Plot: Emotionally hurt ML falls in love with the emotionally strong FL, who helps him overcome the trauma by being a role model in how to do it. Their hugs are what made me really get into the series and the angst in the plot, whooh! The ML’s portrayal (and looks) knocked it out of the park for me. The FL was quiet mediocre, but at least she got the hugs right. Small mercies!

Why I liked it:
* Male Lead: You know the standard trope: ‘good-girls-fall-for-bad-guys’? There is another related trope: “emo-hurt-boy-I-am-gonna-fix-his-hurt”. This is what the ML (Andrew) brings to the table here in heaps. He is justifiably hurt. His mother left him, his brother and father for a lover when he was young. He carries his hurt around, in his eyes, the way of speaking. If you meet such emo-hurt guys in real life, they have a way of plucking the nurturing strings of a woman’s heart who feels she can give him the love to fix it. The FL fell for this perhaps. And so did I :)
However, here the FL is also hurt, her birth being a product of rape. However, when she comes to know about it, instead of being emo hurt about it, she goes about making her father apologise, and then embarks on a journey to forgive the same father, to eventually ending up actually finding a place for herself in the said father’s life. This was perhaps inspiring to the ML, who thought there is no way he can ever forgive his mother. He saw the FL doing it, and it panning out well for her. Instead of burning in constant need for revenge, she found peace. I think she made the ML realise that forgiveness does not unduly benefit his mother who may / may not deserve it, but sets him free too.

* Angst: Hoo boy, this series had so much angst. Basically, the ML was engaged to a really nice woman, and fell for the FL. The ML’s brother was into the FL. While the FL turned the brother down firmly, the ML was cheating on his brother too by falling for the FL and low key making out with her behind his back. Technically both the ML’s fiancee and brother were not at any kind of fault, ML and the FL were cheating. Imagine the scene: The ML and FL are hugging, FL gets a call from ML’s brother, lies to him about what she is doing. The ML knows she is talking to the brother (who is bonkers about her) and lying, waits for her to finish. She puts the phone down and again comes back to hug him. Sheesh! It’s completely morally wrong, even if we see why they do so and try to stop themselves unsuccessfully. I love angst where all parties are in some way justified, it’s not black or white. Anyways, being morally grey himself helped the ML to forgive his mother.

* Voyeurism: So many people watched them making out and being morally grey, unbeknownst to them. The FL’s friends just happily gawked them hugging from the stairs, ML's fiancee watches them in the office when the FL faints and the ML embrace-catches her etc. etc. I thought it added zing to the scenes.

What did not work:
* The last few episodes are not subbed, so I will never know for sure how the ending panned out. The ML and FL conversations are the meat of the series and I missed them :(
* Angst: It could have been built way more. Feelings of jealousy / guilt their particular actions should generate were not touched upon.
* Kisses: They sort of wished to film it the way that we know they are kissing without actually showing them kissing. It did not work at all. It was so obvious on screen that they both did not kiss at all when they turned their heads.
* FL: Extremely mediocre acting, she was unlikeable in general.

No matter what I wrote in negatives, this series and Andrew’s portrayal stayed in my mind for days once I was done with the series. I recommend watching.