disappointing

This is one of the worst. Season 1 shows some potential, but season 2 goes downhill quickly. Jo-jo, the lead female, and Sun-oh developed love at high school. Since Sun-oh is rich and handsome, other girls became jealous and turned against Jo-jo. Sun-oh defended Jo-jo and loved her deeply, and told her that she should never abandon him. After a motorcycle accident, Sun-oh suffered a more serious injury and lost contact with Jo-jo. Hye-yeong, best friend of Sun-oh, initially helped Jo-jo to go to Sun-oh’s house to visit him; Jo-jo overheard that his parents would send him to the US if he continued to see Jo-jo. As a self-protection and “for the sake of Sun-oh”, Jo-jo ended her relationship with Sun-oh despite deep hurt to him and her love for him. In the meanwhile, Hye-yeong helped Jo-jo when she was bullied by her aunt and her cousin. In the moment of despair and loneliness, Jo-jo agreed to date Hye-yeong even though there is no love alarm for him. Sun-oh continued to pursue Jo-jo because he was in deep pain and he still had strong love for her. Jo-jo rejected him repeatedly and even activated a shield in the Love Alarm app to hide her love for Sun-oh. After seeing Sun-oh again, Jo-jo went to the developer of Love Alarm to disable the shield so her true love can be shown; but she was told the shield can’t disabled. This is a huge lie since you can always get a new phone or start a new installation of the App. It is clear that Jo-jo still has feelings towards Sun-oh. Sun-oh finally confronted her on her deception (hiding her love); she said she regretted the decision everyday, but said she made the right decision to protect herself. She was shaken and was going to tell Hye-yeong that she was to end the relationship with him; but she did not have the courage to tell him the truth since she was afraid that she would hurt his feelings. After several back-n-forth, she chose to stay with Sun-oh by convincing herself that she was truly in love with Sun-oh despite the love alarm rating. This time, she used a spear in Love Alarm to force a love alarm on Sun-oh. Her action was praised by the developer of the love alarm because will can determine true love. In the end, Jo-jo and Sun-oh became a happy couple; Hye-yeong was still recovering from the deep hurt; there was no reconciliation between Jo-jo and her aunt and cousin, between Hye-yeong and Sun-oh.

The ending was a surprise and terrible. The overall message is (1) it’s okay to be selfish in order to survive, (2) it is okay to be not faithful to vows (please do not abandon me, we will stick together), (3) it is okay to steal your best friend’s girl friend when the couple are vulnerable, (4) there is no remedy for the past mistake, (5) perpetuating past mistake is okay, (6) it is okay to escape from difficult situation while hurting loved ones deeply (and not standing up to bullies), like Jo-jo’s parents did (committing suicide with Jo-jo).

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