I wasn't going to write a review for this season of Work Later, Drink Now, because, well, it's been hard parsing out my rather jumbled up feelings. Despite the excessive amount of drinking the characters engaged in, I greatly enjoyed season 1, and I was very hopeful and excited for season 2. These girls are a total mess, but they are an endearing mess, and I enjoyed watching them be both messy and heartfelt. But this season was...something else.

The first problem was the arc around Ji Yeon's cancer. It was fine with me that they went to the mountains. I don't even mind that they were 'healing' cancer with nature. Sure, it's not believable, but this is Work Later, Drink Now. Part of the purpose of this drama is putting the girls in somewhat over-the-top situations and watching them respond. But when we were still in the mountains 'curing cancer' by ep. 3, I was ready for the girls to go home. The whole 'healing in the mountains' bit was only going to work for so long, and they stretched it beyond what was reasonable. On top of that, some of the humor in those episodes was both weird and not funny. (The statue grossed me out, frankly.)

The second problem is that the unnecessarily long stay in the mountains completely messed with the pacing of the rest of the season. Everything felt slightly out of whack, like when you watch a video and the sound is constantly ahead or behind of what you're seeing on screen. It was so hard to get a grasp on what this season was meant to be about, what it was meant to be doing, and I was over halfway through before I got a handle on the story.

The third problem was yoga. As in, what exactly was there of value in the entire subplot with Ji Yeon's boss and her boss' brother? They made the plotline work in the end, but for much of the drama, it felt like a weird rabbit trail that took away from more important things that were happening in the story. Sure, the brother and sister had a sweet little reconciliatory family moment at the end, and yes, I felt moved...but why was I supposed to care in the first place?

And this isn't a story complaint, but the CGI in earlier episodes was pretty bad. I was willing to overlook it while they were in the mountains, because you are not training a hog to pose for a camera, but I did not find adding a CGI snake in a later episode necessary. (The events around the snake were equally as unnecessary.) This might seem like a petty, unimportant thing to complain about, as they are the only instances of CGI in the drama, but they stuck out to me because of how bad the CGI was, and if that's what it was going to look like, they should have kept it to as much of a minimum as possible.

But, and here's where I'll give this drama some praise, while everyone else hated how things played out between Ji Goo and Ji Yeon, I think it was some of this season's strongest writing. In fact, most of the seasons strongest writing was in the second half. The conflict between Ji Goo and Ji Yeon, how things played out in both romances, So Hee and her mom dealing with their grief (I have some problems with her mom's choices, but those are not writing complaints), there was just a lot of really good character exploration and development in the second half, and I loved all of it. It was also really, really great to see what these girls were like as kids, their upbringings, and then later as college students and how their friendship began. It gave us a lot of insight into who each of them is.

I wasn't a big fan of everything in the finale, but it was still better than the yoga sibling's plotline and having to spend so much damn time in the mountains, so I'm choosing to overlook it. What I can't overlook though is the incohesiveness of this season. There were some really great moments, some strong character development, some really good romance. There were also some bad writing choices, serious pacing issues, and some really weird and out-of-place gag humor (Ji Yeon loves farting now?). I'm not sure if I would watch a season 3 of this show. I won't say I wouldn't, but I think I definitely need some time in-between this season and another one. Maybe by next winter I'll be ready.

I have to end this review with one question though. Am I the only person wanting to know why they never addressed the final scene of season 1? Or did they address it, and I just missed it?