2026

in general this was alright but so glaringly offensive you cant even use the "made in 2009" excuse bc tvb dramas are just as un-woke and regressive now LOL. i rated this 7/10 in 2021 but haha.

1) ik the focus was on clearing the ml's name but this was too rape culture propaganda for me. the way they relegated the stepdad's rape crimes to his murder was gross. just bc he got killed he's framed entirely as a victim and no one treated rape as serious as it is in here. even when he was still alive, zero ppl reacted to the rape normally except for the ml. there was an insane amount of victim blaming in here. when ppl found out ml "killed" his sister's rapist, they were more grossed out that he killed someone than that the someone was a rapist.

2) and on that topic, the mum is one of the most morally corrupt, insanely nasty and reprehensible parent i have ever seen. she is only Not the worst parent in the show bc the rapist is first. not only does she not believe her children when they told her their stepdad was abusing them, she actively Protects and Enables him to keep abusing her kids Well into adulthood. she constantly victim blames her daughter and accuses her son of "ruining her happiness" simply bc she believes she needs a man to live. and then when her son returns from jail she is constantly accusing him of being a home wrecker, claims that she is deeply ashamed of him, and finds every chance to snitch on him. she resents her son for "killing her husband and making her all alone", blatantly expecting to be Parented instead of doing the parenting and they try to redeem her by making her take a knife for her son? she shouldve died. incredibly brainwashed and stupid.

3) [picture of girl taking a mirror selfie with the caption "trying to be chill at the function but can't help noticing how misogyny bleeds through the cracks of normal interaction"]

4) ml stupid as fuck towards latter half of the show i stopped rooting for him too

i say this w absolute Zero disrespect for once but this was genuinely a nothing burger show. 10 eps in i realise its almost ending but we've gotten noWHERE W THE INVESTIGATION and the mystery is Nowhere near solved everyone's just been going around in circles and then everything is solved by one singular audio file conveniently retrieved from the victim's icloud which he conveniently recorded bc he has a convenient habit of recording everything which we dIDNT even kNOW ABOUT UNTIL JUST THEN. and WHY did no one try to find this missing phone to begin w?? why did no one think to look into all the weird shit that cropped up on the crime scene (e.g., the earring?) and why tf were we only shown those things TOWARDS THE END OF THE SHOW. like when you think about it no one was doing any investigating and the audience isn't given any info on the specifics of the case the whole show. the prosecutor and cops were too busy smear-campaigning do raik, sena was too busy babysitting do raik and poorly hiding her merch, the whole doj useless as fuck lol.

the romance was also kinda a snoozefest to me it felt so underdeveloped which was rlly weird bc they had sooo much screen time together. even the part where raik clocks that sena was that girl he saved when they were young the whole reveal was so anticlimactic. i just didnt rlly feel their chemistry and i dont even think its the actors' fault?? the supporting cast were clearly just plot devices and had no real story/personality of their own. neither chungjae nor hyeju pass the bechdel test. i didnt like that the show tried to "redeem" some of the abusive charas like raik's boss and mum and even his sasaengs at the end like?? they should be in jail? i also never liked the bully manchild prosecutor, maybe dont go into careers that involve morals if u dont have any.

crazily enough, the whodunit reveal was actually much better in my lovely liar. that one gagged me.

given that i think gjm deserves to die, it is unsurprising i would have hate in my heart while watching this show lmfao. it is objective, however, that his shows are unfunny, performative, disingenuous, lack substance and soul and are much more concerned with cosplaying a battle shounen and giving his favourite actors pr than the writing and storytelling. i have never been bothered by billing issues before but this one esp grates my gears bc the lot of you are so delusional; it is so obvious that tjr gets majority of the screentime followed by jjy. this isnt a problem if they'd just marketed this as tjr and jjy being the mains and the other two as secondary leads. there's nothing wrong w that? why push that all 4 are the mains when you blatantly cut scenes from the other two and even when they Are onscreen spend most of their time talking about tjr and jjy's characters anyway. the story is clearly centered around jl and lwy, so say it as such. i could tell this was the case from seeing the trailers alone so while this is unsurprisingly it is literally impossible to watch gjm's dramas objectively bc the writer is such a dishonest fuck.

i think tjr is an excellent actor but his fame and recognition feels rigged and cheap bc he's essentially had everything fed right into his mouth. he is guaranteed the most "interesting/important/central/complex" character since his debut. he is prioritised in the screentime game, having his scenes forced down the audience's throat at any opportunity. i like him and think he is more talented than many but it is becoming increasingly harder to watch him bc of the blatant nepotism.

on the flip side, if we really wanna argue so hard that the 4 are equally billed then im glad zsx and cdl are getting paid to do less. given that gjm is an abusive fuck tho its probably more they did plenty but just had all their shit cut out for the meaningless, annoying, tongue-in-cheek gags that gjm thinks is so Meta and Quirky of him.