Kate

Basically Mr. Kang was in debt and the dude was the head of the gang that were trying to get the money back (from what I understood).
We don't really know exactly what happened, but from what they told us so far, Mr. Kang had a fight with him and almost killed him (it probably did not happen like that, knowing dramas lol). So the Genie Team kept him safe and alive to make sure Mr. Kang will not become a murderer. Honestly, this plot is ridiculous 🤣 If I even understood it correctly lol

The reveal is so ridiculous I died.
So they kept this dude there... without anyone knowing... not even the doctor.
A random one nurse and few other employees who are not related to medical field at all.
My brain hurts 🤣

Also, the thugs are a bit too much too. The fact they are just going around assaulting people in public places is... well... ridiculous. Yes, fair enough it could happen once, but each and every time them doing it and no one calling the police? Really?

Except for these two complaints, damn I love this show a lot.

I I like Ha Joon Kyung's character too. I don't like her as a person, but she is great character. I hope she will get at least bitter-sweet ending. I would hate for the writers to, by an accident, give the message that Gyeo Re got better because he was never like the other 2 "troublemakers" and not because he got the help and support needed to get better. Because they are giving a lot of "I'm not like you" lines from Gyeo Re...

I mean, they already gave us parents who at first did not give a crap about a child dying, that they drove over themselves, to miraculously change their mind and feel bad about it. I think Joon Kyung getting better is not too much to ask for 🤣

that punch almost got me fall off the chair 🤣
I truly did not see it coming.

long thoughts on episode 9

Yoon Gyeo Re has it bad. I understand why he could not give up on Ha Joon Kyung, no matter how toxic and awful it got. Can it even get worse? She literally tried to kill him and commit suicide. But from his perspective, she is his family. He does not wat to abandon her, the same way he and her were abandoned by their parents. He stays with her? The life will be torture. He moves on, and leaves - if (and she would) she hurts herself, he would fee guilty about it and would blame himself for the rest of his life. So for now, unless she herself leaves, any decision Gyeo Re makes will hurt him one way or another... Unless someone else makes that choice for them *Yeon Joo enters the chat*

Back to Joon Kyung - there is a reason why he did not told her to go away, he did not say he can't be with her and take care of her anymore. He asked her to ignore him. He asked her to make the decision, so if anything happens to her, he will not blame himself for leaving, since it was her decision. And the fact she held against him things he said when they were little kids... the emotional manipulation makes it so hard to leave...

So she obviously had some personality disorder. Hopefully they will not try to define it 🙂 (but if I had to take a guess - borderline)
Watching Gyeo Re and Joon Kyung interact made me extremely uncomfortable. He saw her as a family member, like a sister. But she saw him in a romantic way, so her forcing herself on him just.... creeps me out.

All that said, I cannot hate Joon Kyung. She needed help. Just like Gyeo Re needed it. Sure, she needed more professional one, but to get there, she first needed to see it's worth even seeking the help in the first place.
Now the question is - she truly died? OR her jump will force her to be admitted to hospital and that will be the starting point of her recovery? Coz damn that preview did not tell us shit - neither sad drama because she is dead, nor the hopeful one line, because she is in the hospital.

As for the rest of the episode - that wedding made me 😭

Dr. Yang is still one of my favs. Love how he did not take the "chance" the moment Gyeo Re was gone. He truly was just worried about Yeon Joo. He even said the best he can do is to drag Gyeo Re back, if it makes Yeon Joo happy/stop crying. I'm so thankful the writer is not making him into an asshole.

Even that date - I think there was nothing wrong with him speaking about his feelings. Do I remember it wrong, or was she into him at the beginning of the show, before Gyeo Re showed up. I'm pretty sure she gave the "having crush" attitude. So after it all, having an honest talk makes sense... Was the timing bad? Sure. But there is no such a thing as perfect timing for talks like that. Would it be better after Gyeo Re comes back? Nope, coz then it would look like he is trying to break them off or something... It's just a conversation that had to happen sooner or later.

And! What the heck with the dude locked in the room, that is not really locked. Is he dangerous? Who the heck is he? Why is everyone acting as if he ain't there and hiding the truth?

Ending on an extremely important quote:
"Even for your family, you shouldn't have to tolerate and put up with everything. That's just wrong".

Also, HOLY FUCK I DID NOT SEE THAT PUNCH COMING FROM YEON JOO 🤣

so you mean like... a typical romance filled with cliche and tropes on crack?

it's 18+ rated, so technically no 🤣

I loved the show at first, but I feel like what at first seemed to me as a "slowly setting up characters and plots" turned into simply a result of the lack of direction.

The goal was clear from the start - save the webtoon team from being "kicked out" and stop the removal of the webtoon branch of the firm. And yet, only during last 2 episode I truly felt like they are making some moves to achieve that. Up till now it was just fixing issues Heo Kwan Young created... which does not move the plot forward. You can't have all the main character be simply reactive, and not do shit proactive.

Another thing is lack of clear cut on who is the main character, who is the most important in the story, who are just supporting characters. For example - obviously On Ma Eum and Goo Joon Young are THE main characters. But then Seok Ji Hyung is also named as main, but is he really? Realistically speaking Jang Man Chul gets more of the main character treatment.

Even with supporting characters, there should be more focus on some, less on others, but it feels like everyone is treated "equally" and that's not a good thing, because at the end none of the stories are explored to the full potential.

I am still enjoying the show a lot. Don't get me wrong. But it's more of a great moments, rather than great story type of a deal now,

By the end of the show I was sure the core for the characters was Yujin being obsessed over art/acting, and Takara being obsessed over the identity Yujin gave him. It was not about them both being obsessed over each other, but rather them being able to provide the outlet for their obsessions and insecurities.

For Yujin performance was everything - it did not matter who performed, he wanted to create the masterpiece, be part of it. Since he felt like he could not achieve it with his own acting, he used Yujin to get there.

Takara has no sense of self. Each and every decision was driven by what Yujin would want, what Yujin would approve of. At first it felt like he finally had some direction, he finally saw himself as a whole, he did not struggle with making decisions, since the identity Yujin created for him made it easier. As the drama progressed, he released tho, that a fake persona is not a solution to what he was struggling with. It was limiting his performance - the only thing that he himself genuinely loved. What he thought to be a salvation, turned out to be a mental cage he struggled to escape.

I like to think the ending hints that they were both able to take the first step of freeing themselves from whatever was limiting their abilities and holding them back.

I could not care less about romantic chemistry between any of the many love lines in this show, but it's undeniable truth that many actors had great on screen chemistry that was platonic.

I did not see a problem with it per se. Songrim is not a military academy, Most academies in fantasy settings have people train even tho there is no immediate danger or villain. Why? Because starting to train people when the villain shows up is dumb. You train and get prepared in case something bad happens. Same as countries having armies even if they are no currently at war.

Not to mention they showed quite a few times alchemy/magic can be used for other things than just fighting. Mu Deok literally made a tea with it 🤣 My point is, I did not think of it as a flaw.

Since there is no universal rules of rating on mdl, and everyone has their own system, and good majority of people would never rate a show anything below 6 (so half of the scale is useless), all the ratings on mdl will always be questionable hahaha

You could have replied without "you surely are biased negatively for sure..." if your goal was only to present a counter to my opinion. Coz that's not a counter to my opinion, that's an assumption about me.

They can, and it's one of the most boring and overused trope.
All the things you said... that's not many things for 27 hours of a drama, at least for me.
If I get really bored one day I might check how much screen time got the progression of the actual plot, and how much all the rest...

That depends on what is the reaction of the Korean audience. They honestly don't care how many people will be disappointed and complain about it in comment section on mdl 🤣

also, I'm not biased negatively. I'm not hating everything about the show there is. I'm criticising and showing concern about a really specific aspect and part of the show. There is a difference here.

People who watch the show are not just either massive fans or haters. There are people who are in the middle - see the good, see the bad.

20 episodes and what we got:
Jang Uk kept being lucky and learning new skills.
Mu Deok... supporting Jang Uk (that's it)
Villans barely doing anything
So I's plotline that took too much time with how little true value it had to the overall plot.

The rest plot lines were side plots, comedy, love lines and lore/backgrounds of the characters/past events - not part of the current plot happening, just what surrounds and set the plot up.

Realistically speaking... for almost 27 hours of content... that's not much current plot.

All I'm saying is that people have valid reasons to be worried. They just written off another extremely strong character as if it was not big deal, aka Jang Uk's father. I'm not saying they will 100% just not care and more on as if nothing happened, but there are quite a high chances of it, since they already done with it other characters...

I mean... it's not the first drama from Hong sisters that has similar flaws. All writers have some flaws, no scripts are perfect and it's not easy to fix these issues, especially since they are also a part of the writing style - Hong sisters tend to focus more on the characters, their relationships and episodic plots, so they struggle with long term plots and cohesiveness of it.