This review may contain spoilers
THE Worst Ending EVER: Never Have I Felt This Betrayed, Disappointed and Played by a Show!!!
After some time (more than needed thinking about this show and trying to put into words how I felt), I came up with this final review on dramabeans which is more complete than the first one, I also had to lower the rating because the more I think about it the more bamboozled I feel. So here we go.First of all I would like to commend the cast for their amazing work specially Shin Hye Sun, She did the damn thing. She rocked the show, hell she was THE SHOW.
This drama would've been such a masterpiece without that disrespectful ending. I've never felt this betrayed or hurt because of a show because I've never rooted for a couple as much as I did for Sobong and CheolJong just to have the time, feelings and energy I invested in this relationship throwed in a trash bag.
These two were a match made in heaven and this show consolidated my belief in love regardless of genders. Just to be clear, the king never fell in love at first sight with Soyong (love at first sight doesn't exist), he was curious and had a sense of familiarity about her , attracted AT BEST. Everything went through the window when he realized that she was from the Kim clan. Think about it CJ fell in love with Sobong 's personality which is mainly JBH's personality. He fell in love with his/her strange (and unpredictable most of the times )behavior, her/his sassiness, strange words (thanks to which we got the epic Queen's Dictionary) ,boldness and crazy eccentric self. Sobong was someone like no other in Joseon.
From episode 1 to episode 19 ,we got to see the relationship between these two evolve from deep antagonism and lack of trust to selfless love and solid partnership. They were ready to die for each other and my God this insane chemistry , the constant bickering and the fluttering moments between them. I JUST CAN'T. SB went from an identity crisis to carrying his child , accepting his/her feelings for CJ to being all in for CJ knowing that he was going to lose just to die (when BH got sent back to the future) at the most crucial moment just when CJ was dying before him/her.
The first thing BH did when he woke up was try to see if the king survived if that's not love I don't know what it is. BH regardless of Soyong's memories (which I admit could have influenced him in the beginning) fell in love with the king when he saw him in a new light and saw how much the king wanted to change Joseon and cared about his people.
The only reason people are trying to justify this ending is by saying that what CJ and BH had was a bromance and all the romance was done by SY which I will never understand, maybe I watched a different show. Because BH was there and felt everything, he enjoyed the sex, as CJ said SB was a true tigress.
If the queen's body was possessed by a woman from the future nobody would be trying to attribute the feelings of said woman to Soyong's and the internet would be in shambles if she was sent back to the future after making all these sacrifices.But as we have a man here, I suppose to some it's less comfortable that a man who happened to be straight fell in love with another man. This is problematic on so many levels...
They made BH do all the heavy lifting and all the sacrifices just to be treated like a tool that was supposed to help mend the relationship between SY and CJ which is straight bullshit. SY reaps all the benefits without doing NONE of the work and CJ ends up with a person completely different from the one he loved deeply and who had a knack for surprising him every time. It's like falling in love with one twin (the mischievous one, fun, crazy and eccentric one) and ending with the other twin.
To make matters worse, they dumbed him down in the end which is quite contradictory to his character throughout the series , he is very smart and perceptive and remembers every small detail Sobong ever said to him, as he said , he prides himself in being the one who knew and understood his eccentric wife the best, so how come in the end, he doesn't seem to realize the person he truly loved is gone? From the way SB used to call him affectuously "cheoljongie", "Jongie Jongie"or "Jong ah" to SY's annoying high pitched voice "Cheona" there is a huge difference. What about Court Lady Choi ad Hong Yeon who went from being treated like family members by Sobong back to being treated like servants by So Yong. Didn't they realize something was off?
THIS is the problem I got with the ending: the Lack of acknowledgment of BH's sacrifices and everything he did to save their asses without him the king wouldn't have achieved anything (Come on he saved his festival , went to save him when he was declared dead and did everything till the end to help him regain his place) . I wanted more from CJ rather than this vague question talking about "did I lose something?". I wanted him to mourn the loss of the person he loved who is Sobong who sadly died in the end.I wanted CJ to realize that the person who helped him all along was BH( a man who really came from the future). I wanted to see BH mourn what he lost, deal with the trauma (being trapped in SY's body, falling in love with the king after multiple mental breakdowns, coming to terms with it and finally accepting his feelings , carrying a baby he came to care about, building strong relationships with Hong Yeon and Court Lady Choi among others just to be sent back when the love of his life was dying before him). I wanted to see him evolve after his life changing experience in Joseon and see how much of his feelings were influenced by Soyong. I wanted to see Soyong tell the truth to CJ that she is not the person he fell in love with anymore and gave him space to digest it and why not build a relationship afterward based on the truth. I wanted to know more about So Yong, if the writers knew they were gonna make her the protagonist of the show and she will get the man, they had to show us more and make us root for her. Show me SY being active and participating and taking over from time to time very clearly, and show me that she is a badass and she is more than a desperate and sad woman from Joseon who lacks skills and experience who wanted to kill herself because among other reasons her husband to be didn't love her back. Because what we got here as per her own words is someone hiding 98% of the show and you want me to root for her? What I got instead of an honest discussion and her acknowledging the truth ( the fact that she would never have had that life without BH’s help) all I got was a ridiculous laugh when the king asked her if she was plotting something to surprise him.
This made me dislike Soyong and made me think that she is not that different from the Hwa Jin of the beginning because she is pretending to be someone she is not and taking credit for everything BH did which is upsetting and dishonest coming from her who made the same reproach to Hwa Jin beforehand.
In the end, the main protagonist of the love story got relegated to being a Second Lead or the Third wheel in his own damn love story, never got the deserved acknowledgment and that’s what made it so heartbreaking. SB and CJ have that understanding and love that SY and CJ will never have.
This ending is somehow worse than SHR's ending and the only person who got a happy ending was SY and I wonder how long it will last until she realizes that she is not the one CJ fell in love with.
As a viewer, I don't know how to recommend this show maybe the 19,2 episodes. Such a waste of potential...This show used to be my favorite and now whenever I think about it I just feel empty and betrayed. I mean what else can i do beside boycotting the writers’s future works FOREVER (I know I’m being petty but idc at this point)!I said my piece it's time to move on.
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This review may contain spoilers
It was Okay...
I was afraid that the writers would try to solidify the SY-CJ ship after that lackluster and disrespectful ending but luckily that's not what we got. I definitely enjoyed the second episode more than the first episode because I am not that interested in Soyong as a character but it was nice to see that she is not always a well behaved noble lady and she can be fun at times.After watching the first episode, I don't agree with the fact that the king fell in love with SY at the first sight, the only thing I got from this first episode was that "the love at first sight" theory applied more to SY I feel like it was one sided . The king was curious and had a sense of familiarity about her at BEST and we all know that everything went through the window when he realized that she was from the Kim Clan.
The second episode was much more enjoyable because we had cute jealous moments with CJ clearly mesmerized and obsessed with his eccentric wife meanwhile our Tsundere Sobong is going through some identity crisis and trying to understand the origin of his/her desire for the King even though they didn't dwell too deep in it.
The ending was quite interesting and I can understand how it gave closure to some people regarding the ending of Mr Queen. Overall a fun watch specially the second episode.
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Very Promising Start!!!
Waouhhh the first two episodes were very solid specially episode 1: one of the best openers I’ve seen for a while in a kdrama.Show is dark, bloody and sometimes quite disturbing and manages to ask intriguing and uncomfortable questions. The child actors also did a wonderful job in the first episode. They were so goooddddd and creepy AF.
Can’t wait to see more about this show as of now Mouse is up to an amazing start!!! Highly recommend if you’re into crime/thriller dramas.
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This review may contain spoilers
Vincenzo is Okay for NOW...
Vincenzo is definitely fiery priest 2.0 as it's by the same writer and if you happen to love fiery priest you will certainly enjoy Vincenzo. The plot is quite similar, by the end of episode 1, I already knew FL's dad was going to die and that would be the beginning of a bloody revenge and that's what happened. Show can definitely feel predictable at times.I've also seen few complaints about the FL regarding her overacting but I like her, I find her fun ( I love my FL crazy and flawed) even though it might seem like she is trying to do an impression of Honey Lee's character in fiery priest. I wish she would make this character her own and tbh she kinda toned down in episode 4 and we got to see a smart and perceptive side of her. I feel like she will become very useful to Vincenzo and I can't wait to see some character development for both our leads. Let's hope they stay badasses till the end.
Episode 4 was definitely the better episode, and we finally got the reveal about the Big BAD and I've a few reserves about Taecyon playing the villain, will he be able to pull off this kind of roles ? I don't know, I find his acting average at best most of the times but we will see how things go.
I hope Vincenzo will have more surprises in store for us and will manage to keep us on our toes. As of now, there is nothing groundbreaking but I am willing to go along the ride with an open mind also it doesn't hurt that Song Joong Ki is hot AF with a gun.
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