Maika

thank you. I was around ep 4 and was scrolling through reviews, I realized you were talking about season 2 ending and I didn't even realize there's S2. Saved me lots of time, I don't need to waste on watching rest of S1 & S2.

I actually finished this 4 days ago myself and loved it. I wanted to try it since Choi Won Young was there and he is such a versatile actor when it comes to his roles in dramas. But I was also kinda hesitant because of the FL, I personally didn't like her screaming so much in Kill Me. But I feel like in this drama she did much better and her role was better. I also feel it's underrated. The ending was very rushed to me, but like Weuljoo said she wanted to continue the bar to listen to people's problems. For me it makes sense, her character as a girl she was content with helping people and having them thank her for fixing their problems through their dreams. But, started to hate humans after what was done to her but then forced to help them to save her son's soul. But during that time you could see she sympathized with some humans as well after hearing their problems. After her punishment is over, she probably wanted to go back to her younger self and help people in need out along with spending time with her loved ones.

IOTNBO has flaws and some of them I couldn't really overlook either. They could have done a better job at explaining the MY's mother's character and Jae Su, but I find it rare through a lot of K-dramas. The main characters are primarily focused on and the confusion around other characters are never explained. They did mention it somewhat in the drama from what I interpreted and theory crafted.

MY's mother recovered and probably felt angered that her husband attempted to murder her while still wanting to mold her daughter into an exact replica of herself. Perhaps as soon as she recovered and heard about her husband being hospitalized, she decided to be a nurse just to see him. In the episode where she talks to him, she said she waited 20 years and was thrilled watching him suffer day by day and how could he try to kill her when he loved her. She definitely wanted revenge in the most cruel way since she's a psychopath.
The reason why I think she didn't go after her daughter immediately is because she was probably certain that her daughter still fears her and remembers everything she said to her. She also read MY books which some of them represented MY and that was probably a confirmation for MY's mother that MY still has those memories of her and has nightmares about her. Also probably kept a close eye on MY and saw that MY was doing some stuff that would get her in trouble each time (like pushing the reporter down the stairs, taking people's sharp objects); all these were something MY's mother would do as well. You also saw how she gave that father the same knife MY tried to hit him with but ended up stabbing GT. She was keeping tabs on her daughter. And when her daughter came back to the castle, she would enter the basement (there were so many scenes showing the basement door open).

GT is not a nurse, he's a caregiver which requires less education than a nurse (RN). He might have taken the GED exam where it is equivalent to a high school diploma and before that must have taken private tutoring or classes at home? I'm not sure. It doesn't make sense how these young kids did get money to run away each year and be able to eat and live somewhere. I doubt their mom had money saved up in an insurance for the kids and they don't seem to have any relatives.

It wasn't a bad show, but wasn't the best either, it had some flaws here and there. I did enjoy the medical aspect with the surgeries. I cared less about the romance / lack of romance in the drama. However, I did hope they would tie up things better in the end but for me it was an unsatisfactory ending. I saw the extra episode "appendix" as they called it and they only answered 2-3 things that viewers were curious about and on top of that added something else..I will say that HSK did a good job in the show, it was my first time seeing a drama of his. I don't expect S2 to tie up things from S1 with mostly new characters.

this was funny to read made my day. btw, what drama is #4 from?

Only thing worth watching is ML. FL is obnoxious with her screaming and laughing at almost every scene... there are some scenes where you question her giggling + screaming cause it's so unnecessary. I get that she's portraying a 18 year old girl, but it's like watching a 5 year old girl and it's cringe. And there are so many things in the story that they just skip over, the transition is weird. I can disregard the weird music & sometimes the audio disappears, but the drama itself... It could have been done much better. It just felt rushed overall and no time to build up other characters. But I can't say I hated it either. Kept watching cause of the ML

I almost thought this was the Psychometric drama copycat as well. But I have to say this drama was better than that and it held my interest more. Memorist also takes away romance for most part (except the little flash backs of Dong Baek's crush on Cho Won) and really focuses on the story and cases that lead to the end. Well done.

No he did not. I was talking about other endings the drama could have taken.

2. I know she's not completely useless but it's like they are depreciating her character even further. If you do watch the first episode carefully you can see LMH's eyes and hair and tell it's not a girl right away. When I saw Tae Eul's ID card, I decided to think that maybe she was there somewhere else trying to help him in the past and the ID just happened to be in his pocket. However, they show Lee Gon seems to already favorite her from seeing her picture + believing that she's his savior instead of actually focusing on his memories from that night. That's why he really wants to meet her in the first place. They make it seem like one of the reasons why he liked her was because he thought she saved him. And during the night when he finds out it's himself, he seems to be so shocked and disappointed on top of being poisoned. Only Lee Sang do's investigation seemed to help Lee Gon directly since he got rid of him and he knows that people are taking their doppelganger's identity. But the other investigations she had didn't help him much but give her + Jo Yeong have a list of people. I guess you could argue that she was helping out in her world a lot more. But, they still took away from her character. She doesn't believe in the ML, of course no one would, and she believes it after she sees his kingdom which is reasonable. But then when she accepts his feelings after seeing his palace and is perfectly fine with him flirting then, gives people a bad impression of her initially and make people judge the romance in general. Yes, she kills the Lee Lim in interdimensional space, but even if she couldn't he would've died/disappeared when Lee Gon kills Lee Lim anyways since his existence is gone.

4. Okay that makes sense. When he and Jo Yeong go to the past, it seems like Lee Gon, Jo Yeong, & Tae eul only have those memories (including those new memories of him visiting her as a child too I guess?). Everyone else seems to have different lives without the memories of that time cause the past was changed.

Just wondering why he never introduced Buyeong to Tae eul formally. Yeah they went to the past to introduce her but Buyeong wouldn't die to Lee Lim anymore in the future so he would be alive. Buyeong & Lee Gon should still be close and he could have mentioned it then with a better introduction? Instead of him trying to hide in the corner so he won't be seen?

I've read a couple of comments. And I crafted some theories. And then I have a bunch of questions (some of them same as others) with no answers/theories. And some parts I hated.
1. When Lee Lim is killed, how does it make sense that Buyeong saves Hyeon min and his mom? How does Ji hun's dad still die if Lee Lim is no longer the one to kill him?
With Lee Lim's existence completely gone, I guess someone else had to take over those parts. It's a bad comparison, but people do it. It's like when someone needs help & someone sees that someone else is already helping you, then they don't bother helping. They think "I'll be just wasting my time." Lee Lim came to the rescue first, but since he's not there, the next person behind him will help. It's possible that maybe when Lee Lim was alive, Buyeong's car was a minute away from his, but didn't notice Lee Lim's behind or something? idk.
And it seems like they were intending to show that everything that bad happened was fixed.
Ex: Lee Gon saving the real Sin jae from the accident that would cause him to be in a comatose state. Perhaps Lee Gon & Tae eul's time traveling saved a lot of people in some way?
Even if they didn't it just seems that everyone who lived a bad life when the magic flute was broken + the villain alive, lives a better life or the life they deserve when the flute is whole + villain gone.
Luna somehow grows up into a cop, no cancer, grows like a sibling with Goo Seo Ryeong & Hyeon Min and her seem to be almost a couple. Since Goo Seo Ryeong's personality didn't change she got the sentence she deserved from her previous life as PM in jail. Her secretary is the correctional officer now & instead of listening to her get angry at him he can get angry and order her around in jail.

2. I hate how they made Tae eul seem useless by showing that she wasn't the one who saved Lee Gon's younger self. The FL cannot do anything, but wait when Lee Gon is gone to the past the first time.

3. So when both Lee Lim & Lee Gon go back to the night of treason... Lee Gon goes to save himself while Lee Lim goes to warn himself in the past that Lee Gon will stop the treason after considering it was Lee Gon who went to past. He gets killed by his past self and the present him has that memory. I don't think Lee Lim went to do the stupid thing twice. otherwise present Lee Lim would have the memory already and would have done something differently like kill Lee Gon himself.

4. The time travels/ dimensions / universes + the flute are confusing.
Lee Gon goes to past to change but visits Tae Eul in past & current Tae Eul gets these memories but then the other Tae Eul that was visited is also growing up with those memories? So that means two worlds with similar things?

.And the boy with yoyo symbolizes the flute but has no other major role or interaction with Lee Gon.. Besides helping Tae Eul and telling Seong hye the story and having a convo with Luna & Lee Lim.
And Lee Gon saw that boy with yoyo in CCTV footage from the future, but thought nothing about it? Like they showed the boy to look towards the sky when it's thundering? But that was in the year 2022 and the outfit seemed to be worn by Luna in Corea near end. But you don't see the boy with the yoyo anymore, cause he's all grown up. Where does he go? And why was he shown in the CCTV as a boy in the future?

5. Why did Lee Lim keep Sin jae alive? (The sinjae in coma?) I don't get it. He basically had one of the lookalikes always killed or switched to other world. What does he get for keeping someone in coma? He's shown to be a guy to use others?

If you're talking about near the end, I assumed it's what Lee Lim said about taking measures against the Prime Minister. Before, she told her mom to respond with mackerel if she asks about dinner. But this time she got "jjangmyeon" (cant spell it) as response. I assumed its cause thats an indicator her mom got replaced by Lee Lim. Basically her mom was either killed or taken to the Republic of Korea and the mom lookalike from there came to Kingdom of Corea.

I completely agreed with your third point and mentioned that in my comment. As for romance, I just found it a bit cringe personally, but I'm not usually into romance dramas that's why.
As for point #2 which was something I mentioned- My issue was with how the drama was never clear in showing the father's intentions in the end. You can only make assumptions & try to connect things.

From your POV, the King was trying to protect his son. Although in his conversation with Neungyang he never mentions the prophecy + Dowager's charge of treason as a reason for killing his son a second time, but you made that assumption. If the Dowager does charge the son for treason, can't he make a decision as a King to call it treason or not? Or is it because if he didn't call his son a traitor then the Dowager would try to hunt his son down even if the son went into hiding. Your point is logical in a way, it explains perhaps why the King did not look at the corpse. He wanted to accept that it's his son's corpse so the Dowager could back off. And it seems like he knew his wife/Queen was in contact with the son since he wanted her to be with him after his death. Otherwise, they would have shown him to be very angry and start witch-hunting his son again.

But even that explanation confuses me.

How did the king anticipate Neungyang would bring a fake corpse and not his real son's? Neungyang would have actually killed Nok du if Dong Ju was not there. That wouldn't be protecting his son, right? Yes, the King may know that Nok-du & Dong ju left together, but I have no memory of the King knowing that Neungyang has feelings for Dong Ju and would probably hesitate to kill Nok-du if Dong ju is there? How can the king be smart to entrust Neungyang with Nok du knowing Neungyang won't kill his son?

When he was trying to arrest his son, what if his son actually got arrested, would he have let him escape somehow from prison to protect him?
Even if a Dowager accuses his son of treason, he could have simply killed her & buried her or find a way to shut her mouth to not have her be involved in hunting his son down as he always has been doing, no?
You mentioned he would have to kill his son cause of the prophecy + Dowager at that point. That means he still considered the prophecy in that moment and was still obsessed over the throne at that time.

When Neungyang was eyeing the throne that was before his "trip" [which was the part where Nok du would "kill" his father/king]. Why did the king not express his concerns there in front of Nok du regarding Neungyang before he knew Nok du was his son when they were alone? Or when it was Dong Ju, Nok du & the king near the cliff. He had the chance to listen to Nok du and understand, but was still going on about the throne. Why not show the King wanted redemption?
I just wanted the drama to be clear & show. Was he calm towards end because he knew beforehand Neungyang was the real traitor or because he accepted death. He lost his irrationality and accepted there's no way out; he must die.

It's not a bad drama at all, it's just that not everyone can like this drama. This drama appeals to certain types/groups of people. But if you want to watch a drama for an extremely unique plot, then don't bother watching this. If you want to watch the drama for entertainment & enjoy it overall then give it a try.

I like happy endings and the ending was SOMEWHAT understandable. Nok du never wanted to be king from the start and didn't want that responsibility so him being on an island till the end with his family and the friends/widows was good. And it was also nice of them to add his mother because he never got to experience his mother's love since Hwang Tae's mother didn't like him. The mother and son can finally catch up and be together for a bit. Neungyang getting the king's throne was inevitable I guess. They wanted to show that the Shaman's prediction was right & could not be changed. Neungyang being King might not be great, but seeing how he let go of Dong Joo when she escaped his house at the end, makes you feel relieved that most likely he will never search for her himself but he may be bothered if he sees her/Nokdu if they ever go to Hanyang away from the island.
WHAT I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND was the king at the end. He's completely lost it and obsessed with his throne & how can they show him so calm at the end with Neungyang trying to overthrow him?? They showed he killed so many people (including his best friend) that he felt were part of a conspiracy to overthrow him. It doesn't make any sense. Then he says" I couldn't be a father who kills his innocent son twice"? Since when did he act like a father to him? Maybe only the times where he cared for Nok du when he didn't know that he was his son. But he didn't believe his son when he was trying to say it was part of Neungyang's plot and was ready to have him arrested. Even if he were protecting him, why did he have to go down as a bad person who didn't try to redeem himself? Why didn't he give a letter to the Queen explaining his stance and apologize to his son?
I have to say that the part where Neungyang was born on same day as Nok du was unexpected for me. That was good enough at least for the King to realize that he wronged his own son and put him in regret. But his expression showed that he accepted everything which is unlike the character they've shown us. If he came to a realization before that then they should have shown that.
And the romance between Dong joo and Nok du wasn't to my liking but never affected me, I enjoyed the comedy and widow village mostly.
Anyways that one flaw makes the ending a bit eh.

The comedy was fun at the start then it got a bit intense which was fine as well; and some things didn't make sense but overall everything was tied up whether you liked it or not. I was close to giving it a higher rating but ended up reconsidering cause I can't overlook one part that I mentioned below

boring at first then became really frustrating in the middle and better at the end. nice to show how both kids and adults make mistakes and how all of them changed and learned from it. I wished though Hyena had a chance to clear up to WooJoo though. Woo Joo was saddened by her death but its like he never realized Hye na was using him at the same time against Yeh Suh. That kiss in the stairs played with his feelings and she wasn't serious but did it to irritate Yeh Suh. And I initially liked Hye na's character as this strong girl with the idea of fairness/righteousness, but then she changes after realizing she has a dad and wants to be loved by him after losing her mom which is understandable but they let her die without giving her a chance. Also they never mentioned why Sue lim remarried her husband which I was curious about as well. but overall nice drama!

so glad there's a season 2, season 1's ending was dissatisfying. maybe they can make things right in season 2

I expected there to be a lot of deaths and all the deaths so far I was able to handle. I knew that this historical drama would show a lot of people dying including the main characters. It had to be realistic as possible. But seeing Eugene's past as a child and then how he grew up in America made you feel attached to him. And throughout the drama his identity would be questioned as either a Joseon or American. Then you have him fall in love with Aesin who loves him too, but her cause to fight for her country seems to be greater. I was rooting for them to somehow just end up together in the same place (Manchuria maybe) both alive. Aesin told him that he's hers and I guess that's what you see as his identity. Protecting the woman he loves is what he's been doing throughout the drama till his last moment on that train. Seeing him say goodbye to her, I was not ready, I was hoping he'd find a way to maybe survive and jump off in the tunnel as soon as he shot the coupler thing whatever you call it, or find a way to use the baron hostage as a shield for bullets and then sever the coupler and stay low with Aesin in the other train or find a way for the soldiers to drop their weapons momentarily, but I guess it was not realistic. Although what surprises me is that they know they may have a lot of enemies in the train, you would think they would carry spare bullets on themselves. Plus Eugene had that pawnshop duo get him bullets to fully reload his gun before. I'm sure he would've had a way to have a fully loaded gun or spare bullets. The other leads also had sad stories, but seeing their last moments didn't make me cry. Only thing I was hoping was DongMae to give HuiSeong the two signatures of those two men who turned on HuiSeong and got him killed. I thought that maybe it could save HuiSeong, but there was no actual use for it, besides DongMae using it as a threat. I was actually hoping that maybe he would actually marry that noble lady he sheltered and forget about Aesin, but guess not since he had to get caught for publishing newspaper. All 3 male leads who loved Aesin died sadly but put up a fight. My hopes of a Eugene & Aesin ending working out was destroyed. Aesin herself had a strong character and made it clear, that before thinking of a happy life with him she needs to fight. I just HOPED that she would still fight/train the new members as they showed in the end but Eugene quietly protecting her back as well as a somewhat happy ending, while knowing they could eventually die. I just kept hoping that it would be a somewhat happy ending since every time they were in a tough situation together they both made it out alive with minor injuries. And i expected the same in the train scene. Eugene could have kept his foreigner status and visit Aesin in Manchuria constantly and maybe have an old retired Aesin who cannot fight anymore join him in America later on. At least that would be satisfying.

PSJ does an amazing job with his character as Saeroyi. As the story goes, I was interested because you have this idealistic character that is almost rare-to-impossible to see in society today. He has his pride and refused to kneel down when he knew he wasn't in the wrong even if it was at the cost of his dad's job or a matter of him getting released from prison. He cares about others and he's fixated on revenge against Chairman Jang for what he put him through. I was curious about the development of Saeroyi's character. Will he stay the same as he was before or will he change just like any other person to fit into society or to get what he needs? Then comes the last two episodes where the Chairman wants to make him kneel again in exchange for telling Yiseo's location and Saeroyi kneels. I get that any person would do anything that they possibly can to save the life of someone they care about.
But Royi tells the Chairman, he feels disgusted to follow his footsteps. What I don't get is why in that last episode Royi tells the Chairman that "after 10 years today I realize". Had he not realized? When he was in prison and read about Chairman Jang, he read his autobiography. For sure, he knew the chairman lived in poverty and climbed his way up to a successful businessman. And that he claims that he cares about his family and his company was made that no one from his family starves or lives a bad life. And the Chairman Jang always covered up Geun-won (his son) because he's family. Through the first half of drama the Chairman even says he felt bad that Saeroyi is suffering because of his family (also meaning because the Chairman has to protect his family so Saeroyi has to suffer), but then he also cares about his company. His company was built because of his values. But then when it came to family vs. company, the Chairman abandoned his family. He abandoned his son and chose his company. Royi also valued his friendship and the DanBam people to him were like family as well. If he thought of Chairman Jang inspiring, would he have not questioned him right then when he chose to abandon his blood-ties? And think,"I'm disgusted to have followed your footsteps when you couldn't even hold onto your values of family"
It's confusing and I guess the point was to show how Jang Dae Hee forgot about his values of family. That's why Geun won was spoiled and he taught him wrong about everyone being dogs.

But, what also confuses me is the romance that they tried to throw in there. Whole point of the drama was the revenge and I'd rather have a better developed chemistry between the male leads or no attempt at romance at all. They're both good actors/actresses but with all we've seen is there was no chemistry in the couple. All you see is Royi telling everyone he likes Soo-ah, but you would think there would be some scenes where you would see that he's gradually falling for her. It isn't till she's hospitalized that we suddenly see that he likes her. Most of the scenes between the main leads, you just see how Yi seo loves Royi and falls deeper in love. Honestly, she was very supportive and I would understand why he'd be with her, but at the same time it feels like their personalities would clash. Yi seo is known as a sociopath and she's heartless to others and Royi on the other hand is the opposite. Yi seo was mean to Toni & others and I'm surprised Royi never got fed up with her behavior. Yeah, Yi seo did try to change for his sake, but it still gave me mixed feelings. I definitely wouldn't want him with Soo-ah either because Yi seo was right about her protecting herself and if she loved Royi Soo ah would support him. Soo ah promised to pay back Mr. Park and her doing it when Royi realizes Yi Seo just made me wonder why she waited 10 years she could have done it earlier to help Royi and support him but nope. She was different from Yi seo
I feel bad about what Geun soo's character had to do when he joined Jangga. It almost painted him as a bad person. I think Ahn Bo Hyun did a great job as Geun won's role and the other support roles such as Hyun yi and Seung kwon did great too! Overall it gave me mixed feelings but wasn't too bad I guess.

When I first read comments about how some people didn't like how the second half of the drama turned out I didn't really understand till I finished it just now. The first half of the drama was going so well things were progressing so well and it made it interesting. However, the later part of the drama killed my interest and it became boring. The nice part of the drama was that it briefly touched upon issues of bullying, transgender, racism, and more in SK which people don't really address all of these in a drama. My ideas about the drama will be in the spoiler tag and it's a long read~