wasteland

Premise sets high expectations, they all fall to hell by the second half...

I liked the first 6 eps, rest all dipped imo. Shin-hye's best performance easily. But, i just hated the later half and couldn't bring myself to finish this. Such a bummer it went to the route of rom, but it is made an essential with the prophecy being either of them dies, calling for an intertwined relationship which is forbidden much and burdening and scaling their lives against one another.

I couldn't feel a tinge of chemistry and it felt forced, like how did you catch feelings and go that far? You can't define distinguish if it's out of bloodlust to murder the sk(serial killer/the satan) or out of pursuits and protection of her and their love.

Just boring and the valato wtever she was had good expressions that I'd poke a fork but she gets discarded and sided off, she was at least a bit interesting. Bael is like another character i have a no say to, he is just a plot device idk the ending so god knows what goes there(gods of hell prolly- isn't that him...nvm) her assistant/servant forgot his name was a funny and the cleaning service men too

Also the whole det team adds no value later, it was good to see dynamics and fun banter before. Even with dan-oh and bitna we had a few worthy interactions where they had just different stances in opinions and moral working.

Few things that are worth the mention is how we get a perspective into the Victim's families and affected parties outlook on their grief, suffering and trauma; remarkable acting by the 6th/5th ep killer dude who faked DID, her outfits mwah!!

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This would have worked as a movie!

Dropped around ep 5. i cant watch any longer. It feels like a chore I'm forced to do when I'm all snuggled up in my bed, like your relatives drop by to hang out and you are required to join the crowd. Such an inconvenient and lengthy situational instance.

Visually beautiful and really good setting and backdrops though. In terms of characters and plot, pacing all exhausting. I think they should have focused more on carving characters out, we did get their through process which feels like they were reading a script technically right! Like surfacing their struggles or way of living rather than showing how each personality contrasted from one another or their choices. I'm mainly talking about the first couple cause my beef is with them with the story mostly covering their side.

Their banter so dull and often times feels repetative. The few scenes are not long enough to connect with someone, I'm not them so I can't decide that yup! As for the chemistry its non-existent. I know this is a "melo" but, for a build up of the turmoil of emotions, bitter conflicts in their relationship there is a need for a concrete romantic story that makes you want to consider that they deserve to have a second chance in love come on even the first time they briefly got together feels abrupt and forced too. The time skip was too big and the characters are now assigned job titles and are well....settled a bit i guess, again just cutting down on a lot of process that could have given us an outlook on how they got to where they are now.

Everything feels redundant and contrived, nothing natural nor is the pain or the trauma, the ups and downs of people in 30s trying to reach their dreams and manage relationships with a vision of melo-romance(?) Idk the description was kinda like that. Anyways it fails majorly, this is a wasted potential with a sloppy direction, characters that lacked depth and no emotional connection and plot is just a plain dried bread sitting on counter for too long.

Osts and the cinematography is good, the casting stellar in terms of visuals too but its all nah-nah-uh for me with how bad it's going. I do like Kim jae-wook and love him here with the mullet and playing a considerate, consumed in guilt/helplessly dependent yet is a good companion, optimistic and a reliable bro to gyeom role. Also the director was an interesting chummy character.

5/10 or maybe 6/10.

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