Falling into Your Smile Episode 15
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This episode brings in two annoying would-be-suitors on both sides. A blind date, Su Luo, that Lu Si Cheng rejects won't take no for an answer and insists on pursuing him. And a bizarre creepy punk from another team, Kun, becomes obsessed with Tong Yao. This is all annoying, time-filling distraction that is so cliche' and once again a disappointing move by the writer.
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Falling into Your Smile Episode 12
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While the events that happened in this episode are fine and do progress the plot, whomever decided that they should devote almost a half hour to just sending the annoying and pathetic Jian Yang on his way should be fired. Seriously. The idiot shows up drunk. She comes out and tells him _AGAIN_ that they are not a couple and she has moved on and has zero intention of getting back together with him, and says goodbye. In other words: Nothing really happened to change their relationship or anybody else's. Yet that consumed almost a half hour, with much of it being just scans across his sad-sack face and flash-backs accompanied by sappy, faux-sentimental music. Please, show. Do not do that to us again.
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Falling into Your Smile Episode 11
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This episode was great on many levels. First off it finally had some exciting game action in the first match of the national tournament. Each of Cheng and Yao came up huge in each of the two games they won over her stupid ex-BF's team. All this happening on top of an undercurrent of Cheng feeling sick and Yao feeling her monthly cycle in a bad way. So after the victory both were eager to get out of there for different reasons and end up back at the base, with nobody else around. And this set the scene for some funny growth as a couple, finally. This show is so much stronger when it focuses on the two leads and wastes less time on all the annoying characters around them.
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Unbelievable. So the truth comes out about what happened with Lu Yue and God Ming. And the result in the story is that everybody forgives Lu Yue and some even say, "I'm sorry.", to him. And everybody acts like it's all fine now and they can accept him back on the team. But this is absolutely absurd. Regardless of the threats that the JK team made, Lu Yue still did two things that were completely unforgivable. First, he arrogantly goaded the other team on by drinking a huge bucket of booze as a faux "toast". This got him stupid smashed drunk. And then, upon overhearing their talk, HE TRIED TO MURDER BROTHER A BY HITTING HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD WITH A WISKEY BOTTLE. This is a serious, serious stupid dangerous thing to have done. It is assault with a dangerous weapon, battery and attempted murder. So what if he was rightfully angered by their threats. None of that justifies what he did. And it is absolutely disgusting that the show writers are whitewashing this in order to get his character 'accepted back onto the team' in order to have his 'bad boy character' competing with Tong Yao for the mid-lan chair. It's so disappointing because all of what the writers wanted to achieve could have been done with more intelligent writing. For example if he just drunkenly tried to grab/confront Brother A and if THAT started the fight that God Ming got hurt in, then forgiving him would make a little more sense. But by adding in the stupidly dramatic but insanely dangerous act of him smashing the bottle on Brother A's head from behind, this ultimate outcome - the behavior by everyone to just pat each other on the back as they relish his 'redemption' is just sickeningly stupid. It makes the characters morally broken. I'm so, so disappointed in the writers for this crap.
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Feels like a lot happened ... slowly ... in this episode. We got some besties supporting besties moments with Cheng Jinyang taking her girl out. We had CJY getting into banter with her ex in a way that wavered back and forth between truly pissed and annoyed to almost playful flirtation so there is clearly some unresolved stuff between CJY and Ai Jia. Unfortunately we have an appearance of Tong Yao's sad-sack scumbag ex-BF Jian Yang trying to take advantage of her being both depressed and drunk - and thus potentially vulnerable - what an absolute loser he is. We have Si Cheng morphing smoothly from his initial cold snarky character into a White Knight as he sincerely helps our girl through this difficult time with solid advice and understanding - not to mention the c-drama-requisite piggy-back ride. We have some family drama reveals about Si Cheng via the arrival of his brother - who doesn't seem very popular among all the ZGDX teammates. Despite the less than warm welcome he seems to think he can push his way in and displace Tong Yao's spot on the team. There's more that happened that I didn't list so, yeah, this was an eventful episode ... and yet it all unfolded kind of peacefully and slowly. Not that's a bad thing. My only real complaint about this episode is that it features more behavior by several of the gamer boys that is, well, just awful. Childish mysoginy and emotional selfishness run rampant. Most of them consistently act with the maturity level of 5th graders. I get that this is for 'comedy', but most real gamers who are in their 20s aren't THAT immature. Yes a few are. But most are as mature as any young adults should be at that point in their lives. The portrayals in this show so far are kind of insulting. Hopefully that's mainly for comedy in the initial episodes and the show will let the boys mature as the show proceeds.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 25
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Typical of bad c-dramas (& k-dramas) the plot right now is held captive by the dreaded "noble idiocy" drama trope, as Xiao Qi becomes determined to "protect Fang Leng" from the pain of losing her by ... deleting all his memories of her and disappearing before she either dies or somehow escapes the planet. There have been undercurrents of this trope used all along in this show but now it is what the writers are leaning into full force. This is one of the most hated lazy drama tropes for a reason. If they extend it past one more episode I will probably drop this series. The way the writers keep using one cheap trope after another to contrive restarting the attraction / misunderstanding / breakup / pursuit cycle is just exhausting.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 24
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So the evil spy / scientist kidnaps Xiao Qi in a sequence that quickly gets pretty dark and dangerous. On one hand, as a plot device, it all feels pretty contrived in order to fill out an episode. On the other hand, it is a refreshing diversion from the constant recycling of misunderstanding / breakup / avoidance / pursuit reconciliation / repeat plots that dominated most of the earlier episodes. So just don't look at it too critically and enjoy.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 23
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A rare episode (finally) where the writers allow Xiaoqi and Fang Leng to actually act like a couple for a tiny bit. They are still dragging out complete commitment to Leng from Xiaoqi, but they have at least got her clearly stating that she is NOT interested in his idiot brother. And she's so clearly in love with him and only resisting full commitment out of some bits of stubbornness contrived by the writers to drag things out longer. I really hope they don't drag this out to the very end of the show.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 21
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Just when you though it was safe for our two leads to FINALLY actually start an actual romantic relationship, after having endured 20 episodes of constant attraction/pursuit/misunderstandings/avoidance/reconcilliation cycles again and again ...we just go on repeat. This time the writers reach into the lazy writer's toolkit and throw a stupid, completely unnecessary 'love triangle' at us by having the stupid man-child Fang Lie decide he simply HAS to pursue Xiaoqi despite her giving him EVERY POSSIBLE CLEAR MESSAGE that she is not interested in him romantically.. His motivations for pursuing her stem completely from his own personal issues of insecurity and sibling rivalry and have nothing to do with the girl he is pursuing - a real great recipe for romance, right? This is on top of the FL being (actually, understandably) afraid that she'll get hurt by Fang Leng again. She merely wants a little space and time to consider her relationship with Leng. But the idiot Lie is diving into that gap and forcing the issue which of course results in some really contrived stupid rivalry scenes. The Fang Lie character is really exasperating at this point. He is such a stupid, emotionally infantile character that he makes zero sense as a romantic match for anyone, let alone the FL, and so it all feels like a waste of time.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 20
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After yet more dramatic tension as Xiaoqi is determined to flee the city to escape her feelings for Leng and not cause him any more trouble, giving up for good both her love for him and also ever retrieving her messenger, Fang Leng manages to stop her from leaving and closes the episode by clearly shooing away Jiang Xue and confessing his feelings to Xiaoqi. Now, after all the teasing, will the show finally, truly allow them to be a couple? At least for a little while? Or will the show contrive some other stupid reason to pull them a part? Good writers know that a good romance story is stronger when it also includes time as an actual romance - not perpetual misunderstandings / avoidance / pursuit / reconciliation / misunderstanding / avoidance / pursuit / repeat! Because we are 20 episodes in an this show has been almost entirely the latter stuff.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 19
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Finally, this episode moved multiple character arcs forward. The obvious one is Xiaoqi finally realizing she truly cares more about Fang Leng than she even cares about retrieving the messenger and going home. Unfortunately, while she is on her way to this understanding, it comes too late before Leng gets seriously hurt as she inadvertently disturbs the messenger, which got embedded next to his heart in the car accident. This puts his life in danger and this event reveals some new character traits in Fang Lie. On one hand, he seems to truly see just how much despair Xiaoqi is feeling for Leng and he helps to get his family out of the way for her to see him. But then, at the critical moment of letting her see him, he shows his true selfish, awful colors by forcing her to promise to give up Leng after this. Because he selfishly wants her,. I've kind of disliked his stupid, childish character ever since the very beginning and this action just cements it. He is one of the worst kind of 'villains' because he stupidly and naively thinks he is a good person. But he is not. He is as emotionally stupid and selfish like a child. And like a child, he breaks things.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 18
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The constant up-and-down recycling of the initial romance dynamics is so old and tired now. The show needs to start to actually move forward with a real romance between the leads. Otherwise it is making the mistake of so many bad romance writers who seem to think that romance is only found in the tensions at the beginning of a relationship. Yes that part - the meeting of two people, overcoming their boundaries, being drawn closer and realizing their feelings - can be the exciting initial sugar candy of of a relationship. Full of drama. But re-cycling that part and never getting past it gets dull and the sweetness becomes dull and bitter. This episode shows signs of Leng finally realizing his feelings, despite the memory loss, but suddenly now the relationship has to overcome HER fear born of just how harsh he rejected her. So that feels like once again starting all over. How long will they drag THAT out?
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The only negative about this show so far is that pretty much every single guy acts with the maturity of a 5th grader. Sometimes that can be funny, but too much and it's boring and exemplary of lazy writing. It's also a massive disservice to gamer culture. Yes some gamers are overgrown children stuck in pre-pubescent states of existence. But most are perfectly normal humans who are far more sensible and respectful than the idiots in this episode. Aside from leaning too heavily into this stereotype, the show is quite excellent so far. Pacing is good. The way it layers in the game action as meaningful to the larger story is very well done so far. There are unfortunate hints of lazy drama tropes to come but hopefully the writers will not lean too heavily on such as the show progresses.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 17
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The plot is still dragging but this episode _finally_ saw some progress. Obviously, in Fang Leng realizing that he had wronged Xiao Qi and actually apologizing. But also in a bit of interaction between Fang Leng and his father. Oh - and even meathead Fang Lei actually finally showing some stones when he rejects further participation with Jian Xue's schemes. So both brothers _finally_ showed some forward progress as humans, however small those steps were. We'll have to see whether the writers keep it moving forward or if they regress into the crap that has dominated much of the last 7-8 episodes.
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My Girlfriend Is an Alien Episode 16
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BUT it nearly saves itself with the closing gag scene. That made enduring all the time-wasting stuff kinda worth it and I have to give the episode at least a decent score just for that. Don't get me wrong, I'm still annoyed at how there is nearly zero character development other than a little bit by Xiaoqi and how so much time is filled with obvious cliche' plot gimmicks that are annoying if this is a drama and not funny if this is a comedy. I'm hoping that things pick up and start to move forward again soon.
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