CurlyFries

I went in with no spoilers, no trailer; completely blind. Now I'm disappointed.

I seriously want to know why writers have a vendetta against writing villainous characters as morally bad. I was being strung along expecting Mo Eun to be the morally black counter to a morally white protagonist, but of course they had to erase that with a sad backstory. I decided to watch this because I wanted to watch a show with a genuine female sociopath/psychopath, but they were too wimpy to actually go ahead with it. Mo Eun's actress was amazing and killed the cold scenes she was in! It's such a shame her talents were wasted on this character. Why did they have to give her a backstory that felt completely unnecessary to her character? And if I'm honest, it felt like a retcon to her character up until that point; how does a woman that could brutally kill two people and then sit right next to them on a couch have a redemption arc? This isn't Killing Eve, unfortunately. Villanelle was a character that I think embodies what I wanted from Mo Eun to be. A killer that lacks empathy, has a chilling persona, and knows to manipulate people to her advantage. But she just HAD to be a misunderstood woman that was secretly kind yet somehow threw away any semblance of her previous personality in favor of coming across as soulless. Also, if she is sooo intelligent and planned out her revenge by going as far as faking her death and stealing another identity, how come she failed so badly at killing all three of her targets? Was it really that hard? I still don't understand how she even got caught in the first place since she killed them in the comfort of their own home and with no one else around.

As for the MC whose name I forgot, I think she was written quite boringly. She just felt like a character that needed to be there to boost Mo Eun's existence. Because let's face it; Mo Eun was the selling point of the show. The MC was just a damsel for a good portion of the story and I felt like there was very little notable about her. Far more is known about Mo Eun than her. She barely even seemed that shaken up about her husband's death from my point of view. She was just being jerked around by different manipulators throughout the entire story. Then she suddenly grows intelligence for the finale to somehow expose the true villain. She also named her daughter Sop, which I'm sure means something lovely in Korean, but as an English speaker it's hard to take seriously. Her daughter was literally just an NPC with no personality, no nothing. She wasn't at all interesting like the daughter from Flower of Evil was. At least that girl had a personality. Sop was just a blank slate needed to give the MC a motivation for everything that she does in the story.

The lawyers were alright, I guess. The prosecutor was saved by his good actor and realization of his bias he had. Not that that makes him a well-written character, but at least I liked how they showed the inherent biases people can have in those situations. Even I thought the MC didn't seem that shaken up about her husband's death, so I'm a little guilty too. The ex-boxer lawyer was literally just a devoted guy that felt like the equivalent of the golden retriever archetype except nonromantically. I did like his acting, though. His nose really was distracting.

Now the thing that tore this story down DRASTICALLY was the absolutely ATROCIOUS villains. The other lawyer guy and his wife have to be some of the worst villains I have seen in a HOT MINUTE. First off, they are not scary in the slightest. Second, they have barely any relevancy up until the reveal. And third but most certainly not least, they have the single worst motivation for the crimes they committed. They seriously bludgened a guy because he was a little RUDE!? Then they framed his innocent widow for the crime and fundamentally planning to orphan their young child. Because the guy didn't say "sorry." Like, does this author think they're writing Hannibal Lecter??? At least Hannibal killing people for being rude wasn't his only motivation since he was a true sociopath and hunted people when he felt the urge. But these guys? They had no prior reason to do what they did! They were just a regular couple that suddenly were masterminding an elaborate cover up that they would've gotten away with if it weren't for those meddling writers-oops, I mean inTelLigENt protagonist. They really should've just stuck with Mo Eun being the killer and created a thrilling cat and mouse chase between the leading ladies. But of course, we can't have nice things in Dramaland.

A lot of the story just felt like throwing in things in order to get from point A to point B:
"We need a reason for Mo Eun to depend on the MC" - Make her incompetent at fulfilling her thought-out revenge plan!
"We need a way to mislead the prosecutor's initial investigation" - Make her somehow pass the lie detector test by saying she's killed 3+ people despite her NOT having done that in the story! Yes, I am *still* hung up on this!!!
"We need a reason for Mo Eun to be suspected as the hooded figure that stalked the MC" Make a nice doctor discreetly keep her in the nurse's ward for an extended period of time when the cameras are COINCIDENTALLY malfunctioning!
"We need a way for Mo Eun to suspiciously contact the MC despite being in prison and having no connections" - Make her become the savior a gullible girl that is getting out of prison the NEXT DAY!
"We need the MC to get away from her house that is out of range of her tracker" - Make her have a nice police lady that is ignorant to her suspicious behavior!
"We need a reason to redeem Mo Eun despite her murdering two people and planning to murder a teenager" - Make said teenager a scummy rapist that doesn't seem to give a fuck about his dead parents and just hops on Valorant all day!
"We need an intermediate between the MC and the secret antagonists or how else will we make her exposing them plausible" - Make the dead teenager have an obsessive grandpa that will kidnap a child as a hostage and willing to commit murder and not suspicious over the prosecutor that brought him a literal murder tape yet decided NOT to report it to the police! Yeah, that makes perfect sense!
"We need a reason for Mo Eun to have her new identity without painting her as a bad person in order to redeem her" - Mo Eun coincidentally had an extremely ill best friend that allowed herself to die in a car and have her remains desecrated in order to aid Mo Eun in committing murder!
"We now have an issue of needing new villains since we wimped out on Mo Eun being one! What ever will we do?!?!?!" - You see that lawyer guy and his wife with literally one scene? Yeah, make them the killers! They suddenly have a relation to the MC's husband that she didn't know about and they killed him brutally over a slightly rude encounter! Then they gloat about it and feel no shame despite being normal people beforehand! Makes the utmost sense to me!
.....Now you see, I could keep going, but even I'm getting tired of listing all these moments of plot convenience/ineptitude.....

The positives?
- Mo Eun's actress and INITIAL characterization.
- Production was nice and the show looked visually appealing. I liked the camera shots at times and the way it would zoom in on Mo Eun's face was eerie.
- Earlier episodes; especially the first one's setup. Premise was very good.
- Music was pretty good except for when certain songs would feel a little too dramatic for the story.


I feel bad for only listing a few positives, but it's very hard for me to think of any, and I finished this show literally yesterday. I just couldn't stand how they threw in things like pointless drama with the friend and one-dimensional law enforcement left and right without it feeling substantial. I'm honestly sad about how cookie-cutter this story became since I love psychological thrillers! I just hope there will be writers in the future that can create Kdrama characters with moral ambiguity with pride and not be afraid to go through with it!

Final statement: not worth your time; don't watch.