underwhelming but better than s2

i start this review of by saying that i really hated subplots of season 2 so i sort of knew that i won't be enjoying this season completely. military centered story lines which started last season didn't peak my interest even back then. i continued watching for ah yi (who imo was the best addition from previous season), lee siblings and hyun soo.
good things about this season:
- no struggles with story spacing (major issue in s2)
- hyun soo seems to have decent amount of screentime compared to last season
- top notch cinematography
- great acting
bad things about this season:
- last season, writers brought in a lot of new characters to k!ll off (as i mentioned before besides s1 characters, i only liked ah yi for her mysterious aura and park chan young for his friendly non stereotypical military characteristics) . when most of them ended up dying, i didn't really care.
- i never read the books, but would've one romantic scene between CHS and LEY killed the writers? they already changed things in season 2
- the ending feels underwhelming because of the non existent built up for it. also, viewers deserved to see core 3 happy for one whole episode (i really hate when we don't get filler episodes when we need them)

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maybe it's time to wrap it up?!

let me start off with a short rant about this season's writing. this will be an unpopular opinion but most of the new characters left me cold (since they were the replicas of season 1 characters), and so did their deaths. also, they decided to keep junho around but didn't know what to do with him, so every scene we got of him was him searching for the games' location (some of these scenes were insane fillers). the glimmering light of season 2's writing was the introduction of noeul, and complexity of guards. the introduction of new characters was boring to watch. i would have rather learned about their stories during the game. one thing i hoped for was learning more about HIH's background since he's also a previous winner (otherwise, it's hard to explain why he was organizing games in the first place). he even got a replacement, but we have no clue who that is. the cliff hanger of this season was so underwhelming. netflix harassed the hell out of SQ's screenwriter for THIS. overall, acting was great and song choices were fitting. however, i felt like this could've been a final season.

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many good ideas, horrible execution

it started out so good, but last few episodes were painful to watch. this drama biggest struggle was sticking to the plot. at first, it was portrayed as typical fantasy/comedy series. after that drama's genre become a slice of life/comedy which didn't bother me. however, i started to question the outcome of the story when they introduced serial killer storyline (I hate that trend in general). last 2 episodes felt like a series on its own. it had all the previous genres mixed together. the character who suffered the most because of it was the FL. LMJ was a person with quite high motivation until she pretty much became suicidal in episode. distasteful comedy in ep 15-16 didn't help either. I'm so bummed because I loved this drama to tiny pieces

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the theme will expire if you keep going in circles

let's start off with the bad things about this drama. leads' story lines went in too many circles for my liking. this could've cut the series by 10 episodes at least. however, SY and LY acted the hell out of these characters. it's probably the best acting that i've seen from both of them. surprisingly, i enjoyed the side couples' story lines. the other story line that should've been shorter, was her mother passing away. k!lling an elderly person has become a standard so it ends up giving NOTHING to the story. the music was really off putting at the times. they were targeting international audience but it fell flat. i would've preferred if they used already existing english songs.

also, this drama have so many incredible one liners "the harder i work ,the harder i will fall", "the snacks will expire if you leave them out for too long", "it's your business if you you wish to stay in the past but i'm not obligated to wait for you in the same place" etc

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headache at times...

I think when I'm writing this I'm speaking for the whole fandom. This series is far from perfect. I would say the best part of this series was the acting. Also, the chemistry was glowing trough our screen which was nice to see. Freen and Becky did a wonderful job on what they had to work with. I am looking forward to their next project together. Now, at first, the plot was promising but it fell flat and dragged out in the end. We hardly even got to see mon and sam happily together in peace. I won't lie. Wedding ending was nice but it felt rushed. I blame it on writer who focused too much time on sam's emotional abusive grandma and manipulative kirk

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hit or miss???

it faces the issue as majority kdramas released this year. it's too predicable. here are some examples:
- FL falling in love first and harder (in the scene where OWS admitted her feelings towards SDY , he looked like he could care less)
- SML /OWS's husband getting k!lled off after receiving typical redemption arc (i hated both of these things)
- the other brother kwording his brother and stepdad (they should've played around with this plot)
also, there were major issues with the writing in the second half. they focused heavily on the antagonists, instead of the leads. leads' relationship wasn't developed at all. the last scene they had together felt like they went back to zero.
honestly speaking, this series was heavily carried by the acting. so kudos to actors. if the cast was different, i wouldn't have finished it.

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Hot Mess

PS: it's my first time writing a review so bear it with me
I must say that I feel underwhelmed about the whole drama. The casting choice was good and the special effects were all well done but something important was missing from the plot.
I liked the topics that were addressed and how those were adressed. From the characters' pov, the story was confusing and jumpy. It felt like a lot of important scenes were removed from the script. Instead of those, there were only action scenes.
Regardless of this factor, I completed it. I don't know if it was the smartest move to leave this drama with an incomplete ending knowing how past netflix series have been treated. Would I rewatch it? No, because I would grow to hate it

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