ZeeWoods
This does something most kdramas can't—pull off a well thought out ending.
To all those who have been waiting for series finale to decide whether or not this series is worth a watch, I'm telling you it is.
Mini-rant(please skip this part if other people's opinions offend you): This isn't a wattpad story; this isn't a show that you watch to put yourself in the FL's shoes and live through her decisions. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a little self insert every now and then, I do it too (cue every scene Elena has with Damon Salvatore on TVD) but it is not the only reason we like watching romance. Most times we just want to see people's lives play out in front of us and leave us feeling... inspired. This is one of those times. For anyone out there who's using this to say this is some kind of justification for toxic relationships, you've missed the point. This is not a how-to guide, it a story. Take it as a story and not an example to live by.
~Review starts here~
1. Plot: Had the ending panned out any other way I would not have rated it as high as I did. That's because the series has some very obvious flaws that will be hard to overlook by the most ardent fans of the leads.
Here are my CONS:
+Pacing: This is some of the worst pacing I've seen recently. The only other drama I would say that beats it is DOOM and I didn't even finish that so you can see where this sits on my list. Just how Nabi kept losing her interest in her piece, I kept losing interest in the show. Irony, thy name is Nevertheless. Those of you joining us post series finale will at least have the benefit of running through the boring parts to reach the more interesting parts (salute to my fellow comrades who saw this in real time and tore their hair out every time we were left teased and frustrated only to come back to it after a few weeks to find out how much more dysfunctional things were getting). There is a lot of aEsThEtIc shots of trees rustling and light flaring through window sills. So much so that you'd often feel like you're stuck in a moody 2010s music video. I love aesthetics, I'm the kind of person who'd watch something just to see pretty people put on pretty clothes and go to pretty places but NOT at the Cost. Of. The. Plot. Every time we cut to a blank scene with nothing happening and sceneries changing I got pulled out of the story. It was meant to make us marinate in the feelings of what transpired on the screen but all it did was make me marinate on the fact that I was bored to death or impatient as hell.
+Character development: This story has always been about Na-bi. Park Jae Eon is more a plot device than a real character and that is the second biggest flaw of this series. We understand something about where Na-bi is coming from but that happens literally in the eleventh hour but for PJE we are left in the dark. I would have been inclined to say it's because the series is short, at only 10 episodes had it not been for the fact that they decided to shoot the sidewalk rather than give any insight into PJE's mind.
Right about now you're looking at my rating and wondering if I made a mistake, I haven't. Just stick with me.
Moving on to the PROS:
+Side characters: Where PJE suffered, every side character flourished. Other than Ahn Kyung Jun and Min Young, I was invested in all their stories. The only reason I couldn't get into Kyung Jun and Min Young's story was because it was not interesting to me.
+Realness: This is a story grounded in reality (if it was filled with very good looking people in every nook and corner; jk; T_T). What I mean to say is that it doesn't require a lot suspension of disbelief, which allows us to be fully immersed in the story (when it's moving along; sorry, I find it hard to get over the pacing issues)
+Ending: I don't want to spoil anything in this portion but you can read further down about my full breakdown if you don't mind spoilers. TL:DR read the title and then check my rating. Yup; it's that good.
2. Acting: Most have done a good job. Yang Hye Ji who plays Bit-na did as especially good job. She perfected her character's physical cues which made it very easy to understand what Bit-na was thinking even when she didn't have any dialogues. I also really liked the chemistry between Kim Min Gwi and Yang Hye Ji. They really played well off of each other. Han So Hee was serviceable in the role. I think it might have just been a directorial choice to make her character Na-bi extremely closed off. So much so that we were often left wondering like PJE what was really going on with her. Song Kang plays the brooding bad boy well but he too felt limited by the choices made my the directing and writing team about how much of himself he's showing us on screen. Lee Ho Jung and Yoon Seo Wan have also done very well in their roles. Chae Jong Hyeop is charming on screen.
3. Cinematography: It has a youthful feel to it. Makes me feel nostalgic for a period in life when our biggest problems stemmed from our (nonexistent; T_T) love lives. The framing is well done such that the camera would often move onto objects that were on the minds of our on-screen characters, giving us a visual clue about their thoughts.
4. Music: Every single song is a bop. You bet this is going on my OST rotation.
~~~~~~!!!SPOILERS!!!~~~~~~
Please stop reading if you don't want any spoilers!
The only reason I didn't finish my sad love affair with this series on a 5.0 or even a generous 6.0 rating is because it was able to do something that I did not think was possible. It got the ending right.
I'm about to break down the entire ENDING and how I feel about it. This is last line of warning folks, turn around if you don't want HEAVY SPOILERS.
The finale episode starts where Ep 9 leaves off and we are left feeling every single emotion Na-bi was avoiding for the past few weeks. Her heartbreak when she finally closed the door on a what-if was raw and cathartic. The whole time she was with PJE she never 'chose' him. She was a nectar-less flower swaying in the wind, letting the pretty butterfly land on it's petals but never attracting it. So choosing to let him go was her first choice about their relationship. That was when I was hooked to the story. Finally we see Na-bi wake up from her zombie fugue and choose a direction.
Next day Na-bi faces him again and in cold harsh light of reality chooses to walk away again. This was her second choice about them. This time she did it without the emotional screaming match and the heavy rain so we know she has conviction in her decision.
We see both of them trying to understand their feelings. PJE feels like he never really gave her his all and Na-bi seems more and more determined to stick with her decision.
When Na-bi's sculpture breaks we are left thinking if this was PJE, if he decided to sabotage her one last time because she didn't choose him, because she rejected him and he felt too vulnerable, too immature to deal with it in a healthy way. Despite visual evidence of an accident the thought wouldn't leave our minds. For Na-bi this was a moment of reckoning. She has not been inspired by her own art for a while. She's been floundering and has been going with the flow, trying to just finish her work for the exhibition. Now that it's been destroyed she has to choose. Her teachers and colleagues do not want to push her into a certain direction, whether that be to give up or to keep going.
So Na-bi had to make a choice. For the first time she had to choose to start her work anew, only a little different from the direction she was going but that little deviation turned her run of the mill work into something to be inspired by.
Only because she chose.
This is what the whole series came down to. To the simple fact that not making a decision, not choosing our own paths and fighting for what we want will leave us in this ditch of inertia that is very hard to get moving from. If we don't start living our lives we'll be stuck swaying in the wind, going where the well trodden path throws us.
Na-bi starts understanding that her feelings for PJE have not disappeared nor are they likely to because she never fully 'chose' them. She never fully explored them so she's left with a lot of what-ifs, living her life last-page-first, writing the endings to events she did not experience.
PJE meanwhile tries to put her first. Instead of focusing on how she makes him happy, he tries to make sure she feels supported and happy. I really liked the way he helps her rebuild and then stays away like he promised. It shows that at the end of the day he does have enough regard for her to honor her wishes, even if that's not something he wanted to do.
Do-hyuk sums it up best when Na-bi rejects him and then apologizes for rejecting him: "I'm glad I was able to feel these emotions thanks to you. I'm grateful, so don't feel sorry" (Do-hyuk is literally the best dude). Do-hyuk is already doing what Na-bi is trying to do throughout the series—live life to the fullest. He understands that its the journey that matters, not the destination.
Na-bi does choose to go out with PJE, she no longer wants to live under the shadow of the fate she's preassigned them. Maybe they'll work out, maybe they won't. The endgame is not important. It is more important to be happy with every choice we make.
Her lingering glance at Do-Hyuk and hesitation to hold PJE's hand when she sees him at a restaurant shows us that she has not completely grown out of her fear of the unknown, that maybe she's thinking about what-if she chose him. Maybe someday she will choose him, maybe she won't.
The journey is always more important than the destination.
Mini-rant(please skip this part if other people's opinions offend you): This isn't a wattpad story; this isn't a show that you watch to put yourself in the FL's shoes and live through her decisions. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with a little self insert every now and then, I do it too (cue every scene Elena has with Damon Salvatore on TVD) but it is not the only reason we like watching romance. Most times we just want to see people's lives play out in front of us and leave us feeling... inspired. This is one of those times. For anyone out there who's using this to say this is some kind of justification for toxic relationships, you've missed the point. This is not a how-to guide, it a story. Take it as a story and not an example to live by.
~Review starts here~
1. Plot: Had the ending panned out any other way I would not have rated it as high as I did. That's because the series has some very obvious flaws that will be hard to overlook by the most ardent fans of the leads.
Here are my CONS:
+Pacing: This is some of the worst pacing I've seen recently. The only other drama I would say that beats it is DOOM and I didn't even finish that so you can see where this sits on my list. Just how Nabi kept losing her interest in her piece, I kept losing interest in the show. Irony, thy name is Nevertheless. Those of you joining us post series finale will at least have the benefit of running through the boring parts to reach the more interesting parts (salute to my fellow comrades who saw this in real time and tore their hair out every time we were left teased and frustrated only to come back to it after a few weeks to find out how much more dysfunctional things were getting). There is a lot of aEsThEtIc shots of trees rustling and light flaring through window sills. So much so that you'd often feel like you're stuck in a moody 2010s music video. I love aesthetics, I'm the kind of person who'd watch something just to see pretty people put on pretty clothes and go to pretty places but NOT at the Cost. Of. The. Plot. Every time we cut to a blank scene with nothing happening and sceneries changing I got pulled out of the story. It was meant to make us marinate in the feelings of what transpired on the screen but all it did was make me marinate on the fact that I was bored to death or impatient as hell.
+Character development: This story has always been about Na-bi. Park Jae Eon is more a plot device than a real character and that is the second biggest flaw of this series. We understand something about where Na-bi is coming from but that happens literally in the eleventh hour but for PJE we are left in the dark. I would have been inclined to say it's because the series is short, at only 10 episodes had it not been for the fact that they decided to shoot the sidewalk rather than give any insight into PJE's mind.
Right about now you're looking at my rating and wondering if I made a mistake, I haven't. Just stick with me.
Moving on to the PROS:
+Side characters: Where PJE suffered, every side character flourished. Other than Ahn Kyung Jun and Min Young, I was invested in all their stories. The only reason I couldn't get into Kyung Jun and Min Young's story was because it was not interesting to me.
+Realness: This is a story grounded in reality (if it was filled with very good looking people in every nook and corner; jk; T_T). What I mean to say is that it doesn't require a lot suspension of disbelief, which allows us to be fully immersed in the story (when it's moving along; sorry, I find it hard to get over the pacing issues)
+Ending: I don't want to spoil anything in this portion but you can read further down about my full breakdown if you don't mind spoilers. TL:DR read the title and then check my rating. Yup; it's that good.
2. Acting: Most have done a good job. Yang Hye Ji who plays Bit-na did as especially good job. She perfected her character's physical cues which made it very easy to understand what Bit-na was thinking even when she didn't have any dialogues. I also really liked the chemistry between Kim Min Gwi and Yang Hye Ji. They really played well off of each other. Han So Hee was serviceable in the role. I think it might have just been a directorial choice to make her character Na-bi extremely closed off. So much so that we were often left wondering like PJE what was really going on with her. Song Kang plays the brooding bad boy well but he too felt limited by the choices made my the directing and writing team about how much of himself he's showing us on screen. Lee Ho Jung and Yoon Seo Wan have also done very well in their roles. Chae Jong Hyeop is charming on screen.
3. Cinematography: It has a youthful feel to it. Makes me feel nostalgic for a period in life when our biggest problems stemmed from our (nonexistent; T_T) love lives. The framing is well done such that the camera would often move onto objects that were on the minds of our on-screen characters, giving us a visual clue about their thoughts.
4. Music: Every single song is a bop. You bet this is going on my OST rotation.
~~~~~~!!!SPOILERS!!!~~~~~~
Please stop reading if you don't want any spoilers!
The only reason I didn't finish my sad love affair with this series on a 5.0 or even a generous 6.0 rating is because it was able to do something that I did not think was possible. It got the ending right.
I'm about to break down the entire ENDING and how I feel about it. This is last line of warning folks, turn around if you don't want HEAVY SPOILERS.
The finale episode starts where Ep 9 leaves off and we are left feeling every single emotion Na-bi was avoiding for the past few weeks. Her heartbreak when she finally closed the door on a what-if was raw and cathartic. The whole time she was with PJE she never 'chose' him. She was a nectar-less flower swaying in the wind, letting the pretty butterfly land on it's petals but never attracting it. So choosing to let him go was her first choice about their relationship. That was when I was hooked to the story. Finally we see Na-bi wake up from her zombie fugue and choose a direction.
Next day Na-bi faces him again and in cold harsh light of reality chooses to walk away again. This was her second choice about them. This time she did it without the emotional screaming match and the heavy rain so we know she has conviction in her decision.
We see both of them trying to understand their feelings. PJE feels like he never really gave her his all and Na-bi seems more and more determined to stick with her decision.
When Na-bi's sculpture breaks we are left thinking if this was PJE, if he decided to sabotage her one last time because she didn't choose him, because she rejected him and he felt too vulnerable, too immature to deal with it in a healthy way. Despite visual evidence of an accident the thought wouldn't leave our minds. For Na-bi this was a moment of reckoning. She has not been inspired by her own art for a while. She's been floundering and has been going with the flow, trying to just finish her work for the exhibition. Now that it's been destroyed she has to choose. Her teachers and colleagues do not want to push her into a certain direction, whether that be to give up or to keep going.
So Na-bi had to make a choice. For the first time she had to choose to start her work anew, only a little different from the direction she was going but that little deviation turned her run of the mill work into something to be inspired by.
Only because she chose.
This is what the whole series came down to. To the simple fact that not making a decision, not choosing our own paths and fighting for what we want will leave us in this ditch of inertia that is very hard to get moving from. If we don't start living our lives we'll be stuck swaying in the wind, going where the well trodden path throws us.
Na-bi starts understanding that her feelings for PJE have not disappeared nor are they likely to because she never fully 'chose' them. She never fully explored them so she's left with a lot of what-ifs, living her life last-page-first, writing the endings to events she did not experience.
PJE meanwhile tries to put her first. Instead of focusing on how she makes him happy, he tries to make sure she feels supported and happy. I really liked the way he helps her rebuild and then stays away like he promised. It shows that at the end of the day he does have enough regard for her to honor her wishes, even if that's not something he wanted to do.
Do-hyuk sums it up best when Na-bi rejects him and then apologizes for rejecting him: "I'm glad I was able to feel these emotions thanks to you. I'm grateful, so don't feel sorry" (Do-hyuk is literally the best dude). Do-hyuk is already doing what Na-bi is trying to do throughout the series—live life to the fullest. He understands that its the journey that matters, not the destination.
Na-bi does choose to go out with PJE, she no longer wants to live under the shadow of the fate she's preassigned them. Maybe they'll work out, maybe they won't. The endgame is not important. It is more important to be happy with every choice we make.
Her lingering glance at Do-Hyuk and hesitation to hold PJE's hand when she sees him at a restaurant shows us that she has not completely grown out of her fear of the unknown, that maybe she's thinking about what-if she chose him. Maybe someday she will choose him, maybe she won't.
The journey is always more important than the destination.
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