This review may contain spoilers
She's just pretty
We can't chalk it all up to the reduced number of episodes. This season was very lacking in so many different ways.
You don't marry someone just because they're pretty and you like their writing. You can but that's not a sustainable or even a proper relationship. South Korean society needs to be studied. This obsession with physical beauty is not normal and it's actively putting them in a path of self-destruction. It's more than a symptom when a whole society focuses so much on physical beauty that they start to erase the features which are natural to them. It's the same as saying that being naturally who you are is wrong, that's a level of self-hatred which brings societies down. When she asked what he liked about her, he said she's pretty. When describing her to the jewellery shop clerk, he mostly mentioned physical traits: her face is small, her skin is white, she's elegant and thin. The typical South Korean beauty ideal we see pushed in every drama. Before, it used to be not having curly hair, not wearing glasses and not dressing sporty. Now it's a whole other level of physical compliance shoved down every woman's throat. This isn't a problem with this show alone but it's something that keeps popping up with almost every show. The only non physical trait he mentioned was her being an intellectual. But is she an intellectual? Just because she writes books about love?
Everything seems so shallow.
Was the end game a wedding? After all we've been through? Because it's not even a marriage, it's a wedding with so many red flags.
We see someone portrayed as an introvert, but is he really just an introvert? His inner world is ruled by a set of ironclad principles. That's very adjacent to how autistic people are usually described, with unshakable moral principles. It's like the author confused introversion with autism. Once his principles crumbled, his unshakable principles gained a new direction and focused solely on Yumi. The center of his inner world is now occupied by a person he is supposed to uphold and defend above all else. That's not romantic, that's not how introvert people work and that's half way into Yumi ending up in a domestic violence situation. When Yumi has her love cell as her main cell, the focus is still on Yumi's love and her relationship to that love. In this case, it's not his love cell that is involved, but this cell who puts a person who isn't himself above himself. That's not love, that's obsession.
This season gave us a wedding but it didn't give us a relationship. It tried to do enemies to lovers, misunderstandings to lovers, obsession to marriage. A show that broke many tropes and had a fresh format falls too short with this conclusion. It should have ended at season one. This is one more reason why I will always be against sequels. Too much of a good thing is not necessarily good.
The soundtrack is iconic. The acting was acceptable. Kim Go Eun is one of my favourite actresses and the reason I watched this show. It's sad the show fell so short. There's no need for another season. There already wasn't for the last two.
You don't marry someone just because they're pretty and you like their writing. You can but that's not a sustainable or even a proper relationship. South Korean society needs to be studied. This obsession with physical beauty is not normal and it's actively putting them in a path of self-destruction. It's more than a symptom when a whole society focuses so much on physical beauty that they start to erase the features which are natural to them. It's the same as saying that being naturally who you are is wrong, that's a level of self-hatred which brings societies down. When she asked what he liked about her, he said she's pretty. When describing her to the jewellery shop clerk, he mostly mentioned physical traits: her face is small, her skin is white, she's elegant and thin. The typical South Korean beauty ideal we see pushed in every drama. Before, it used to be not having curly hair, not wearing glasses and not dressing sporty. Now it's a whole other level of physical compliance shoved down every woman's throat. This isn't a problem with this show alone but it's something that keeps popping up with almost every show. The only non physical trait he mentioned was her being an intellectual. But is she an intellectual? Just because she writes books about love?
Everything seems so shallow.
Was the end game a wedding? After all we've been through? Because it's not even a marriage, it's a wedding with so many red flags.
We see someone portrayed as an introvert, but is he really just an introvert? His inner world is ruled by a set of ironclad principles. That's very adjacent to how autistic people are usually described, with unshakable moral principles. It's like the author confused introversion with autism. Once his principles crumbled, his unshakable principles gained a new direction and focused solely on Yumi. The center of his inner world is now occupied by a person he is supposed to uphold and defend above all else. That's not romantic, that's not how introvert people work and that's half way into Yumi ending up in a domestic violence situation. When Yumi has her love cell as her main cell, the focus is still on Yumi's love and her relationship to that love. In this case, it's not his love cell that is involved, but this cell who puts a person who isn't himself above himself. That's not love, that's obsession.
This season gave us a wedding but it didn't give us a relationship. It tried to do enemies to lovers, misunderstandings to lovers, obsession to marriage. A show that broke many tropes and had a fresh format falls too short with this conclusion. It should have ended at season one. This is one more reason why I will always be against sequels. Too much of a good thing is not necessarily good.
The soundtrack is iconic. The acting was acceptable. Kim Go Eun is one of my favourite actresses and the reason I watched this show. It's sad the show fell so short. There's no need for another season. There already wasn't for the last two.
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