K-Drama 
This review may contain spoilers
WOMEN <3333333333333
Went into this one with basically no expectations and it was easily the best drama I've seen all year. A woman who believes she has the perfect marriage is sent photos of her husband with another woman to imply that he's been cheating, but it turns out cheating is only the start of the lies that her marriage is built on. Having a vague idea going into the show of the tug of war and power plays that were going to happen, the embezzling wasn't unexpected but Di Liren was so much sleazier than I ever could've imagined! Every time I thought he couldn't be more repugnant, he'd go lower — ready to institutionalize his own wife, making other people take the fall for his crimes, even resorting to murder to save his own skin.
As much as I enjoyed the chemistry between Yu Meng and Jiao Xu, the heart of this show belongs to the relationships women have with each other. Yu Meng and Liu Zi's ride or die friendship. The initial animosity that shifted to respect and eventually to allyship and friendship between Yu Meng and Weng Yue. The unexpected alliance and semi-friendship between Yu Meng and Wen Xiaoxiao. The too complicated to define relationship between Yu Meng and Lu Hui. The women in this show are given so much complexity and layers — even female characters with minimal screentime or minimal impact on the story aren't one-note.
Yu Meng had great growth thru the show — going from pampered influencer to a confident and successful businesswoman who started her own company. Li Yitong is fantastic in the role and she brings a believability to the character that could have been easy to fumble given how clueless and gullible she appears before the illusion of her perfect marriage is shattered. But as much as I enjoyed Yu Meng's journey, to me this show belongs to a character who I never expected to love so much: Lu Hui.
Firstly: oh my god what a brilliant performance from Wang Jiajia. Lu Hui seems so unremarkable for the first ~third of the show, but once we start peeling back the layers.... ugh, she's just so incredible — from the powerful love for her son to the internal conflict of participating in Di Liren's schemes to her desperation to climb out of this mess to her devastation when ppl she cares about are in danger. Wang Jiajia is flawless in portraying all of this — definitely my favorite performance of the show and probably in my top 3 performances of the year.
I feel like I could talk about Lu Hui forever. She endured 20+ years of manipulation and gaslighting from Di Liren. At the start of the show, some part of her knew not to trust his words, but because he's a master of deceit, he'd always pull her back into his web with promises of an idealized future together. Because that's the thing — when you're dealing with someone who abuses you psychologically, you start to doubt yourself. But there's only so long the illusion can hold; the web falls apart when she gets a glimpse of his ruthlessness. Once his greed and selfishness is exposed, all she cares about is getting him out of her life and keeping their son safe — Harry is her bottom line and she is willing to go to whatever lengths she needs for him. But Di Liren, being an abusive piece of shit, won't let her go. He doesn't accept losing or things not going his way and so he pushes and pushes and pushes until Lu Hui seemingly relents. He's so caught up in his delusions of grandeur that he thinks Lu Hui will forgive any horrible action he takes. But Lu Hui my queen is too smart (and too fed up!) to fall for his tactics again 😌
And not only did Lu Hui endure far too much suffering specifically because of Di Liren, she is quite literally the MVP in his comeuppance. She's the reason Yu Meng and Jiao Xu were able to get Weng Xin's records meaning she's the reason Han Guang went to prison meaning she was the final push to finally end Di Liren's reign of terror! Also she was able to force a confession out of him!!!!!! No one else knew how to get under his skin like she did; even when Yu Meng would come at him with solid accusations, he would brush her off. While they both saw thru his facade, only Lu Hui knew him well enough to completely unravel him.
It's not perfect — I think things did start spiraling out of control in the last 2-3 episodes and that the writers occasionally made choices for the shock factor of it all (and if I were in charge I would have made some tweaks to the resolution) — but this show loves women so so so much and it understands the social reality of existing under patriarchy and how abuse shakes the foundation of your life. The whole thesis of the show is about women's autonomy. It's soooooo good I wish I could experience it for the first time again, this was such an exquisite experience to watch it as it was airing.
TL;DR: if you're a woman lover GO WATCH THIS NOWWWWWWWWWW
As much as I enjoyed the chemistry between Yu Meng and Jiao Xu, the heart of this show belongs to the relationships women have with each other. Yu Meng and Liu Zi's ride or die friendship. The initial animosity that shifted to respect and eventually to allyship and friendship between Yu Meng and Weng Yue. The unexpected alliance and semi-friendship between Yu Meng and Wen Xiaoxiao. The too complicated to define relationship between Yu Meng and Lu Hui. The women in this show are given so much complexity and layers — even female characters with minimal screentime or minimal impact on the story aren't one-note.
Yu Meng had great growth thru the show — going from pampered influencer to a confident and successful businesswoman who started her own company. Li Yitong is fantastic in the role and she brings a believability to the character that could have been easy to fumble given how clueless and gullible she appears before the illusion of her perfect marriage is shattered. But as much as I enjoyed Yu Meng's journey, to me this show belongs to a character who I never expected to love so much: Lu Hui.
Firstly: oh my god what a brilliant performance from Wang Jiajia. Lu Hui seems so unremarkable for the first ~third of the show, but once we start peeling back the layers.... ugh, she's just so incredible — from the powerful love for her son to the internal conflict of participating in Di Liren's schemes to her desperation to climb out of this mess to her devastation when ppl she cares about are in danger. Wang Jiajia is flawless in portraying all of this — definitely my favorite performance of the show and probably in my top 3 performances of the year.
I feel like I could talk about Lu Hui forever. She endured 20+ years of manipulation and gaslighting from Di Liren. At the start of the show, some part of her knew not to trust his words, but because he's a master of deceit, he'd always pull her back into his web with promises of an idealized future together. Because that's the thing — when you're dealing with someone who abuses you psychologically, you start to doubt yourself. But there's only so long the illusion can hold; the web falls apart when she gets a glimpse of his ruthlessness. Once his greed and selfishness is exposed, all she cares about is getting him out of her life and keeping their son safe — Harry is her bottom line and she is willing to go to whatever lengths she needs for him. But Di Liren, being an abusive piece of shit, won't let her go. He doesn't accept losing or things not going his way and so he pushes and pushes and pushes until Lu Hui seemingly relents. He's so caught up in his delusions of grandeur that he thinks Lu Hui will forgive any horrible action he takes. But Lu Hui my queen is too smart (and too fed up!) to fall for his tactics again 😌
And not only did Lu Hui endure far too much suffering specifically because of Di Liren, she is quite literally the MVP in his comeuppance. She's the reason Yu Meng and Jiao Xu were able to get Weng Xin's records meaning she's the reason Han Guang went to prison meaning she was the final push to finally end Di Liren's reign of terror! Also she was able to force a confession out of him!!!!!! No one else knew how to get under his skin like she did; even when Yu Meng would come at him with solid accusations, he would brush her off. While they both saw thru his facade, only Lu Hui knew him well enough to completely unravel him.
It's not perfect — I think things did start spiraling out of control in the last 2-3 episodes and that the writers occasionally made choices for the shock factor of it all (and if I were in charge I would have made some tweaks to the resolution) — but this show loves women so so so much and it understands the social reality of existing under patriarchy and how abuse shakes the foundation of your life. The whole thesis of the show is about women's autonomy. It's soooooo good I wish I could experience it for the first time again, this was such an exquisite experience to watch it as it was airing.
TL;DR: if you're a woman lover GO WATCH THIS NOWWWWWWWWWW
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