Two things have been foreshadowed since the first episode: Ha-jin regaining her memories and Jeong-hoon breaking down/having a medical crisis due to his complacent attitude toward check-ups and treatment. While I'm looking forward to the former since it's necessary for Ha-jin's character development, I'm kinda scared of what the writer has in store for JH. PLEASE don't give him amnesia. That's all I ask. There's NO WAY to do an amnesia subplot well, so please don't try.
that was the silliest thing ever to be honest .. I mean how the hell wouldnt they tell him that his mother passed…
She was hoping the surgery would be successful and she could just tell him, “Oh, by the way, I had to get treatment, but I’m fine now, so don’t worry,” as per her promise to tell him everything “later” at dinner. It’s shitty, but I’ve heard of many parents doing it. The only difference here is that she was hiding a serious condition and unfortunately didn’t make it.
This comment is so dramatic lmao. It’s fine to be uncomfortable with the age difference between the main actors, but just to be clear Ha-jin is supposed to be 30 and Jeong-hoon is supposed to be 36 according to the script.
I was also very hesitant to start this drama because I don’t like it when they cast very young actresses with actors in their mid-30s, but the actors are actually doing a great job and the romance is totally immersive/believable for me. If I found their acting unconvincing to the point of being uncomfortably aware that I’m watching a 23-year-old and a 36-year-old at any point, I would have simply dropped the drama. That’s what I advise you to do instead of hate-watching it while skipping “the romance” (like, what else is there lol) and yelling at people that KDW is an ugly old man, which come on, he clearly isn’t.
The setup is appropriately twisted and melodramatic so far. I’m excited! And I’m already looking forward to the romance, which won’t really kick off, I assume, until after the time skip.
I love how some of the core messages of this drama are that the people who raised you for 25 years become strangers the moment your biological parents come along and only rich people can be good parents. Also that a woman like Sa-ran can only be happy cooking, having babies and spending all day long with her in-laws while her husband goes to work. It's so nakedly socially conservative that it just makes me laugh.
The part where the show made Sa-ran's parents miss her wedding due to a car accident so it could insert Director Geum in their place and then literally killed them off for the birth of her child because they were too tacky and poor and would spoil the perfect ending was just... wow.
What I love about her character is that sometimes she does cool/admirable things and sometimes she does/says things I don't approve of, but all of her actions seem perfectly in character. She has such a distinctive personality that she remains consistently herself even as she provokes completely different reactions--I'm always thinking, "yep, that's Cha Myung-joo for you," good or bad--which is the case for people in the real world but is pretty rare on TV.
I’m sorry, but Bo-tong’s story was 100x more emotionally affecting than the Jae-hyun/Yoo-ra story arc. My heart broke for him and I don’t think the drama fully reckoned with Ha-neul's personal culpability for him dropping out/the disservice she did him, choosing instead to focus on the character growth she underwent as a result.
Also, Ms Park’s husband is the villain of the drama for me. He’s always pressuring her to work less so she can parent their child more attentively, but a. their child is fine and b. the idea of him making that sacrifice himself never occurs to anyone. When their son was in the hospital and Ms Park’s student was in police custody, this bitch just peaced out because “something came up at work”?! I highly doubt it was a bigger work-related emergency than Ms Park’s, yet it was implicitly assumed by everyone that she had to stay in the hospital with their child while her student was being held by the police without an adult present whereas her husband got to leave to go do paperwork/get drunk with his boss or whatever. The fact she never gets mad at him for being such a sexist wasteman makes ME mad.
(At the same time... when you promise your frightened student to pick him up from the police station and then don't do that... it doesn't matter how good your excuse was! Don't explain your situation and expect him to be understanding. Just apologise unreservedly. Children shouldn't be asked to sympathise with their teachers when their teachers fail them, no matter how valid the reasons might be.)
The romance we didn't ask, but the romance we need, has started.
I wouldn't *entirely* put it past this drama to troll us again by pulling an "oops, this isn't a romance but a subplot about moving past unrequited love/awkward advances in the workplace" after Prosecutor Kim rejected Miran... but for now I choose to believe their relationship will have more romantic development and this initial rejection was just a way to spark some tension between them. I am way too invested to believe otherwise!
for someone who really uhhhh dislikes capitalism (me) how much does it focus on that aspect do you think (if you…
No worries! I'm glad you found my comments interesting.
I dropped SKY Castle for several reasons, and the voyeuristic focus on the status games of the rich was one of them. I just don't care about that stuff, and struggled to take it seriously. As you suspect, Black Dog also suffers from this a little bit. It doesn't stop with the fact it takes place in a private school in Gangnam. (Working there is, hilariously, positioned as a noble sacrifice in comparison to working at prep academies and admission consultancies.) In addition, as I said in my first comment, the drama reduces teaching to getting the top students to the most selective universities and preserving their families' privileged status, or elevating them to it. The main character has made it her mission to help the one poor student with good grades in the entire school get into a top university and get rich, but what about the mass of students who have no hope of joining the elite? They are totally irrelevant to what Black Dog has to say about the virtues and responsibilities of teachers, even if it's aware that the game is rigged against them.
That said, the drama is amazingly well done in many other ways and I continue to like it a lot.
I had so many issues with CSW's character in Life that I spent every moment he was onscreen raging, but I also enjoyed other aspects of the drama immensely. But if you didn't like the first four episodes, I don't know if there's a point in persevering, since the sociopolitical analysis doesn't get any better from there.
for someone who really uhhhh dislikes capitalism (me) how much does it focus on that aspect do you think (if you…
I really appreciate that the drama shines a sympathetic light on the poor working conditions and exploitation short-term teachers are subjected to, but don't go into it expecting too much big-picture analysis. The main character always ends up putting her (top) students' needs above her own legitimate grievances, which the drama portrays as praiseworthy, and so far the condemnation of the school administration has been at the level of "these teachers are dedicated to their students and deserve better support" rather than "it is unjust and unsustainable to treat workers like this," if that makes sense.
The drama's core theme is the selflessness of great teachers in the face of all obstacles, which Ha-neul's origin story also bears out. The drama doesn't do too much to differentiate between the systemic disadvantages they face, which are the result of more powerful people's deliberate actions, and, like, extreme events like natural disasters and random misfortunes that might make their job harder. Which is not to say that Black Dog isn't aware/critical of worker exploitation; it just doesn't offer a sustained and explicit structural analysis of it or seem to prescribe strategies of hostile resistance. I expected more biting social critique based on the setpieces shown in first few episodes, to be honest, and am a little disappointed by the way it's fizzled out in favour of the theme of centring the student at all costs.
In this respect, Black Dog reminds me of Life, which started out as a drama exposing the incompatibility between providing vital social services (in Life's case, healthcare) and serving corporate interests but ended up focusing on the humanity of the CEO privatising the hospital and being way less morally clear and politically coherent than it should have been.
Anyway. There's still some of what you're looking for in Black Dog--more so than in the vast majority of kdramas--but it doesn't go that extra step to piece together a meaningful position, IMO.
Diary has been an exceptional show overall. Everyone played their part to a tee in ep 9. The whole notion of don’t…
Yes, the gaming stuff was very entertaining and fresh. In addition to the epilogue, Ms Sung’s big reveal was hilarious, if heavily foreshadowed. And Prosecutor Kim explaining the lore and virtual economy of the game to a politely uncomprehending LSW killed me, as well as the gameplay sequences. But the funniest moment for me was when LSW engineered a pretext to visit Prosecutor Kim’s room and destroyed his figurines again to cover up his previous break-in. I was literally gaping at the screen.
Can we talk about this drama toying with our expectations of a romance between Lee Sun-woong and Cha Myung-joo by first revealing Prosecutor Lee is happily married and now... kind of suggesting Investigator Lee and Prosecutor Cha might be getting along exceptionally well? He’s leaving supplements on her desk and smiling at her tenderly after executing warrants now? I knew the scene where he was pretending to be her husband would not be the end of it!
Also if we don't get scenes between Prosecutor Kim and Ms Sung in every episode until the end, I'll riot. This is my OTP now.
Other than that, this episode was amazingly funny. Both the gaming fraud and the frivolous lawsuit subplots were hilarious (and complemented each other well), but the gaming stuff was just hysterical. The epilogue, when Prosecutor Kim revealed his action figures had been fake after Prosecutor Lee paid 1M won to replace them, and after Prosecutor Kim spent the entire episode accusing others of peddling fake in-game items, was a masterpiece only rivalled by Ms Sung's big reveal and Prosecutor Kim's reaction to her afterwards.
I love this drama so far. It's so well made and mature in terms of directing, acting, writing. I'd say it's the best ongoing kdrama right now.
Mr Ji is the most interesting character for me because my reaction to him has changed dramatically more than once. He started out as a cold and unsettling figure, yet I couldn't help but feel for him because of the pressure he was under and his social isolation. I pitied him when he seemingly hit rock bottom, and now that he seems to be getting closer to Ha-neul and Mr Do, it feels good. I'm sure there are more reversals still to come, and the anonymous forum/competition for the permanent position subplot will come back with a vengeance. Whatever happens, though, I hope he gets a good ending.
It would be nice to see some romantic development between Ha-neul and Mr Do, or even a love triangle (I never thought I'd say this!). Even if it doesn't become explicit, I think that's what the drama is hinting at given the way the interactions between them are unfolding.
Yoo-ra and Jae-hyun's rivalry is an interesting sideshow because even though I want to sympathise with Yoo-ra given their respective circumstances, I can't bring myself to like her. I hope we see some character development from her.
Speaking of which, I have kind of made my peace with the fact the drama will spotlight the top students and the teachers' handling of them, but I wish it was more attentive to the ethical implications of an entire school catering to 20 kids out of 300. For example, since the viewers are invited to identify with Ha-neul and she believed so strongly that the top students' banana answer should count, the drama dismissed the counterpoint that the test should not reward mastery of advanced material that the vast majority of students have never encountered, which was presented as a tedious complaint the good guys must deflect rather than a valid concern.
In general, I just don't think getting the most hardworking/privileged students into the most prestigious universities is, you know, the most important or rewarding part of a teacher's job. Helping less accomplished students improve, or find their own path in life, is both more difficult and more important in terms of marginal utility (since the top students will still do well even if they get rejected from the best university in the country). I wonder if that will come up at all.
That said, the iffy politics of the Icarus Club stuff aside, I love how the drama exposes the stress and humiliation of being a short-term teacher. It depicts some really painful details, like the refusal to pay out insurance to the widow of Ha-neul's dead teacher, the 5-month contract trick to avoid paying salaries over break and the kind short-term teacher's sudden disappearance the moment her students learned of her employment status (despite assurances from some permanent staff that it didn't matter and wasn't a big deal). This aspect of the story is relatable to people in many fields of employment all over the world.
Lastly, I wonder how the fact Ha-neul decided to become a teacher because her teacher died saving her life will tie into the plot. I hope she'll share this story with her friends at the school at some point.
1 
While You Were Sleeping is also worth checking out.
I was also very hesitant to start this drama because I don’t like it when they cast very young actresses with actors in their mid-30s, but the actors are actually doing a great job and the romance is totally immersive/believable for me. If I found their acting unconvincing to the point of being uncomfortably aware that I’m watching a 23-year-old and a 36-year-old at any point, I would have simply dropped the drama. That’s what I advise you to do instead of hate-watching it while skipping “the romance” (like, what else is there lol) and yelling at people that KDW is an ugly old man, which come on, he clearly isn’t.
The part where the show made Sa-ran's parents miss her wedding due to a car accident so it could insert Director Geum in their place and then literally killed them off for the birth of her child because they were too tacky and poor and would spoil the perfect ending was just... wow.
I’m sorry, but Bo-tong’s story was 100x more emotionally affecting than the Jae-hyun/Yoo-ra story arc. My heart broke for him and I don’t think the drama fully reckoned with Ha-neul's personal culpability for him dropping out/the disservice she did him, choosing instead to focus on the character growth she underwent as a result.
Also, Ms Park’s husband is the villain of the drama for me. He’s always pressuring her to work less so she can parent their child more attentively, but a. their child is fine and b. the idea of him making that sacrifice himself never occurs to anyone. When their son was in the hospital and Ms Park’s student was in police custody, this bitch just peaced out because “something came up at work”?! I highly doubt it was a bigger work-related emergency than Ms Park’s, yet it was implicitly assumed by everyone that she had to stay in the hospital with their child while her student was being held by the police without an adult present whereas her husband got to leave to go do paperwork/get drunk with his boss or whatever. The fact she never gets mad at him for being such a sexist wasteman makes ME mad.
(At the same time... when you promise your frightened student to pick him up from the police station and then don't do that... it doesn't matter how good your excuse was! Don't explain your situation and expect him to be understanding. Just apologise unreservedly. Children shouldn't be asked to sympathise with their teachers when their teachers fail them, no matter how valid the reasons might be.)
I dropped SKY Castle for several reasons, and the voyeuristic focus on the status games of the rich was one of them. I just don't care about that stuff, and struggled to take it seriously. As you suspect, Black Dog also suffers from this a little bit. It doesn't stop with the fact it takes place in a private school in Gangnam. (Working there is, hilariously, positioned as a noble sacrifice in comparison to working at prep academies and admission consultancies.) In addition, as I said in my first comment, the drama reduces teaching to getting the top students to the most selective universities and preserving their families' privileged status, or elevating them to it. The main character has made it her mission to help the one poor student with good grades in the entire school get into a top university and get rich, but what about the mass of students who have no hope of joining the elite? They are totally irrelevant to what Black Dog has to say about the virtues and responsibilities of teachers, even if it's aware that the game is rigged against them.
That said, the drama is amazingly well done in many other ways and I continue to like it a lot.
I had so many issues with CSW's character in Life that I spent every moment he was onscreen raging, but I also enjoyed other aspects of the drama immensely. But if you didn't like the first four episodes, I don't know if there's a point in persevering, since the sociopolitical analysis doesn't get any better from there.
I'll stop now. Cheers, comrade!
The drama's core theme is the selflessness of great teachers in the face of all obstacles, which Ha-neul's origin story also bears out. The drama doesn't do too much to differentiate between the systemic disadvantages they face, which are the result of more powerful people's deliberate actions, and, like, extreme events like natural disasters and random misfortunes that might make their job harder. Which is not to say that Black Dog isn't aware/critical of worker exploitation; it just doesn't offer a sustained and explicit structural analysis of it or seem to prescribe strategies of hostile resistance. I expected more biting social critique based on the setpieces shown in first few episodes, to be honest, and am a little disappointed by the way it's fizzled out in favour of the theme of centring the student at all costs.
In this respect, Black Dog reminds me of Life, which started out as a drama exposing the incompatibility between providing vital social services (in Life's case, healthcare) and serving corporate interests but ended up focusing on the humanity of the CEO privatising the hospital and being way less morally clear and politically coherent than it should have been.
Anyway. There's still some of what you're looking for in Black Dog--more so than in the vast majority of kdramas--but it doesn't go that extra step to piece together a meaningful position, IMO.
Can we talk about this drama toying with our expectations of a romance between Lee Sun-woong and Cha Myung-joo by first revealing Prosecutor Lee is happily married and now... kind of suggesting Investigator Lee and Prosecutor Cha might be getting along exceptionally well? He’s leaving supplements on her desk and smiling at her tenderly after executing warrants now? I knew the scene where he was pretending to be her husband would not be the end of it!
Also if we don't get scenes between Prosecutor Kim and Ms Sung in every episode until the end, I'll riot. This is my OTP now.
Other than that, this episode was amazingly funny. Both the gaming fraud and the frivolous lawsuit subplots were hilarious (and complemented each other well), but the gaming stuff was just hysterical. The epilogue, when Prosecutor Kim revealed his action figures had been fake after Prosecutor Lee paid 1M won to replace them, and after Prosecutor Kim spent the entire episode accusing others of peddling fake in-game items, was a masterpiece only rivalled by Ms Sung's big reveal and Prosecutor Kim's reaction to her afterwards.
Mr Ji is the most interesting character for me because my reaction to him has changed dramatically more than once. He started out as a cold and unsettling figure, yet I couldn't help but feel for him because of the pressure he was under and his social isolation. I pitied him when he seemingly hit rock bottom, and now that he seems to be getting closer to Ha-neul and Mr Do, it feels good. I'm sure there are more reversals still to come, and the anonymous forum/competition for the permanent position subplot will come back with a vengeance. Whatever happens, though, I hope he gets a good ending.
It would be nice to see some romantic development between Ha-neul and Mr Do, or even a love triangle (I never thought I'd say this!). Even if it doesn't become explicit, I think that's what the drama is hinting at given the way the interactions between them are unfolding.
Yoo-ra and Jae-hyun's rivalry is an interesting sideshow because even though I want to sympathise with Yoo-ra given their respective circumstances, I can't bring myself to like her. I hope we see some character development from her.
Speaking of which, I have kind of made my peace with the fact the drama will spotlight the top students and the teachers' handling of them, but I wish it was more attentive to the ethical implications of an entire school catering to 20 kids out of 300. For example, since the viewers are invited to identify with Ha-neul and she believed so strongly that the top students' banana answer should count, the drama dismissed the counterpoint that the test should not reward mastery of advanced material that the vast majority of students have never encountered, which was presented as a tedious complaint the good guys must deflect rather than a valid concern.
In general, I just don't think getting the most hardworking/privileged students into the most prestigious universities is, you know, the most important or rewarding part of a teacher's job. Helping less accomplished students improve, or find their own path in life, is both more difficult and more important in terms of marginal utility (since the top students will still do well even if they get rejected from the best university in the country). I wonder if that will come up at all.
That said, the iffy politics of the Icarus Club stuff aside, I love how the drama exposes the stress and humiliation of being a short-term teacher. It depicts some really painful details, like the refusal to pay out insurance to the widow of Ha-neul's dead teacher, the 5-month contract trick to avoid paying salaries over break and the kind short-term teacher's sudden disappearance the moment her students learned of her employment status (despite assurances from some permanent staff that it didn't matter and wasn't a big deal). This aspect of the story is relatable to people in many fields of employment all over the world.
Lastly, I wonder how the fact Ha-neul decided to become a teacher because her teacher died saving her life will tie into the plot. I hope she'll share this story with her friends at the school at some point.