details can be left unsaid and for the viewer to imagine, but you need a solid base and solid columns or it wouldn't hold up.

I wish writers and directors were free to show the story they want to show instead of changing and cutting stuff just to please the audience
Things will inevitably lack and feel inconsistent, if you craft something that way

This actually makes a lot of sense and I hope that's actually what happened and not lazy writing as I feared.
Still doesn't explain how he knew to do that or how it's even possible to steal it at all (and so easily)
I don't think they explain it, so I'm assuming they form that pearl through centuries of meditation and cultivation and that's what allows them to become higher beings/deities instead of remaining normal animal snakes? The lore behind the Imugi creatures is still pretty obscure, so I'm using Chinese mythology to find answers
Or perhaps they're just born Imugi, but them cultivating to become Dragons and ascend would be a little confusing
Then again, the multiple options to become Dragon are also confusing
I really need more lore and worldbuilding for this drama

I think it'd be too late to introduce a love triangle with only four episodes left.
It wouldn't surprise me much, but it really wouldn't make sense for the direction the plot has taken and the characters.
A love triangle right now would be awful writing, really

This could be it, but the fact he knew how to do that and was able to do that doesn't sit quite right with me? How did he even know? I don't think they showed us the blind shaman explaining it to him.
The Imugis are literal deities and they lived longer than the 8 Feet Spirit, but they didn't know their pearl could defeat him (I don't know how the monk knew either) and, even if weakened, it shouldn't be that easy to take their very essence out? I don't know, I think that scene could have been written better

But with this kind of progression, the ending/final battle can turn out to be so rushed, underwhelming and disappointing
They make the villain so invincible, that they inevitably have to make them weak for the heroes to win and it's all so inconsistent
They've been doing it with Gang Cheol himself

I think it could be the Korean/Shamanism version of the Grim Reaper and perhaps each type of ghost and spirit has its own? I don't remember what they called it, but Yeo Ri was thinking of summoning the spirit that specifically takes the souls of the burnt to get rid of the 8 Feet Ghost once they discovered his identity
But perhaps it's not the same as the more western version of a Grim Reaper, otherwise there would be no lingering ghosts to begin with and Bi Bi wouldn't have been able to eat souls
I don't know, the lore and set rules of that world aren't really well explained and there are so many gaps we need to fill in

Unfortunately, I have to agree.
I'm still enjoying this drama, but it's not keeping the same quality of the earliest episodes.
It was never perfect, but the writing feels a lot more inconsistent and lazy, with focus on the wrong things and characters that act like they have no critical thinking or stare without reaction as something bad happens.
There's often this "fall" when it comes to the second half of a drama, but I hope it'll get back on tracks with the last four episodes.

They really needed to think and write the fantasy lore a little better.