K-Drama 
Love the way Dong-Eun deftly leverages the perverted teacher Chu Jeong Ho to trigger the psychotic Jeon Jae Jun. And consistent with the theme of the show, once again, the key was another victim of bullying stepping up to help in some small way. This scene not only took care of the creepy teacher Chu, but also put Jeon Jae Jun's psychotic violent nature on full display in front of his daughter. The beat down he then got from HDY was somewhat satisfying, though obviously this is still a long way from things being settled. The episode also closes with Dong Eun's first truly unrestrained smile in this show, right into Yeong-Jin's face.
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But man is she tough. To endure all that and still so carefully, subtly setup both her husband and also Yeon-Jin's mother, on a collision course with each other. The show absolutely needs to deliver justice for Hyun Nam. Thank goodness her daughter seems to finally be safe.
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Not sure why the show decided to make Dong-Eun act all shell-shocked and seeming not know what to do about her mother. She should have seen this coming and has had years to get mentally prepared for that so it seemed off. That kind took this episode down a lot in quality. On the positive side, the fact that she was clearly prepared for when Yeong-Jin would eventually capture her knight, Mrs. Kang, means that maybe she is prepared for her mother showing up and we just haven't been shown it yet. It was interesting to see the complete acknowledgement by Do Hyung that his wife is a dangerous psychopath. The scene of Dong-Eun so casually taking off her jacket while wearing the sleeveless shirt at the fancy restaurant was a classic case of a picture telling a thousand words.
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This show has almost no negatives. Great cast. Well written script. Great cinematography. My one quibble is with the closing scene. Why on earth didn't Ms. Kang simply step on the gas and drive away?
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The reveal of her scars by Moon Dong-Eun to Joo Yeo Jung, and her commitment to her revenge and rage really strongly evoked the plot of the Phantom of the Opera.
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This show keeps getting into the same repetitive mini-plot. Hua Shu lies. The Immortals believe her. She gets caught. Hua Shu lies again. The Immortals believe her. She gets caught. Rinse. Repeat. This is absurd. The writers are leaning on plot-induced stupidity on the part of these characters who despite all their god-like powers, cultivated over centuries, if not millennia, seem to have the common sense of 2 year old.s They never seem to learn any lessons from having seen her mis-behavior. It's really getting hard to keep watching this show because the characters keep acting so incredibly foolish that it breaks my empathy with them. The only two characters who seem to have any consistent common sense are A'Yin and Yan Shuang. The rest show none or only occasional flashes of it.I have to stop watching at this point. I just can't take how stupid the characters have to be to support these plot arcs. I really like several of the actors and maybe I'll come back to this later.
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When Dong Eun was approached by Ha Do Young in the convenience store, somebody was taking pictures. Was that Dong Eun's amateur spy friend? Or somebody working for Yeong-Jin, trailing Dong Eun? Or perhaps a corporate adversary of Ha Do Young's, just trying to gather dirt on him? So far, Dong-Eun seems to have incredibly precise control of everything but at some point something isn't going to go as planned.
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The conversation between Dong Eun and the former school nurse - who obviously herself was bullied out of her job back then - made it clear that Dong Eun's symbolic role here is to be the chosen champion, sent out to represent all those who have been bullied. Her battle is their battle. She's not just fighting for her vengeance. She's fighting for the vengeance of others as well. On the episode, no moment struck Yeon-jin more precisely than when, after she anxiously asked her daughter if anyone had put anything hot on her body, her daughter responded, "Why would anyone do that? That's so mean!"
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As first episodes go - painting the expositional picture of the world and the why of what is going to follow, this episode was powerful and compelling. The drama created by the combination of the dark, grounded visuals, the brutal, cruel back story and Song Eye Kuo's soft, somber and compelling narrative voice just builds tension tighter and tighter, leaving us on the edge for the next episode.
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but this final episode was kinda lame. The episode spent WAY too much time on both Lu Yunqi's weird confrontation with Jiu Ling scene in the courtyard and Ning's good bye with the game of Go. The latter goodbye scene especially took too long and sucked the life out of the episode. The show should have instead left time to finally reward Jiu Ling with he final, true wedding she had lamented for so clearly early in the series. Just a flash of the ceremony would have been nice. Or even just a scene maybe of her and Zan arriving to join his parents. There was so much more they could have put into the final episode to close up various threads instead of the long flashback scenes and overly polite farewell ritual spent with Ning.
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It's so refreshing to watch a drama series where it doesn't feel like the writers think we are idiots. The conversations and relationships are very 'adult'. The occasional moments of humor are natural and don't feel stupid and forced. The chemistry between the two leads is amazing. So natural and believable.
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The characters and plot of this drama are engaging and well-executed. So far, no annoying reliance on poorly contrived plot tropes. The leads are both really, really good and have an obvious chemistry that is, of course, thwarted by their circumstances. This episode ended on such a sad note for Jiu Ling and Zan. But we all know there is a long way to go.
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Most of the world-building finally finished and we get started on the main story, which is the relationship between A'Jin and A'Yin. Again, while the ML's behavior is irritatingly childish at this point, just grit your teeth and accept that there are reasons for that due to his full back story.
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This first episode is mostly exposition and the real story doesn't get going just yet. We start with a glimpse in a future time and then immediately go back to much prior times for the world-building exposition before the back story starts. Caution: The ML during these early episodes is very irritating and not yet likable as he's basically the equivalent of an orphaned rich kid who is a bit of a lazy brat who is avoiding responsibilities like they are hot potatoes. This is not entirely his fault but is not obvious why unless you know the backstory of his parents from Ancient Love Poetry. At any rate, be prepared to find him irritating.
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And it's all due to the absurdly bad editing / direction with no sense of pace or storytelling. The episode opens with again, just dragging out forever something that could have been conveyed in a fraction of the time. They dragged out the Jiu-sacrifices-himself-by-pushing-through-the-forcefield for a ridiculous 12 or so minutes of the last episode and then they open with another 8 minutes of Zhou being broken up over his death. I don't want to belittle the importance of Jiu's character's sacrifice. But dragging it out this long tends to make them comical. Too over-the-top. At some point I just get impatient for the story to move along and lose empathy for the plight of the characters. And meanwhile, Wen Xiao has been getting rag-dolled all over the place by her demonized father to the point that shouldn't she be a bag of broken bones by now? How is she still alive? As I said, it starts to get too comical and the intended drama of the story is lost. And all the standing around and long slow ponderous lack-of-action by the characters is just so at odds with the urgency that they should be exhibiting as people all over Tiandu are suffering from the fall-out of Wen Zong Yu's scheme.
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