MadelineMaureen

I just feel bad for new watchers.

And don't even get me started on the historical/period Cdramas....name, family nickname, curtesy name, title, secondary title etc etc. I have had to strain to hear the difference as Mandarin is much newer to me than Korean and I can't hear the difference in tone. I've learned a lot of repeated phrases/words but dear lord why does every male character have to have like 5 different damn names.

I can't read Chinese like I can Hangul(thank you phonetic writing system) so I'm using Google Lens like a mofo, because god forbid they translate text on the screen. And if there is dialog when a character title is on screen 90% of the time that title card does not get translated and sometimes that's the only context given to who a person is.

Seriously those reading this who watch Cdramas use google lens on the screen when something isn't translated. It wont be perfect, but at least you'll have more than nothing.

There are always some real ones in the comment section or discussion section on dramas to help with name translations/meanings for cdramas.

I really hope that people who are watching this are understanding the names people are calling one another as the subtitles never actual have exactly what the person is saying. They keep translating it to the person's name or "Sir" when there is actual a lot more context being left out.
They are pretty much bitch slapping one another and it's not showing. So please please please yall, use your ears and actually hear the words being said.

For example, DongJu calling Ji Yeong Su "Seon U's mom" instead of Madame or Mrs. or Ms. Ji.

Most people here should already know that "Hyung" literally means older brother. But for those who don't have that context, they are missing the closeness of DongJu's relationship to Seon U and Heo Tae Yun. Dong Ju calls them informally like an actual brother relationship...which is why there are reactions from other characters every time one of them calls Dong Ju "Hyung". He is an employee and they treat him like a friend which pisses the other adults off.

This lack of title/name/relationship/formal-informal translation is extremely common now. I've had to explain this to friends who have started watching Kdramas recently since Squid Games has become popular. They'll get confused why certain characters have a strong reaction to something like speaking down to someone etc. The amount of times that "Noona" and other variations of sibling titles or age indicators have been translated to just a person's name....numerous. Anyway keep your ears flexy my friends and don't just rely on the subtitles for context.

Yes. It's just a personal trigger of mine because of personal experiences that don't need to be aired out here. Lets just say that real life ended much differently for me than it did for these characters.
I just wanted to explain why I was having a hard time enjoying a character. Characters can be flawed, but people will react to those flaws differently because of past experiences that influence their perception of things.

Gaslight, Girl Boss, Gatekeep has never been more apt a phrase than it is for this show.

She told him outright that she isn't interested and he STILL shows up at the hospital the next day?

I want to like the show but episode 5 is honestly making me hate the ML. The getting in front of her when she tries to walk away. The showing up at her front door to talk to her even though she has screened his calls multiple times. It's giving major red flags. I know it's supposed to be cute that they keep having misunderstandings and that both of them are a bit clueless with certain social cues, but trapping a person into talking to you is a serious personal issue(trigger) for me. It's giving "nice guy" energy and I'm trying not to get the full ick. But my guy, she literally jumped in a body of water to get away from you. I don't think following her is the answer.

literally in episode 12. DongJu has tests done & it's listed in the paperwork. also spoiler tag your comment please.

the logic of some things, and well don't hate me...but the ML not bringing anything to the character and thus certain points fell flat.

I feel like either people aren't understanding Yeo Eun Nam or production didn't do a good enough job explaining her motives. The whole reason she married Yeom Hwi Cheol is so she can get the shares to Daesan group. She believes her stepfather murdered her father and that her mother was in on it. She has her own revenge she has been working on for years. But because the writing for her character is such an afterthought they don't flesh this out. So casual watchers just think she's after her families money. She is not her Aunt. She is Dong Ju, but with less innate intelligence and planning.
If her character was as smart as Dong Ju she would have gone to the grandfather and gotten married to Dong Ju in the first place, as Dong Ju was already Chairman Cha's favorite and most trusted person. Instead, because she has no power/trust, she goes along with the arraigned marriage instead of trusting her partner to help her with her own revenge.
She could have easily slipped to her grandfather that she was seeing Director Seo, and he could have done the work for her to see if DongJu was sincere and didn't know she was the Chairman's granddaughter.

Heo Il Do thought that his college sweetheart and best friend had a love child together. They either both knew something or one was seeking help from the other over something they found involving Yeom Jang Seon. So both adults needed to die. YJS manipulated HID into killing them by making him believe that his lover and best friend betrayed him.
3 birds one stone. Took out the current threat and made HID more reliant on YJS and embedded in the organization.

She's not the lead character. This is a male lead mystery political drama. She is listed under "main role" but she is technically in a support position. She only exists as a catalyst to the plot kicking off and as a way to give information to the ML. This isn't a love story. This is a political/family mystery makjang. She's not even mentioned in the synopsis of the show. This is about the 3 men. Dong Ju, Heo Il Do and Yeom Jang Seon...everyone else is there to help move their stories forward.

I mean. technically not a romance. so the couple thing is just more of a catalyst for the plot to kick off from.

Attempted murder count
1. As a child, car over cliff
2. Shot twice on boat
3. Food allergy
4. Hospital injection backed out at last second
5. Shot in shipping yard

I only included the ones Il Do was directly involved in. There were a few other attempted murder tries against Dong Ju. The attack in the murdered man's apartment. The torture guy...twice. Not to mention all the almost kidnappings and direct gun to head moments. Dong Ju has not known a day a peace.

3. In the flashback of Il Do as a college student we see him being tortured for information on the activist group that he was apart of. That group includes his college sweetheart(mother of DongJu) and his best friend)Yeo Soon Ho) and his wife(parents of Eun Nam)....the only one still in the activist group was Dong Ju's mother. I'm assuming she found something on Yeom or someone he works for and was sharing that information with Yeo Soon Ho or the opposite...Yeo Soon Ho stumbled onto something and sought out help from an old activist friend. Either way they had to get taken out. So to make sure that Il Do did it and remained loyal to Yeom he put it in Il Do and Yeo Soon Ho's wife's head that the little boy was Yeo Soon Ho's love child.
Puppet master pulling strings.

Yeom Jang Seom is toying with Heo Il Do. He is enjoying watching Il Do kill his own child and wants to see if he will follow through with ending Dong Ju with the knowledge that he is his son.
The call was to torture Il Do with his previous actions and as a kind of out for him(Yeom Jang Seom) if Il Do finds out Dong Ju is his son in another way. The "I told you as soon as I found out" type of bs.

I'm not one to agree with AvenueX very often, but her review/rant about the first 17 episodes got to the root issues that I was having and not able to accurately articulate.

The fake bad acting from the father was so bad that it made other characters look stupid. There is bad acting on purpose and then there is over doing it....he fell into the latter more than the former past the midway point.

I think it was all the more obvious when you compare it to the veteran actresses that were in this show as well. They all had moments of drama and extra, but they kept the essence of the character.

With the father it wasn't until like episode 26 onward that production even bothered to show his actual personality without smoke screens. They could have balanced that better once the characters knew he was a liar, but imo ,production, either in writing or editing didn't hit that sweet spot of two faced portrayal.

She needed to bring chargers to the Emperor/court. If Lady Miao refused to help her she would hold her hostage, which is high treason. This would wipe out her whole family aka her father...so, a win in her mind.

YunXi is mad because she is his wife aka her family is now HIS family. So his daughter, mother and Aunt that he spent years trying to find a way to protect them just got thrown into the line of fire because of the woman he thought could protect them went off script.

This is why she writes the divorce letter prior to entering the palace. It was a safety net for the Fu family to not be implicated in her crimes against a royal family member.

Congrats to the sidekicks of both FL and ML of this drama for beating the odds and all surviving a revenge story. Honestly think it's a first for me. The stats were not on their side.

All the mothers and daughters actually look related to each other. Also the Mu brothers actually look like siblings too. Good job casting department...honestly....slay.