This review may contain spoilers
Well constructed, poorly executed
This review contains spoilers. Please be careful if you haven't watched the series.You are warned!
The series tells us this over 14 episodes: "Revenge isn't enough if it's only physical. True revenge must be slow and painful. It must involve slowly suffering as one realizes all the sins they have committed."
Over 14 episodes, Moon Dong Eun reveals that she has been plotting revenge for 18 years, and her goal is to inflict a slow, long, and painful life on those who hurt her. Throughout the 14 episodes, we see just how meticulously planned each of her moves is. She gets help from other characters, but even that help is a result of her planning. Up to this point, it's truly a brilliant production. But in the last two episodes, everything deviates from what the series promised.
Son Myeong Oh = He doesn't pay the price for his actions. He suddenly dies, and everything comes to a complete end for him. He disappears without paying the price for the disgusting things he did.
Lee Sa Ra = Already in a state of ruin due to drug addiction, she ends up in prison for attempted murder. Since she won't be able to use drugs during this time, the prison will act as a rehabilitation center for her, and when she's released after serving her 5-10 year sentence, she'll have reset her life and continue from there. So, no punishment really...
Choi Hye Jeong = She lost her voice but is physically healthy. She hasn't received any legal punishment. Socially, no one has seen how despicable a person she is. Although losing her voice is a great loss, it's quite easy for her to continue with her life.
Jeon Jae Jun = Just like Son Myeong Oh, he never paid the price for anything. He died suddenly, and until the very end, he was rich and narcissistic. For the character, losing everything and being forced to live blindly would have been a true punishment. But this was only his salvation.
Park Yeon Jin = Her punishment was actually the greatest of all. Being betrayed by her mother, the person she trusted most. Furthermore, for someone who is narcissistic and wealthy, someone who could easily access freedom and anything she wanted, to spend her entire life in prison is a severe punishment. But we only saw her suffering for 60 seconds. There was no "slow suffering" as the series portrayed throughout 14 episodes. She screamed and shouted in anger for 60 seconds, and then it ended.
Regarding Joo Yeo Jung's father's killer; we saw Joo Yeo Jung and Moon Dong Eun planning their revenge, but we didn't see the details. Taking revenge on someone who kills for pleasure isn't easy. You have to get to their soul. But that killer doesn't even care about living or dying. They should have shown us how to take revenge on someone like that. But we didn't see that either.
I think the reason for all this is the rule that "the story must end at the latest in 16 episodes". When this industry standard is introduced, the aim might be to "reduce the number of filler parts and improve quality." But it started to harm shows with complex storylines like "The Glory". If a series has a complex storyline and a deep character arc, it starts to falter in the last 2-3 episodes because they don't have enough episodes left to tie up the plot. For this reason, in many series, the storylines of a few characters are abruptly concluded with a single scene in the final episode, sometimes even in the last 20 minutes. This is why the series fails to deliver what it initially promised to the audience.
If this series had been 18-20 episodes instead of 16, it would have had a much higher quality ending. Hopefully, one day the "16-episode" rule will disappear, and series will be able to be longer or shorter according to their own needs.
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