DramaloverPanda

Finally! The much awaited special episode to finally see these two get to actually be happy together. But wait. In true Jack and Joker fashion, their happy ending must be hard fought for as they encounter an old villain that is set on taking them down. Now the group of friends that have yet to change their circumstances are thrust into another dangerous situation.

If I were to break down the universe in this series I would say that these characters live in a place that is primarily run by gangs and fear. In a poor small village the commoners struggle to just make it from day to day without being harassed or exploited by those who have more power. This special picks up where the series left off with Jack and Joker teaching at the school they opened for the children of the village, Save was made the new boss of the debt collectors in the area with Hope as his help, Tattoo and Aran make money where they can with inventions, and Hoy is still a driver. Not much has changed for these characters except that Boss Alice and his goons are no longer violently suppressing them. His absence however does not erase the fact that many of these people still owe money. While Save is trying to collect without violence and make a change for the better within the debt collecting scene he is only able to really impact the few around him as many other gangs aren't too far away and greed and corruption is wide swept and hard to eradicate. Even Rose mentions how her father and the head horsemen still play the games that mess with peoples lives. So what we see is this very small part in our characters lives that makes a minute difference in the world around them.

That being said, I found this special to be better acted by many of the side characters than I did in the series. And thankfully the over the top comedy is absent in this episode and instead has more natural interactions making most of it more palatable. We did see a lack of emotions where I thought there should be like in the proposal which felt a little flat as well as in the last section where everyone was so accepting of a death without tears or questioning it especially without a body. But other scenes were spot on. I actually liked the affectionate and silly interactions between Jack and Joke and their emotional scenes in the later half did a good job of breaking your heart. Hoy also was much more tolerable in this episode and his grief and anger were spot on. Tattoo and Aran were also fun to watch with their easy back and forth and comfort around each other.

But lets talk about what could have been done better. The rescue plan here is just as poorly thought out as all the heists done in the series. The characters going in with a half baked plan and expecting the viewers to suspend belief. First how did they get their 'weapons' in when they were waved with a metal detector? Carbon's escape from prison was so poorly explained but also I have such a hard time even understanding the character that is one dimensional evil. In the series he threw a child to kill her and here he attracted the group to try and get revenge for going to prison. What was the goal? To kill them all? Just one? To make Jack miserable? His goal is confusing to me. Even then I can ignore all this and just accept that they all walked into a trap and since their planning was poor it is easy to believe that they ended up in the worst possible position and they are all hurt so badly in the end. But after this scene the drama just ignores the injuries. Aran who was stabbed is now fine. There are no bruises on any of the characters, Jack's leg was so badly hurt that he couldn't get up to help Joke but is walking around fine two days later. Could we not have at least bandaged them?

Now lets talk about the wedding. This is the biggest part of the plot that most people have a problem with. I can agree with all the views in other reviews. But I will say that grief is different in everyone. Jack was barely holding himself together and if he needed this make believe wedding to not lose it entirely then I can see how the people that love him would go along with it. I think it would have been more easily accepted if they had made it a dream sequence. For example if Jack passes out from the grief and stress and dreams of the wedding he never got to have. But by adding the doll they ended up making it creepy. You can see how sad all the guests are but like pointed out by others, were they just watching Jack kiss a doll? There is being supportive and allowing a friend to grieve and be crazy so as not to also lose him to the sadness and then there is allowing delusion to go too far.

Also the very last scene where Joke gets up. Now we are not told how much later this scene takes place but there is no way he survived without medical help. He was shot twice and the blood on his shirt shows that at least one of those shots went in his stomach. And if he woke up much later and is more healed he would be very weak and have a hard time getting up normally. But he somehow survived and yet Carbon who only fell into the water was said to have had his body found. So how did he die? Could he not swim? What would make the seemingly more able bodied one die but the seriously injured one survive?

Putting logic aside I still find that I mostly enjoyed this. It had me in tears and willingly being blind to the obvious flaws much the same as the series did. Such is the magnetism of Yin and War. I look forward to a second season.