irmar

Go Su Ra was a throughout solid, honest and earnest character, and I'm happy everything turned well for him.

That's exactly why the cousin had to be king and not our kind ML. He was not fit for that life. And if he became king, there was no way he and Jae On would have been happy.

Didn't you remember the bit about not having much time? And that her children, when they learned about her illness, put her in a nursing home, from which she escape to be with her sister before dying? Something like that. (The whole plot was confusing so I'm not 100% sure of anything)

That's "cheating" on the writers' part. And on the taxi driver's part. Because it's one thing to know you'll be dying in 6 months, and another thing to have your whole life in front of you, even without memories. How can you choose if you are given misleading information?

It's not the implausibility that irks us, it's the inconsistency. Even in fantasy, you create a world, you create its rules and you have to honour them. To change the rules at the very end is cheating.
And the ending was incomprehensible to me.
That said, I agree with what you say about the relationship among the women - I also liked that a lot.

That was cheating. To make a choice you must know exactly what each option entails.

But the real Emily or Janet or Kkeut Something was supposed to die of some illness (cancer?) and said "I don't have much to live anyway". But one year later she's still there?
No, the ending was a hot mess in every way.

Oh, so that's what the ending meant? "Disappear" meant her memory disappearing?

Oh, because you understood the ending? Lucky you. I didn't get a thing.

I liked the plot premise, it held a lot of promise. But there were many flaws. The main one is the main character and also the actress playing her.
I didn't like the main female lead's actress at all. The "playing the granny" got old very fast (excuse the pun!) And it was more of a caricature. The old actress didn't walk stooped and with her legs apart so much as the young one. And a young body would naturally not need to have this posture. Not to mention the fact that she was always dressed in those oversized sports clothes. And that, although she has a very good voice, she had zero dancing skills from episode 1 to the end. I have seldom seen a less graceful woman. It's probably all acting, but even then, shouldn't she show some development as the show progressed?
Her facial expressions were very exaggerated, sometimes even clownish. Very irksome. No subtlety at all, going for belly laughs. Probably also the director's fault, but nobody else acted like that in the whole show.
Her character is supposed to desperately want to become a singer, but we are shown someone who is not careful at all, who is more interested in solving family problems, hangs out with men with no fear of scandal and speaks arrogantly to the chairwoman with no fear for her career. Frankly, she acts as if debuting was the last on her priority list.
The age gap between the two leads or the fact that she chose love instead of other things is not what bothered me. What bothered me is that throughout the drama, although she did clutch at her chest once or twice or fanned her face with her hand to show that she was affected by his romantic words, but otherwise she never showed that she had fallen for him. She usually looked at him with an amused or ironic or condescending expression.

He did notice, and he told her in a episode 10. "Who are you? I know you're not Emily".
He just fell in love with this new interesting person.

In Namib he DID sing, and quite well too.

That's exactly why the writers made him go crazy like that. So that we wouldn't have regrets for him staying a second lead.

So it will be a Secret Garden situation.

Well, we keep seeing this in most Korean dramas. And in this one, you remember the 2FL's mother, who in ep. 4 said that maybe it wasn't a good idea for her to adopt her late brother's son because this could compromise her chances to find a husband and get happiness?
So I think that South Koreans do think like that.
To be fair, in the West too, many people see a previous child of a potential spouse as a minus. Not everyone wants to be a stepmother or stepfather, with all the struggles this entails, especially when the child is a pre-teen or teen. You have difficulties enforcing discipline because you suddenly become the "mean stepmother" and you get the "You don't have the right, you're not even my own mother" attitude from the child. You feel you have to overcompensate to win their love etc. etc. Not to mention the potential problems when a child is born of the new couple. The previous child will get even more jealous because the step parent will love their own biological kid a bit more, even if they try very hard not to show it and treat all children the same.
Of course I'm not saying it can't be done, lots of people have success doing it. But let's say that it adds a layer of difficulty to family life. So it is understandable if some people prefer a partner who is free of baggage. It's not nice but it's understandable.
I'm saying this as someone who has raised 2 children on her own.
Only if you love this person very much you are willing to do whatever it takes, in any circumstance, everything is better than living without them.

There was this other drama where that happened. The one with a workaholic cold FL and the kind ML had a previous fiancée who was in a wheelchair and died in a fire... And the bad guy wears a freaky rabbit mask... You know which one I mean...

I don't think we should feel bad for him. Because this role gives him the opportunity to show his dramatic side much more than Twinkling Watermelon and show a different side compared to his usual romantic roles. Therefore, for him as an actor and the way he's viewed it's a certain gain. After this he has proved that he can tackle a greater variety of roles and genres so he will get more diversified offers.

"No suicide or else...." ... or else what? If a person is dead, they don't care about any punishment or repercussion on their career.

Okay, this is no guarantee... Some of those girl group/boy group singers are good and could stand on their own, some are not.

Because they are better as real-life singers but they only made them into mediocre singers for the needs of the drama? Oh, ok, I didn't know that.