Gern

It’s the power of a totally satisfying ending. Many shows, some are even considered “masterpieces,” can’t decide if they want a tragic ending or a happy one so they wimp out and leave it to the audience. Grow a spine and commit to the ending you want to tell.

Many good shows botch the ending with a titanic struggle for the couple to be together that ends with a voluntary multi-year separation. How utterly illogical. It’s like having Romeo and Juliette survive only to have Romeo decides his career is more important so the leaves to study abroad for three years. Who would give that ten stars.

Despite its screwy start where it jumped between the past and present with no clue that the timeframe had changed, this show delivered in the end. It gave us a somewhat surprise ending that didn’t rush but wrapped everything up and left you feeling good. That’s rare enough to deserve its rating.

Amnesia can work. It does in The Bourne Idenyity where it starts with amnesia. It does in The Eternal Love 2 and 3, where it is only an obstacle for the lead to overcome. The worst thing you can do is to let it to drag it in too long, or use it to bring in another love rival, or to have it completely change the main character’s personality. Each destroys what came before rendering every significant event of the preceding episodes pointless. This show does all three and stands as a perfect example of how to be foolish in executing an amnesia arc.

To top it all of the ending was weak and nowhere near satisfying. It’s not a hard concept. If you make trouble for a character or couple, to satisfy the audience you have to prove to them the trouble is all behind them now.. This show doesn’t begin to do that so you’re left feeling uneasy, as if it’s just the respite before more bad stuff comes. Really disappointing for a sequel of such a great show.

This was unexpectedly good. The first episodes seemed awkward and there were too many characters to keep straight, but it improved and got more interesting as you try to make sense of all the seemingly contradictory clues. There was a lot more to the mystery than just who the murdere was. Each suspect was shrouded in suspicions facts that you had to make sense of. Near the end it became really suspenseful.

I wish they’d have let you into the FL’s head a bit more. It was all too often difficult to figure out if she wasn’t interested in the ML at all or pretending not to be interested or if she was pretending. why. The only reason it didn’t become a bigger drawback for the show was because there were so many obvious problems with a relationship between major players of enemy states. It wasn’t hard to see why she might not want to give him any hope.

Yes, but it’s not made super clear until late in the show, and since he was never even remotely on her radar from the start, it’s not really much of a SML.

I can see why some people thought this was draggy in the middle. Things really do move along fairly quickly, but the FL is basically aiming for the same goal for 20 episodes. She tries lots of things to get whey she wants and the circumstances around her and her relationship to others changes, but her basic desire remains stagnant. There are only so many schemes she can dream up without much changing before it gets a bit repetitive. It redeemed itself nicely in the final episodes so overall it was a good show.

I quite liked this show despite its maddening inconsistency. Every episode was full of stuff that happened then didn’t happen. The FL would say “I’m leaving,” as she’s walking away, then half an episode later she’s still there, then much later again she’s still there. The bad guy would strangle someone but there still alive in the next scene. One of the characters was supposed to die if he interfered with the spirit world but does so repeatedly in nearly every episode without dying.

Promises would be made then forgotten. Consequences would be discussed but then dropped over and over. It’s as if the story found it too inconvenient to stick to the narrative it had painted in the past. Yet still , I was able to look past it and enjoy the show for what it was: a twisty tale of ghosts, dragons and mythology.

Thanks for all the replies guys. I rewatched it and had forgotten how good it was. Watched the first half in Viki and the second half of Netflix.

I think the problem is it really had no resolution. I don’t think stories have to have happy endings but they really should have an ending of some kind (and marriage scenes during the credits don’t cut it because we have no sense of how they got to that moment or if it was even just the guys wishful thinking) She never found out his true intentions. in my opinion it looks like they planned a season two but decided part way through to wrap it up with her leaving.

I personally found it jarring. The filming, dialog, and pace are so different. It feels like a low budget show compared to the first season. The special effects also seem less convincing. It’s like they were sped up, and the physics are all wrong. It will be forgiven if the plot is good, but the transition is taking some getting used to.

I just finished episode 13 and I’m really liking this show. At first I thought the change in the policeman’s flashback of the accident was the writers trying to refine or improve the story. Then they switched back to the original flashback and I couldn’t figure it out. But the smirk at the end of this episode is the nail in the coffin. Things are not as they seem.

I haven’t really watched much of this, but I have seen the FL try to make the ML jealous in an attempt to manipulate him into helping her write a business plan. When he offers her material for her plan she refuses and uses material she went to another man to get. She deliberately provokes him and pretends not to care when a women confesses to the ML. She’s gotten the best of the ML several times because she’s pretty scheming and not at all a pushover. From what little I’ve seen, I’m not sure you couldn’t call her emotionally abusive.

All that may be beside the point. Stories are full of bad people. Othello murdered his wife. Oedipus killed his father and married his mother. You could get furious at Scrooge for using his money and position to abuse his employees. In the end it wasn’t the horrible person he was at the start but who he became that made the story.

This was not a great drama. In the first three episodes, the FL shows obvious and strong interest in the ML. She gets jealous and yells at him to never bring another woman into his house. She mishears his confession and becomes obsessed enough to later ask him point blank what he said. Yet, the moment he confesses clearly and unambiguously she becomes a different person, pushing him away.

She goes on a series of dates with the second male lead, who’s a very nice guy. When he asks, point blank and repeatedly, if she has feelings for anyone else, each time, without qualification she responds with a firm no. This is at complete odds with her own behavior, with things she has said to herself. It’s s lie. This is extremely odd. First, because it’s totally unfair to the SML who is open, honest and sincere in his pursuit of her.

Second, because if she has no feelings for the SML there’s no reason to lie to him. She could simply say she’s confused about her feelings, or she doesn’t know, or yes, but a relationship is impossible with the ML. The only reason to hide her feelings is she doesn’t want him to go away. She wants to keep seeing him, and lying to him to string him along makes her a bad person. Doubly so given her prior jealous outburst to the ML and the fact she knows the ML had feelings for her and never even hints to him that she’s dating someone else. If she was serious about ending her relationship with the ML a simple “I’m seeing someone else” would have done it.

Third her lying about her feelings to a direct question from the SML tells you everything you need to know about their relationship. The SML is up-front, caring and above board, while she hides her feelings. That’s not a recipe for a successful relationship. She’d always wind up unhappy because she denies her feelings and he’d wind up pushing her around without even knowing it. There was even a divorce in the show for a similar reason. The man was happy but the woman was not and never once let the guy know.

After the appearance of the SML, the FL only spends with the Ml when circumstance force her to do so to further their joint plan to avoid relocation to Alaska. On the other hand, her frequent dates with the SML were voluntary and so only make sense if she wanted to see him and spend time with him. Since she never expressed to herself or anyone else how she felt about the SML, her behavior is all we have to go on, and it paints a picture of a woman who is more strongly drawn to the SML than the ML. The cherry on the top was that her last minute refusal of the SML, was not because she didn’t love him, not because she was in love with someone else, but because she wanted to live alone. The inevitable conclusion was she had stronger feelings for the SML but just didn’t see it working out with the him because he was a normal guy who wanted a normal married life. So she “settled” for the ML where he would accept them being married but living apart. Totally unsatisfying..

Without spoilers all I can say is it was an unsatisfying show that left me feeling the woman didn’t end up with the guy she was the most I’m love with. I’ll put my more detailed thoughts in a response to this post.

No better sign of confused writing exists than the ending. We have a many year separation during which, if the woman had her way, she’d have gone in blind dates and, and presumably been married when he returned . Okay, I can’t say that’s isn’t realistic or even bad. But minutes after we learn that, she sits in a church appearing to still be very broken up about his absence, as if she never moved on. Well, make up your mind. Is she still waiting for him or has she moved on.

Then we find out why he came back, but it doesn’t make sense at all with the reason he gives for staying. Being introduced to a relative takes a few minutes then he’s back in the afterlife. If he was allowed to visit earth as a vacation whenever she’s reincarnated then why did he have to wait to do that until she had a new relative to introduce him to. It makes no sense.

What makes it worse is that the director didn’t demand a little more consistency or logic in the motives behind the events of the story. IMHO they were both at fault.

Someone really needs to write a screenplay called “my roommate’s girlfriend is an alien gumiho detective assassin.”

I think it hurts the show when nothing really resolved. As far as I can tell , it end with everything the same as the ten episodes before it. At least the Manga storyteller understood the importance of things going somewhere.

I liked this show a lot. It was good to see the main character change so much and then have to deal with the mess he’d made of his life. The female lead was equally as interesting. She was strong enough to put up with him and keep giving him crap for the evil stuff he’d done. I think I liked that part the most. From the start, she’d given up on him as a partner but never gave up on him as someone she wanted to see be a better person..

Another great show, but the atmosphere was different.

This was a great show on every level. They really knew how to take a fairly simple idea and toy with it teasing out so many good twists and interesting situations. The acting was great, it was well made and thoroughly enjoyable.