YazQuan

I tried for three episodes, but shows that portray supposedly strong, competent women as giggly, kittenish, man-starved bimbos don't really hit my sweet spot. I think, in a truly clumsy and ill conceived way, the script was trying to show FL as tough and skilled as well as feminine, because *as we all know, am I right? {wink wink}* those things are mutually exclusive.

The ML was equally ditzy and one dimensional and I just didn't see anywhere this could go that I wanted to go with it.

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UPDATE
Okay, I was a bit hasty. After the himbo antics toned down and I got used to the sex kitten voice it turned out to be a decent story. The pervasive sexism was grating, but the script largely faced that head on and realistically; especially in E19 when the king issues a directive to his fiancée expecting it to be obeyed, as if he's never met the woman before.

What happened early in that episode, though, was unnecessarily cruel to the audience and didn't further the narrative in any way. OTOH, kudos for realistically portraying the U.S. government as controlled by greedy, immoral, opportunistic grifters who will sell out anyone and everyone for money.

I almost bark laughed when the king and his minister extolled the 1790's Western philosophy of equality between men and women. What West? Where West? Point me to this fantastical Shangri-La! At the time setting of this drama, that Western philosophy had only recently stopped burning women as witches if they got too uppity in favor of only hanging them.

Final episode: Ha In Soo FINALLY mans up. The look Cho Sun flicks Ha In Soo when he opposes his father to protect her, the way he shields her and she accepts his protection, is everything. Those two characters did so much with very little screen time together. I could have watched another half dozen episodes too see their story play out.

I feel the same about Song Joong Ki. His characters in Descendants of the Sun and Vincenzo were Goo Yong Ha only with trousers and no color flair.

I was shipping Kim Yoon Hee and Cho Sun from beginning to end. And Goo Yong Ha was FABULOUS 😉.

What a load of shite. You're acting like PMY personally pissed in your Cheerios and kicked your puppy on the way out the door. Shitty men don't wear signs, so sometimes women don't know up front which ones are scamming assholes. PMY was put under an investigative microscope and came out clean - no evidence she benefitted financially.

FYI, using a cutesy fake username on a web site won't save you from slander and defamation damages. Nor should it. You should think about that before you carry dirty water for someone who got their feelings hurt when they were left behind.

To be fair, you are homophobic and transphobic, so there's that.

No need to justify anything. She runs a legal business. She's completely up front and honest with her clients. Her clients accept the terms and sign the contracts. The only people lying are the clients.

You made me bark laugh out loud. FL was minding her own business, had her eyes closed mooning over kissing ML, when 2ML walks up behind her, slips around, lip locks her uninvited and with no warning. That's exactly the definition of his fault.

FL didn't kiss 2ML. He kissed her, uninvited, while she had her eyes closed and was dreamily mooning over kissing 1ML. Definite mood killer.

As to why FL apologized to 2ML, I was baffled, too. FL was in a contractual business relationship with these men, neither had dibs on her and she wasn't the one who did the kissing, not that it would have mattered - being a single adult woman, she gets to kiss any consenting adult who takes her fancy - but women often apologize to men when they've done nothing wrong, business people often apologize to clients when they've done nothing wrong.

There are so many script moments that are cringy. Great cast, great potential: I'm always impressed by Park Min Young, and not just because I would be in awe of any woman who can cry without getting puffy eyes and a red nose; nobody plays a vulnerable wannabe-but-just-can't-quite-get-there villain better than Lee Joo Bin; this is the first role I've actually liked Kim Jae Young in; and it's the first time I've seen Go Kyung Pyo -- he was great. But there were some needless "swing and a miss" elements.

Why would a writer/director have a 30+ year old independent, mature, entrepreneurial, self supporting woman behave like a giggly witless tween? Scripting character lies when there's some payback for the character makes sense, but having characters lie when there's no payback is bad writing. And what's with romantic partners falling asleep mid-stream in Park Min Young movies?

I have no idea how you got that from what I wrote.

As a mother of daughters, I found Jae-Hui's secret keeping, directness, vacillation, and acting as if all is well realistic for the age of "13 going on 30." My girls were, by turns, astonishingly mature, predictably childlike, and episodically petulant at that age.

I'm going to try to comment on Episodes 11-13 without spoilers, so I apologize if it's too vague to convey how stark and appalling this story line is. By appalling, I'm referring to the actions of a client character, so I'm not taking issue with a series of episodes that are truly outstanding and some of the best television drama I've ever seen dealing with this topic.

Trigger warning: Episodes 11-13 are gut wrenching in their spot-on depiction of the realities of spousal physical and emotional abuse. Every moment, from the resistance to allowing the abused spouse to leave the marriage to the escalation that led inevitably to the final minutes of the story arc, were faithful to the real life tragedies that are heartbreaking and as common as days of the week that end with "y".

The writers and producers didn't shy away from pointing fingers at malicious social media sh!storms; workplace discrimination against women even at executive levels; social apathy toward violence against women; corporate greed and unapologetic venality; the oxymoron that is legal ethics; and a very thinly disguised chaebol "above the law" entitlement that is the daily reality of life in Korea (I specified Korea only because that's where the drama is set, and honestly they have raised it to an art form, but the "money is God" mindset applies to all kleptocratic oligarchies - I'm looking at you, USA). Somehow the crew and cast of this series did justice (pun intended) to these difficult topics and managed to make their treatment of them riveting viewing. I will forevermore be in worshipful awe ofJang Na Ra's acting talent

Downside: there were a few distracting, unrealistic, and unnecessary scenes near the end of episode 13 that marred the otherwise flawless execution of this 3 episode arc.

Agree. I went into this show understanding it was essentially a high school soap opera chock full of teen angst tropes, so my quality expectations were low, and for the most part those expectations were met. Perhaps that's why I was so impressed with Park Shin-Hye. Any decent actor can impress with an outstanding, well written role, but it takes real talent to command attention with formulaic schlock. Not to disrespect the other actors - I think the core cast was outstanding. Since this was my first time seeing Park it was a delightful surprise.

Episode 0 seems like a pilot episode. It condenses the first three episodes, so it feels rushed and leaves a lot of questions. I watched 0 before starting episode 1 and it didn't add anything to my experience.

Eui Jung kissed Ki Chul to help save her husband, Joon Mo kissed (and more?) Hae Ryeon to save a drug deal. Guys in these comments doing pirouettes to pretend there's some moral high ground for their bromance icon.

But Joon Mo porking his drug supplier is peachy, right?

For future reference, "sit this one out" is something you should request *before* someone hands you your ass.

So wrong she's had the lead role in 2 series just this year. Poor, poor thing. How's your show biz career going?