scenophile

Simple fun

I thought the highs in this one weren’t very high, but the lows also weren’t very low. It’s a fun rom-com but pretty thin on the plot and the character development.

The plot is just not quite there and for me, having seen multiple historical dramas and corporate dramas, I expected there to be much more to the power struggle in the palace and in the business world. Instead, it feels like things are resolved quite randomly and the antagonists never do anything that really feel like a threat. I’m ultimately not sure what the FL was trying to get out of the marriage and how it would help her business, and on the royalty side it feels like the villains just mush together a few assassination attempts and call it a day.

I was expecting there to be more scheming and back-and-forth, but the protagonists seem to solve everything without much pushback. They make one move and 5 minutes later the villain is in jail. This is especially notable in the final two episodes; I-an introduces the EXTREME concept of abolishing the monarchy and there’s not only no build-up to it, but it seems like the advisors just go “darn :(“ and the next thing we know we’re cutting to the reveal that the people have voted on it and have agreed to it. I know people are saying that it’s because 12 episodes aren’t enough, but I felt like that wasn’t the issue here. The plot stagnated and I actually do think we had enough time to delve into deeper topics if the writing wanted it. If abolishing the monarchy was the big conflict, we should’ve seen much more to explain why it was necessary and why it was difficult to accomplish.

It all just feels a little too easy and shallow, which is a shame because I feel like there’s so much you could do with a modern day monarchy plot around corruption, historical precedence, class, etc. It’s hinted to at the start with a contrast between our leads, but we never really confront it beyond the court of public opinion.

Character-wise, we start off with a really strong cast of characters but I don’t think the writing allowed any of them to have complete arcs.

The antagonists ultimately feel pretty underutilized — the Queen Dowager’s father goes to prison extremely easily, and the Prime Minister’s arc honestly doesn’t feel thought out considering how big of a turn he made. Did he do it all because of the FL? If he did, it’s much too shallow of a motivation. If there was more to it, it didn’t come across fully. I think our leads were fun and the romance was sweet, but they also both don’t develop very much. Same with the second couple, who are typical ”sidekick” characters, lovable but with no real arc of their own.

The best arc out of all of them is probably the Queen Dowager. She probably turned out to be my favorite character, even if I found her final switch a bit sudden.

Part of that is her acting, which I think was the best out of the entire cast; she especially killed it with intense moments and facial expressions. As for the rest of the cast, I think it was pretty good but they didn’t have much to work with. I know this has been discussed to death on the internet so I don’t want to harp on it, but I did find the ML to be a bit stiff; he was good in emotional moments but not as much in the subtle ones where we needed more micro-expressions. I don’t want to be too harsh but I’m not sure I completely bought into the main romance, or that the ML supposed to be older.

I know this is a lot of criticism but I actually still found the show to be quite fun to watch. The cinematography was really good and it’s clear that this was a high-budget production. The story isn’t quite as epic as I wish it was, but if you go into it with the understanding that it’s a rom-com and you don’t think too hard about it, I think it was enjoyable.

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Great for 8 episodes

This really feels like saying goodbye to a character I've loved and followed for years. Yumi's Cells has always been one of my favorite dramas for being able to show its characters in such a realistic way; the animated cells might seem over-the-top sometimes but they always perfectly encapsulate the emotional turmoil of romance, friendships, and everyday life.

This final season is no different; I normally don't like watching dramas where the female lead falls first, but after seeing Yumi give up on love after her first two relationships, it was actually beautiful to see her be the one to fall first and be so happy about feeling butterflies again.

I know a lot of people were skeptical about Kim Jae-won taking on the role of Soon-rok (me included) but I think he really won us all over by the end. There's one scene in particular where he's standing outside looking up at Yumi's window; that scene absolutely flipped a switch for me.

I think the OST of this season also really helped to elevate it; I loved the previous seasons but honestly never paid much attention to any of the songs. This time around there were multiple that I immediately wanted to download, and it really made the scenes feel so romantic.

With that being said, I think there are some things that were really iffy, and the biggest one, to nobody's surprise, is the short runtime plus the fact that Babi was given some Soonrok scenes.

It's crazy to me that Yumi's final love interest doesn't get the same 14 episodes that Woong and Babi did; even 10 episodes would've been an improvement. I think they did the best they could with 8 episodes, giving Yumi and Soonrok time to confess and get together while leaving episodes for them to be together and show us what their relationship would be like, but the last episode in particular did begin to feel rushed. I know this may not even be the drama's fault, since there's this same pacing issue in the webtoon where it feels like we skip right to their wedding, but the drama also leaves some things out.

With so little time there's no space for subplots about Yumi's writing this time and we don't get to see much of her friends or family, which was kind of a shame since I always loved that Yumi's Cells never only focused on relationships. Don't get me wrong, I'm super glad that they chose to focus on the romance instead of trying to cram other character arcs in, but since this was the last season I really wish we got to say goodbye to old characters who had been with us from the start.

Overall, I think this was really enjoyable and heart-fluttering, but my god, imagine what we could've gotten with more time.

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