Sanah_107
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12 episodes of cliff falls and regrets
I finished watching When the Phone Rings out of sheer stubbornness.
There is 12 episodes of this nonsense. It becomes an unintentional parody of every bad K-drama trope, taken to such ridiculous extremes that it feels like the writers were trolling their own audience.
The brooding male lead isn’t mysterious; he’s just exhausting. The female protagonist is passive and poorly written. The show is held together by implausible coincidences and a complete lack of credibility. People survive falls from cliffs and car accidents like they’re invincible, only to emerge unscathed and somehow still not learn a single thing.
Every time the story builds tension like it's preparing for grand explosion, it fizzles out before the characters finally confront the big issue. So, once there’s a big confrontation it’s ruined because we already know all the secrets—so it’s just people yelling things we’ve known for episodes.
The setup had potential—cryptic phone calls, mystery, suspense. At first, I thought, “Hey, this might go somewhere.” But then the female lead escapes a kidnapping and immediately steals a phone from her captors. Brilliant move. Phones can’t be tracked, right?
Meanwhile, the male lead’s “hidden love” is even worse. He treats his wife like trash for 3 years because he’s secretly in love with her but “didn’t want to get attached.” Yeah, that makes total sense. Also, I swear there is a slow motion walk in every episode. I don’t know if the editors decided that every single step he takes must be slowed down to showcase his “raw intensity", but the only thing it achieves is that it takes him forever to reach anywhere. Also, let’s pause to appreciate the British Embassy scene. The male lead walks in, and everyone stops to gush about how handsome he looks in a suit. Are you kidding me? He’s not on a runway, and no one in real life reacts like this. Anywhere. Ever.
And don’t get me started on his elite FBI/NYPD training. Is there some magical belief in K-dramas that taking a six-month seminar in the U.S. turns you into a super-genius? I don’t care how tragic his backstory is—unless he’s a CIA operative with a clearance level so high it’s classified even to him, there’s no chance he casually got FBI training as a non-citizen.
The good news is that this show pulls itself together in the end and makes you love it all.... I'm f***ing kidding. The final episode wraps this shit up in such a ridiculous way that you feel logic becoming a distant memory.
It starts with the male lead deciding that the best way to atone for something his father did is to leave his wife and wander into a war zone, as a self-punishment apparently. This happens right after he himself was devastated when she was missing. Naturally, she follows him to the war zone, declaring “I don’t care if I die waiting for him, or get shot in a war zone—it’s all the same to me.” She’s essentially equating heartbreak with surviving war horrors. But okay. You may wonder how does she find him? Well, apparently, he loves sunsets so she’ll go to a sunset spot (I'm not kidding). No mention of navigating logistics of a war-torn country or how she's planning to locate him among millions of people in a literal conflict zone. Then what happens? Even though she’s warned that place is overrun by rebels, she still goes. And then, yes, you guessed it, she gets kidnapped by rebels. Most likely to hammer home a damsel-in-distress scene, I think. And who swoops in for the perfectly timed rescue, may I add, coincidentally? Of course her husband single-handedly stops a car full of armed rebels and rescues her, freeing and then ignoring the other kidnapped people (literally leaving them behind in the dark forest) because they’re not important to the plot. Just when I thought this show couldn’t get any dumber, it outdoes itself in a spectacular fashion. Rebels are hunting them, but do they hide quietly? Of course not. They start yelling at each other in the middle of the forest. This is when male lead delivers personally my favorite line in the entire show: “I’m being punished because you’re standing in front of me, and all I want is to hug you, but I’m holding back.” FFS. You'll be fine. After all the yelling and self-pity they make up and go back home.
This show fails to deliver a cohesive and compelling narrative. It tries to be deep and meaningful but instead ends up being unintentionally hilarious. Watching it feels like the writers bet they could get away with every cliché, plot hole, and nonsensical twist in existence, and by some miracle, they did.
There is 12 episodes of this nonsense. It becomes an unintentional parody of every bad K-drama trope, taken to such ridiculous extremes that it feels like the writers were trolling their own audience.
The brooding male lead isn’t mysterious; he’s just exhausting. The female protagonist is passive and poorly written. The show is held together by implausible coincidences and a complete lack of credibility. People survive falls from cliffs and car accidents like they’re invincible, only to emerge unscathed and somehow still not learn a single thing.
Every time the story builds tension like it's preparing for grand explosion, it fizzles out before the characters finally confront the big issue. So, once there’s a big confrontation it’s ruined because we already know all the secrets—so it’s just people yelling things we’ve known for episodes.
The setup had potential—cryptic phone calls, mystery, suspense. At first, I thought, “Hey, this might go somewhere.” But then the female lead escapes a kidnapping and immediately steals a phone from her captors. Brilliant move. Phones can’t be tracked, right?
Meanwhile, the male lead’s “hidden love” is even worse. He treats his wife like trash for 3 years because he’s secretly in love with her but “didn’t want to get attached.” Yeah, that makes total sense. Also, I swear there is a slow motion walk in every episode. I don’t know if the editors decided that every single step he takes must be slowed down to showcase his “raw intensity", but the only thing it achieves is that it takes him forever to reach anywhere. Also, let’s pause to appreciate the British Embassy scene. The male lead walks in, and everyone stops to gush about how handsome he looks in a suit. Are you kidding me? He’s not on a runway, and no one in real life reacts like this. Anywhere. Ever.
And don’t get me started on his elite FBI/NYPD training. Is there some magical belief in K-dramas that taking a six-month seminar in the U.S. turns you into a super-genius? I don’t care how tragic his backstory is—unless he’s a CIA operative with a clearance level so high it’s classified even to him, there’s no chance he casually got FBI training as a non-citizen.
The good news is that this show pulls itself together in the end and makes you love it all.... I'm f***ing kidding. The final episode wraps this shit up in such a ridiculous way that you feel logic becoming a distant memory.
It starts with the male lead deciding that the best way to atone for something his father did is to leave his wife and wander into a war zone, as a self-punishment apparently. This happens right after he himself was devastated when she was missing. Naturally, she follows him to the war zone, declaring “I don’t care if I die waiting for him, or get shot in a war zone—it’s all the same to me.” She’s essentially equating heartbreak with surviving war horrors. But okay. You may wonder how does she find him? Well, apparently, he loves sunsets so she’ll go to a sunset spot (I'm not kidding). No mention of navigating logistics of a war-torn country or how she's planning to locate him among millions of people in a literal conflict zone. Then what happens? Even though she’s warned that place is overrun by rebels, she still goes. And then, yes, you guessed it, she gets kidnapped by rebels. Most likely to hammer home a damsel-in-distress scene, I think. And who swoops in for the perfectly timed rescue, may I add, coincidentally? Of course her husband single-handedly stops a car full of armed rebels and rescues her, freeing and then ignoring the other kidnapped people (literally leaving them behind in the dark forest) because they’re not important to the plot. Just when I thought this show couldn’t get any dumber, it outdoes itself in a spectacular fashion. Rebels are hunting them, but do they hide quietly? Of course not. They start yelling at each other in the middle of the forest. This is when male lead delivers personally my favorite line in the entire show: “I’m being punished because you’re standing in front of me, and all I want is to hug you, but I’m holding back.” FFS. You'll be fine. After all the yelling and self-pity they make up and go back home.
This show fails to deliver a cohesive and compelling narrative. It tries to be deep and meaningful but instead ends up being unintentionally hilarious. Watching it feels like the writers bet they could get away with every cliché, plot hole, and nonsensical twist in existence, and by some miracle, they did.
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