From chilly blue winter to warm blue spring skies

The series basically feels like what it would like to watch only the parts focused on the main couple without any of the subplots of a usual full length show or like back in the day when gay characters did not have their own series. I love that Jae Min and Nam Yi started off so direct with each other, but in verbalizing how they feel and expressing it physically as well. They establish that Nam Yi probably does love Jae Min a bit more and has experience dating other people albeit not seriously. Jae Min doesn't mention dating anyone before and now that he has that happy relationship glow is attracting other people too like Tae Ha, who really used his pretty privilege to get away with sniffing someone without the cops being called on him. Jae Min was lonely and he's very tempted by probably the attractive and second ever guy to confess to him, but he did immediately tell Tae Ha he's already dating someone once Tae Ha kissed him. I'm glad that Nam Yi expressed fully how hurtful that Jae Min didn't just tell him the truth of what happened instead of him having to stumble upon this. I hope this lesson is settled for both of them and Nam Yi doesn't have to feel insecure every time Jae Min puts on a cute outfit and will be working around other guys because it's really just Jae Min in regular clothes, the cuteness is just how he is lol.

The Soo Ri subplot of her manipulating Jae Min by threatening to spread rumors outing him to every company she has connections to was already evil, but then her recounting it to Nam Yi who rebuffs her love confession like it's something to be proud of is extra evil. This also brings up the economic divide between Jae Min and Nam Yi that I don't feel like got much exploration. When they reunited that first night since high school, Jae Min hadn't had money to pay the gas for two months. It looks like Nam Yi semi-moved in, did he help pay the bills? Even after Jae Min goes to see Nam Yi's nicer place the night they broke up and later made up, they still are just staying at Jae Min's place. Soo Ri also points out the fact that it's harder for Jae Min to find a job than Nam Yi with the outing. The missing part that the short run time can't cover is Jae Min finally successfully landing a job that he likes. Despite that, overall it's still a interesting portrait of a new relationship going through the growing pains to become stronger. The main couple is lovely and I hope even Tae Ha will figure his messy self out, that he shouldn't just go around kissing people who are already dating someone else just because they look lonely and smell amazing.

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Killer economics

There are many kdramas that try to be cool and gritty with often cringy results, but A Shop for Killers is the rare one that has done it. The standout of the show is Lee Dong Wook as the stoic but softie at heart Jung Jin Man. We learn who he is alongside his clueless but quick thinking niece Jung Ji Ahn, picking up new information while trying to survive the hordes of professional mercenaries. I like that 7 year old Jung Ji Ahn wasn't a sitting duck and had excellent assassin-dar, learning from her mistake of walking towards the strange man that broke into her house. As soon as she went to hide in the morgue, I just knew she was going to have to go through the additional trauma of hiding with one of her murdered parent's corpse.

Jin Man's morality is firmly in the grey and it's so fascinating to see how the show can keep navigating it. He's not okay with murdering civilians, particularly the murder of sex trafficking victims that his mercenary cohorts either perpetuated or enabled, but his market is definitely sells weapons to terrible people. It's so ridiculous of Babylon to go after him who just wants to quietly be with his family, instead of Bale who is a trigger happy psycho who goes off mission to commit atrocities that gets the local government's attention. Jin Man saves Min Hye who the only trafficking victim that survived and becomes part of his inner circle, but she has never met Ji Ahn and needed to scan her green code to even be sure who she is. Both ladies are trained by Pasin, another former mercenary, who turns talent into sharpened skill. Ji Ahn has been calling her unnie, but it should really be sunbae.

I cheered so hard when it's revealed at the end that Jung Jin Man faked his death, because of course he did! Towards the end, it just felt like a waste Jin Man was dead, but the show didn't let that happen, good for them. Although the season was enjoyable, the conclusion or any continuation without him felt less satisfying without him because he was the heart of the show. All the best parts revolve around Jung Jin Man, either it's his relationship with his niece, protecting her and giving her as regular a childhood as possible in their situation while training her on the sly without her even knowing she's learning integral survival knowledge or the glimpses of his friendships and business partners. I hope if there is a season 2, we could see more of his business acumen because he set up a very intricate black market shopping mall for professional killers. I want to see how he set up his business and how he runs it. I could see how the drama could show us through him finally properly training Ji Ahn to be the successor to the bloody family business.

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Dare to love, missed the transitions, but mostly gets there

The show does eventually have a cute romance between the lead couple Hong Do and Yoon Bok at the end of the tunnel, but it's jarringly dropped in out of nowhere like it had been setting it up all along when it hasn't been at all. Throughout the entire beginning it's always been just Hong Do being the only one interpreting his every action to be romantically driven towards her in an over the top way, whereas it's not shown from his point of view during the period when he's clearly dealing with a lot of trauma regarding his abandonment issues from his mother and sister leaving him. She herself is later revealed to have also been abandoned by her father yet doesn't empathize or connect with him about this issue. On the other hand he never showed any short of romantic attraction to her, but rather looking for familial comfort in a trusted mentor. There was one moment that could be argued and it's so vague it needs to be, and it's when she returns to him with a drink for him when he has given up the idea of her coming back. There is nothing on his face and demeanor that specifically indicates burgeoning romance though. If the actor cannot express it, then the director needed to do something about it.

This show has many lack of transitions for many different character plots starting with the main couple. Although it's literally like a flip of a switch once he quits his life as an successor to Seongsan village, it so nice when he finally turns on the romance mode because it means Hong Do as a character can ironically stop obsessing over him for once and actually start her career proper as a designer because she hardly did any designing. It was always weird that she didn't have a sense of style either despite being a designer and even later she just wore clothes from her Camille company closet. Meanwhile Yoon Bok is always nicely dressed though it seemed like the first time in normal clothes is when Hong Hak dressed him for the club, he suddenly has a tasteful closet. Their dates and life as a couple is really sweet. It took way too long to get here. The end where she makes a unilateral decision for them to choose one place or another and to break up is so ridiculous though. There is such a thing as long distance relationship and even Seongsan Village has wifi reception. Even when he shows up in Paris to see her after her successful debut, it doesn't feel very complete.

Yoon Bok's sister Yi Bok makes a awful rookie mistake like talking extremely loudly on the phone without even being aware of the people walking around her at the very place she's undercover and tailing suspects even though it looks like she's already been a detective for a long while. She just as quickly quits her job too and doesn't seem to take up any role related to it when she returns to the Seongsan village, she suddenly takes up the chief position so her brother can go to Paris for the finale. What's her dream job? Leadership skills? But she never showed any even while she was a detective. It's also a big deal her grandfather is now switching to training a woman as a leader of the village when the entire ruling class has been old men like himself, but that's all skipped over. The Hyang Gi character makes the most random turn. She was crappy co-worker happy to date a two timing guy and steal designs, but she suddenly she's an advice barista with her own business that has nothing to do with fashion even though she's a designer. It's like two entirely different characters just to keep the actress on the show. The cultural heritage administration director Bum Gyo is the ultimate random bad guy just to have a bad guy to not commit to completely vilifying the one guy (Jun Ho) that had a point to be mad's sake. He has no personality other than wanting money. The show didn't bother to give him any meaty motive and it's so dissatisfying.

Although she is a lead character, Hong Do is the third most done wrong character. The show would give her a moment like she's standing up for herself but always undercuts it with her getting steamrolled every single time. She NEVER gets to properly take agency to save herself while she is constantly damseled throughout the entire show. The second most wronged character is Jun Ho, the former child servant of Yoon Bok's family. The idea of Seongsan village presents an immediate problem that the show glosses over that Jun Ho represents. It can be one thing to preserve the culture for the people who are lords and ladies, but there are also the servant class and children who can be treated brutally like in the feudal era. Can human rights violation be consented to? Jun Ho is such a wasted character and he deserved to be part of the imitation and execution for change. The number one character that was the most done wrong is Hye Won, Yoon Bok's mother. She is a victim of the old school views of the grandfather and a bit of her tragic could have been majorly alleviated by her daughter Yi Bok, a whole detective actually telling Yoon Bok the whole truth sooner. Her mom was already in hospice in the last days and she couldn't have at least cleared the air on her behalf to her brother BEFORE she's dead? She's literally dying and not going to benefit from the deal with the grandfather anytime soon. Yoon Bok's misplaced anger while she dies is the result which is double trauma for her little brother too.

Some odds and ends, Camille is an independent queen who is always dressed to kill. It's a bummer we never see Frankie's lover. The two older couples of Camille and the grandfather and Chil Bok and Joo Daek are cute. Yoon Ah and Hong Hak got surprisingly saucy with their one night stand. All of these couples create interesting familial interconnections but the show NEVER capitalizes on it, instead using up half the show on endless chase scenes to catch Jun Ho. There's so much potential heart and humor just left on the floor. Even Joo Daek as Yoon Bok's mother figure wasn't played up enough. Chil Bok's immense financial losses also caused Hong Do and Hong Hak to be homeless as well, how did they survive that? There are missed opportunities and holes in the narrative everywhere and very slow to get into the meat of the story, but the romance when it happens is lovely and mature until it's messed up at the end.

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Psychological warfare game

It's interesting that the drama posits Soo Ji who is middleclass be the one that successfully fights back against the heiress bully Ha Rin. Ha Rin hand selected her to be in her class because of her background, mistaking her for easy to control. Soo Ji's sole familial connection actually doesn't have any thing that can be used against her aside from some easily disproven rumors. Soo Ji is financially stable, has good grades, and her largely absent military father has pushed her to be the utmost versatile independent problem solver for everything other than physical self defense. I don't think this guy will ever understand how neglectful he's been even after seeing what kind of bully she's actually been dealing with all on her own. I really like that Soo Ji is no saint, she just wants to stay in the middle, strategically forming surface level friendships until she can safely move onto whichever new school in the city her dad moves them to next. Even facing the violence that she'll be complicit in enabling in the pyramid game, she just wants to stay in the middle as well, but her conscience is challenged by Ja Eun, and finally uses her brain power for the greater good.

Soo Ji's cleverness and Ha Rin's cunning is a great match throughout the show. Everyone is involved in the plot in an interesting way and I like how there are moments where it shows the light of true friendship in between all the darkness that envelops the class because of the pyramid game. I quite enjoyed the paintball scene where they broke the prisoner game by turning the paintball shots on themselves, but it's not quite realistic that they were shooting each other for fun. Those paint pellets really hurt, especially at such close distance. One of them is for real all kinds of freaky though lol. I like how Woo Ri has her own storyline that goes beyond just being the first victim, but she gets to be a hero too. She tracked Ye Lim's stalking behavior albeit when she was doing her own borderline stalking behavior and broke through her agoraphobia to save her former classmate and later spoke out publicly about the pyramid game. Her brother is nice, supporting his sister and also Soo Ji and the other students as one of the rare adults who care.

Some weak parts of the show is definitely how conveniently Ja Eun gets interrupted every single time she's about to tell Soo Ji what happened between her and Ha Rin that makes her hate her so much. It's so inorganic and obvious of the show to stretch out that plot point. That's very sloppy writing indeed. It turned out that it wasn't even the only reason, so they still had something to reveal at the end. Instead it always looked like Soo Ji is missing some crucial information whenever she formulated her plans. There was no need for the principle to be so cartoony when no one else acts like that. Ha Rin's final play to make Ja Eun watch her die was pretty weak, as is her comeuppance having her adoption dissolved. Da Yun continuing to be abused by her dad who gets to comeuppances like that is the punishment she deserves for being abusive to others. Perhaps that is part of the story where the ones at the very top continue to have their way and new ones like the rich twins that move into the class arrive to replace the top of the pyramid. Soo Ji is ready to take them down though.

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The season of terrible writing/acting for one of the two leads

The show is dragged out way too long at 16 episodes, especially with all the interesting plot points that are wasted and goes nowhere and terrible ones that go on for ever. Kim Jung Hyun is doing a herculean job trying his best to act his way through this atrocious writing for Kokdu the character who has grown petty whims and tantrums during his long supernatural punishment after losing his memory or original personality to time. The worst part of his character is still anything to do with the forced romance between him and Gye Joel, both before and after they fall for each other. There's no spark between these two characters, it's just double the annoying scenes. There is no proper communication for most of the series either, with important information force revealed to one or both of them. His curse/promise to do literally anything she asks being used for comedic effect falls extremely flat to say the least and it cuts short the fascinating aspect of the other curse from the deity for him to hear the cries of victims to kill a specific person. He's shown to kill the scum of the earth that evade legal persecution, but he's also shown to hear the calls for the death of someone that's just based on made up hearsay by Gye Joel who he may more may not have killed if it wasn't the body he was currently occupying. He really is a serial killer with voices in his head telling him to kill and the plot where Gye Jeol's brother detective Han Chul tracks him down is way more interesting than romance storyline. There's also the storyline point where Kokdu's power was on the fritz and suddenly that's forgotten about and it was just fine. The part where he found the reincarnation of his younger brother who turns out to be ex-boyfriend Yi Deun who brutally dumped Gye Jeol albeit with a reason, was more exciting than anything with her. I wanted to see their new brotherly relationship explored more. More of Kokdu's original personality is scene in from the past with their reunion. It was actually sad seeing Kokdu's pain at being unable to protect Yi Deun from getting shanked whereas there is no feeling or stakes with anything between Kokdu and Gye Jeol. Unlike her Kokdu actually has his sentient moments and sees through people and makes interesting plans. It was clever of him to use his own end time in the mortal realm to set up his enemy as a murderer. Again it was a frustratingly dumb moment to see Gye Jeol just crying instead of using any of her ER doctor skills to even attempt to help him. She suddenly just wants to kill the guy like she's possessed by her past life instead of sticking to her morals about not killing.

Do Jin Woo's character feels like a wasted opportunity. He was trying to expose corruption and the killing of his birth mom before he was surreptitiously murdered and his corpse possessed by a supernatural entity. He's really sharp and immediately figured out the supernatural situation he's in and wants to live. Exploring the dichotomy between doing what's right and playing it safe to live longer while going against both the earthly forces pursuing him as well as Kokdu could have been interesting, but the show dropped it like a hot potato. It's such a relief to see his level headedness shut down and not enable Gye Jeol's ridiculously childish behavior. It would have been fascinating to see his story play out, but instead he just dies again at the end of his 49 days after death.

The biggest weak point is both the writing and acting for the female lead character Gye Joel who pretty unsufferable the entire time. There was a moment of hope when she stood up for herself to block one hit from an unreasonable patient, the first and last point I wanted to root for her, but then it's just a series of her being a clumsy, man obsessed, childish, whiny, immature overreactions to everything, literally tripping over her own feet charicature. She literally trips down the stairs multiple times. The worst part is the drama points this out as a point of pride, she's intentionally made this way because they think it's cute. It's not. The worst is that she can never advocate for herself or for her patients. There is no point to her as a doctor characer. She does use her status as a doctor to threaten her brother to sabotage the witness's testimony if he ever brings witness who saw her boyfriend murder someone to trial. She's always the fool. Again the drama does it on purpose like they are doing something great. The acting doesn't do anything to elevate this kind of grating character. She's comparatively fine as Seol Hui who for the most part is allowed to act like a human being, actively taking agency for herself her entire life , but as the reincarnation of the character she drags down the story every time she appears and she half of the lead pairing. She's a pretty awful doctor too, not questioning how Do Jin Woo who is severely injured by falling off a whole highrise onto a car is just fine with some amnesia, taking advantage of an amnesiac to lie for her in a hearing, telling people she's his accomplished doctor boyfriend, the extremely irresponsible way she treats Do Jin Woo even though she thought Kokdu personality was a result of a disorder, etc. She doesn't notice all the weird powers he has, even when it's shown to her face while she believes things she has no proof for. She doesn't figure it out for TWELVE out of the 16 episodes when he literally had to teleport her and heal in front of her face. She some how managed to become a doctor, but her brother detective Han Chul got the brains of the family even though he supposedly has double digit IQ. Her forcing him to not take bigger cases is pretty selfish too, it's his job to investigate. Ahn Woo Yeon as Han Chul carries all the sibling scenes they have together and Han Chul can be professional at his job, but she can't handle it. Gye Jeol's must be in the negatives. His romance storyline is leagues better and more mature than hers as well, the difference better acting and strangely better writing as well. The writing lampshades her terrible traits, but that's not the same as breaking through them.

The costuming is also very garish for all the characters from lead to supporting. They literally give Han Chul a leather jacket with spikes during the scene he first meets Kokdu as his sister's boyfriend. It would be fine if it looked cool, how did they manage to find the worst cheap looking one. There are so many lower budget productions that do better in dressing the characters both for the story and just aesthetic wise. All of the jewlery looks so fake like toys except for the bog laurel ring and hair stick. The pink jeweled tiara and the matching necklace are the worst after the big ruby ring. It makes no sense because Ok Shin chaebol underling is filthy rich and could afford real jewels for her.

There is one thing the series surprisingly does right and that's actually planting the seeds for a plausible reason for the disappeared forever character to reappear again. Kokdu had his contract with Gye Jeol and also the prayers from her kokdu cult of patients that she makes pray for him in lieu of payment. Kokdu remains a entity with his underworld job and Gye Jeol continues her cycle of death and rebirth without the tragic death in this timeline like she has in every life. They just dropped that nugget last second without having established that info anytime in the 16 episodes. It's also a bummer there's no final reunion between Yi Deun who survived the stabbings but no line about whether he's in remission or not which he hopefully is after five years.

If you skipped to the end here, just skip this whole drama. There's better ones out there.

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Ms. Park and her husbands

Yeon Woo's opening section in Joseon is pretty fun with her being a woman that is too far ahead of her time, using her training in embroidery to sell avant garde hanbok designs and supporting fellow women artists. Her connection with the doomed Joseon Tae Ha is sweet as well, it was really sad to see him pass so soon. Her confusion being in modern times was only amusing up until after the point she meets reincarnated Tae Ha's nephew and learns the joys of a convivence store. After that it was pretty grating even though it would be realistic to need time to adjust, the schtick was just old. It was great to see Sa Wol take to the modern world like fish in water. She turned out to be even more of a woman ahead of her time than her agashi. Their sisterhood is really sweet as well.

I like how even though Yeon Woo is surrounded by dopplegangers with similar goals as those in Joseon, they're nuanced and different than those past versions of themselves like Hye Sook the step mother. I feel like the role of Tae Min could have been a very interesting wild card red herring had he been played by a stronger actor. It's a wasted opportunity that the writing didn't put some effort into fostering a brotherly bond between Tae Ha and Tae Min because the latter was on his brother's side, looking up to him the whole time.

While I do like that the drama portrays the two reincarnations are two entirely different people when other dramas stick the surviving lead with a reincarnation like it's the same person, it's also so sad that Yeon Woo kept Joseon Tae Ha at arms length after she manages to tip him off with enough of a head start that he survives their wedding night. It would have been lovely if she would have opened her heart to him too, just loving him as his own person different than reincarnated Tae Ha. He didn't have that long to live anyways with the medical abilities of the era no way being able to treat his lifelong heart issues. It's also weird that reincarnated Tae Ha's lifelong heart issue magically disappears and isn't an issue anymore.

Tae Ha's grandfather being the manipulative villain all along was nicely done, it seems to be a new trope having a seemingly loving parental figure who wants their child figure to be married to have been the one who is responsible for the death of the character's original parents. His ending of being just a happy guy all the time due to his head injury is anticlimactic though.

I really like how Yeon Woo and Tae Ha actually have a good physical intimacy, lots of kisses and they even have sex. I was half wondering if she'll be pregnant after going back to Joseon, passing off the kid as Joseon Tae Ha's, but they never went there, which is good. She and reincarnated Tae Ha used protection well.

The ending was okay, a vague connection of her jumping off a cliff and ending up in the modern day, although it looks like she just materialized by the tree all dry this time. Slightly better than just appearing again like a lot of other supernatural dramas where one character magically reappears with no explanation. They get officially married, but it's weirdly without any of their family like Sa Wol or Tae Min. It would have been a nice reversal from the fake one that only had his evil grandfather in attendance.

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Supernatural but not mind bending

The main pair are an okay match, though the show tried too hard at the beginning to push the romance with some cliche cringy scenes like they suddenly starring at each other for no reason, which was totally unnecessary because they already had all the scenes needed for the Yeong Min and Ji Hyeon to organically realize their feelings with her classmate ghost's unresolved wish to spend time with her since she's his first love. Ji Hyeon being able to change outfits is a fun. The show really had a missed opportunity not using this ability for Yeong Min to get some gifts for his ghost mom when they finally get to spend some time together before she moves on.

I really didn't like how the show played up Yeong Min being molested by which ever spirits that randomly possesses the shaman for laughs. And they also didn't make it clear why the shaman invited Yeong Min to the haunted building the taxi drivers hired him to to solve even when Yeong Min asked him directly. I did like how he was finally directly useful in helping Yeong Min find out where his mom's spirit went.

They left the plot of Yeong Min needed to pay off a certain amount within a month in order for his house to not be put on sale. They could have just had a quick scene showing the gold he got as payment from the ghosts was enough to pay that off, but it's like they forgot about it even though it was an important set up that got him accepting that he can see ghosts fast. It's a distracting thing that his money issues that affect both him and his grandmother were never explicitly resolved still lingers when he doesn't do much work in order to date a dead girl.

Every kdrama with a ghost romance always ends up with the ghost being someone alive in a coma so it was not surprising at all and feels kind of like a cop out for less emotional complexity especially since it was revealed really early on. It's also a weird thing that I've seen in other kdramas too where if the girlfriend is older than the guy, they refuse to call her noona whereas when the it's the other way around, it's oppa for life.

Neither of the main characters, one of whom is an aspiring police officer and one who is already a police detective albeit supernaturally amnesic though retains her police training in all the other instances are particularly detailed in their planning in how the catch their cunning serial killer doctor Kyu Jin. The show is lazily keeping them exactly one step behind the serial killer in logic like how in the first two times they confront him, he gets away scott free even after directly trying to murder Yeong Min because they didn't do any sort of recording. Kyu Jin even gets his hand on Ji Hyeon's phone because Yeong Min is so careless with it. He learned nothing when he almost lost the phone to the goons a high schooler called to beat him up.

Yeong Min's friendship with the taxi drivers is nice, but I don't feel like they spend enough time together to really strengthen the emotional ties. Kyu Jin and Hee Yeon as well, there could have been a bit more of a connection other than murdering together to flesh out their twisted sibling bond. The serial killer set up with an emergency doctor who enjoys seeing the family of the victims think of him as a hero after he murders their loved ones is well set up though. Ji Hyeon's police veteran dad believed Yeong Min way too easily that Ji Heyon's spirit has been hanging out with Yeong Min no matter how helpful he has been to catching Kyu Jin. They could have spared a scene for that.

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Could be more subversive, but still interesting

Kang Na Eon is such a refreshing female lead character that got to be diabolically cool, smart, and cunning. She even has the smooth, swoony kdrama moves down like when she caught the male lead as he fell. Both leads have excellent chemistry too, starting with the moment So Eun Ho desperately dresses up in his literal funeral best and initiates some passionate kissing that she reciprocates. It was lamentable that she had to switch bodies so soon, but it was also cool to see how immediately went about acclimating and investigating the attempt on her life while in Eun Ho's body. She had a lot of cool moments while in his body, so I looked forward to her switching back because I really want to see a female character get to be a commanding presence, but the drama definitely favored her having intense and commanding moments while in a male form more alas.

The costuming for her started with her in the most garish colors like poisonous animals have, but she totally owned every outfit. I like that she took a liking to wearing suits after spending time wearing them in Eun Ho's body, but it's a bummer it's mostly over sized looks rather than bepsoke ones that would fit her to perfection. That would have been amazing. I really liked the reveal that Eun Ho was playing dumb and had a hole revenge plan against her too, blaming her for stealing his idea and the death of his girlfriend. The twist that Na Eon tried to fix the situation and apologize for it was interesting, the hint that she had a heart deep inside.

I found the body swap pretty easy to follow, there were even times where I felt like the show was over explaining who was in who's body. There seems to be two ghostly presences legitimately haunting Na Eon since it's not psychosomatic and Eun Ho experienced it too and later follows Na Eon to Eun Ho's body, one being the ghostly hands and the other being the body swap ghost girlfriend Da Eun. It's never explained but there was a bunch of people that rushed in to help the Da Eun before there was an explosion, so I wonder if they also died and are the hands. There should have been more of an attempt to explain how the switches are triggered and why is it limited. It was pretty arbitrary through out the end.

On the gender side of things, I appreciated that they didn't add stereotypically gendered movements to the characters when they've switched, it's more personality traits like Na Eon's aloofness and Eun Ho's over the top reactions which were an act on top of an act. On the other hand the portrayal of the only gay character Lex was suspect. It's totally fine he's effeminate and a fashionable drag queen, but the show had him be overly touchy to other male characters and the other male characters refer to him in gay panic moments. That's very unfortunate. The show seems to be making effort to destigmatize gay culture along with feminine hygiene, contraceptives, and sex toys, but still baby steps for productions that aren't lgbt specific.

The ending with almost all the antagonists redeemed except for the lone female executive was lacking. There wasn't enough from Yoo Mi or Nam Byul for them to be redeemed. Also Jung Woo would go as far as being so physically violent and attempted to murder Na Eon, erasing the evidence, and left her for dead is all forgiven because Hee Jung told him to is extremely nonsensical. That man committed a huge crime and she shouldn't be on friendly terms with him at all, at least not with how things turn out. Yoo Mi went off the deep end hating Na Eon's guts too and there should have been seeded more scenes of her caring enough about Na Eon for their return to friendship to mean anything. Otherwise her not wanting to murder Eun Ho is good enough for them to have some sort of begrudging understanding. Nam Byul was literally a character on the side plotting against Na Eon the whole time with no emotional connection to anything.

Though the drama would have been better if there was a bit more grit and angst in a bit of a darker tone, it was still an interesting take on the body swap genre.

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Doppelganger madness

I have indeed seen the original drama, but it's been enough years that I can also watch this drama with fresh eyes and for it's own merit and flaws. The story feels like it takes way too long to get going to the interesting parts with multiple episodes of emotional scenes for a characters and a couple we don't know yet. It's a relief when finally Jun Hee wakes up in 1998 and it's interesting that she has some of the host body's memories, enough that she is confused about who she really is. Like most magical reality premises, the magical item/ability origins is not explained, but the drama kept consistent with doppelgangers of a specific 7 year age difference regardless of being related or not interacting with the walkman and song on the tape.

Si Heon's hair is a bit distracting, but it looks like Ahn Hyo Seop's hair may be contractually obligated to be styled like that since 2020 after looking through stills of the dramas he's been in since that time period. Jun Hee and Min Ju feel like completely different people, which is kudos to the actor. She changes up the chemistry with Si Heon according to the character she's playing, which is great to see. I do think it's a bit weird that Jun Hee acts different when she is in Min Ju's body versus when she's herself both in college and in 2023. She's way more playful teenager, but her mind is still her adult self. It's a minor thing though that can be easily looked past for the story being told.

The biggest heart wrenching tragedy is original Yeon Jun's untimely death when he and his almost boyfriend Tae Ha finally recognized the feelings they have for each other, but didn't look at the road ending with a complete and total kill your gays moment. They deserved a second chance, I wish the show made some effort to change their ending rather than just using them for a shock twist. A gay man's body being used to change the fate for a straight couple instead is extra cruel. He wasn't even out to his family, nobody even knew how out of character he's being. Real Yeon Jun deserves better.

The way that it was unavoidable that Jun Hee would accidentally divulge all the important information to the absolute worst person to tell since it's a family friend from college was well set up, as was Jun Hee saying all the wrong things to a suicidal high school student that no one paid proper attention too, not even Jun Hee even though she was literally in her shoes for a long time. It's good the show spent time to explore Min Ju's perspective as well, how crushing it is to hear from everyone tell her to her face that they didn't like the real her, how her desperation would drive her to lie to Si Heon and welcome her demise at the hands of a serial killer. It's good that Jun Hee is able to use her free will to break the time travel cycle which saves Si Heon. Whether Chan Hee would kill again isn't shown, but there is enough in the story to indicate that maybe his elder brother would be enough of an influence for him to suppress that side of him without his future self going back to encourage it.

I'm really glad that the drama concludes with Si Heon meeting Jun Hee again in 2011, when she's also a full grown adult rather than a minor. It was totally stingy of them to not set aside time to show a bit more of their new world together though.

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Sweet at the core though a jumbled exterior

This is one of the first dramas I've seen where I think the story felt undercut by the time travel conceit at the point that it happens or that it happens at all. There is so much powerful societal topics from the opening set up of the drama with Eun Gyeol family facing discrimination because of their disability, them being impoverished, Eun Gyeol's pressure to be the perfect from his family and himself, always having to be their voice, to be the pride his father can show off, his relationship with his older brother Eun Ho, Eun Ho as an athlete with an disability who is living a very eventful life outside of that as well, Eun Gyeol's love for music, his street smarts and book smarts, his parents tenacity to embrace the joy in their lives, etc. It's more like the beginning for a whole different show. Eun Gyeol's ability to be shrewd with people's intentions to protect his family as a child isn't used as consistently once he's a teenager, instead mostly relying on his academic ability and guitar playing.

While Eun Gyeol does learn about his parent's hardships with the time travel, it does not pay off the characters at the set up. It just ends with basically an alternate universe where his family is rich and famous that Eun Gyeol doesn't even get to experience for himself through new memories and how it has affected the dynamic between him and his family. I think it would have been more fascinating if Eun Gyeol could travel back and forth between the two timelines, learning information from the past that he could not or not completely change, but could improve his relationship with his family in the present instead. There was not enough time in the new present once Eun Gyeol arrived to at least emotionally reconcile with the most important relationship to the entire series, which is Eun Gyeol and his father. It's weird that no one from the Watermelon band can remember his name either, since Yi Chan and Chung Ha give the exact name to their kid. Did they not name him after their friend?

Eun Yu's plan to have her mother Se Kyung to get with a first love so she would never be born never made any sense from the start because she not possessing her mom's mind, she's in an entirely different body. Even if she got the first love to fall in love with her, her mom is on an entirely different continent. The show never played it like she misunderstood this, so it's doubly bewildering. Her romance with Eun Gyeol was also really tacked on and her own journey as a character was really pushed to the side. Her relationship with her mother was really traumatic to the point one of the first things she did when she went back in time was to set up a noose in her mother's childhood bedroom where she was going to commit suicide. Did she have love for music on her own? Is photography her true passion? Her own grandfather is the powerful ghost that gained godly powers in death that organized this trip for her, but she's basically there to support his star pupil.

Having neither Eun Gyeol or Eun Yu figure out that they are both time travelers until the end also made it pointless to have two time travelers as helpers to each other. Their opposing goals may have been an intriguing premise on paper, but the execution made it redundant. It would have been more interesting if Se Kyung really was the person that Eun Gyeol was interacting with all along. She has a real bond with Chung Ha, really uninterested with Yi Chan, and was actually in love with her future doctor husband with the golden pipes. This could have been an amazing friendship and partnership that could have interesting ramifications for the future they create rather than yet another bland forced romance with no chemistry. Yi Chan's obstinance in winning over Se Gyung also went into uncomfortable territory with him only outwardly choosing Chung Ha when Se Gyeong ditches the performances. Chung Ha deserves so much better than that, but at least when the show finally gets to them, they are a truly sweet couple

I love it so much that everyone around Chung Ha makes an effort to communicate with her, either through writing or learning sign language for her. Yi Chan who has trouble focusing on school subjects got very conversationally fluent, very fast, and it helps that they were also both learning at around the same time. The way that her internal life is shown by her thoughts and drawings is very nice as well. Her abuse at the hands of the step mom was horrific with her father who had enabled this was also really rushed. He honestly didn't react apologetically enough finding out what he had allowed to happen to her once he understood the scope of it. 12 years of it, my heart broke so much for her when Eun Gyeol finally found her, when someone finally cared enough to find her. This is yet another of a long list of issues of the show bringing up really intense topics, but not addressing them fully. Her future kid looks exactly like her mother who is taken away for unknown reasons also never explained by the show.

It was really interesting to watch this drama and High Cookie coincidentally back to back, both starring Choi Hyun Wook in the main roles but with very different personality types. I'm very curious to see his next role after this one. His Yi Chan is very effervescent, energetic, and tenacious, truly the heart of the show, living out his goal of shining in his youth as much as he can to the max, while being kind to the elderly and kids. His time traveling son giving him the sense of fatherly love he was missing was so touching because he's the one that modeled that kind of love for his son. Their friendship and reciprocal love for each other is really sweet, though I'm not sure how to feel about the gay jokes the show makes. It makes sense for Eun Gyeol's intensity towards Yi Chan to be taken as a crush and the show doesn't seem to have anyone disgusted by it. Walking a very fine line. The ultimate car related accident is handled better than most kdramas, instead of the character randomly running into traffic, which the show actually has them do multiple times as red herrings, it's actually attempted murder, and Yi Chan saves his bestie/son.

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A gentle journey of humanity and freewill

A lot of care and effort was put into the writing to craft the characters and their interpersonal dynamics and it pays off nicely. I really enjoy how Woo Yeo isn't a cold, arrogant, and aloof creature taking out his angst on others, but a polite guy who is willing to communicate as he learns what it means to be human beyond mimicking the cultural customs of the current times, and how Lee Dam is a realistic, messy in a good way young woman who is direct, fun, kind, and never a doormat. It was so fascinating that the story started with their meeting and they had a pleasant platonic connection, but then Woo Yeo changed that in an instant when he went into romantic lead mode and he changed the chemistry between the two. I really like how the show continually develops their relationship with their interactions and understandings about each other, really building things up to lead to an organic romance. They actually get spicy too, which good for them.

It's nice there is no grand makeover, but Lee Dam's clothing style subtly gets more sophisticated while still her own comfort based fashion taste, changing from the influence of the perpetually smartly dressed Woo Yeo (other than the times he's in disguise) and with the colder season as well. The show utilizes the side characters well in a way that supports the main story or at least doesn't take too much time away. Lee Dam also has the chillest kdrama mom in the history of kdramas. A literal cool mom that works overseas, sends her daughter the latest fashions, and happy to see her daughter cohabitating with a hot, rich guy.

Sun Woo's relationship with his sister is pretty funny and his character gets to learn and change and it's pretty sad that he gets entrapped in the game of a supernatural diety while minding his own business really. It's great that both he and Lee Dam were able to mutually sever the red string of destiny through their own individual choices. The revelation of the D plot of Soo Kyung's hidden beef with Jung Seok was so funny. He didn't intend to mistake her as the professor and hand out prints of her love letter of her then crush to the whole class, but I get why her grudge would last three years. All of the friendships and sibling relationships are very well done. Woo Yeo and Hye Sun have been there for each other so long they are basically bickering siblings.

While most of the story has been pretty well crafted, it's eye rolling that the writers went to the ultimate cliche of having Lee Dam run into traffic to have Woo Yeo sacrifice himself for her. And no one checks on the poor truck driver who must have hit their head and passed out because they never left the truck despite stopping. Aside from that the ending takes it's time to tie up the multiple storylines it set up and it's well earned because they never took away too much time from the main couple and yet were able to blossom on their own in conjunction with the main plot. That is the drama's strength, making this interconnected world that built up Lee Dam and even Woo Yeo's life and actually having everyone communicating to address the choices and consequences of decisions.

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No sugarcoating, just pure grey

It's great to see a drama that understands the focus of what makes a fascinating drama is the characters and it's a real shame that there is no proper subtitles yet as of this writing for this twisty thriller that's a meditation on the desperation to do whatever it takes to survive and to claw a sense of relief from poverty/abuse/neglect/illness/etc that is being faced. It's kudos to the writing and performances that the main characters can illicit both sympathy and disgust for their selfish yet understandable actions through the lens of their individual needs.

I felt so bad for Ho Su who felt cared for by the person who wanted to kill him and betrayed him when she saved him, that little bit of kindness, even knowing it was self serving to save her sister, was such an ocean to him that he entrusted his most precious information, his mother's location to him and she tragically caused her death. He himself has caused so many deaths with his drug cookies, but his folly of humanity, of wanting love, connection, and trust was pitiable.

It was also so sad that Soo Young's wish is is what she's living by proxy with the facade she as Eun So, the senior year she never had, school, friends, dating, looking forward to university without the baggage of her broken family and needing to raise her sister while being barely older herself. Her photobooth scene with Jin Woo and neither of them knowing what to do was so funny. As Eun So, she showed that she is resourceful in using the connections of various cookie customers to get information and creatively get out of situations. It shows what potential she could have had.

There are no saints in this story, but everyone is a protagonist of their own. There is a high death count and the show is not afraid to make the characters to explore what lines they will cross to get their objectives and the fallout of the decisions. It's kind of funny Ho Su and Sung Pil kept coming back from assumed death. The end seems to set up for a possible continuation. I hope that this drama will get proper subtitles either from a kind translator or from a streaming service that will pick up the distribution for it.

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Mess outside the fence

Jung Woo who is the center of the story that's just thrust into the story with nothing to show who he is as a person. We never see the conviction he had that caused him to be exiled from the writing world. We only see the vitriol against him. We never saw any romance of Jung Woo and Jung Hyun as a couple from any point present or flashback of the three years they were together. The drama kickstarts with a fade to black almost kiss, TWO episodes in a row between them, which is such an awful decision on top of awful decisions because they should not have cast an actor to play a gay role with a kiss scene if they were against doing so. They should have hired someone that was professionally on board to play this role in the first place. We never see much of Jung Woo's personality outside of just being miserable until mid way in the series when he finally meets Tae Yong.

I like Tae Yong's enthusiasm and positive energy that he has especially for Jung Woo, but when I he said "I like you", there was zero romance energy to the point it looked so ambiguously platonic up until they do a dumb third almost kiss scene where they move in such slow motion, they are clearly waiting for someone to knock and interrupt them. This is more than half way through the series and it looks like that none of the actors were going to do a kiss scene until Tae Yong and Jung Woo finally make contact and they have a few more kisses including where they actually have a bed scene, going from -100 to 1000 in intimacy between the two. It's so jarring, it made me laugh lol. Kudos at the very least to these two actors for actually being professional. Aside from the physical parts, the two characters don't really act very in love in all the other scenes.

I enjoyed Yeong Seon's character, she has the guts to take the gamble and say what's on her mind. And I do appreciate the attempt to make a complicated antagonist that actually meant well but his one sided actions that disregarded the agency of the one he loves brought so much pain to the person he meant to protect and himself. Jung Woo chose to sign with Tae Yong, so that's nice he freely makes this decision for himself, but then the show just skips over the consequences and aftermath of his decision even though there was a whole big deal made about it. Just a time skip to sometime in the future when it's all good and all three of them work together. For a show about good writing, they never showed an example of it in world from the characters or much of it in real life with this show itself. What a mess.

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Almost home Sweet Home

Season 2 made the huge blunder that The Walking Dead did by splitting off a whole group of characters that miraculously have great chemistry together and added tons of new characters with much less interesting storylines instead of further developing the characters that had on going potential from season 1. When the season 2 characters and storylines were eliminated throughout season 3, it was a relief really. It's just that doing so took up all the screen time when they should have used at least left half the episodes to properly conclude the stories of the Sweet Home OGs.

It was absolutely fantastic to finally see Hyun Su, Eun Yu, Eun Hyeok back together. It's a such a bummer that the rest of the Sweet Home OGs like Yi Kyung and Jin Ok get killed off, especially the latter in the most unceremonious way. All of the OG crew were the heart of the show and deserved to get the screen time back together. I really enjoyed the storyline of Hyun Su's alternate personality. He's so funny getting a whole haircut and new outfit. Even though he wants to be intimidating and ruthless, he's weak for Eun Yu, because Cha Hyun Su at heart is.

It would have been amazing to also see the journey of neohuman Eun Hyeok finding his love for his precious sister again, his friendship with Hyun Su. Eun Yu's monsterization process and subsequent relearning of her feelings as well as neohuman, the community they build into the new Sweet Home, and Hyun Su and Eun Yu finally acknowledging their feelings for each other. Even Yi Kyung's kid's next form. There is so much left that it could have been a season 4. They didn't even have enough time for a proper montage and just had image stills instead and the three on the roof top. The show deserved at least two more episodes like the first season to explore a bit more before closing out.

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Confounding double standard of beauty standards

Fantasy is all about immersion and it pretty much immediately took me out when the pretty Park Bo Young is the face of the supposedly downgrade version of the soul make over for the physical body where as for the male lead there is a clear difference between regular person and an archetypal idol looking guy. From the story standpoint there needed to be way more flashbacks of Se Yeon's point of view about Cha Min throughout their teen years and their adulthood before their transformations to back up her claims that she has always had a crush on him and not just after he got a new face and body. The measly few that they gave were too ambiguous. They also needed to show Cha Min being the fantastic business leader while in his original body, even if it's just a brief flashback to start off or bookend the current day scenes of his new face at the business meeting. It leaves a bad taste that they never show Cha Min being savvy and smart when it came to his work as his original self even though he clearly was, only ever showing his desperate for Se Yeon's attention side for comic relief. His fear as he was about to die was literally played for laughs.

Who gets what kind of soul transformation through Abyss is really arbitrary, like taking an existing ex-worker's visage. As is the usage of it in the finale to turn Cha Min into a ghost and to bring him back are all done at the convenience of the writers to move the plot along as needed. The real Lee Mi Do's random and conveniently drastic plastic surgery was really nonsensical and the show made no attempt to explain it. I enjoyed seeing Seo In Guk and Jung So Min's cameos as the aliens that accidentally knocked a already falling Cha Min off the building and bribed him to forgive them with the Abyss resurrection sphere. Seo In Guk was in the preceding drama of the same writer and next stars with Park Bo Young in Doom At Your Service. The threat of Ji Wook and the ticking clock of the leads trying to outsmart him was believable. It was truly horrendous when he pushed Hee Jin's mom's body that was in the suit case into the ocean, a woman that genuinely cared for him and tried to protect him. He's a way more effective villain than his cartoony step dad/fellow serial killer.

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