Reviews

Treading water and wandering in the woods.

This episode is mostly treading water for Jingjing as she pulls back within herself to deal with what happened and YuTu wanders about looking for a way to fix things now that he's starting to realize that it was HE that broke things. Not his job. Not his filial duty to his parents. Not anyone else but HE himself who was the jerk to both women in his past. He's starting to grow up emotionally first with realization that he has an impact on other's emotions and now he needs to find a skill with which to try to fix things. Because up to now, he has no such skills. The best, most powerful moment is when he visits his home and revives and old computer and looks at old group chat messages by Jingjing from way, way back that reveal how hard she was trying to bridge the gap between her and him. The picture those chats paint is a brutal, painful indictment of what a total jerk he was to her and, well, to others as well.. This is a painful moment of enlightenment that he has been an emotional cripple and that he has hurt people because of it. The next powerful moment is a great conversation with his mother who gives him some powerful wisdom by simply reminding him that he doesn't have to be the best at everything.

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Spoon feeding the audience

This drama has hit the other side of the spectrum. Rather than jumping to conclusions, they are slowly spoon feeding the audience. It took them a while to get to an easy point, however they are showing the audience slowly each step. I appreciate this much more than the jumping to conclusions version. Here they talk about why the victim had two cups out fairly near each other on his desk. They speculate again but their is actual theory and logic attached to it. And it make valid sense. It leads them to conclude the victim took medicine. They find the medicine and try to use it to push for an autopsy. Now, for me the order of this is wrong. But the episode end with them speculating something (not revealed in this episode but possibly next episode). They reach this conclusion after seeing one detective smash down several pieces of bread to eat in one go.For me, I wonder, how these people who are so suspicious of everything didn't get suspicious when the body was found with 5 times the normal does of medicine. Beggars can't be choosers. It seems they will get there next episode.7/10 - meeting the basics and a rhythm is starting. Let's go!

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A Case with Evidence is Coming to Light

So the officer knew the spray was used to assault a girl. Again, a leap in logic, but not that far of a leap from the womanizer they already concluded he was. They found evidence to establish the timeline of events. They finally used some psychology terms to justify the witnesses behavior after the assault/crime scene tampering.There was an easy out they could have gone for with the spray and the "victim." I'm glad they didn't. But they haven't established why they keep investigating vs concluding right there. The female lead just basically goes, "it doesn't sit right with me. They easily could have said "all these do not explain why the victim was disoriented during the attack by suspect 1?"At this time I think, I am watching this to see if the investigation procedure gets less dramatic and follows some logic. It seems to be right now. Hopefully they can keep the pattern. Again, it's hard to connect with the characters with only 15 mins each episode and so much to go through. But I am starting to like Cheng Mo. As long as he doesn't empathize a conclusion again, he should be good. The female lead is investigating as well. It looks like the other two are there to ask questions the audience might ask or push the logic closer to a conclusion.6.5/10 - much improvement after a rocky start. Good job Accident Squad team.

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Most of this episode is skippable.

A lot of the stuff related to YuTu's job is ultimately irrelevant to the plot. Some of it is based on real technological issues and other stuff is just hand-wavy tv-show nonsense. Ultimately this episode is just filler with YuTu burying himself in his work to avoid thinking about Jingjing while every 10 minutes something reminds him of Jingjing. Even the arrival of his annoying ex-girlfriend ultimately accomplishes nothing but reminding him of Jingling. The key event in this entire episode is that, upon sitting down to talk with Xia Qing, YuTu finally realizes that he had been a complete jerk to her. That the only reason he had gone out with her when they were in college was because he was 'comfortable' with her. She was 'smart and capable' and he foolishly thought that was what he wanted. Now, finally, after having been with Qiao Jingjing, realizing that there is so much more that binds two people together, and thinking about his past with Xia Qing, he finally realizes that he was the asshole. And he apologizes to her for that. This is a major moment of emotional growth for YuTu as he realizes that he has been a jerk to both women in his life. If you have nothing else to do, watch this episode. Otherwise, just skip to the last few minutes. Nothing else all that important happens.

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Let's Investigate instead of Speculate

"Officer, on what grounds do you say that?" I swear the most logical dialogue was given to the witnesses and suspects. However, they have calmed down on the leaps of logic in this episode for half of the team. One half of the team seems to be following leads and noting witnesses odd behavior. Nothing specifically came of it this episode but one can hope they build on it later. However, too much drama was made out of spray with a pungent smell. I'm giving a pass on how the detective knew what items to buy because it seems to be headed in the right direction now.6/10 - half of the teams seems to have calmed down on the leaping logic a bit and is investigating.

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Leaps of Logic find a Home

The team splits up to carry out their own investigations into the accident they find suspicious. One team comes to the conclusion an altercation happened to the victim before his heart attack after realizing he had two cups in his office, the offices was cleaned, and outside in the studio, the investigator had an attack of empathy for the victim. That's right "empathy." The other team just jumps to conclusions, not based on interviews, but based on that the victim had to encounter someone, a fight must have happened and they cleaned up the scene. From this, they conclude, its not one of the witnesses they interviewed but one of the people connected them and a chase scene happens just after the boyfriend visits their witness girlfriend in disguise.TV drama is a visual medium. You should show us how you reach the conclusion vs tell us what the conclusion is. Especially, for a crime drama.4.0/10 - with a little more dramatic acting this would work as a parody.

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Five Stars

An amazing episode packed with action, intensity, romance, and so many emotions. In this episode, the male lead is the true definition of “I will burn the world down to protect my woman.” Watching him fight his way through everyone and everything to save her, even while badly injured himself, was incredibly intense. His determination and desperation to reach her made the entire rescue sequence absolutely breathtaking.What makes his protectiveness even better is that the female lead is far from helpless—she is strong, capable, and can absolutely protect herself. They are a true power couple, yet when she is in danger, nothing will stop him from getting to her. He doesn't protect her because she is weak; he protects her because she means everything to him.This episode had everything I wanted from this drama. The action, the devotion, the chemistry, the emotional payoff, and the power-couple energy were all at their peak.10/10. One of my favorite episodes of the entire drama.

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Speculation Squad

Again, introducing all the elements of a police drama in a stumbling way and not quite hitting the mark. The main lead is too intense (sometimes aggressive) while questioning victims to establish authority as a cop not to actually derive information from the issue. Two detectives make assumptions about the wife based on her behavior "being too normal." I think it was "so normal it seems abnormal" by one and the other says she so clean cut and ok that she must have resented her husband. There was a moment where the witness say it was sad he died of an accident, the female lead agressively questions "who said it was an accident?" and the girl responds, "we are at the accident investigation agency." Then the female lead calms down. *Facepalm* Yeesh.There is a lot of speculation right now for an autopsy to have not been completed. I lowered my rating because the basic barometer of an investigation team is that they specialize in investigation and evidence not speculation.5.5/10

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The First Trick

This drama is my first time back to the suspense/mystery/crime drama after a few month hiatus. Coming in with an open mind despite the comments on this drama, I have to say I seem to have a lower overall rating but, less harsh criticism. The intro music was fine but the images you view don't seem cohesive. Not a big deal in a drama but I will admit it had me bracing myself for a drama that lacked cohesiveness. I was right. The very first scene is a paranormal type warning dream sequence featuring her sister and a message about the accident squad. The character doesn't seem to care that much about soon after, even though it frightened her in the moment. Tonally, the drama shifts to a comedic montage that features the squad of "screw ups" she is going to manage.The acting is ok and does not feature any particular breakout performances. The edits aren't too choppy as can be scene in short dramas. The direction seems ok but doesn't establish any interesting shots. The music is fine but doesn't support a consistent tone.I just don't think it is very engaging. 15 mins is very little time to engage the audience with a WHOLE squad and introduce us to a crime AND introduce us to what might be an ongoing secondary plot (the dream). The drama is setup in a way where it can only superficially cover all of these things. The outro was not great. It mimics a good elements of a good song only to fall short of making a good cohesive song. In that respect its like the drama episode. 6/10. Passed the class in that it was an episode but short of average to me.

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So predictable.

Well, as I predicted while enduring the over-the-top sad mess that was the Guan Zai gets sick plot line, the writers turned the supposedly brilliant Yu Tu into a complete idiot who learned the completely wrong lessons from watching what his friend's family went through. He should have learned that it is a mistake to bottle things up and hide things from your loved ones. He should have learned that it is your loved ones who will be there for you to help you when you are in trouble. He should have learned that loving someone isn't about avoiding the pain but rather enduring it for the sake of love. Because all those things were actually on display in the Guan Zai plot line. But the writers contrived our hero to become an idiot who only noticed the pain and sadness that Shen Jing was experiencing. Never did he ask her if she would choose otherwise because if he did, she would have told him, "No". And the idiotic inability to understand how to balance work and life is just stupid. Yu Tu has turned what should be a plus-plus combination into a ridiculous either/or equation. The writers have made YuTu into someone who is so self-absorbed that he fails to have the empathy that would guide him to NOT HURT THIS WOMAN THAT HE CLEARLY LOVES. He seems oblivious to just how much pain he just caused her this night, which should have been her happiest. I get it. This is episode 15 and the show wants to keep the lovers separated for a little longer for 'dramatic purposes' and now we will have an arc that eventually brings them back together. But I just wish the writers would not resort to making characters be so absurdly stupid in order to do that. Because the YuTu that the writers have created is simply not an attractive, healthy human that any sane woman should want to have a relationship with. Now they have to contrive ways to completely transform him from this jerk back into a likable human. And that contrivance will likely be as hard to believe as the above transformation that got him here.

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