Hanatoko

That's an awfully convoluted way to try and justify poor writing.

The result of what?

Also, again, what facts? Go on any recent article on any site talking about the break up or even Ku Hye Sun's recent interview talking about it and all the comments are against her for being so viciously public and having evidence contrary to her claims. Doesn't seem like public sentiment is against him to me.

If you want to, you can also dig up megathreads on Reddit or search their names on Twitter.

What an irrelevant example. He's an actor. The job itself necessitates playing a character that isn't you. Do you have to be a psychopathic murderer to play one in a drama? Further, having a marriage fall apart doesn't mean he's suddenly incapable of romance or falling in love again.

I'd agree with the sentiment if he did something wrong, like abusing his wife. But that's not the case. And who said this is general public sentiment? That might've been the case at the beginning of the controversy, but public sentiment seemed to change in his favor as things went on.

That seems really silly to me. Especially since he started working on this drama before his ex-wife made a public fiasco of their marriage.

I assume they're talking about Ahn Jae Hyun who recently had a very messy and public breakup with his now ex-wife Ku Hye Sun. A lot of people jumped to her side when she went public with a bunch of messy personal information.

But the longer that news went on and the more she kept adding fuel to the fire, it became pretty obvious that the crazy one in their relationship was not him.

And further, he was never portrayed as abusive or having done anything notably unforgivable, so I'm not sure why people now pretend he's this super awful person. And I say this as someone who isn't even his fan.

I wouldn't even call it bittersweet. There was no sweetness in it. They tried and failed to make me believe that Hao Ting had moved on. That conversation was written so lazily and all of it was stuffed into the last few minutes of the episode. The writers wanted me to believe that he'll move on with his life and be better for his experiences, but all I was left with was a sad man who made all of his life's important decisions to follow a boy and ended up with nothing.

We leave this drama with our lead character being pushed by his parents to marry a girl we don't see, that Hao Ting shows no interest in, as he's about to go abroad to study something he also shows no real interest in. A subject he chose, mind you, because Xi Gu liked it. Is it possible Hao Ting genuinely likes his major and his girlfriend? Sure. But we don't get to see that. We're left with a depressed shell of his former self carrying out the motions of life because he has to and not because his experiences have improved him.

Realism is fine in a drama. Sad or tragic endings are fine in a drama. But execute them properly and have buildup to go with it. Properly conclude the themes and emotions you're trying to invoke. We didn't get that with this ending, which is why it's a frustrating mess.

We don't ever see her and he doesn't seem like he cares all that much about her, but yes we're told he has a girlfriend.

I would've accepted the ending if it was written well or executed properly. I'm not against sad or tragic endings. But it wasn't done well. It was abrupt, nonsensical, and lazy. It was also tonally disconnected from the entirety of the rest of the series.

And if they wanted to go in this direction, they should've set up themes that supported it, or at least introduced some in this final episode. Instead, it was rushed and lacked any impact. I couldn't even bring myself to care about the revelation because it was so absurdly introduced and cheaply hidden (a look-alike? Really?).

I'm not going to blame Wayne because an actor is never going to talk down whatever he's in. It's unprofessional and probably against contract.

Everything you said is correct. But I just want to add... they even bothered to give Hao Ting a girlfriend in the ending. I feel like that's just insulting. Then they tried to explain it away with "no guy will ever replace him".

But I guess a girl will?

It's either a look-alike or a hallucination. Look-alike is the most plausible. (It's not clearly explained in the episode)

I'll PM you the summary if you want.

Not good is an understatement. It's ridiculous and rage-inducing.

The worst part is that it's not even done well. That fade-away at the end was awful and I burst out laughing at how horribly executed it was. This conclusion is infuriating.

It's been up for a few hours already in a few places. Not sure how, but it has.