You certainly feel very strongly about this drama...great review!! I think everything you said is right, two idiots who actually had a great relationship, and did nothing to fight for it. Thanks writers! Just my 2 cents, I think we have all come to think of Kdramas as a fantasy escape (or should I say K romantic drama, goodness knows there's enough brutal, violent material as well). And as such we expect the happy resolution as a result of our viewer investment, and otherwise get disenchanted and frustrated !! We are more accustomed to say nordic, american, english, european drama having an ambiguous or melancholic ending. Which in fact are often quite realistic, someone on MDL mentioned The Worst Person In The World as an example.
IRL, sometimes the nicest most well intentioned people can't get their relationship to work out. Personally despite the absolutely ridiculous stuff they did, like 'saying he was having an affair' etc I really liked the main leads. I think Jang Seung Jo is a fantastic actor, and the lead characters turned out to be bumbling and awkward, but kind and caring when the shit hit! As you say they could have mined the endless wealth of help and counselling resources, however I think the main thrust of the story was to show that some relationships just can't happen. Imo, the end was just strangely abrupt,
and weird, and that is the fault of the writing. The drama went from comedic/romantic/fun to heavy and reflective/serious, I think you just need to make up your mind what you are trying to show your viewer. Switching themes midway is always frustrating and confusing.
Thanks for chiming in. You make a lot of good points and I totally agree with them. What I was hoping for some character development for Eun-beom but that wasn't forthcoming. That's the part that feels off. 15 minutes before the conclusion, he finally goes off to counselling but not necessarily to talk about his trauma about his sister but his relationship with Ha-ra. That's the disappointing part. It's so blatantly obvious that the show doesn't want to be together that they turn him into a first class noble idiot. I'm fine with the two of them not being together (I was half expecting it) but Eun-beom doesn't even try that hard.
I liked the show for the most part but I don't want to help the show rationalize the "open" ending using the realism excuse. It seems to be the default explanation for weird or badly conceived resolutions in recent days. Like you say the messaging is all over the place.
Jang Seung-jo is a great actor and is the main reason why I started this and persevered with it to the end.
You certainly feel very strongly about this drama...great review!! I think everything you said is right, two idiots who actually had a great relationship, and did nothing to fight for it. Thanks writers! Just my 2 cents, I think we have all come to think of Kdramas as a fantasy escape (or should I say K romantic drama, goodness knows there's enough brutal, violent material as well). And as such we expect the happy resolution as a result of our viewer investment, and otherwise get disenchanted and frustrated !! We are more accustomed to say nordic, american, english, european drama having an ambiguous or melancholic ending. Which in fact are often quite realistic, someone on MDL mentioned The Worst Person In The World as an example.
IRL, sometimes the nicest most well intentioned people can't get their relationship to work out. Personally despite the absolutely ridiculous stuff they did, like 'saying he was having an affair' etc I really liked the main leads. I think Jang Seung Jo is a fantastic actor, and the lead characters turned out to be bumbling and awkward, but kind and caring when the shit hit! As you say they could have mined the endless wealth of help and counselling resources, however I think the main thrust of the story was to show that some relationships just can't happen. Imo, the end was just strangely abrupt,
and weird, and that is the fault of the writing. The drama went from comedic/romantic/fun to heavy and reflective/serious, I think you just need to make up your mind what you are trying to show your viewer. Switching themes midway is always frustrating and confusing.
Thanks for chiming in. You make a lot of good points and I totally agree with them. What I was hoping for some character development for Eun-beom but that wasn't forthcoming. That's the part that feels off. 15 minutes before the conclusion, he finally goes off to counselling but not necessarily to talk about his trauma about his sister but his relationship with Ha-ra. That's the disappointing part. It's so blatantly obvious that the show doesn't want to be together that they turn him into a first class noble idiot. I'm fine with the two of them not being together (I was half expecting it) but Eun-beom doesn't even try that hard.
I liked the show for the most part but I don't want to help the show rationalize the "open" ending using the realism excuse. It seems to be the default explanation for weird or badly conceived resolutions in recent days. Like you say the messaging is all over the place.
Jang Seung-jo is a great actor and is the main reason why I started this and persevered with it to the end.