Drama and people crying seem to be often taken for quality of storytelling and acting. It can be, for sure. But not here.

This is also a story that could have been told and been successful. Also not here.

The problem is that this is a sequel, with established characters, and the behavior of one of them is so at odds with who he was in the original that it doesn't make any emotional or narrative sense.

So we have a grumpy chef who's a bit of a old man trapped in a young man's body. He has no patience for celebrity, but ironically has to live with the biggest and most narcissistic celebrity in Korea. Naturally they fall in love, opposites attract and all that - both of them have big hearts and are beautiful people underneath the pride and narcissm, and they live happily ever after.

Then comes S2, and we discover that rather than being happy, Ji Woo was seething with resentment, crippling low self-esteem, and crushing loneliness. Forget that this is the opposite of who he appears to be and that we got not the slightest hint that any of this was going on inside him, or that this is incompatible with the character as already drawn.

So suddenly, one day, Seo Joon comes home to find Ji Woo has left, dumping him with a post-it note, and has disappeared completely. A year later So Joon finds him in the greyest and most depressing seaside village imaginable - in the depth of winter, of course, because winter is grey and the previous series was during summer. Clever subtle contrast, right? And then Ji Woo proceeds to treat So Jeon like absolute shit, with the typical "I never loved you" and even "you never loved me either, it was an illusion."

Bleak and grey covers the first 8 episodes - a campaign of sledgehammer lack of subtlety and depth of any kind in favor of shallow drama and shallow and inauthentic "exploration" of... something, I guess. I'd say inner emotional life and the tensions in a relationship, but there are no tensions - it just snaps in half and is replaced by cruelty and hatefulness.

Then it just... resolves, and they go back to Happily(er) Ever After, with no real discussion or processing - a light switch is flipped, and we resume the story of S1 just where it left off. A man leaves his bf with a short note, disappears for an entire year with no communication whatsover, then treats him like shit when he finally tracks him down. Here's the reconcilliation.

"I'm sorry. I won't do it again. Give me a hug."

"Ok."

I'm not joking, that's it. The director thought everyone would forget the first 8 miserable episodes if she dumped a pile of fluff on us for the ending.

She was right, judging by the glowing reviews.

I would skip this, so it doesn't ruin your happy memories of S1. Or just start with Ep 9, and pretend they had a minor fight (which you'll easily be able to do), and then enjoy the cute frolicking, and Ji Woo's really lovely white overshirt, which I want.