2
6
1
1
This review may contain spoilers
LISTEN UP AUDIENCE! Season 1 was Jinman’s story, Season 2 is Jina’s story
We start right off where season 2 ended and get introduced to new characters + re-meet old foes as uncle and niece band together to face off against Babylon. Fight scenes are genuinely amazing and exciting to watch and the actors do a great job like they did in season 1. The new season’s actors too bring their A game. Special shout out to all the actors who were alternating between like Korean, Japanese/Thai/Chinese and English. I loved how much bigger the setting of this season was from Japan to Korea to Thailand.
I really enjoyed everything about it despite some suspending disbelief moments (which s1 actually had way more imo like Jinman not killing Bale with the knife or Jinah being in the woods with those wolves so it wasn’t a big deal). There were also more comedic dark humor moments especially between Bale, Marco and J which I liked.
Unfortunately I saw a lot of people complaining about the story being messy or the 2nd season “losing the plot.” I would argue these people are the ones who completely lost/missed the story, not the drama. Below are spoilers, but know that so many people just feel entitled to have dramas go exactly the way they want or its’s “bad writing.”
Character motivations were very clear and made sense, they’re not even that different from S1 which was always either protect Jinah or kill Jinman/Jinah so the some comments about this motivations being unclear this season also confuses me.
Season 1 was always Jinman/the uncle’s story. We uncover his backstory, what motivated him, his enemies and allies. Despite being presumed dead in S1, the uncle is the main character haunting the narrative and even though yes, Jian is there in S1, she’s more of a audience surrogate as we constantly flash back and forwards to piece together the image of who Jeong Jiman really is. Of course Jian’s story itself gets set up a bit but overwhelmingly every piece of how season 1 unfolds were planned in advance by her uncle, it’s really his game to control and move. The big bad of the season too is the uncle’s nemesis with a fraught history between them, Bale was nowhere near all the operations to take Jinah down, he never goes there personally in s1 because his ultimate focus is Jeong Jiman and Jinah is a supporting character.
Season 2 now is Jinah’s story. We open with her struggling to cope with what she’s disvored, running away to a faraway village and eventually establishing connections with people. Losing them too and learning what pain is like her uncle did in season 1 (other characters also point this out that she will learn to be like her jaded uncle soon). Season 2 is Jinah’s transformation into her uncle in a way or to see if she can be different from him experienceing the same things (Jinah herself plants this seed by saying she will never be like her uncle in the beginning of s1). She even has the same “slapping herself over guilt of a loved one’s death” scene her uncle did in season 1 here. The writers are clearly making a parallel. Even the big bad(s) of this season were written to mirror Jinah.
First yes both Q and Kusanagi are women leaders like Jinah. On top of that Q is similar to Jinah as someone who was raised by the yakuza like Jinah was raised by her assassin uncle. Q had to watch her dad be killed in from of her when she was 10 just like Jinah witnessed her uncle’s friend’s arm get chopped off, and had to hide from a killer by laying next to her dead mom’s body in the morgue. The writers are so on the nose about it, idk how people missed it but the scene where Brother is hurt and Q and Jinah face off, you can see the parallels of them both wanting to seriously hurt the person that took away their loved ones. Q even says to Jiman that “your niece in that moment had the same look in her eyes I had back when I was young.”But unlike Q who lets others manipulate her using her brother’s death, Jinah learns to not let her temper and hurt control her, she doesn’t impulsively go after Q to kill her when she could be used as a great pawn to take down the head of Babylon Korea. Both are team leaders that care deeply about their teammates, but Jinah learns to be more levelheaded as part of her character development.
Then there’s Kusanagi who again the writers are very obvious about being a female CEO like Jinah and being the head of a major organization like Babylon/murthehelp. Kusanagi isn’t cold and crazy for the sake of it, she’s there to be a character foil to Jinah who genuinely treats her employees like family so they’re willing to lay down their lives to her versus how Jin gets abandoned by every Babylon employee in the end cause she’s cold hearted and don’t consider them hers.
Even the choice to make Kusanagi a self hating Korean wanting so hard to be Japanese and super disdainful of everything Korean + speaking Japanese all the time which in the end backfired on her with the lawyer and other Babylon employees is purposeful imo. She can’t unite people of these different nationalities under her like Bale and J, while Jinah despite hiccups on the road with Pasin, in the end had everyone from Thailand and North Korea to China and South Korea laying down their life for her. Kusamagi likes siding with whoever is more powerful and can benefit her the most, which was the case for many pro-Japanese Koreans during Korea’s colonization under Japan whose descendants live in luxury today. Kusanagi is very much the same and wants to take over murderthehelp borrowing Babylon’s power. The choice to make her have this identity is not random. Her boss tells her multiple times that she doesn’t work for the good of Babylon, but only herself, in direct constants to Jinah who works for the good of her murthehelp family.
I get people wanted some melodramatic confrontation and longer story between Bale and Jinman, but dragging that story out when 1. that would be way too unrealistic considering they’re literally just trying to kill each other anytime they make contact 2. this is not Jinman’s story but Jinah’s. Bale and Jinah don’t have much emotional character connections/juxtaposition between them like she does with Q and Kusanagi. Bale is Jinman’s nemesis and his foil with both being cold killing machines when they worked for Babylon and favorite of their boss who says they’re very similar but also different cause Jinman is not entirely psychotic. Bale is not fit for Jinah’s season. (Plus just having a indestructible big bad who’s always coming back from the dead + explosions and fire is so Alice in Borderland type of shounen manga cliche, I’m glad they avoided that in this season).
The drama make it a point to tell the choice to make everyone part of the green code and be protected just like her is Jinah’s choice, not her uncle’s (he’s surprised by the meeting even being called). In fact the theme of “Jinah is now in control” is repeated so many times in the drama and we see the “LISTEN UP JEONG JINAH” chapter title cards actively change to “LISTEN UP JEONG JINMAN” at the end of the season, signifying Jinah’s growth as a character throughout her own story, now the one with experience + wisdom to share as a result of her journey, no longer led by the advice of her elder. You may not like it, but it makes absolute sense with how the story is written, so the lost the plot or the story don’t make sense complaints just tells me people consider it “bad writing” if a drama don’t go exactly the way they want it. Don’t even get me started on the people giving low ratings cause god forbid fan favorite characters die in an action thriller drama named a shop for KILLERS.
Overall a good above 9 stars drama that kept me engaged and glued to my screen
I really enjoyed everything about it despite some suspending disbelief moments (which s1 actually had way more imo like Jinman not killing Bale with the knife or Jinah being in the woods with those wolves so it wasn’t a big deal). There were also more comedic dark humor moments especially between Bale, Marco and J which I liked.
Unfortunately I saw a lot of people complaining about the story being messy or the 2nd season “losing the plot.” I would argue these people are the ones who completely lost/missed the story, not the drama. Below are spoilers, but know that so many people just feel entitled to have dramas go exactly the way they want or its’s “bad writing.”
Character motivations were very clear and made sense, they’re not even that different from S1 which was always either protect Jinah or kill Jinman/Jinah so the some comments about this motivations being unclear this season also confuses me.
Season 1 was always Jinman/the uncle’s story. We uncover his backstory, what motivated him, his enemies and allies. Despite being presumed dead in S1, the uncle is the main character haunting the narrative and even though yes, Jian is there in S1, she’s more of a audience surrogate as we constantly flash back and forwards to piece together the image of who Jeong Jiman really is. Of course Jian’s story itself gets set up a bit but overwhelmingly every piece of how season 1 unfolds were planned in advance by her uncle, it’s really his game to control and move. The big bad of the season too is the uncle’s nemesis with a fraught history between them, Bale was nowhere near all the operations to take Jinah down, he never goes there personally in s1 because his ultimate focus is Jeong Jiman and Jinah is a supporting character.
Season 2 now is Jinah’s story. We open with her struggling to cope with what she’s disvored, running away to a faraway village and eventually establishing connections with people. Losing them too and learning what pain is like her uncle did in season 1 (other characters also point this out that she will learn to be like her jaded uncle soon). Season 2 is Jinah’s transformation into her uncle in a way or to see if she can be different from him experienceing the same things (Jinah herself plants this seed by saying she will never be like her uncle in the beginning of s1). She even has the same “slapping herself over guilt of a loved one’s death” scene her uncle did in season 1 here. The writers are clearly making a parallel. Even the big bad(s) of this season were written to mirror Jinah.
First yes both Q and Kusanagi are women leaders like Jinah. On top of that Q is similar to Jinah as someone who was raised by the yakuza like Jinah was raised by her assassin uncle. Q had to watch her dad be killed in from of her when she was 10 just like Jinah witnessed her uncle’s friend’s arm get chopped off, and had to hide from a killer by laying next to her dead mom’s body in the morgue. The writers are so on the nose about it, idk how people missed it but the scene where Brother is hurt and Q and Jinah face off, you can see the parallels of them both wanting to seriously hurt the person that took away their loved ones. Q even says to Jiman that “your niece in that moment had the same look in her eyes I had back when I was young.”But unlike Q who lets others manipulate her using her brother’s death, Jinah learns to not let her temper and hurt control her, she doesn’t impulsively go after Q to kill her when she could be used as a great pawn to take down the head of Babylon Korea. Both are team leaders that care deeply about their teammates, but Jinah learns to be more levelheaded as part of her character development.
Then there’s Kusanagi who again the writers are very obvious about being a female CEO like Jinah and being the head of a major organization like Babylon/murthehelp. Kusanagi isn’t cold and crazy for the sake of it, she’s there to be a character foil to Jinah who genuinely treats her employees like family so they’re willing to lay down their lives to her versus how Jin gets abandoned by every Babylon employee in the end cause she’s cold hearted and don’t consider them hers.
Even the choice to make Kusanagi a self hating Korean wanting so hard to be Japanese and super disdainful of everything Korean + speaking Japanese all the time which in the end backfired on her with the lawyer and other Babylon employees is purposeful imo. She can’t unite people of these different nationalities under her like Bale and J, while Jinah despite hiccups on the road with Pasin, in the end had everyone from Thailand and North Korea to China and South Korea laying down their life for her. Kusamagi likes siding with whoever is more powerful and can benefit her the most, which was the case for many pro-Japanese Koreans during Korea’s colonization under Japan whose descendants live in luxury today. Kusanagi is very much the same and wants to take over murderthehelp borrowing Babylon’s power. The choice to make her have this identity is not random. Her boss tells her multiple times that she doesn’t work for the good of Babylon, but only herself, in direct constants to Jinah who works for the good of her murthehelp family.
I get people wanted some melodramatic confrontation and longer story between Bale and Jinman, but dragging that story out when 1. that would be way too unrealistic considering they’re literally just trying to kill each other anytime they make contact 2. this is not Jinman’s story but Jinah’s. Bale and Jinah don’t have much emotional character connections/juxtaposition between them like she does with Q and Kusanagi. Bale is Jinman’s nemesis and his foil with both being cold killing machines when they worked for Babylon and favorite of their boss who says they’re very similar but also different cause Jinman is not entirely psychotic. Bale is not fit for Jinah’s season. (Plus just having a indestructible big bad who’s always coming back from the dead + explosions and fire is so Alice in Borderland type of shounen manga cliche, I’m glad they avoided that in this season).
The drama make it a point to tell the choice to make everyone part of the green code and be protected just like her is Jinah’s choice, not her uncle’s (he’s surprised by the meeting even being called). In fact the theme of “Jinah is now in control” is repeated so many times in the drama and we see the “LISTEN UP JEONG JINAH” chapter title cards actively change to “LISTEN UP JEONG JINMAN” at the end of the season, signifying Jinah’s growth as a character throughout her own story, now the one with experience + wisdom to share as a result of her journey, no longer led by the advice of her elder. You may not like it, but it makes absolute sense with how the story is written, so the lost the plot or the story don’t make sense complaints just tells me people consider it “bad writing” if a drama don’t go exactly the way they want it. Don’t even get me started on the people giving low ratings cause god forbid fan favorite characters die in an action thriller drama named a shop for KILLERS.
Overall a good above 9 stars drama that kept me engaged and glued to my screen
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