Eleison

Yes, I thought their chemistry was very good in this. I also liked the FL in this and Uncanny Counter (S1) more than in Business Proposal.

Wait, which actor was in Gaksital?!

The FL and ML don't feel like equals. I had a hard time getting behind them because of it.

And the 2ML and 2FL have to be some of the most annoying second leads in all of Kdramaland. 🙄

School 2013 is a classic. ☺️

I always saw it as him knowing, deep down, that she's a human as he gets to know her better. He does start to feel attachment and affection for her that puzzles and confuses him, but I don't think it's until after he finds out that she's human that he really realizes his feelings for her in earnest (if I remember correctly).

Yes, but he believes wholeheartedly that he will have an allergic reaction to touching a human. He does not have that reaction when touching her, so in his mind it's impossible (as far as his logic goes) for her to be human. He has also been told she's the most sophisticated robot out there. These two things paired together make ironclad proof for him.

But it's also a completely ridiculous premise from the get-go. A person gets an allergic reaction to touching humans? A woman pretends to be a robot? Nothing about this show is realistic. It's just a fun story told in the fantasy world it creates. It's not meant to be completely convincing. 😉

You can only enjoy it if you realize the premise is ridiculous. If you can do that (honestly, many kdramas are like this, though), then it's quite a sweet watch! I don't know how far you got, but the ML improves significantly as the drama progresses. I didn't particularly care for him in the first half, but he slowly crept into my heart as it went along. 😉

Yep, I should have known that. 🤦‍♀️😂

Haha, thanks for demystifying it for me! 😅

P.S. My rating scale is much like yours! If I used another site, like IMDB, for instance, I'd calibrate it differently.

Yes! And after all, it's entertainment. It's not that serious. Making this your hill to die on... not worth it! Find some actual worthy, meaningful cause towards which you can channel your passionate heart instead. 😉

Park Bogum!!! Haven't seen him as a lead since Record Of Youth. He's so lovable, but I can't imagine a drama set in the 50's in Korea will have a cozy, feel-good ending...

Darn it, Bogum! Why'd you have to pick a sad one as your next drama? 😭

I haven't watched this. Can someone help me out with what OBS is referring to? I'll probably feel like, "Duh!" when someone tells me but I can't for the life of me figure out what people are referring to. 😅

Yeah, there are some people obsessed with stirring the pot here. 🤷‍♀️ I added one of them as my second blocked person on MDL because I find them so annoying, but yeah, their hypocrisy reeks and oozes from their comments. 😅

Here's my grasp of their logic: "My taste is objectively good/accurate. I think this drama is trash, therefore this drama is trash. Anyone else who thinks otherwise is a fangirl, a bot, a teenager, or a shallow person, since a sane adult (with good taste like mine who can tell masterpieces from trash) couldn't possibly like this. Everyone who rated this a 9? Not possible, it had to be bots (cause if it's not, then the majority of people who have seen this disagree with my taste, which can't be possible because, remember, I have good taste 😉)." 🤔

I think a more reasonable way to approach ratings you disagree with is to calibrate your genre likes and dislikes against the ratings. I found that the dramas whose ratings I tend to disagree with tend to be the same types of genres I've discovered I don't like that much. After realizing that, I have a much more accurate sense for what I'll dislike and why using MDL ratings as a guide with my own genre-specific caveats. This seems like a better way to go about things so you don't impose your arbitrary opinion on people in obnoxious ways to justify being "right." I think it's a healthy amount of humility and self-awareness to admit that there is SOMETHING about a highly rated drama that makes it beloved, even if YOU don't understand why that is. And it doesn't even make your taste bad necessarily, it just makes your taste different, and there are probably valid reasons for your dislike (it's just not reasons the majority resonate with).

Just goes to show how people can make anything seem true with editing. 😅

Maybe a tiny budding crush between two of the 2nd leads, but could also be special comradarie because they're the only ones from the study group who can't fight. 😅

Hmmm, weak in what sense? Physically, as in fighting, or in that he's the pawn of CPP and the Emperor? As far as fighting, I think he slowly gets stronger and stronger with his martial arts, but there is a spell in this when he gets badly wounded/sick and his meridians or whatever get damaged. It had less fighting than Season 1, though, so we see less of the progress he's made fighting-wise.

He is still used by the Emperor and CPP to further their own special plans. That part gets kind of hard to watch. He's still smart and clever but he always finds out his careful plans are inevitably built into some part of THEIR even more careful master plans. (He's still a plotter/schemer-in-training and needs more practice before he can take on the Big Guns! 😅).

That said, I never saw him as weak in Season 1, just finding his feet in the political world and getting the lay of the land. I was hoping he's break out of their authority a bit in Season 2, but in this season he's trying to gain followers and supporters so he has more power in Qing so his independence is not possible yet.

It does have a fabulous OST (and BGMs, too). One of the best as far as Kdramas go, for sure!

I wouldn't say it's happy (not as happy as it could have been), but it is beautiful and poignant.

I heard he got out in September? So, maybe a bit bit sooner than December?

This is the sort of person I've learned to ignore on MDL and not respond to... 😬 You know, this type: "You have to respect my opinion but I don't have to respect yours."