natyok9378

If I didn't know any better I'd be saying the ML was having an affair after the episode 4 flashback opening LMAO. Like, that was suspicious.

But I do like the flashbacks, and what they add. At first glance, the wife makes a rather negative first impression, while the husband just looks like a good guy. Her flaws are immediately obvious, while his aren't. But then with each flashback we get more context behind the wife's behavior, while we slowly see that the husband isn't as flawless as he first appeared. Both are good people, though they're also flawed in their own ways.

I also wonder if that's connected to the kidnapper's motive. Supposedly, the cop's wife was kidnapped because the cop did something bad, though we don't know what. The kidnapper basically thinks that it's their own fault. There has got to be a reason, because I don't think these kidnappings are random, as they appear to be very planned.

I can't exactly blame Se-yun for blaming her husband for their daughter's death. She needed somebody to blame, he wasn't there, so he became the easy target. Obviously not right, but understandable given the circumstances. But what struck me was his utter silence in that moment. Sure, it's understandable and I certainly don't blame him, but I wonder if that's a recurring thing: his silence and avoidance of actually dealing with the problems in his marriage. Even in episode 1 he basically had to be told to try and talk with his wife. What they went through could break even the best marriages, unless you fight for it. But if they didn't, I can easily see how we got to the present day situation. His silence and avoidance only made her resentment grow stronger.

Though it also wouldn't surprise me if more stuff happened. Like, I can easily see how her parents could also be part of the problem.

On the bright side, the theory of her having staged her own kidnapping pretty much went out the window here. Never liked that idea in the first place, so I'm glad. Her actually being kidnapped while her (perhaps soon to be ex-) husband, that she may or may not love anymore, is her only hope of rescue makes for a way more interesting story.

Separated.

Mixed opinions on the first episode. There's some fun moments, and the leads have potential, but then you have all the AI moments, which were so obvious and so fake, that it took me right out of situations that I was supposed to laugh about. Like, how about we focus less on the ridiculous comedic scenes that you can't even pull off properly without using AI, and more on literally everything else?

But can we drop his whole pill usage thing too? I didn't think any of that was funny honestly.

The moment Bang-wool got seriously injured I let out a loud "OH SH*T NO". In that moment I felt the stakes and danger I should feel, and for a second I thought the drama would actually pull off an intense final 2 episodes. It's not that I wanted him to die, but he should've died for the stakes to survive. When he lived, I was just so checked out of everything. There were so many close calls and physical injuries after that, but those did nothing to me because I knew they were gonna be fine anyway. That's the exact opposite of how I'm supposed to feel in a drama like this. Quite frankly, for being a horror, I think the drama played things way too safe.

With Hye-ryung and Si-won, it's not that I don't think it wasn't well handled, I just think both make such extreme jumps at the end that require making too many assumptions to really work. The drama took it's time to set these two characters and their friendship up, and it just needed more time at the end so the extreme jumps these characters made would feel more understandable. I just think with the pacing at the end, their actions end up feeling too extreme, and not understandable enough, and I think there needed to be a better balance between the two to work.

I hate how Na-ri just became a one-dimensional villain in the end. I was fine with the rivalry with Se-ah before, but in the finale that conflict just felt stupid and forced imo.

I also think the flashback episode felt rushed in the end. Logic aside, I feel like the drama did a decent job at building up the Hye-ryung/ Si-won dynamic, but then in the end it felt like the characters immediately jumped to doing extremely drastic and extreme things that weren't properly build up. We really could've used an additional 15 minutes there.

Admiteddly one of my bigger probems; I feel like the drama lacked real stakes in the last 2 episodes. I felt like there were real stakes in the first 3 episodes: Hyeong-wook died, characters were getting seriously injured left and right, and almost dying. But that gets old pretty quickly when it becomes increasingly obvious that the drama isn't actually gonna kill any of them. And then it makes a crucial mistake in episode 7: it lets Bang-wool live. Don't get me wrong, I like him, but what am I supposed to think when you injure him like that and he still doesn't die? I'm sorry, but if you're afraid to kill off the arguably most expendable character, do you really expect me to believe that you're going to kill anybody else? You can physically injure them as much times as you want, but that's pointless if you're not actually afraid that they can die. It just becomes pointless shock value after that.

Finally finished this. I enjoyed it, but I also feel like the drama is also often it's own worst enemy. Visually etc, it's all good, and the drama does certainly have some cool ideas, but the more you get into it, the more the excecution of it becomes rather questionable.

The drama lacks a certain logic, lacks a clear ruleset of how everything works, and lacks proper worldbuilding. Things happen because they happen. This becomes a real problem later on when the drama attempts to "explain" things with backstories, but that just ends up suffering from the same problems. Why should I bother to think about the story when it feels like the writer didn't bother to think about the rhyme or reason behind everything either?

The characters are... fine. They're not bad, and I ike them, but I also wasn't also overly attached to them, and the story didn't make me become attached to them either because of the aforementioned problems. Though some of the characters were done dirty imo. Though at least the drama is smart enough to not really make it about the romance.

I'm honestly pretty disappointed in this one. I was really excited to see Ryuga & Rian reunited again, except they end up being seperated for 80% of this season anyway. The final fight with both of them is great, but even that feels so short. Ryuga & Rian are at the heart of this season, yet they are at the heart of an underdeveloped story that feels manufacted just to give them a bittersweet heartbreaking ending. The season randomly adds to excisting lore, and then manufactures the character of Rian around that, but never really explores any of it. She often feels like a side character in a story that's basically about her. This sadly feels like the ending of their story together, yet I feel like both characters just deserve better than this.

That would've happened in an ideal world, but this isn't an ideal world. But even then, Hiromi would still be hurt, and then he'd be an asshole for immediately ditching her just because he saw his first love again. So maybe not that ideal?

But even so, the reasons why he pushed Makiko away in the first place still applied. The mistakes didn't start in the present, a lot of the present day situations are a consequence of choices made when they were kids.

Of course she had a choice. She always had a choice. She chose to stay with him despite it all, knowing their relationship wouldn't lead to marriage. She chose to ask him about his future and what he wanted to do, despite knowing full well what the answer might be. Sure, he is a coward, but then don't make him out to be an asshole that couldn't wait to kick her to the curb when things finally got better for him, because he was too cowardly for that. There was no ideal solution for this, the only thing they could do was be honest. Being honest isn't an excuse, it was the only possible solution, even if somebody got hurt because of it. People can keep arguing about how wrong it is, but nobodies actually offering a better alternative. Is there even one?

Please quote me the part where he said it's time for them to seperate. He spoke of his wish to be there for Makiko, after she asked him to speak about the future and after she asked him to tell her what he wanted to do. She was the one who decided to end their relationship right at that moment because she knew their relationship had run its course. Everything in that scene was initiated by her, all he did was be honest (which is what she asked).

You underestimate Hiromi way too much. That woman wasn't blind, nor was she naive or stupid. She knew, and still did everything anyway, and that was her choice.

She knew he had feelings for Makiko, and knew her relationship with Junichi wasn't last or lead to marriage. She knew she was more into this relationship than he was, and yet she still chose to stay with him despite everything, nor did she decide to blame Junichi for any of this. He didn't kick her to the curb, she chose to leave. Is it fair? Of course not, Hiromi is the absolute best, and deserves only the absolute best, but Junichi can't offer her that.

It was a complicated, messy situation, and there wasn't really an ideal or right way to deal with it. You can very much debate Junichi's actions, and while they certainly weren't "right" or "ideal" (there was no such way), I don't think for a second that he didn't respect her or wasn't grateful to her. So how should they have dealt with it? In the end, it is better being honest, even if that honesty might hurt a person that doesn't deserve it, because it's better than living in a lie, which would've made everybody miserable.

I don't even necessarily hate the ending, but I really don't like how it's executed. Like I get it, long distance is hard (especially when there's no set end to the long distance), but this ending only makes sense because of the logic behind it, and not because they were actually properly building up to this. The "ex-boyfriend" thing is literally dropped on us in the last minute when they were literally doing fine 2 minutes earlier. What makes it more frustrating is that they wasted precious minutes on a flashback montage when they could've used those to show us how their relationship deteriorated.

Seriously, we spend 10 weeks with them and watched how they tried to make their relationship work, only for the drama to unceremoniously tell us "they're broken up btw" in the last freaking minute. You could've shown me that damn it.

Was kinda worried how they were gonna conclude it after episode 8, as I really didn't want it to end with Makiko behind bars when she was arguably the biggest victim in this whole mess, but I'm very satified with how everything concluded and where everybody ended up. The ending made me breath a sigh of relief, while the surprise romantic ending put a smile on my face (well played, Junichi, well played).

Damn, the finale really rubs your nose in the fact that true justice isn't all that easy to achieve. There are some wins, there's some hope, but the bad guys mostly get away with everything. It feels scarily realistic and very in tune with the rest of the drama. And yet some of the victims are doing better, while our protagonists still very much live to fight another day. And maybe that's the most important victory to be had here.

The scary part is that Tae-joo doesn't even seem to realize the monster he's become. In trying to take down the monsters, he became one himself, while still trying to delude himself that he's the hero. His sister would be ashamed of him if she saw him now.

That romance tag never should've been there in the first place, as I don't think this was ever actually promoted or presented as a romance drama. I also don't think that tag was there originally, instead it was suddenly added around the time the drama premiered.

The whole thing of Jung-woo admitting to Kang Nora that he doesn't want another regret again shows that what him and Geum-bo need isn't a romantic reunion, but closure. That's the only ending for them that makes sense at this point imo.

Heck, even in this episode, Geum-bo doesn't act like somebody that still has real romantic feelings for him. She took him down without a second thought, and now she's using him to get what she wants (as she should).

The real main relationship here has always been Geum-bo and Bok-hee, and I love their development and how far they've come. And I can't wait to see them (hopefully) win and get everything they want. Not gonna lie, the ending should just be them on the beach together (potentially with Kang Nora and Mi-sook).

I owe Seong-gyu an apology. I was yelling at him when I thought he did the most stupid thing in the history of stupid things, only for it to actually be a briliant thing. Well played.

Also, either Tae-ju is really good at pretending to be the nice guy, or I'm going to owe this guy a very big apology to by the end of all this. But from how things are looking right now, he's still very much a suspect.