Kate

This is "essay long" so feel free to not read that lol
Okay guys, let's talk about "the couch scene", coz for me, it was way more than just two cute guys making out. I cannot be sure if it was truly that well written, planned, directed and acted or if it;s just pure accidental genius, but oh boi, I love this scene.

I think it's important to briefly talk about the set up for the characters. It's obvious Tutor and Fighter were attracted to each other since day one and while Tutor kind of accepted his feelings, Fighter is in a huge denial, rationalizing every action he takes, trying to excuse his behavior, more to himself than to others. It does not matter how amazingly ridiculous his explanations are, they keep him sane and safe. And we can clearly see how they stand on their own feelings with this scene.

The "accidental kiss" was nothing special, but what followed shocked me. In a good way.

Tutor kind of has close to no reaction to it, he slowly is backing off, being aware how uncomfortable this is. Fighter tho: confusion and being unsure of the situation. The way his eyes flutter (flutter is a weird word here, but it is what he does) and how he quickly swallows, both indicating how nervous he is. He is literally frozen not moving at all, even after Tutor moved away. And it is the Tutor that takes the initiative to actually kiss Fighter. And then he back off again. Why? Because, while he is sure of his own feelings, he is not sure what is Fighter thinking and what can come out of this situation. He does not want to be used. That said, we as a viewers see, that Fighter does not want the kiss to end, as he follows Tutor when he backs off, trying to prolong the kiss.

As I see it, Tutor is angry at himself for pushing for that kiss, coz at the end, he is the one being hurt. Fighter: clueless, no idea how to react since he does not even fully understand his feelings for Tutor. That's when the short conversation happens. Tutor is trying to be serious about it. He honestly asks Fighter is he is aware of what he is doing, aka if he is aware of his feelings. But Fighter is oh so not ready to admit it, so he keeps denying his feelings, excusing his behavior as a "teasing". Like it's not about his feelings and what he wants and how he is attracted to Tutor, it's about Tutor's reaction, about making him flutter or angry. He moves the focus of the conversation from himself to Tutor. At the same time, he does not want, whatever they just had, to end, he cannot take the first step, so he tries to provoke Tutor to take the lead, to take away the responsibility from him. He searches for confirmation. He cannot answer the question himself so he asks Tutor for the answer: do I like you? (why did I think of The Heirs here lol). So Tutor finally confronts him, calling him out on his action and how much of denial is going on on Fighter side. And that's when the whole "prove to me" enters: Do I like you? Do I like guys? Am I gay? What am I suppose to do? How am I suppose to act? There is whole identity crisis hidden in this one line: Prove to me, what kind of person I am?. And Tutor, the man he is, goes for it.

And again, lets talk about how they approach it, or rather how Tutor is the only one approaching, aka moving. The moment Tutor gets closer, Fighter just closes his eyes and is waiting, not able to commit and make the move himself. During the kiss itself, he is not moving, while we have all the Tutor's wandering hands. Because Tutor knows what he wants, while Fighter has no idea. And when Tutor touches the D, that's when we see first proper reaction from Fighter, and it's shock, like he was electrocuted. We can see Fighter is searching for something on Tutor's face, maybe confirmation? And when Tutor kisses him again, that's when his self-control breaks down, and he is the one pushing Tutor down. But we can still see he is not sure, his eyes are shaky and he just looks at Tutor.

Yet again Tutor is the one initiating the kiss, bringing Fighter closer. And when Fighter tries to do what Tutor were doing earlier (oh the wander hands lol), he again freaks out. It hits him: this is a guy, I am making out with a guy, I am attracted to a guy. But can I be? Right before we get the flashback, the small shake of the head, turning away his eyes from Tutor, it looked like he wanted to say something, but didn't know what. So when Tutor tries to kiss him again, he backs away. Tutor is visibly hurt by it, probably feel used. Fighter is in daze. Panic mode on, no idea how to react or what to say, so the best idea that comes to his mind is: run. Get out of this situation as quickly as possible. "Don't forget to ask yourself how you feel about me", again moving the responsibility away from himself. He wants Tutor to make the decision, to take action. It's not me, it's you. And tutor is left being angry, sad, frustrated (that's the most lol).

The whole scene, Tutor was the one leading, acting, taking responsibility and initiative. Fighter was "passive", getting himself be led by Tutor, not making any decisions himself, not answering any questions, but asking so many. How I love this scene. I feel like it truly speaks volume about the characters and their internal struggles concerning their feelings and building relationship and the attraction they have towards each other. Was it brilliant planning or accidental genius, will never know. What I know is, Zee is playing extremely hard character. He is suppose to make it look like he is concealing his true feelings for Tutor while making sure it's actually visible for the viewers that they exist. His posture and act must be of a confident guy (since that's how Fighter wants to present himself, as the leading, domineering person) while in fact he is unsure, scared, confused. We need to see them both, in many scenes at the same time, and it must create cohesive portray of a character, who was shielding himself from his emotions for so long, he is totally confused and lost and have no idea who he is and what he wants, if he can want it and how to react when he finally gets it. Yeah, you can see I am just amazed with Zee's acting.

So, thank you for listening to my TED Talk.
I might have read way too much in this scene, but as I said, it might have been accidental genius on the production team side, that I got to appreciate by mistake.

The Nokdu Flower is amazing. Hwang Myung Sim gives "similar" vibe to Han Ji Eun, she seems extremely pointless, boring and stereotypical female character that is obsessed with male lead, but oh boy what a character development she gets it's crazy. There is overall a lot of awesome complex characters. It also has my favorite villain in it. Of all time. Truly... I was so frustrated watching him, I cried... from being so frustrated lol
As for Different Dreams, it;s a good drama but not crazy good. I was not obsessed with FL, but Miki was amazing.
Chicago Typewriter is in my top5 dramas for sure, that said the past story is was made me so obsessed with it :)

how many times can we watch mysterious dude with amazing fighting skills that is some spy or other bullshit, that risks his life to protect female lead? So many times the only characterization the ML gets is the fact he loves female lead and will do anything for her. Boring.
Many times when I see someone complain about FL in a drama, the ML was just as badly written if not worse. In dramas like that the writing is just bad, for all the characters....

also the "oppa attack" was one of my favorite scenes from the drama and I truly cried I was laughing so bad hahahaha

not towards you, but I actually agree that many people are way more critical towards female leads than male leads. I saw people complaining how all female characters are the same but when I checked their profile or custom lists with some of their favorite male characters, there were literally copies of the same character played by different actors. Which annoyed me, coz apparently they did not have a problem with the male characters being boringly the same but the female characters being similar is the worse. In many cases it;s not like male characters are better written than female ones, but the stereotypical male characters seem less annoying to many people, but truth is both male and female characters are often painfully shitty and boring. The years I've been watching dramas, I have noticed that usually when the FL is badly written, so is the ML. I cannot think of any drama where FL and ML were equally important and one was significantly better written than the other.
That said, YES TO ALL THE LADIES YOU NAMED! I have not seen some of the dramas, but from the ones I have seen, I loved them all! Some I appreciated a lot are: Miki (Different Dreams), Song Ja In (The Nokdu Flower), Hwang Myung Sim (The Nokdu Flower) < she was probably even better and stronger character for me than the FL tbh, Song Ga Ryeong (Rebel: Thief Who Stole the People), Im Sang Mi (Save Me), Ryu Su Hyeon (Chicago Typewriter), Noh Seung Hye (SKY Castle).

I can already tell that my review will be long essay on the amazing acting we've got to see from Zee

My biggest complain about Eun Jae was the fact they "cured" her problem with placebo. It was such an easy way out and it stripped her from overcoming it herself and making her a stronger character that way.
Also, I liked Park Min Gook the most too, coz he was the most complex character of them all... well until the last two episodes. I have no idea what happened there. He went full villain for a second, then he got sad coz Master Kim scold him (lol) and then he turn good? It was such a mess...
I was questioning it I should give it 7 and not 6.5 but 7 is "I liked it" and I feel like "It's okay" fits more how I feel about this drama...
Anyway, great review :)

Okay, I will give a different perspective than Aya97. No where near as good as season one. The pacing is off most of the time, there is A LOT of focus on politics in the hospital, Woo Jin and Eun Jae are either frustrating or boring characters without much interesting set up. There is no interesting villain and the only truly interesting character (Min Guk) is being turned into your stereotypical "greedy villain" the closer to the end we get. I kind of regret watching it.

if you look at the whole drama, the focus was on her the most. Even compared to Woo Jin who feels more like a supporting character for her development.
That said, with how much of a mess this season was, I hope there will be no 3rd one.

About the killer, they explained his psychology quite well by his actions. He was psychopathic stalker. He found his victim, stalked her, kidnapped her and the moment he got bored, because "the chase" was over, he searched for new victim. I don't think there must be more to it. He was delusional and believed he had connection with his victims.
There were at least 2 victims and, Kyung Min (who survived) + additional victims that he did not plan from the start to murder (like the director from the bank or the detective). His goal was not to kill, but to chase and get the thrills out of that.

Janistar is doing great job, but her role is so much easier to act compared to Zee's.

I don't really think Tutor likes Hwahwa. I'm pretty sure he also has a crush on Fighter since the beginning. His dissatisfaction about Fighter and Hwahwa comes from the feeling, that Fighter does not really like her. He thought him and Fighter are starting to slowly get romantically involved and out of the blue he starts to hit on Hwahwa. And since Fighter is hella confused about his feelings, is with Hwahwa, because he's sure Tutor likes her. And he does not want to see his crush dating some girl. So he dates her himself (not that smart lol).
Anyway, what I want to say I'm pretty sure they both like each other and were attracted to each other since day one, but Fighter is insecure so he fuc*** up hahaha

Honestly it feels like watching two different shows: one is the story of Tutor and Fighter, and the other is Zon, Saifah and all the random stuff.
Tutor and Fighter story has a nice simple plot about dudes liking each other, but one is way too insecure about his sexuality and feelings to truly go for it, but at the same time he cannot give up spending time with his crush. It's nice, cute and makes perfect sense.
Zon and Saifah... where to even begin. Zon has 10 different personalities, I am confused what is he feeling and thinking. Saifah is kind of falling in love and it can be seen, but then there are scenes when he is like "nope". Not to mention all the supporting characters that show up once or twice every episode, do nothing and are gone.

agreed. Woo Jin did not need any character development since day one, he just needed someone to solve his financial problem (since he never did anything questionable coz of money in the 1st place), Eun Jae didn't really have that much consistent development. She took placebo to work, with overcoming her trauma and stress, she did close to nothing, it was done to her. The only thing working for her is that she stands up for herself more but it's also just random outbursts of confidence and not gradual change.
Not to mention Min Guk who had such a HUGE potential as a character but it was never fully explored and used.

I don't think he is greedy tho. I think he is self-righteous and he does believe he is right and what he is doing is correct and he finds the explanation for all his mistakes externally. I think this is far worse than someone being just greedy.

I'd say read 2 or 3 reviews that rated it high, it will most likely help you decide. Also I literally stated in my review:
"So if the minimum interest you may have in sports is the reason you are on the fence whenever you should watch this show, rest assured, it’s far more than just baseball." so yeah, the lack of knowledge about baseball will not be a problem. I know NOTHING too and was never confused hahaha

I feel special having some insight to some of your articles whwn you work on them lol
Also this one was definitely needed :)

funny hahaha ;D
but also, if they rewrite a bit, I'd say they should post it, since this will be lost as more comments are posted, and it's always good to have a different opinion and perspective too check out. All the reviews are good, having one bad one would not be such a bad idea hahahaha

I find the "villain" in this drama one of the most interesting ones in recent years, because he is so realistic. He is not some ridiculous all powerful, all-knowing and intimidating man, but someone who exists. There are many people like him in real life, and that makes him so much better for me.
So yeah, I know nothing about baseball, but I'm enjoying this drama so much!

Honestly, for me his character is the only interesting one at this point of the drama and I cannot wait to see more of his development: whenever he goes fully on the good or bad side. Either way it will be interesting.