kdrama-fanatic-1984

Well. I said at the end of Part 1 that I needed to see whether The Glory could land all the pieces it had placed on the chessboard.

And... Kind of? 😂

Let me start by saying that I still enjoyed The Glory Part 2. I binged all 16 episodes of this drama in basically two days, so clearly the series had me.

The performances remained fantastic. I wanted to see these horrible people get what was coming to them, and there was absolutely satisfaction in watching their lives unravel.

But by the end, I had one major problem: I don't believe this was an 18-year revenge plan.

I believe Dong-eun spent 18 years preparing herself to pursue revenge. That's different.

Because so much of what eventually brings these people down depends on circumstances that Dong-eun couldn't possibly have predicted.

She couldn't have known 18 years ago that Yeon-jin would marry a wealthy, successful man.
She couldn't have known she'd have a daughter with Jae-jun.
She couldn't have known what relationships, addictions, jealousies and secrets would develop among the group as adults.

Some of the most useful information Dong-eun gets isn't the result of some meticulously constructed master plan either. Hyeon-nam suggests stealing a phone. They discover information. Dong-eun adapts.
And to be fair, Dong-eun is excellent at adapting.
Give that woman a new piece of information and she'll find a way to weaponise it.

But that's excellent improvisation.

It's not an 18-year plan.

And I think Part 1 had made me expect something much more meticulous. I wanted REVENGE CHESS.

I wanted Yeon-jin to discover Dong-eun's plan, try to counter it and then realise: Oh shit. She knew I'd do that too.

I wanted reveals that showed Dong-eun had been ten moves ahead of everyone.

Instead, once she put enough pressure on this already dysfunctional group of terrible people, they largely began destroying each other.

That's still satisfying.

It's just not the revenge story I thought the first half was setting up.

Some of the punishments also felt downright haphazard.

Jae-jun's ending is probably the best example. Hye-jeong puts something in his eye drops that affects his vision. He uses them while driving. He crashes. He survives. Then he somehow ends up at a construction site, where someone...apparently Ha Do-yeong...pushes him into wet concrete. WHAT?! 😂
That's not Dong-eun executing an intricate revenge plan. That's a man having the worst day imaginable.

And strangely enough, Jae-jun was probably the only one of the original group I felt even a tiny bit sorry for. He was still an awful person. But discovering that Ye-sol was his daughter seemed to awaken something genuinely human in him. He was HAPPY to have a daughter. He wanted her. He was proud of her.

It didn't redeem him, but it made him more complicated than simply “horrible rich bully,” which made his ending hit differently for me.

I also expected the revenge itself to be a little more brutal.

Listen. I KNOW how this sounds. 😂

But after watching what these people did to Dong-eun as a teenager, I expected a little more poetic justice.

Nobody gets burned?! Not even a LITTLE curling iron?! COME ON.

Then there's Yeo-jeong. Sir. YOU SHOWED ME A DRAWER FULL OF KNIVES. You told this woman you'd be her executioner.
You had that slightly unhinged little smile while helping her carry out her revenge. I was READY for this man to reveal that underneath the sweet doctor exterior was somebody you absolutely did not want as an enemy.

And then...
Not enough psycho!
😂

I didn't necessarily need him to become a murderer. Dong-eun herself doesn't cross that line, so it would have been strange for her partner to suddenly start stacking bodies.

But I wanted something a little more deranged from him while still keeping him on the safe side of the line.
The darkness was THERE. Lee Do-hyun sold it. I just don't think the story did enough with it.

Which brings me to my biggest structural issue with the ending.

For me, Dong-eun reaching the rooftop after completing her revenge felt like the natural endpoint of her story.
I didn't want her to die.
But everything after that felt like the beginning of another season.

Yeo-jeong's mother appears and stops her. Dong-eun learns more about his suffering. Suddenly we're moving into HIS revenge story. There's another plan. Dong-eun and Yeo-jeong reunite. Their relationship finally moves forward. We get the kiss, the “I love you,” and the two of them heading into the prison to begin another revenge mission.
And I kept thinking: This should have been the next story.

Yeo-jeong's trauma was interesting enough that I wish the series had either woven it more substantially throughout the main revenge plot or saved it for a proper continuation.

Instead, his story felt comparatively underdeveloped until the end.

So Part 2 didn't quite deliver the mastermind revenge fantasy that Part 1 had me expecting.

But I still enjoyed the hell out of watching it.

Lim Ji-yeon was phenomenal.
Song Hye-kyo was perfectly suited to Dong-eun.
Lee Do-hyun made me desperately want approximately 15% more psycho from an otherwise lovely man. 😂
And the entire cast made these characters compelling enough that I flew through sixteen episodes.

7.5/10.

Very good. Very satisfying in places. Still addictive.

But Part 1 made me believe I was watching an 18-year master plan unfold.

Part 2 made me realise I was watching an incredibly determined woman who had prepared for 18 years—and then became very, very good at working with whatever opportunities presented themselves.

There's a difference.

And unfortunately for The Glory, I wanted the chessmaster.