Rei

I’m going to be honest right from the start: Dear X is a drama that made me fall in love, get betrayed, and then sit alone in the ruins wondering how something so brilliant could implode so fast. If I could freeze this drama at episode 5, I’d be singing songs of its greatness from rooftops. But since we have to consider the full package, here’s my eulogy for a drama that could’ve been legendary, but ultimately forgot its own identity.

Let me start with the praise, because the one thing I will always give this drama is Kim Yoo-jung’s performance. She was outrageous in the best way. Truly phenomenal. She didn’t just play Baek Ah-jin, she inhabited her like she was slipping in and out of different skins. The way she could shift from a wounded girl to a calculating strategist to someone who looked you dead in the eyes with nothing but ice behind them? That was masterclass level. She made emotional masking look like a finely tuned instrument. Even when the script was disintegrating in later episodes, KYJ kept delivering like she didn’t get the memo that the writing team had gone on vacation. If there’s anything I will remember fondly from this drama, it’s her work.

And honestly, those first five episodes were some of the best early-arc sociopathic drama writing I’ve seen in a long time. Tight. Sharp. Precise. The tone was controlled, the character motivations were clear, and Ah-jin’s world was built with this fascinating blend of trauma-driven instincts and strategic manipulation. I loved watching her. I loved studying her. She was a beautifully crafted paradox , someone who looked like a monster but was really just a broken girl surviving with the only tools she had left. If the drama had kept its momentum, if it had trusted the spine it built in those early hours, we could’ve easily been talking about one of the best psychological thrillers of the year.

But then came episode 6, where the show basically walked out of its own body and said, “What if we try being… a different genre?” And from that point on, it felt like the drama lost its confidence. Like it suddenly became terrified of its own brilliance and started backpedaling into blandness. Instead of escalating Ah-jin’s complexity, the show deflated her. Instead of sharpening the stakes, it softened everything into mush. Episodes 6 and 7 were such a nosedive that I almost couldn’t believe it. The drama suddenly didn’t know what story it wanted to tell, survival, revenge, fame, romance, comedy? It tried to juggle everything, dropped everything, and then acted like nothing happened.

Let’s talk about that fake romance arc. My god. It was already flimsy as an idea, but they dragged it out so long that I started aging in real-time. It wasn’t even fun, or spicy, or necessary. It just… sat there. A limp fish of a plotline that drained all the tension out of the show every time it appeared. And worse, it completely cheapened Ah-jin. This character who was introduced as a tactical, emotionally guarded mastermind suddenly… what? Decides seduction is her new superpower? I’m sorry, but that’s not character growth, that’s character confusion. I went from watching someone who played psychological chess to someone who suddenly decided her whole arc was going to be Jessica Rabbit cosplay. The whiplash was real.

Then there’s the marriage arc with the psycho chaebol. I don’t even know what to do with that storyline. It felt like the writers wanted shock value, remembered they forgot to escalate anything for five episodes, and tossed in a new plotline like a last-minute seasoning packet. It was rushed, messy, and honestly beneath the potential the show had. There were moments, tiny glimmers, where I thought, “Oh, maybe they’re getting their soul back.” But nope. It immediately collapsed into nonsense again. It was like watching someone try to revive a plant by watering the plastic pot next to it.

And the ending? Don’t get me started. Absolute garbage. A deus ex machina disguised as plot armor disguised as “meaning.” Suddenly Ah-jin is immortal. Untouchable. Invincible. The laws of narrative gravity don’t apply to her anymore. All tension evaporates because the drama refuses to let consequences land. This isn’t clever writing. This is the storytelling equivalent of shrugging and hoping the audience won’t notice the holes big enough to park a bus.

Then we have the symbolism. Visually beautiful, yes. Symbolically meaningful? Absolutely not. Symbolism only works if the story establishes a visual vocabulary early on and then builds on it consistently. Dear X didn’t do that. Instead, it slapped symbolic imagery onto unrelated scenes in the final stretch and expected us to clap like seals. I’m sorry, but no. That’s not profound. That’s the writers setting the script on fire and pretending the ashes spell poetry. The audience isn’t confused because we “don’t get it.” We’re confused because the drama never taught us the language it suddenly expected us to speak.

So here’s my verdict: Dear X is a tragedy, not in its plot, but in its wasted potential. The first half of this drama is a masterpiece waiting to happen. The second half is a slow-motion collapse that left me emotionally drained in the worst way possible. This is a eulogy for the brilliance we glimpsed but were never allowed to fully have. And while KYJ gave one of her best performances ever, everything around her simply fell apart. By the end, I wasn’t even angry. I was just sad, exhausted, and ready to move on.

If you ever watch Dear X, stop at episode 5. Pretend the rest is fanfiction. Your heart will thank you.