6
24
1
1
1
1
3
1
1
2
This was actually a tragedy.
I DID IT! I FINISHED IT! Please...a round of applause for me for finishing what has slowly turned into an archnemesis of a watch. I want to clarify, I didn't hate this show. I loved a lot about this show. (Mainly, Mr. Hong.)(But more importantly, his house.) (I freaking love that house, actually!) I like the cozy, summery vibes, and it has funny parts and a lot of good bits. I love the support characters, I love our male lead...and then there is the "romance" and unfortunately...the female lead.
You see, usually my favorite character in a Kdrama is the female lead. Even when they are ditsy or written to be helpless or contradictory, I am rooting for the girls! Sure, it's not helped by the fact that male leads are usually overhyped or straight-up abusive but a lot of times MLs are also unrealistically nice and rich. So it all balances out, and I am rooting for everyone by the end and it's all good.
I think this is the first time I genuinely hate the female lead in a kdrama. It's not just that she takes forever to learn a lesson. It's that the show never manages to shake off her elitist philosophy, her snobbish behavior, her blind selfishness, and her extremely age-inappropriate childishness even after many episodes of providing her with character development ingredients. She has character growth, thankfully. But by the end, the show tries to gaslight us into accepting that she has grown more than she actually has, based on a few lip service moments.
You see, our female lead...is written to be a little too main-character-coded! To quote Taylor Swift (in a manner she would set me on fire for), Hye Jin suffers from terminal uniqueness, lmao! The level of self-unawareness the show displays by having TWO city girls move to a rural coastal town and then show one of them struggle and have this fish-out-of-water narrative where no one, truly...not a single human in that town, can relate to her...not even the girl sleeping in the room next door, going through the exact same thing as her(?!) is wild. Did no one think this was just a tad too...pick-me?! And while on the topic, the show is so dumb about this, they sometimes forget where Mi Seon is spending her nights! Like, where was she during the storm?! It's so I'm-not-like-other-girls of the show to have such a tilted view of their own characters and it pisses me off because it just reeks of pretty privilege in narrative motion. And she is so unworthy of this favorite daughter treatment.
Why is this 34-year-old woman having character arcs that a healthy human person should go through between the ages of 18 to 24?! She talks to Mr. Hong like a petulant girl who is having her first encounter with the opposite sex. This is not helped by the disturbing sequence when she forced them to dress like high school children and act like they are 17! WHY?! I'm not even 34 yet (and I even think I'm pretty immature) but I can't for the life of me figure out how massively arrested one's development needs to be for them to wish themselves back into f*cking high school at thirty-four! Seriously! Her circumstances, her background, and even her tragic backstory, none of it explains or excuses how she is written! And yes! I am mad at how she treats Hong Do Shik. Because how out of touch with reality is this worldly woman to not realise what a ridiculously good catch Hong Do Shik is?!???!!?!?!
Girl! Just look at that man!!!! LOOK AT HIM!
And once you're done with that, observe how this man behaves and see how this is a man who will never go a day hungry in his life because he has enough skills to always provide for himself and his family. And then look some more because on top of all that, he is handsome, kind, intelligent, empathetic, open-minded, and funny!
And to rest my case, your honors...he owns...A HOUSE. In this economy! He owns a freaking house! His own!!!House!!!! Nay...he owns THE HOUSE. That house...that house is the reason for 6 out of those 7 and half stars. *wipes tears away* That house is the love of MY life! The woodwork! The Kitchen! The books!!!!! Every single thing about his house is a love letter to me personally. Music to my ears. Beauty beyond compare!!!! I would marry a man for that house! (I digress...)
My point is, this dude is a catch and then some but Hye Jin acts like he is a chewed-up gum under her ugly, tacky-ass silver shoes that is graciously scraping away...girl! He is ABOVE your level! You are dating UP. You are NO catch. Seriously! She may be gorgeous and a doctor but her qualities end there. She is immature, rude, selfish, has no financial self-awareness, and she is snobbish in that very specific way that new money people in South Korea are. She is more emotionally stunted than a rock! And she can barely do anything besides the one thing she does as a job (okay, incompetent queen, relatable! But still! At least, I know a man like Hong Do Shik who looks like that is way above my dating pool...)
I could not for the life of me figure out this romance. The "why" haunts me to this day. I have never been sad that the main characters of a show got together because I honestly think the male lead was wasted!!! This has never happened to me before! This was basically a tragedy! If she had dragged his poor ass to Seoul, I would have campagined to add the tragedy tag to this.
I have ranted so much about this, I can't even spend time talking about the dumb backstory for the ML or how I felt about the supporting cast or how the SML is ON-SIGHT for me! That man is possibly my second most disliked second male lead ever and it's a testament to how much I disliked Hye Jin that until episode 15, I was lowkey hoping she would end up with SML...like those two deserved each other...actually SML was written in such an annoyingly Mary Sue way, she doesn't deserve his squeaky sparkling butt either probably...but I dislike him so she can have him!
Anyway! I only watched this show for the town people and ONLY for Do Shik...'s house! That man was written to be way too attractive. He looks like a freaking 90s heartthrob in every scene and acts like the coolest intellectual on earth. He is so competent, it brings tears to my eyes. And they made him date a girl who thinks golf is peak chic behavior and tacky silver shoes are high fashion! *ugly crying* The TRAGEDY!!!!!
You see, usually my favorite character in a Kdrama is the female lead. Even when they are ditsy or written to be helpless or contradictory, I am rooting for the girls! Sure, it's not helped by the fact that male leads are usually overhyped or straight-up abusive but a lot of times MLs are also unrealistically nice and rich. So it all balances out, and I am rooting for everyone by the end and it's all good.
I think this is the first time I genuinely hate the female lead in a kdrama. It's not just that she takes forever to learn a lesson. It's that the show never manages to shake off her elitist philosophy, her snobbish behavior, her blind selfishness, and her extremely age-inappropriate childishness even after many episodes of providing her with character development ingredients. She has character growth, thankfully. But by the end, the show tries to gaslight us into accepting that she has grown more than she actually has, based on a few lip service moments.
You see, our female lead...is written to be a little too main-character-coded! To quote Taylor Swift (in a manner she would set me on fire for), Hye Jin suffers from terminal uniqueness, lmao! The level of self-unawareness the show displays by having TWO city girls move to a rural coastal town and then show one of them struggle and have this fish-out-of-water narrative where no one, truly...not a single human in that town, can relate to her...not even the girl sleeping in the room next door, going through the exact same thing as her(?!) is wild. Did no one think this was just a tad too...pick-me?! And while on the topic, the show is so dumb about this, they sometimes forget where Mi Seon is spending her nights! Like, where was she during the storm?! It's so I'm-not-like-other-girls of the show to have such a tilted view of their own characters and it pisses me off because it just reeks of pretty privilege in narrative motion. And she is so unworthy of this favorite daughter treatment.
Why is this 34-year-old woman having character arcs that a healthy human person should go through between the ages of 18 to 24?! She talks to Mr. Hong like a petulant girl who is having her first encounter with the opposite sex. This is not helped by the disturbing sequence when she forced them to dress like high school children and act like they are 17! WHY?! I'm not even 34 yet (and I even think I'm pretty immature) but I can't for the life of me figure out how massively arrested one's development needs to be for them to wish themselves back into f*cking high school at thirty-four! Seriously! Her circumstances, her background, and even her tragic backstory, none of it explains or excuses how she is written! And yes! I am mad at how she treats Hong Do Shik. Because how out of touch with reality is this worldly woman to not realise what a ridiculously good catch Hong Do Shik is?!???!!?!?!
Girl! Just look at that man!!!! LOOK AT HIM!
And once you're done with that, observe how this man behaves and see how this is a man who will never go a day hungry in his life because he has enough skills to always provide for himself and his family. And then look some more because on top of all that, he is handsome, kind, intelligent, empathetic, open-minded, and funny!
And to rest my case, your honors...he owns...A HOUSE. In this economy! He owns a freaking house! His own!!!House!!!! Nay...he owns THE HOUSE. That house...that house is the reason for 6 out of those 7 and half stars. *wipes tears away* That house is the love of MY life! The woodwork! The Kitchen! The books!!!!! Every single thing about his house is a love letter to me personally. Music to my ears. Beauty beyond compare!!!! I would marry a man for that house! (I digress...)
My point is, this dude is a catch and then some but Hye Jin acts like he is a chewed-up gum under her ugly, tacky-ass silver shoes that is graciously scraping away...girl! He is ABOVE your level! You are dating UP. You are NO catch. Seriously! She may be gorgeous and a doctor but her qualities end there. She is immature, rude, selfish, has no financial self-awareness, and she is snobbish in that very specific way that new money people in South Korea are. She is more emotionally stunted than a rock! And she can barely do anything besides the one thing she does as a job (okay, incompetent queen, relatable! But still! At least, I know a man like Hong Do Shik who looks like that is way above my dating pool...)
I could not for the life of me figure out this romance. The "why" haunts me to this day. I have never been sad that the main characters of a show got together because I honestly think the male lead was wasted!!! This has never happened to me before! This was basically a tragedy! If she had dragged his poor ass to Seoul, I would have campagined to add the tragedy tag to this.
I have ranted so much about this, I can't even spend time talking about the dumb backstory for the ML or how I felt about the supporting cast or how the SML is ON-SIGHT for me! That man is possibly my second most disliked second male lead ever and it's a testament to how much I disliked Hye Jin that until episode 15, I was lowkey hoping she would end up with SML...like those two deserved each other...actually SML was written in such an annoyingly Mary Sue way, she doesn't deserve his squeaky sparkling butt either probably...but I dislike him so she can have him!
Anyway! I only watched this show for the town people and ONLY for Do Shik...'s house! That man was written to be way too attractive. He looks like a freaking 90s heartthrob in every scene and acts like the coolest intellectual on earth. He is so competent, it brings tears to my eyes. And they made him date a girl who thinks golf is peak chic behavior and tacky silver shoes are high fashion! *ugly crying* The TRAGEDY!!!!!
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