npatch

This whole second robot thing is getting ridiculous. Also the fact that the female lead knows about the special effects on the fake beaten up actor and doesn't try to solve it(even by just commenting about it or raising suspicion with reporters etc) is really annoying. Such an overused tactic to avoid doing anything reasonable just to make this even worse in several episodes and stretch the story out even more.
First they were running away from Kronos Heaven. So many episodes about it. Now they've got issues with Diana and Ma Wang Joon's CEO who was a hidden figure all the while the others were trying to avoid Kronos. Seriously, this could have been more compact. I probably wouldn't have an issue with the second robot if it hadn't taken so long for the first arc to finish.

I'm at ep 27(ep 14 in 1hour episodes). This keeps getting more and more stretched and boring.

I think they forgot a murder on the murder count of Cha Min ho. They wanted to make him stand trial as Cha Min Ho and there's the murder of that girl at the beginning which he never served time for because of the suicide. It's definitely not past the statute of limitations, therefore it should have been added as a murder count, bu they only counted Cha Sun Ho, Jennifer Lee and Yoon Ji Su.
Two more things I'd have liked to see are 1) at the end where Jeong Gu and Ha Yeon go to the cemetary to see Ji Su, they could have also visited the nice uncle Seong Gyu that sacrificed himself for Ha Yeon and 2) Jeong Gu giving that Nemo plushie with the recording of her mother's voice to Ha Yeon, or at least the recording, so she can hear her mother's voice when she wants.
Despite my issues with this show, it was worth it just for the performances of Ji Sung and Uhm Ki Joon.

Overall it's good. Ji Sung and Uhm Ki Joon are amazing. Their characters are well written(or at least I haven't found a flaw yet). But there are many flaws. The writers/directors fail at consistency yet again. At the beginning of the show, Ji Sung's character has this pen which he uses multiple times to record stuff. But at ep14 when HaYeong has been taken by Cha Min Ho, he gets in touch with him and doesn't even record the conversation. The knife is probably not gonna make it(still at 14 ep at the time I'm writing this) and probably gonna be scrapped by Jun Hyeok(if he doesn't do what's right for his friends in the end). So at least keep another one and much better since it's the voice of Cha Min Ho and more so if he admits stuff. I mean the dude is really arrogant, complacent and reckless every time he speaks to Ji Sung's character just because it's a high for him.
I also found a couple other stuff that didn't make sense, but one thing was the most prominent. Normally if there's no body, there's no crime and the suitcase yielded no DNA. They haven't also established that Jeong Woo was the one who held the knife(don't remember anything about fingerprints or fibers or anything). Everything is based on the simplest answer, also being an assumption because there was no other explanation. Still a competent lawyer would attack this. Also a competent lawyer would have tried to negate the video confession by using a medical opinion for Jeong Woo's psychological state(doesn't matter if it succeeds or not). Another thing is that the prosecution hinted at Jeong Woo being an expert homicide prosecutor and that his amnesia act was just that, an act, but on the other hand there were so many evidence lying around, like the photo that led to the assumption of his wife's affair(which again, was never verified) , or the bloody knife, or that he paraded with a suitcase and pranced around for a while for the CCTV to get a good view of him. There's nothing to gain by doing all of the above stupid things for a guy, they claim, is a professional and expert on homicides. As if that kind of guy wouldn't be able to find CCTVs around his house, or that he wouldn't even know where they are.

This is where the potential issue comes into play. So far the way they've handled the President is really good in my opinion(or at least I haven't found a discrepancy so far). He was not suitable for politics, he was living in his own bubble, he made mistakes, he tried to to his duty, his dedication towards his citizens is admirable, his actions as he progresses into a politician make sense most of the time. There is character growth. He doesn't stray far from his original stance, even if he has started becoming a politician. Also how everyone in the Blue House and outside are actually throwing him in his own version of Hell in order to either break him sooner or force him into politics. This is a well thought out part of the story.
And then they mess it up with something else. And this is a common phenomenon. I've watched many shows so far that have really good aspects to them and some bad/sloppy parts that spoil the overall taste.

As for the son/photo issue. Sure I don't know if it's important yet. Depends on who the man is. But it could impact their lives if found out by media since they are now VIPs. Or if that man is also in politics somehow and gets entangled with them.
That said, I sympathize with helldraco because there are shows out there that tend to show unneeded scenes.

UPDATE: By the way, another pain point about the Han Mo situation is that he did have an opportunity to brief the president about it. It's understandable he couldn't do it when Assemblyman Oh was there, but when he lied and got out of the room the Chief Secretary gave him the minister candidates list. He could have asked him to reschedule a meeting with the president when no one else was there. The most reasonable thing to do after lying about something is to later make it know and the best way for that is to ask the person to meet later in private. But it didn't happen when it would have been natural and it didn't happen forcefully when Agent Han saw the list. I'm hesitant to talk about the confession because it doesn't make sense so far but I still don't know enough. But still...at least two ways to resolve this are obvious but were not employed.

As for this show, it has its great moments but then it has forced situations. Like the whole reporting Assemblyman of staging his survival and suspicions of colluding with the North Korean defector. There were countless situations to report him even as a suspicion early on. But it never happened until the day he was to be inaugurated and as a result everything turned upside down after dragging it on for so long. The problem is that the NIS woman is rebellious in nature but for some reason she's been restricting herself because of the Han Mo dude. Why she waited so long is beyond me. It's a national security issue and he's also a candidate for the Ministry of Defense which if he's guilty he should never get ahold of. So far all difficult choices have been made with a certain degree of uncertainty. The phrase "It's a national security issue" has been used countless times so far. But for this case, they couldn't at least report the suspicion and ask for time to investigate more. They had to drag it on for so long so they could fail.
It's that bad habbit some writers have where they are constantly trying to make situations as worse as they can get, even if that is totally forced, so the climax can be grander.

You're right that it's early but then there are so many shows that have this imbalance where half the show is using clever/fresh situations/events/character choices etc or just well implemented scenes and then the other half is just cliches or common tricks for the sake of getting things done and moving on. Often it's just scenes that plain don't make sense or have actual flaws because they weren't properly thought through, and other times characters' choices are uncharacteristic of the them /inconsistent with their character growth or even their starting point and it's so painfully obvious that it was done because either the team didn't have time and did a rushed job or they were just lazy about or just plain bad direction/taste. It's incredibly frustrating when a show's potential gets a blemish like that, more so if it's from the beginning.

Also I'm surprised that they still haven't looked into the Faith Child Care thing since Mu Yeong has already noticed the tatoo logo on that building. Especially when they learnt that Nam was the sponsor of that place.

Another flaw. In ep13, the Inspector and Kwon So Ra send a detective to find a specific car and he tells them the cameras don't work. The same detective was there to silence another cop who almost made a mistake when Mu Yeong asked about that car after they had arrested the reporters and brought the stowaways to the police station. Mu Yeong definitely sensed sth was off and he also talked to Kwon So Ra later when they figured out who the lost stowaway was. At this point since they are clever and sharing information, I'd also expect them to talk about the detective at the station. But they still sent him to check up on the car. So somehow they never talked about this.....No warning like, don't trust the cops at the XX district station or anything. It's a bummer because Mu Yeong pulls off clever traps and masterplans but then the plot has these lazy parts and it's right back to mediocre.

Okay! Time for one happy surprise. I did notice it before but now it happened again. One thing that came as a surprise about this show is that based on various corruption/mystery shows I've watched so far, the main character makes it a habit of recording everything(sometimes you're wondering when he even did that, but whatever). It's such a refreshing thing to see someone who records stuff. So far many other shows have made their characters avoid recording situations or backing up evidence and losing them to the baddies(Ghost I'm looking at you!!) just to get into another bad situation they later have to rise up from.

Now there's another thing I noticed that seems iffy. The whole Yoon case started on one argument that Yoon got money for the murder and that's what tipped off the police to arrest him. Later Yoon confesses to the Mu Yeong that the money that he got was owed to him due to an issue with his father and then the police threatened him that it was "inadmissible" and that it mattered not. So I'm shocked that even at ep.6 where MuYeong, So Ra and the Inspector talk about the case, it's still not mentioned. The logical thing to do would be to disprove the reasons for his arrest just as much as finding the real culprit. But no mention of that so far. It might come up later in the episode(I'm at about 60-70% of the ep), but i still find it iffy that one of the easiest things to check up on for a Prosecutor does not even come up as a case point.

Stranger(Forest of Lies) was like that too though. No romance at all. Or at least nothing more than unrequited interest.
Anyhow...I sympathize when it comes to the the villains-always-counterattack thing. I also mention various stuff above. But yeah, yet another interesting drama loses its potential due to sloppy writing/direction. I sometimes wonder whether they see these flaws or whether they are actually not flaws when it comes to Koreans' preferences.

Yet another disappointment with Kwon So Ra character. She has mentioned she doesn't trust the corrupted Lieutenant countless times(even though she doesn't have clear evidence), yet even though she doesn't trust him, she looked like she was going to tell him who the nurse was and then afterwards she lingered right outside to talk about warrants when the corrupt Lieutenant came out and overheard them. I mean seriously, it was just revealed that Yoon's case was framed and she already knows the Lieutenant was the one to arrest Yoon, yet she lingers to talk about critical stuff within earshot of the corrupt Lieutenant, nor did she even look back when the door opened. No regard for hidden cards at all. So damn cliche in an almost lazy way, she's overheard in the most ridiculous way by the people she's already marked as suspicious so things will definitely go south for whatever she plans to do.

No wonder the male lead has issues with her. So far I had expectations for her to make a come back but right about now I don't really... I expect it will just sort of happen with very many stupid acts from the good guys' side until then.

The writing and direction keep getting sloppier just to make things dramatic.

She's supposed to be a tough nut and even though more idealist than realist, she should have some character growth after getting shipped out to the boonies(Jeju). And the way she is screaming for an answer while she is taken away from the bathroom, just feels wrong. So far she's portrayed as a strong character but that scream portrays her as weak, especially since it's pleading. Also pleading to him seems pointless since he doesn't seem as moral as her. After that fiasco that ruined her career she should have wisened up a bit. In the first episode, she actually seemed like it. Where in the flashback she's rather straightforward, in the first episode she seemed to be sharp, when she had a hunch about the crooked cop. And then she goes and acts totally helpless in front of her superior who might just be in on this. I don't get it. Whenever I see characters ask their superiors who they suspect as corrupt, to answer truthfully about their wrongdoings. Just feels dumb. No one acting that complacent and in-power actually admits anything when asked without precedent.

I could be jumping the gun, but about 1/3 of the kdramas I've watched so far(maybe more but even 1/3 is enough) have neglected character consistency a lot just to further the plot when the good guys stumble.

Starting ep3 and that scene with Kwon So Ra pleading for an answer in the bathroom really disappointed me.

As for the female lead, it was a real waste. her background only made sense up to making sense of her aggressive personality. But that's about it. She never fought back properly as a fighter would. Even one with a steel rod in their leg. That was clearly a writing fail.
Perhaps it would have been less of an issue if she hadn't done MMA and her father didn't have a boxing gym. I mean there was another woman in the security team and I'm not sure whether she was more qualified than the female lead as a bodyguard. Nobody from the bodyguard team actually did anything bodyguardy :P, other than averting crowds. The whole premise was rather willy nilly. it was mostly the easiest answer for the female lead to get entangled with the male lead chaebol and be able to stick to him afterwards when he was swapped with his robot double. I guess secretaries are the most obvious choice and it's overused so they used the female bodyguard role. Which is fine but it was executed rather poorly so the robot can swoop in and save her all the time so she falls in love with him.

The issue is that it's not so black and white when it comes to the robot. They said something about Machine Learning and Neural Networks. Sure they might take a long time to develop properly and still produce false positives along the way, so you can blame them if something doesn't quite work as you'd expect.
But on the other hand, the robot is doing rather complex stuff and mimicking humans at the same time but he can't think of checking CCTV when it should be the first thing anyone would think and the most obvious course of action, but rather he does so in places you'd never expect it(like that sequence of recognizing the original human in Prague in vast open areas(where CCTVs don't really exist).

It's kind of a gray area. Even though I personally think it was contrived, it's still possible to end up with that result so I can't totally reject it.

The NASA/MIB stunt was awesome. Lee Yi Kyung is awesome!!

That scene where all the test subjects talk as if they are on helium for hours cracked me up so hard....I thought they were the Minions from Despicable Me XD.

Laughed my ass off several times so far and currently at the 9th ep.