This review may contain spoilers
When I was first getting into dramas back in 2018, I had this one on my list when I first saw a clip of the the 3 mains together, intoxicated in a single bed, one cuddling Ro Won, while the other, I assumed was the main male lead, staring deeply into her eyes, and caressing her face. I was like...I really want to know what is happening in this scene, but never was able to find it, until 2020, when they decided to add it to Netflix. I dropped everything to binge watch it, and it was A LOT different than I thought it was going to be able.
It was a good combination, back and forth between a very silly stereotypical drama, but then they would have serious scenes at dealt with suicide, self harm, and fears. It was nice to have that comic relief, but at the same time, it confused me. For example, the plot. About a year ago, my roommate had watched this drama on a sketchy site, and when I started watching this drama last week, she told me that there were so man twists and turns that she never saw coming. And I agree with her, there were a lot of twists, but I felt like the writer/director was VERY obvious about what was going to play out. It took until episode 5 for me to understand what was happening - episode 5 was the "flashback" episode, that told is what had happened to Ro Won's sister before her death. But even in that hour flashback, I was still getting confused based on how Ro Won's sister acted about everyone. It got to a point where I was like...ok...I mean yes, that makes sense...but it doesn't, but for the sake of wanting to understand the story at this moment, yeah sure. Let's go with that. Maybe I am just over analyzing everything. But when it came down to all the twists at the end, I was happy that I wasn't insane and overthought everything.
As for the characters, I loved Eun Hwan Ki, and the actor who played him. It was awesome seeing someone who struggled with social anxiety in a main role. I believe it was a symptom of being an introvert, but magnified because of believing it was his fault for his secretary's suicide. I identified so much whenever he would over think in the simplest of situations, and thinking about the possible outcomes, and once you decide on the lesser of the evils, you think about how everything could go wrong, and then you end up doing something completely different and wrong in that situation. That was one of the things I didn't like about the drama, but also did - Eun built up is relationships with everyone one by one, slowly...so we didn't really see anyone standing up for him or helping him until the second half of the drama. And even then, maybe middle second half of the drama. It hurt my heart seeing how closed minded people were being and assuming the worst, but I guess that is a drama cliche. It just hurt how long it lasted. Like yes, if people thought of me like that, I would hide myself from the world too. But when he finally came out, he was the cutest, dorkiest character ever, and I loved him with all my heart. Well until the ending where he was so used to internalizing everything and blew up. And it sucks, but oh, I can identify with that too. It is hard when you want to be with someone or hangout with someone who is completely different from you in the way you act and speak. But it is interesting with a character like Chae Ro Won, who did an amazing job in her role btw, who I had a love ate relationship with. They definitely played her as a young bubbly extrovert who, when it mattered, was an MVP support system for Eun and his team, but in normal everyday situations, was airheaded and really didn't think about what others thought. I cannot atest to her actions as I am not an extrovert by any means, but I did see a lot of similarities between her and my roommate who oozes extrovertness. Yes...that is a new word now. But maybe that is an introverted person's view of extroverted people. Who knows. I just had a love hate relationship with her because her character went from close minded to caring for him and helping him and taking the time to understand him to then again being closed minded because hey we are in love. Other than that, the actress did an amazing job, and it seemed like she was super natural in her role.
As for the other characters, I liked them, but I was indifferent, except for the characters who played a part in Ro Won's sister's suicide or thought they did. They were "traumatized" that it took them 3 years and a lot of pushing for them to realize, hey...maybe I'm putting the blame on the wrong person and maybe we should talk about it so my relationships with myself and other people can be healthy? It made me want to dislike a lot of characters, but I guess at the end, they redeemed themselves. And with that, I didn't care for a lot of side relationships.
Overall, I think an 8.5 is fair. I enjoyed it, but it also hurt my heart to see Eun misunderstood. But in the end, he did the best he could in order to protect everyone else, even if he had to be the one who went down. I think I couldn't give it anything higher because the time jumps and present time with flashbacks weren't super obvious and I got confused a few times. Also, it was nice to see them have "regular" problems after everything settled, but at the same time, I feel like there was a little bit too much weight that went into these problems vs Eun being apart of the reason her sister killed herself. Like you jumped back super quick and forgave him because you knew he was a great guy, but screw him because he didn't write me a chirstmas card. Like...what? The gravity of these situations are equal and you can talk about this without exploding. It was a turnoff as I thought they would be the most mature couple out of everyone, yet that was not he case.
It was a good combination, back and forth between a very silly stereotypical drama, but then they would have serious scenes at dealt with suicide, self harm, and fears. It was nice to have that comic relief, but at the same time, it confused me. For example, the plot. About a year ago, my roommate had watched this drama on a sketchy site, and when I started watching this drama last week, she told me that there were so man twists and turns that she never saw coming. And I agree with her, there were a lot of twists, but I felt like the writer/director was VERY obvious about what was going to play out. It took until episode 5 for me to understand what was happening - episode 5 was the "flashback" episode, that told is what had happened to Ro Won's sister before her death. But even in that hour flashback, I was still getting confused based on how Ro Won's sister acted about everyone. It got to a point where I was like...ok...I mean yes, that makes sense...but it doesn't, but for the sake of wanting to understand the story at this moment, yeah sure. Let's go with that. Maybe I am just over analyzing everything. But when it came down to all the twists at the end, I was happy that I wasn't insane and overthought everything.
As for the characters, I loved Eun Hwan Ki, and the actor who played him. It was awesome seeing someone who struggled with social anxiety in a main role. I believe it was a symptom of being an introvert, but magnified because of believing it was his fault for his secretary's suicide. I identified so much whenever he would over think in the simplest of situations, and thinking about the possible outcomes, and once you decide on the lesser of the evils, you think about how everything could go wrong, and then you end up doing something completely different and wrong in that situation. That was one of the things I didn't like about the drama, but also did - Eun built up is relationships with everyone one by one, slowly...so we didn't really see anyone standing up for him or helping him until the second half of the drama. And even then, maybe middle second half of the drama. It hurt my heart seeing how closed minded people were being and assuming the worst, but I guess that is a drama cliche. It just hurt how long it lasted. Like yes, if people thought of me like that, I would hide myself from the world too. But when he finally came out, he was the cutest, dorkiest character ever, and I loved him with all my heart. Well until the ending where he was so used to internalizing everything and blew up. And it sucks, but oh, I can identify with that too. It is hard when you want to be with someone or hangout with someone who is completely different from you in the way you act and speak. But it is interesting with a character like Chae Ro Won, who did an amazing job in her role btw, who I had a love ate relationship with. They definitely played her as a young bubbly extrovert who, when it mattered, was an MVP support system for Eun and his team, but in normal everyday situations, was airheaded and really didn't think about what others thought. I cannot atest to her actions as I am not an extrovert by any means, but I did see a lot of similarities between her and my roommate who oozes extrovertness. Yes...that is a new word now. But maybe that is an introverted person's view of extroverted people. Who knows. I just had a love hate relationship with her because her character went from close minded to caring for him and helping him and taking the time to understand him to then again being closed minded because hey we are in love. Other than that, the actress did an amazing job, and it seemed like she was super natural in her role.
As for the other characters, I liked them, but I was indifferent, except for the characters who played a part in Ro Won's sister's suicide or thought they did. They were "traumatized" that it took them 3 years and a lot of pushing for them to realize, hey...maybe I'm putting the blame on the wrong person and maybe we should talk about it so my relationships with myself and other people can be healthy? It made me want to dislike a lot of characters, but I guess at the end, they redeemed themselves. And with that, I didn't care for a lot of side relationships.
Overall, I think an 8.5 is fair. I enjoyed it, but it also hurt my heart to see Eun misunderstood. But in the end, he did the best he could in order to protect everyone else, even if he had to be the one who went down. I think I couldn't give it anything higher because the time jumps and present time with flashbacks weren't super obvious and I got confused a few times. Also, it was nice to see them have "regular" problems after everything settled, but at the same time, I feel like there was a little bit too much weight that went into these problems vs Eun being apart of the reason her sister killed herself. Like you jumped back super quick and forgave him because you knew he was a great guy, but screw him because he didn't write me a chirstmas card. Like...what? The gravity of these situations are equal and you can talk about this without exploding. It was a turnoff as I thought they would be the most mature couple out of everyone, yet that was not he case.
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