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cherish--these--times · 11 months

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Okay. BUCKLE UP.

To the people who say that we have no media literacy because we hoped til the very end that Ted and Rebecca would end up together: you can FUCK RIGHT OFF.

Recently, Hannah W. declared: "Is there chemistry beyond friendship? Yes, I think they do have that as well."

But beyond that, there were A MILLION OTHER WAYS they could have done the last season (and arguably season 2) differently than what they did to avoid any ambiguity as to Ted and Rebecca's relationship. They could have had them hang out all the bloody time and be the rock solid best friends in the world. Ted and Rebecca were never more than friendly co-workers since season 1 ended. That BFF, platonic bullshit was never a thing. If that was true, Ted would have had NO PROBLEM hugging the shit out of her in the stands in the last episode when she begged him to stay. Or again in the airport. They would have gushed over how they made each other's life better and it would have been beautiful and moving and perfectly reasonable. Instead it was loaded with unsaid stuff between two people who never dared to get too close to one another. Keeley was Rebecca's rock. Beard was Ted's. Ted and Rebecca were something else. They were connected in unfathomable, cosmic ways. A perfect set up for a romcom, even if you dislike the idea.

But okay, playing the devil's advocate here, if the platonic soulmates shtick was always the intent (and I don't care what people think, I'm not sure it was), why not have them fall in love with other people early on but keep them as a tightly-knit tandem? Why keep them apart so much throughout the show and both single for most of it???? Why even establish they were born to meet then they never see each other again at the end?? Romance aside, what was the fucking point of that??

Let's address your fucking condescension, shall we? I'll tell you what media literacy fucking taught me:

That Rebecca immediately sensing Ted was having a panic attack, following him, and missing him by a hair, is a classic trick for lovers in a "right place, wrong time" kinda way. If they didn't want to leave any space for ambiguity, she would have found him, comforted him and took him to Dr Fieldstone's office herself without this need to overdramatise and make us long for said comfort that she was unable but clearly desperate to provide.

That Ted texting her for the first time on screen (15 times!!!) because he wanted to hang out at night in a foreign city JUST WHEN SHE LOSES HER PHONE IN A CANAL is a classic SEE ABOVE!! Fuck all of you, honestly.

That one half of the equation carrying a matchbook in his pocket the other half had been obsessing over for months means he is the answer to her romantic quest. And before you go and say that everyone got a matchbook that night, THAT'S NOT THE FUCKING POINT. They chose to show that Ted, of aaaaaaall the people in the restaurant that night, had been carrying Rebecca's hopes and dreams in his pocket THE ENTIRE BLOODY TIME. It was an intentional, purposeful decision. They decided to drop that hot potato later on but you can't blame us for thinking it would lead somewhere!

That one half of the equation carried a trinket in her bag the other half gave her YEARS BEFORE, means he is the one for her. Why? Because this was something he gave her to make her feel safe! Letting someone wonderful love her without fear of being safe was the thing she canonically admitted she was afraid of in a ROMANTIC relationship! The fact that the army man happened to be stuck in the green matchbook was frankly TAKING THE PISS.

That Ted's official love interest having admitted she disliked his puns and having Rebecca laugh at one of his puns IN THE SAME EPISODE is meant to convey she's the one and right under his nose!

That her love interest for the night unloading his marital struggles on her unprompted just like Ted did, loving the same songs as Ted and making her tea that had the same impact on her as Ted's first biscuits means that what she looks for in a partner is right under her nose!

That having her bump into Ted in a corridor and both sensing each other in a choreographed dance MOMENTS after Higgins gave her a whole ass speech about how psychics could help her see in herself what she's missing means IT WAS ALWAYS TED. Don't even get me started on the fact that during said speech, the pink biscuit box was very conveniently placed just behind the green matchbook! A speech about her not seeing something about herself?? Uh??? FUCK OFF.

That Rebecca being told she will have a family and have her instigate Ted getting closer to his son and gushing over his mother is a clear indicator that she would fit in the Lasso household like a glove!

That having Ted canonically never ask for help and Rebecca being the one who doesn't need him to because she always knows when he is unwell means she's framed as being the right person for him. She also uses a trick his EX-WIFE used in the past for that exact purpose.

That their baggage matching right up meant they would have been perfect for each other. His biggest fear is being abandoned and hers is ending up alone. Ted and Rebecca were the logical option for a couple. Ted even had to begrudgingly admit it worked for Jane and Beard. The only canonically happy couple at the end (and ain't that fucking mental...).

That having the line "Remember to let her into your heart" from the Hey Jude song coincide with Ted looking down at his phone and seeing Rebecca's name means that she's the woman he should allow himself to end up with.

Why keep them both single and desperate for love until the very last episode? Why not have Michelle beg Ted to come back and Dutch Guy find Rebecca thanks to newspaper clips about football in Holland 10 episodes ago and be done with it?? Why even not have Rebecca pine for him on screen ever since they parted ways??

Everything in this show was intentional. You can't marvel over this fact for everything BUT Ted and Rebecca and suddenly claim we read too much into things! We were played. Multiple times. At various degrees. And it doesn't take being a fan of the show to see it:

An LA Times journalist made an article about the hints and clues in the show after she interviewed TedBecca fans. And she BELIEVED IT. She got convinced. She told Hannah W. in an interview.

Another journalist on CBR.com (male, so you can shove your "desperate women wanting the straight couple to be together at the end" where the sun ain't shining) lamented the way the TedBecca shippers were treated.

Keep your passive-aggressive posts to yourselves. We've been dangled a carrot since day one and just because we never got to eat it doesn't mean it was never there.

#tedbecca #ted x rebecca #ted lasso spoilers

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laylawatermelon · 3 months

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The K-Drama Of It All

Hello! My hyper fixation has (very unhealthily) latched onto this show so I'm gonna be analyzing.

First of all, I am a veteran in these spaces.

Very shy in real life I am an avid observer in all my fandoms but TRUST I know what's up at all times because of it.

This first analysis will be of the phenomenon of how they playing in my face with the classic K-Drama tropes and cinematic choices.

Let us begin.

Now we all agree that The Bear is a cinematic masterpiece right? Right.

I have been consuming media across all mediums since I was a kid.

I quite literally spent most of my life watching behind the scenes, in front of the scenes, and in between the scenes.

I'm also an aspiring filmmaker and screenwriter. As such I analyze stuff I like more.

I try to understand why they are the way they are.

Now that we got all the fluff out of the way let's get down to the nitty gritty.

*stands on soapbox*

Page 1 of 10000 ehem

In this this essay I will -!

Fr tho. Let's look at this from a K-Drama perspective.

I've spent about 10-12/13 years watching them. And luckily got into it during the golden era.

I literally watched She Was Pretty air (among others). Ex, Strong Woman, Descendants of the Sun (never watched; controversy+ bad attention span), School 2013.

So you know I'm (somewhat) of an og.

I'm those shows it's very formulaic.

This can extend to other Asian dramas but I'm going to try to stick to K-Dramas.

For example, the 10 ep rule. Must have a kiss or kiss in that episode. (Before is fine)

Now they're getting a little willy nilly and getting down in the first EP but I can argue they was down bad back then as well. Just more angsty longing looks.

(which tbf Sydcarm does all the time but it's 99% Carm though)

In KDramas there's something common in the cinematography that I'd call the halo of light. Almost all the time there are some form of beauty shots with them beautifully lit where they're together, the way they look at each other etc.

Which ironically they do with these two a lot on the show.

I know the show is gorgeous but you can't just explain away some of the choices.

I have watched and read a lot of discussions so this will be influenced by a lot of people. I will mention when I got the help from (if i can find it).

Now I just want to say I think this.

These following trope have been here since the dawn of K-Drama time.

Enjoy my infodump.

Firstly let's discuss this here:

1. The Meet Cute/Halo Effect

We've all been screaming to the void about the classic meet cute that happens with Carmy's life and him being constantly bombarded with noise and chaos.

Stylistically this wouldn't be a typical formula for K-Dramas as it leans more into Kmovie style (which valid The Bear was originally a movie) I think it's as textbook as it comes.

Now the original script (which I have read) had a story of different tone. Very Chicago and chaotic but still...

In this iteration of the script idk what the actors were on but JAW looked at the script and chemistry test and was like hmm yes.

A dramatic romcom. I see.

For her she's an ambitious woman who has (maybe a tiny crush) admiration for him cause like he's literally who she wants to be.

Young, talented and successful. He's made a name in their industry so of course she wants to work under him.

But he he's playing the male lead in an early K-Drama with the classic *she enters* and it's like the second coming out Christ being lit from behind her.

The classic 'I can't believe I never noticed how beautiful she is' in all dramas (and romcoms honestly).

You can also compare it to the corny slightly funny moments in slow motion when they miss each other/do the angsty look.

Like this.

Good old kdrama tropes.

What's interesting is that in their scene they do the opposite of what a K-Drama would usually do. They cut the music and let it become calm.

You get to breathe and relax and so does he. He feels at peace.

In K-Dramas, osts are a kind of a life line so they would most likely blare it when he has that realization.

And then at every other romantic moment after.

Another way that it could be is by using very like calm music (still the ost but still).

They do use this with having mostly romantic music in their scenes but it's usually quiet and a bit hard to hear or understand (unless you're analyzing like many of the wonderful people on this app).

Now you can argue her warm lighting in each scene from the finale and introduction represents his hope/life/good change being given back to him in the form of her (but if that's not the most romantic thing I ever heard).

Now for the flashback in the panic attack scene you could argue the blue tone he sees her in, as it usually represents some kind of sadness/distance/professionalism in this show, it can also represent his piercing blue eyes remembering her in the only shade they know how.

Good God that color grading is nuts. His eyes *ARE* the color Blue.

Now I want to talk a bit more about shot composition, color grading and color choices.

In a few interviews I've seen and read the editors, directors and others were quite serious about the shots and music they used were very much on purpose.

I mean come on.

Also Announcement from a novel/screenwriter:

EHEM

WE DON'T EVER INCLUDE NOTHING THAT CAN BE MISINTERPRETED IN SCRIPTS!

AND THE DIRECTOR WOULD DEFINITELY CUT IT IF IT WASN'T HOW HE ENVISIONED IT!

(/hj)

The most telling scenes is the beginning of omlette and the end of the episode before it.

The director had chose to show her tattoo that represents loss in a deep blue lighting which was actually in a similar lighting that Carmy and Claire were bathed in afterwards.

The quora search says it means pain, heartbreak, and emotional turmoil.

It also lines up with the rest of the shots with him preparing dinner with Claire and her being alone.

I believe this kind of represents the emotional cheating (?) going on between them as he practically abandoned her (and their child, The Bear).

(which is a wild choice for platonic coworkers)

As I've said before blue lighting is usually representative of sadness, coldness etc.

In the scene personally even without connecting it to shipping or everything the message came clear to me.

Suffocation.

He was quite literally being suffocated as in the last scene her body was on his as he stared in the distance blankly.

Honestly that shot was kind of heartbreaking because it feels like coercion in a warped way.

He feels like he should be happy, he should participate in these acts, he should be doing well.

He's fulfilling his family's wish.

So why isn't he happy?

That's my writer kicking in but that's what I got from it.

🥲 (gimme a sec i gotta cry)

But the same blue tone was used in his panic attack as the camera zoomed in.

Now the ironic part was that they used warm lighting for the scenes with Claire, but it's not that unusual.

Warm lighting has always been used to also represent a time period in the past in addition to good/warm times.

What's ironic is what's literally colored in what should represent good times isn't working.

He's remembering his family in those same tones. The past isn't helping.

But the future does.

Enter Sydney in blue.

Now blue usually represents sadness (or calm) but it's also used in futuristic scenes.

*They benefit from the cold clinical look i guess🤷🏾‍♀️*

Then he becomes calm.

I can also say that their kitchen scenes in early season 2 are blue coded but it has a calm feeling not a distant feeling. It ironically feel warm and calming despite the cool tone.

This appears in a couple other scenes in the show when he's showing her the work done in the early season.

But color wise it's usually warm tones with them as the color kind of transitions in that scene. It's half half.

His view is warm because he thinks she's good with what he did and hers is cold because he ditched her so yeah.

Now shot wise let's discuss because it's a bit obvious.

The staff head mentioned loving close ups to show the characters emotion but also to convey a sense of what's not being said.

An example of his uncertainty with Claire is the car scene. In most of his shots it's extremely close to her and gives off an awkward vibe.

But when you go to her perspective, she's more open and his shots show background and more of his character, also reflecting their relationship with each other,

This persists with the kitchen scene as well.

When I rewatch it it has that same quality. It's a bit more pulled out (obviously as they literally spent the night together so anyone would feel closer) but there's still an awkward/dreamlike feel like when its on her like she's not quite based in reality.

Or in Carmy's self sabotaging view, too good to be true.

In comparison to Sydney, the shots with her are almost always wide and open.

We see it with them as early in season one with the outside scene where he's staring her down and gets her to open up.

You can argue that almost all of their shots are as equals, or in the same frame with an openness that have/represents when they're communicating with each other. (I'm def writing about their communication)

Sydney's character is ironically what a male lead would be like and Carmy would be more of the female archetype.

Which I really appreciate now that I think about it.

The male lead is usually very successful/good at what they do, hesitant to share but when they do you feel it and know it's sincere. They're usually more bumbly with expressing when they're emotional but when they do its like a huge release. And when they love it's very obvious and excessive at times.

In comparison, Carmy is very expressive, sensitive and aware. He's devoted (Claire sorry but you don't quite count) to things he's passionate about, willing to communicate and has traits of sensitivity.

His eyes and body tells what he's feeling almost immediately. (Also JAW is just an incredible actor)

In Kdrama land their roles would be switched. Hell I can argue some American dramas as well.

Back on topic though.

The Halo Effect is there. Like all the time.

To my next point-

2. The She Looks Away, I Look At Her

Now you may argue this is very Disney Rapunzel, all that coded.

You will also be correct.

I am a Disney (more Nick honestly) kid.

This too applies to the K-Drama world nay I would say it originated there (it did not).

Do you know how many shows I can name where the male lead is just hopelessly in awe as he stared at the female lead because she just insulted him and he wants to tell her he loves her in every way.

Ring ring.

I heard The Bear calling. Yeah imma need you to clock out on this gaslighting.

time to fangirl

Look at the gif sets!

But honestly, it's a common way to show that the character cares and wants a person without outright saying it.

You understand the vibes almost instantly.

He likes her. He wants more.

She likes him. She wants more.

3. Matching Clothes

This one is a simple one but we all know how common it is in K-Dramas to have a matching something.

A good example of a recent show is Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and how they almost always matched even if he was in casual clothing and she was in office clothes.

You're supposed to get a telepathy feel from them. Like they're on the same wavelength.

In ships/shows they usually subconsciously brainwash you into details of a relationship by having them wear or have something that reminds you of them.

In wardrobe, clothing is meticulously planned to match characters financial situation and express their personality. The clothes tell the story.

And the story usually is we go together. Real bad.

So yeah, sure in this scene/episode they were more in tune and tandem and as time went on they became more disjointed.

Granted they do work in a place with uniforms but I digress.

And lastly my third point part II-

Same But Different

If this were a kdrama there'd be like 0.00% chance that they WOULDN'T happen.

First they're the main leads so duh, and second the way that they parallel each other is insane.

There are many edits and examples of them directly mirroring each other in certain situations.

Scrubbing the floors when feeling lonely seemingly in the exact same spot, stressing in the freezer, saying stuff at the same time and their weird telepathy and answering each other's - sandwiches (that's what I was gonna say).

(sorry)

And if any of you say work wife I will rage cause let me catch my man laying under a table like that!!!

Sparta!

But for real, yes there's intimacy and friendship and all that but I ain't everr look at my friends of either gender like that.

If did I probably had feelings and just kept em in. And did the Carmy puppy eyes (TM).

And yes we are aware Carmy is emotionally constipated like a coke bottle filled with mentos with a tight cap on and his lack of a social life coupled with his (many) different mental illnesses/difficulties.

So he probably doesn't even recognize or even want to recognize them as such and honestly as a 4 lifer

I'm really sad but I don't think he'll confess in the next season.

I'm making a post about it but I'm also uncertain about it lasting more than three seasons as thematically and the way it was intended to be a movie I feel kind of uncertain.

It can extend to 4 but it was intended and the way it's narratively been flowing its exactly like a 3 act structure just spread out (like butter).

The next season is after the dark of night aka main character loses everything.

This season was fun and games - quite literally him having amusement and such. (Training Arc!!) It ended with his demise I'd say.

Now there's no where to go but up.

I'm not saying that it's impossible, but a 4th season would likely be more aimed toward getting a star or maintaining a star etc and family ties and such.

That'd be most likely when, if any, outwardly romantic contact should happen.

But they might surprise me.

Butt honestly in KDrama land there's no way the set up isn't romantic even if it was just a chef or professional focused show.

I'd say it'd be standard honestly for ones focused on career with a dash of romance.

Ex. Miss Hammurabi (best example)

The Good Doctor (Japanese Version)

There's probably more but I exclusively watch romance so 🤷🏾‍♀️.

In Conclusion,

Yes. They are end game.

I also wanna say how odd it is that this ship is attacked by fans of the show and non fans alike because I've literally grew up in the age of Rise of The Brave Tangled Guardians.

There's nothing more random than that time period.

They all dated each other!

Like my guy there's a Tony the Tiger x Grinch fic and don't even get me started on the Onceler selfcest as different flavors of himself (/j i love stuff like this)!

My point is it's not that unusual for the two leads to be shipped. Same gender or not.

I also have years of teenage brain rot developed from eating movies for breakfast so I know more than you! (/hj) I'm obviously right!

I will be discussing some more of this in length at a later date.

But I rest my case.

I will retreat into my cave until next time.

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ctlightner · 4 months

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@summerchild-finn

Hi! Finally saw this reply, and I will absolutely explain.

First of all, I want to be clear that I love Alva. She's a spiritual successor to Megara from Disney's Hercules, and I think she has a very well done arc in the movie. This is not me hating on a canon female character for the sake of gay shipping. I think she and Jesper have great chemistry... I just think Jesper and Klaus have even better chemistry.

Part of that is the nature of the flim: it's a buddy movie, so it's important for the two buddies to bounce off each other and make us believe they're good together--if not romantically, then platonically. I can't say I've watched a lot of buddy movies, but if I were writing one, one of my top priorities would be to make sure the leads worked well together on a base level.

However, if we look more closely at the language of film--how the scenes are laid out, the shots, the cuts, etc--I think the movie starts resembling a romance when it comes to Klaus and Jesper.

(warning, this turned into 3k of film analysis. very long and image heavy. spoilers for klaus, and the discussion assumes youve seen it at least once)

Exhibit A: The Touch

Step one is a base of good chemistry, but then we add in things like Jesper accidentally touching Klaus' broad chest and pulling away quickly (~43 min in):

But that's not the beginning and end of this sequence, otherwise it would simply read more platonic. See, when Jesper firsts lays his hands on Klaus, his eyes travel to his hands. And then he realizes what he's done and glances up at Klaus:

The shot lingers on this quiet moment between them, filled with nothing but touch. And if that was it, well, yeah you'd get people reading it as romantic, but it still could just be platonic as Jesper realizes he's breached the personal bubble of the man he thought was an axe murderer two nights ago. But something happens between Jesper realizing he fumbled over the touch barrier and him pulling away:

A POV shot. Through Jesper's eyes.

When we shift into Jesper's head, we're privy to a full reaction from Klaus. We don't know exactly what's going on in his head, but he's not angry. If anything, he looks quizzical. Part of this is because Jesper doth protest too much about how much he cares about toy delivery, and this mountain man is re-learning social interaction after decades of isolation.

But again, the movie pauses here. It's not a long, long shot, but it is about one second long. That doesn't seem like a lot, but you can fit quite a bit of information in one second of a movie. Furthermore, the entire sequence, from the initial touch to pulling away is a solid 5 seconds. The movie purposefully delays us here, on this moment, to make sure we see them interact in this way.

Let's play Swap the Genders for a second. If Jesper was, idk, Jespina, how would this interaction be different? Theoretically, it's the same actions and the same, surrounding implications of plot context. But we as an audience have been trained to read "boy and girl share brief, awkward touch" as foreshadowing for a romantic future. In all genres, not just romcoms and dramatic romances, though you bet your butt they're extremely deliberate in those. And with how long the movie lingers here, it would absolutely read as romantic if this were m/f.

But Wait There's More!

Exhibit B: Jesper, The Light

At about the 55 minute mark, we get another interesting sequence. By this point, we know that Klaus' store of toys is drying up, and he hasn't been keen on making more. Jesper, meanwhile, is still a few letters shy of being able to go home to luxury, so he gets an idea on how to convince Klaus to make more toys for Christmas.

We see Klaus out chopping wood when the magic wind we saw earlier in the film (that convinced him to go on the initial deliveries), leads him up to his workshop. Once there, he's greeting by a curtain obscuring part of the shop. A lantern within exudes soft, comforting golden light, and we see a silhouette moving.

The silhouette is feminine, from the look of hair pulled back, to the curvy spine, to the soft triangle of the lower body that implies a dress. We're to assume there is woman there, and as the sequence continues, we're led to assume this is a woman Klaus knows.

He starts to approach, a look of surprise on his face. Then we get a close-up that further betrays his want and concern and hope. This is all portrayed without words, by the way. It's just a series of well-executed shots and poignant music. It's an excellent example of how to raise tension via shots when you have a very stoic character. Klaus doesn't really move his face much. He doesn't mug to the camera like a desperate Let's Player to illustrate that he's having Complicated Emotions. Instead, the shot changes intensify. By the time Klaus is ready to see who's behind the curtain, so are we.

And after all that buildup, the feminine figure reaches out and flings the curtain away to reveal...

Twink Supreme.

Klaus is annoyed the silhouette wasn't who he thought it was and gets more annoyed the longer Jesper tries to pitch him on making toys for Christmas. Klaus tries to get him to stop, but he helps himself to the workshop and starts touching things he shouldn't. This culminates when Jesper yanks a sheet off a wall.

He reveals a very dusty fixture with a familiar-looking masculine woodcut, and a less familiar, but notable feminine one. And underneath their slot are completely empty ones. This is the first time the scene has been shunted into darkness since Klaus entered the workshop.

Klaus is horrified at this thing, even though we can surmise he made it himself. This is forbidden, even to him.

He orders Jesper to leave. Jesper obliges, and we follow him back to the post office where he meets up with absolute cinnamon roll Margú and finally decides to help her write a letter so she can get her own toy like the townies. Jesper goes to Alva for help and via the power of pop ballad montage, we see them get a little closer and end the sequence with the letter in hand.

Now, Jesper knows he can't ask Klaus for help making Margú her toy, so he sets off to make it himself despite not being qualified in the slightest. It's the thought that counts, right?

As the ballad ballads on, we get a crossfade from Jesper working by candlelight to Klaus still sitting and brooding in his dark workshop. A crossfade is a type of transition from scene to scene where one picture gradually fades into the next. As we fade from Jesper to Klaus, we get an incredible image:

Jesper is in the forbidden zone. His visage has replaced the dusty, hidden remnants that have been there so long. Moreover, once again, the movie heavily contrasts light and dark. Much like how the curtains obscuring Jesper earlier were the only light in the darkness of the workshop, now again is Jesper the beacon of warmth. A beacon that Klaus has turned away from, much like he did the tree carving before.

Now, I need y'all to put a pin in this. I swear I have a conclusion to this sequence, but I need to talk about something else first.

Exhibit C: The Porch Scene

Klaus eventually shows up to the post office and sees that Jesper made a mess of the woodworking for the gift. He starts fixing it, and the two head out into the night to the nearby Sámi camp/village to deliver Margú's toy. The ballad is still going, by the way, and it rises back up in lyrics and power as the young girl tests out her... snow-windsurfing board? It looks dope. Jesper seemingly for the first time understands the meaning of doing good deeds. Eventually, they return to Klaus' home, all excited from the escapade. Especially Jesper.

As they stable the reindeer, Klaus admits that it's been a long time since he's felt this way, and that "she" used to tease him when he got that doofy smile on his face. Who is "she," Jesper asks.

"My Lydia," he replies.

Klaus recounts how he and his wife found enjoyed their little mountain hideaway. But, he says, it wasn't going to be the two of them for long.

Light blossoms again as we flash back to a younger Klaus and his wife, excited to start their lives together, and very excited to start a family, a large one. At least seven children judging by the niches on the tree. Unfortunately for them, no children came. And then Lydia got sick. And then she was gone. He supposes he lost his way after she died, making birdhouse after birdhouse because she loved birds.

"Then," Klaus says, turning to gaze fondly at Jesper, "you showed up."

He says that he never thought he'd feel this again--"this" of course being the joy of seeing children's faces when they got a new toy he worked hard on. No, "this" doesn't refer to romance, but again, if Jesper were Jespina, we would absolutely be expected to take this as, if not foreshadowing, then barely-subtextual confirmation that there are romantic feelings somewhere in the mix.

But that's not just looking too hard through a queer lens at this interaction. Remember that pin from the previous section? Pull it out and let's discuss. See, the movie, through film language alone, equates Jesper to Lydia.

We were expected to believe the silhouette from earlier was a woman's. A woman who we understood to be important to Klaus. Now, we know that she wasn't just important, he loved her, was married to her. To see her silhouette in Jesper's positions the two as equals if they can so easily be mistaken for each other. Essentially, something about Jesper reminded Klaus of Lydia.

But of course, the movie didn't do this just once.

The movie equates Jesper to Lydia when it crossfades between the post office and the workshop during the breakup sequence. I mentioned that Jesper is the light in the darkness here, but superimposing him over something so important and devastating to Klaus places him squarely within the field of those feelings as well. And once we learn that the carved tree was Klaus and Lydia's wish for family, suddenly Jesper being there in the frame puts him as family.

Now, could you read this as just platonic "found family?" Yeah, absolutely, and the film does a great job doing that later on when the Sámi enter the workshop. But I argue that the movie has gone out of its way several times to specifically equate Jesper and Lydia. These two people are both lights in the darkness for Klaus. They tease him good-naturedly. But most importantly, the porch scene recontextualizes a much earlier scene from being merely mysterious to Lydia outright endorsing Jesper's presence in Klaus' life.

Back around the 30 minute mark, Jesper approached Klaus after a successful day of getting the kids to write letters for toys. He implores Klaus to give away his myriad of toys that're just collecting dust in the workshop. Klaus is seemingly less than impressed, until a strange wind blows in. We see this odd wind several times throughout the movie, and Klaus seems to understand what it wants, despite it not speaking. During the porch scene, we learn that he believes the strange wind is Lydia's spirit keeping him company and giving him a nudge in the right direction if he needs it. At the end of the movie, the wind tells him it's time to let go and to move on. At the point where Jesper is trying to persuade Klaus to do deliveries...

The strange wind circles him in a halo, forcing Klaus to pay attention. The wind's approval--Lydia's approval--is what makes Klaus decide to help deliver the toys beyond the first one.

Essentially, not only does the movie equate Jesper to Lydia through imposing their likenesses over each other and through similar light/dark contrasts, it has her appear in the beginning and straight-up endorse Jesper's entry into Klaus' life.

Exhibit D: "Ah, Young Love!"

This next section is not so much about the homoeroticism as is it why, despite my love for Alva, her canonical romantic entanglement with Jesper pales in comparison to the accidental (?) homoeroticism of Jesper and Klaus.

There's a line that the boatman says about 39 minutes into the film after Alva has a very public, very angry confrontation with Jesper. At this point, the kids are very reward-driven, attending the school-turned-fish shop purely so they can learn to write so they can send a letter so they can get a toy. Alva yells at Jesper about how the violent, constantly feuding families won't stand for their children attending school together. She views his sending the kids to her as a threat to her ability to save up enough money to get away from Smeerensburg forever and pursue her dreams somewhere she'll be useful and appreciated.

After Alva leaves, the smug trickstery boatman says:

"Ah! Young love."

I have always found this line incredibly grating because it's a classic example of Telling rather than Showing. Now, people in recent years have pushed back against that old adage, but there are times you want to show something to the audience rather than just stating it in a straightforward manner. Romantic relationships, for one thing.

As I mentioned at the top of this post, this is a buddy movie between Jesper the Postman and Klaus the future Santa Claus. They are the main characters of the film. Both of them need to carry this movie equally, and the best way to do that is to make sure they have excellent chemistry with each other. The film succeeds at this, and then some.

Alva, on the other hand, is not the main character. She is a major supporting character, and I think the movie would be lesser if she were absent, but her and Jesper's romantic relationship was always doomed to be Told rather than Shown. Because theirs is not the most important relationship in the movie.

I think the film could have done better about this, though. Getting rid of that young love line, for one thing. It's the sort of line you have someone say in the hopes that you can sneak in some romantic foreshadowing for the canonical couple. Unfortunately, it's about as subtle as a brick to the face.

The film seems to be going for a Bad First Impressions/Enemies-ish to Lovers thing with Jesper and Alva, but it really falls flat. They just don't spend enough time with each other for me to believe they're falling in love. Not to say they don't have cute moments. The montage where they help Margú write her letter is really nice, and the film shows Alva scooting closer and closer to Jesper as they hang out more and get to know each other. However, it's a montage, one with a song covering the bits of dialogue we get from them as they work. If the movie wanted to make me believe that Alva and Jesper had as much, if not more, chemistry together than Jesper and Klaus, then they probably should have changed the scene to be less focused on the montage and more focused on them playfully bantering back and forth.

But again, I think the relationship was doomed from the start, purely because Alva is not a main character. They probably would have had to make Jesper the eventual Santa Claus and nix Klaus in order to give Alva the proper amount of room.

(However, I think that would have ended up making the movie a bit too much like Rankin-Bass' stop-motion Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. Think about it: that special starts with a postman narrating about letters; it emphasizes that the question "Why do people write letters to Santa?" will be explored and answered; the main setting is a depressing, grungy town headed by a cartoonishly evil leader; there's a jaded ginger-haired schoolteacher who learns to loosen up and love life again, etc.)

I wish things had been different with Alva, or maybe that they had been allowed a longer runtime to really sell the relationship. As it is, it's fine. It works for what it is. But Jesper and Klaus' relationship is simply deeper, more subtle, and more meaningful.

Conclusion

Thank you for coming to my post about why Klaus is an extremely gay movie despite not being a gay movie. I wish I could wrap this up more academically, but I've made my thesis obvious and I have work at 7:30am tomorrow.

Hope this answers your question!

#klaus movie #klaus (2019)#fandom meta #santa claus #merry christmas

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unnursvanablog · 4 months

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I certainly didn't think my first kdrama of 2024 would be Marry My Husband - it wasn't even on my to watch list but the hype on the kdrama side of tiktok and tumblr. And I needed some romcom pick me up in the darkness that succumbs me in January with the romcom queen Park Min Young.

I saw that Park Min Young was doing another office romcom and I wanted to check it out but then I saw that she was dying of cancer and I thought to avoid it because I truly don't enjoy that in my kdramas. But as I said I kept hearing good things and I was feeling a bit down and wanted a cute romcom to cheer me up and here we are.

I do think it's going a little overboard on the clumsy trope, and I was going to comment on some of the other kdrama romcom tropes such as the bitchy second female lead and the lost first love and how it's somehow the male lead but then as the drama went on it came clear that there seems to be something else there and I hope that things will continue to develop in interesting ways and we get a slightly more depth to both him essentially being a gift from her dead dad and the second female lead getting some depth and interesting character arc because at the moment she is very much just the worst.

The story moves quite fast or it flows really well. It's lingering on the scenes that it needs to stop at to introduce some emotions to the story but it's not painfully slow. I hardly noticed how the times moves while watching the first four episodes. And it sure does have a nice hook to it with her trying to change her fate and her trying to get her shitty bff and her shitty husband to get married instead.

I adore a lot of the side characters already and the blossoming friendships that seem to be forming at the office. I do think that's very much needed for this type of story. It can give us a bit of a break from the main plot if it starts to lag or become a bit too repetitive or something in the second half.

I do love how much this story is just focused on Park Min Young's character and we have hardly gotten to the backstory or such about the male lead yet unless he interacts with her. And I hope the drama stays that way and doesn't sideline her towards the end.

Park Min-hwan is such a shitty character and it's a bit odd to see Lee Yi Kyung play him after seeing him in his loveable comedy roles but damn he is doing a good job here (and he is a much talented and interesting actors than the male lead imho) but I do find that character to be very amusing at times and interesting. I am never rooting for him, but I am often intrigued while he is on screen if that's the right way to put it.

One can't go wrong with Park Min Young in an office romcom (even if I gave up on her last two office romcoms but 🤷🏻). I do miss her fuller cheeks, it's sad to see how much weights she has lost, but she is such a warm charm to her and she has excellent chemistry with her co-stars. Overally the cast is quite adorable and seem to mesh well together and make the characters interesting or very likeable. All except the main male lead actually.

Na In-woo has never really impressed me in any of his roles. He is just sort of there being tall and handsome and not much else. And I get that his character is suppose to be a bit stiff and wear oversized cloths that don't really fit him. But he is just sort of blank for me here. He is just kinda okay. I don't find him that charming ether, which stiff actors such as Cha Eun Woo can often be. Which is a shame, but maybe he will prove me wrong as the drama goes on, but to me he is the weakest of the cast and the weakest link in the drama. Thankfully the drama is so focused on Park Min Young's character and not as much on him, because I found most of his solo scenes ether just a bit boring or almost… stalkerish.

I get that he is sort of there to help Kang Jiwo and all that, but does he really need to hover so much around her? I wasn't sure what his deal was until we saw that heart on his chest that he dad drew. But I still need the drama to do a bit more with that to really make me start liking him. Because it's odd to have a romcom where the romance is the least interesting part of it (to me).

#marry my husband #first impressions

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thesherrinfordfacility · 8 months

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LWA: Some more idle thoughts about narrative construction and both seasons, prompted by your reflections about AWCW's inability to see consequences and Aziraphale's already-vivid awareness of them.

Crowley's and Aziraphale's pre-Fall selves are already set into their post-Fall approaches to consequences. Aziraphale, given adequate data, is very good at predicting the most plausible consequences of any given action; unfortunately, he's also very good at predicting consequences when he only thinks he has adequate data, which leads to repeated disasters (both the 1862 fight and the end of s2ep6 being the most obvious examples). It's not an accident that he's good at interpreting prophecy. It may also explain the weird Jane Austen misreading, which has nothing to do with how Aziraphale fell in love (past) but everything to do with constructing an iron-clad narrative in which there's a definite, logical romantic outcome (future). AWCW is politically naive, but fallen Crowley /still/ can't predict what ought to be the completely logical consequences of his actions. (Hence perhaps his own misreading of Richard Curtis, which mistakes the climax of a romcom for its inception.) S1ep1 keeps coming back to the fallout of Crowley pitching his stories too well to his demonic audience. He takes down the cell tower and does himself in, turns the M25 into a sigil and both gets trapped on it and temporarily murders an awful lot of people, and...then there's my favorite bugbear. Fans tend to overlook the likely outcome of Aziraphale giving in to Crowley's manipulation and killing the Antichrist, thanks to Madame Tracy stepping in, but beyond the cruelty /this is not something that Aziraphale could have survived/ (figuratively or literally). I was thrown straight out of the S2 episode in which Crowley gives away the entire bodyswap to Gabriel/Jim during his "protective" outburst, because as script-writing goes that there was a decision, but I have to grouchily concede that if Gaiman were to show up and remind me about the child murder business, he would have a point about narrative plausibility.

Crowley genuinely doesn't appear to believe that his relationship with Aziraphale has a developmental narrative. There's no story to be told about it. As I've said here before, his accounts of their relationship do not square either with what's on the screen or with what the actors have said they're playing. For Crowley, they've always been friends, they've always been a couple, they've always had the same kinds of conversations, whereas what's dramatized onscreen is a more heavily-romanticized take on the /book/ narrative, in which they gradually become friends over the course of centuries. There's no sign that /Aziraphale/ believes they've always been friends or a couple, which may be one of the reasons that Crowley's confession doesn't land.* In fact, one of the things that is now starting to bug me is the problem of Aziraphale's relation to Crowley-as-angel, because Aziraphale's problematic assumptions about fallen Crowley's continuity with AWCW (he's not trying to reverse-engineer Crowley, he really believes demon!Crowley effectively still /is/ angel!Crowley, just grumpier) mirror Crowley's refusal to acknowledge that his relationship with Aziraphale has an actual plot.

My take is that Aziraphale could obviously have done a much better job, Crowley-wise, of accepting the Metatron's proposal, but there's nothing to indicate that he could have done anything /else/. It's not just a mirror of Beelzebub's ep1 proposal to Crowley, but a warped mirror, in which the whole point of the "coffee or death" dialogue is that the Metatron is not really offering Aziraphale a choice in the matter.

afternoon LWA, hope you're well!!!✨

i didn't think to look laterally (not to this extent, anyway) at aziraphale and crowley when comparing their pre-fall selves with them later on in the narrative, but that's really fun to consider!!!

i absolutely love this interpretation of aziraphale's inner thought process, because whilst i had never really thought to see aziraphale as having an analytical personality type, he absolutely does; his approach to pretty much anything appears to be very systematic. in fact, im struggling somewhat to think of an instance where im confident that aziraphale reacts completely intuitively... maybe when he squares off against satan (crowley comes up with the time-stop, but where aziraphale chooses to face the devil down feels like he does so without any idea of how it could end)? any other action aziraphale takes, or words he says, feels like they've been very carefully deliberated over before delivery, even if he knows the outcome is going to be... well, shit.

you mention 1862 and ep6 as two examples, but, to me, aziraphale's way of thinking vs crowley's (which i'll come back to) is just encapsulated neatly in the entirety of s1; there are so many examples of where aziraphale consistently reacts to incoming data (when he discovers it or - when he deigns to - when crowley tells him stuff), and acts accordingly, and then immediately cycles back to analysing the result when it doesn't work.

my day-job (GO is practically The Other Job at this point) is largely based around analysis and research, and i regularly use a few thought models (maybe not consciously, but it's second nature at this point) in approach to a problem/question. so looking at the overall context of s1, aziraphale appears to follow a similar process:

scanning (identify the problem: the apocalypse)

analysis (gathering information/data, and identifying mitigating factors or outlying data: e.g. the hellhound conundrum, agnes' prophecy, adam is in tadfield, heaven actively wants the apocalypse)

response (how can the problem/question be addressed, and take into account any extraneous data that may affect the result: e.g. stop the dog, return to tadfield, engage shadwell and the WA, consult a higher authority through the portal, finds a human to 'possess' and get to tadfield)

assessment (the impact of the response, and any splinter effects or conclusions that the response initiated: e.g. realising that they had the wrong boy, identifying the right boy, where the apocalypse would happen, and that he and crowley were alone in stopping it themselves).

the last bit is especially indicative to me of aziraphale being analytical; he hears crowley say that god would not speak to him, but he still tries because it's a viable solution to scrutinise, and when it fails he immediately re-evaluates and then contacts crowley to try out an alternative, and share the information he has, because ultimately crowley ended up - on this count - being correct in his own initial, instinctive assessment.

obviously those phases of problem-solving throughout s1 are non-linear, and instead completely cyclical; aziraphale takes into account different factors and data at individual points in the story, and repeatedly comes up with various options in which to respond to problems as more data materialises - he continuously reassesses. initially, his approach to the problem of armageddon was to Not Act, and allow it to happen, because it was the great plan, and as an angel it was logical to him that whatever god had planned was for the best, was what was always intended, and would only ever be Good because... well, it came from god, right? had he perhaps thought a touch more intuitively, followed his instinct (which is arguably to thwart armageddon, the same conclusion crowley arrived at), he would have probably leapt on the chance to follow crowley's proposal... or possibly even proposed it himself.

but as it stands, he doesn't, and crowley gives him reason after reason to do so. all of this builds as significantly compelling data to aziraphale - to the point that when he's fully analysed (at this point) the potential outcome of Not Acting vs. Acting, he chooses to Act - a conviction that he sticks to. even at the bandstand, he doesnt sway on wanting to stop armageddon, but that the way that crowley proposes they do so not only directly conflicts with aziraphale's moral boundaries (killing a mf child), but also conflicts with aziraphale's sense of logic and reason (running away). and then as a last thought for aziraphale; he goes to instinctively shoot adam when crowley pushes for the last time, and is immediately thwarted by madame tracy - she does it as an emotional, knee-jerk, moral-based, human reaction, "you can't just shoot children!" - but given that that reaction is what aziraphale actually agrees with, it only reinforces that his way of thinking, logically and analytically, is the correct one, just because they happened to arrive at the same conclusion.

but this is where crowley comes in. crowley on the other hand acts very intuitively, instinctively, and i daresay emotionally - his immediate reaction to delivering the antichrist is panic, and to immediately call aziraphale (the narrative at the very least doesn't show any kind of analysis of the issue on crowley's part - would he have arrived at a different response if he had? and plus, as you say, him taking down the phone network was a class A monkey-paw job, well done crowley). but then he goes on to convince aziraphale into stopping armageddon with him (which, admittedly, does work, but only once crowley changes tack, stops invoking the emotional, and instead lays out the logical, does aziraphale agree).

when the issue arises of the hellhound (which, let's reiterate, crowley did not think to tell aziraphale before this point...), and the prospect of their upbringing plan not working because of this, crowley's reflex is to destroy the antichrist completely - but tempt aziraphale into doing it. when aziraphale pushes back on this more resolutely at the bandstand, crowley's immediate instinct is to just run. fair enough, given that crowley ends up being correct that aziraphale's resolution to beseech to heaven will just go ignored, but he similarly doesn't consider that aziraphale needs to test the hypothesis first, engage a more methodical and strategic approach, before resorting to more scorched-earth measures.

but as you say, this definitely harks back to the pre-fall scene. narratively, we still don't have any confirmation on what leads to aziraphale having any concept of punishment, or a sense of consequence; there is no iron-clad context (that I can see anyway!) as to why aziraphale would start to formulate this rationale - that asking questions might lead to a larger, damning (ha) consequence - when we can only surmise up until this point that angels would consider their creator as benevolent and omniscient.

AWCW presumably doesn't mean anything nefarious behind his questions (i think that can be reliably interpreted from his behaviour and delivery), so why would god ever punish him? this is beside the point, however; in any case, crowley tends to rush to a response, to act, without stopping to consider other factors, other data, and the potential consequences. in the pre-fall scene, if he had acknowledged the warning, the 'data', as it were, that aziraphale was giving to him (that something could go wrong if he continue the path he's walking), he might have arrived at the same action but with considerably more caution, and potentially prevented what happened to him (which, in contextual hindsight, is not necessarily a good thing). we don't have the full narrative yet to tell us what exactly happened during AWCW's fall, but it does seem like crowley is a chronic case of "fuck around - find out."

in this respect i personally find it entirely in character - and rather in-keeping with crowley's overall narrative in both s1 and s2 - that crowley reveals the ruse of the bodyswap in s2; he's not thinking about the consequences that it could have, but thinking entirely based on instinct. he's not thinking about whether gabriel/jim might remember the information, whether gabriel (regardless of his presumed reformation of character in ep6) might exploit that information, but entirely acting on the emotional wave that gabriel is posing a direct risk to aziraphale's safety and wellbeing. plus, we don't know how long he was sat in justine's restaurant for; it's entirely possible that he was three sheets to the wind by the point aziraphale happens upon him.

once again! not sure i arrived at a point! but i think in hindsight this is a really interesting way to read the final fifteen; it's fairly obvious that crowley is acting and reacting emotionally during the feral domestic, and aziraphale is - as metatron-aziraphale theories are indicating at the moment - acting and reacting based on a conclusion he's arrived at from data we've potentially only partially seen/data hidden in plain sight. but then we switch to aziraphale saying "i need you!", which is a hitherto uncommon emotional outburst from him, and crowley... saying nothing. is that crowley's way of thinking logically, analytically? because anything he says is not going to change the outcome - aziraphale will ascend, he will not, and they will still be apart?

on the note of their relationship, it's a really interesting dynamic - how crowley and aziraphale both see it from their perspectives. on one hand, you have aziraphale that goes from crush, to acquaintance, to confidant, to friend, to best friend and person he's in love with. crowley's perspective is... well, it is the same, right? so why does he retrospectively suggest that it's something that it, by all accounts, wasn't? look, maybe crowley was in love from the wall, immediately fell for aziraphale when he told him about the sword - but that's not what's actually shown in the narrative, to the audience. so... if he did, did he even realise it? is that why he looks back on their history as being something that, as far as shown to the audience, it isn't?

the s1 flashbacks are all shown from aziraphale's perspective (why am i only realising this now) - mesopotamia, golgotha, rome, arthurian england, 1601, 1793, 1827, and 1941 all show aziraphale first. the scenes are all set up with aziraphale opening them. it's only eden, uz, 1862, and 1967 that show crowley first... and all of them are pivotal moments for crowley's character development, as well as the development of their relationship specifically. that they learn to confide in each other, then they learn to trust in each other, then they learn the extent of what they mean to each other, and then they learn (or acknowledge) the danger of them being together.

so actually - does crowley think that there's no plot to their relationship? or is it that by 2023, he counts on the fact that the plot has already happened? that the biggest problem they confronted in his view - the holy water and the breaking away from heaven and hell - has been resolved (see: it hasn't), and that they've now reached the happily ever after? rather than the fact that we are actually only just getting to the climax of their personal story? which is also likely the stage that aziraphale was at by ep5, and is considering that crowley, by the time of the confession, is still a chapter ahead? "you go too fast for me, crowley."

(christ i don't even want to know the word count of this answer)

and this is similar potentially to how aziraphale sees crowley own angel-to-demon-to-just-crowley development; that he thinks that crowley as a person would want to be an angel again, "just like the old times, only even nicer", because why wouldn't he? he's a good and kind person, why wouldn't he want to be restored to the station and to the place that - in aziraphale's view - inherently embodies that? heaven has been corrupted, and he could make a difference, but heaven was always meant to be the place of good... right?

well, once again, aziraphale is without data - he doesn't, presumably, fully understand why crowley couldn't ever become an angel again, couldn't set foot in heaven again (not in that capacity, at least). so the conclusion he draws absolutely misses the mark; thinks this is the long-awaited happily-ever-after for crowley, when actually crowley is perhaps a chapter or two behind. s2 has shown more that crowley is able to somewhat accept that he is a good person, but he still has a way to go before he fully acknowledges it, and reconciles that with the, we can only guess, full circumstances of his fall.

last point - so glad that someone else spotted the mirror of the beelzebub proposal in ep1 to the metatron proposal in ep6; i think i gasped when i realised the implication of that conversation between beelzebub and crowley!!!✨

#referring to gabriel as jim physically pains me #he will always be goob to me #my sweet prince taken from us too soon #anyway this was another herculean effort of a LWA response by me - if i do say so myself - and im now exhausted #why do they keep coming back i only regurgitate what they said in an even more long winded way what is Their Goal #good omens #ask #s1 meta #s2 meta #aziraphale meta #crowley meta #pre-fall aziraphale spec #awcw spec #feral domestic/final fifteen meta #all the tags - every single one

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alittlefrenchtree · 2 months

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Taylor is honestly blowing my mind rn. I expected to see him at maybe, like Elton John's Oscar watch party and after-party but seeing him on the actual friggin Oscars red carpet (in PRADA no less!) just blew me away. Someone on another site said something to the effect of "this guy is everywhere, like how???" and the pragmatic in me also wondered. I can't pinpoint if it's his work with Prada, or as a SAG Ambassador (but then where's Phil), or as a sustainability activist, or as the breakout star of a cheesy romcom that scored him this invite (and to the exclusive Governor's Ball on top of that!). The likely answer is that it's a combination of ALL the above. And that's why I'm just super impressed. This is a man that makes things happen for himself, and remains humble and kind through it all. I can't wait to see what's next for him.

If you want pragmatism, i can share mine 😁 the movie for which he played the lead was a hit and massely talked about + he’s extremely good to catch a positive attention from the medias and the general public which reflect on whatever event he’s at which means more buzz for said event + and he’s the shiny new thing walking around so everybody loves him right now 💜 so of course he’s going to be invited left and right. I hope he’ll make the most of it 😌

#alft asks #taylor zakhar perez #tzp

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eleni-cherie · 1 year

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among thieves ✨ || bts • pjm - chapter 0.3

"what even am I to you? your rival, your lover, an obstacle or am I supposed to be your coffin?"

about two thieves who can't live with nor without each other. and a joint past that comes back to threaten them.

»»»

masterlist: here

— genre: thief au, gangster comedy, adventure, romcom, humour, angst, fluff, very flirty jimin, friends/rivals/exes to lovers (it's complicated, ok?!) f2l e2l ex2l all members play a role in this story!

ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE. CHARACTERS NOT NECESSARILY LIKE THE REAL PERSONS. ALSO VERY UNREALISTIC PLOT LOL - JUST PRETEND READING A MANGA/COMIC OR WATCHING A FILM, REALLY.

SUGGESTIVE THEMES. MENTIONS OF VIOLENCE & BLOOD (BUT NOTHING TOO GRAPHIC, IT'S STILL A COMEDY!)

»»»

Tokyo, Japan

"Say, Jimin-" Taehyung adjusted his grip around the bag that was slung over his shoulders. Glancing at his friend. "Why are we after these monkeys?" "Not all," Jimin corrected him, "Just one. The one with the sapphire in his embrace." He stopped when reaching the well in the basement. After getting rid off their cleaning stuff disguise, he laid out the blueprint on the ground. "Yeah, that. Why are we even bothering?" "Because that along with the document we got will lead us to the actual treasure, duh," he frowned. His finger tracing over the piece of paper until eventually finding their current position. He touched his earpiece then. "Yoongi, you hear me?"

White noise was heard before a bored voice anwered. "Yeah, in position." "Alright. Did you see anyone out of place?" "Yeah, tons of cops pretending to be normal gallery visitors." "Huh, so pops did find out after all," he smirked. "He may be an idiot sometimes, but he isn't that dumb," Taehyung mumbled then, "It was a quite easy one." "Indeed," Jimin shrugged, his lips tucking into a smug grin, "But that was on purpose. He surely didn't notice the second one. He felt probably too proud of himself to question it." "Let's hope you're right." "I'm always right!" Yoongi laughed out on the other end of the line, while Taehyung gave him an irritated glance.

"Fine, maybe not always. But ninty percent of the time." "Sure." "Yoongi, we'll switch off the lights for exactly five seconds. You sure that's enough time?" An annoyed groan was heard. "Did I ever need longer?" Jimin rolled his eyes. It was true, Yoongi was fast as lightning when it was about cutting something with his sword. This time it being disguised as a cane, perfectly fitting his own disguise of an old man. Like his in-ear which looked like a deaf-aid. Hopefully this wouldn't be an exception. "Alright, I'll count down. One.." His finger hovered over the switch. "Two.." It touched it. "Three." And pressed it down.

Before anyone even understood what was going on, the lights were back on. And Yoongi walked away like nothing had happened. "Done."

"Did the cops react?"

"Yeah, some are nervously -and not obvious at all- speaking into their collars." He chuckled amused. "Okay, my cue," Jimin said and pulled out a walkie-talkie, switching it into the right frequency. Clearing his throat, he prepared his voice. Disguising it perfectly when speaking. "We were just informed by the maintenance team this small electrical abnormaly was normal due to a light earthquake causing this. No need to let your guard down."

"Roger" someone answered.

He turned off the device, chuckling contently. "Yoongi, did they buy it?" "Seems so. They're back to pretending being normal visitors and observing the art pieces." "Good. Now phase three. Taehyung?" "Yeah, yeah. On it," he smirked and put the bag down. He got his Magnum out of his holster and put the silencer on. Shooting precisely three times on the three studs of the security bars on the top. Knocking them out. Meanwhile Jimin rummaged in the bag until finding the screwdriver set. He checked his watch then. "Eight minutes till they'll start asking everyone to leave. Before pops shows up and the cops come back in, invading the place."

Taehyung nodded and Jimin climbed on his shoulders to reach the top and took off the security bars. Starting undoing the screws inside. Taking off the lid then he gave it to Taehyung who was trying his best not to lose balance with the additional bodyweight. The ceiling wasn't too high, but Jimin needed him for the next step. Taehyung straightened himself more and so Jimin could grab the edges of the vent, pulling himself up into the subceiling. He breathed out deeply and looked at his watch. "Five more minutes," he informed. Pressing his earpiece again. "Yoongi? Did you also cut the other thing?" "Yeah, yeah. I'm waiting for you guys at the car."

"Thanks," Jimin cooed happily. Three minutes. He crawled a meter to the right, patting the top until finding the spot on the ground that Yoongi had cut for him. Waiting patiently. One minute. He calmed his breath, clearing his mind. He had a few seconds to due the exchange, nothing new. But also still nerve-wreckingly exciting. The loudspeaker announcement was finally heard dully through the floor. First in japanese then in english.

"The museum is closing in ten minutes. We ask all visitors to soon make their way to the exit."

Shuffling and steps were heard above. Knowing their object of desire was in the far back of the room, he dared to push the square-shaped cut out. Peeking his head between a tall plant and the exhibition show case. The room being empty. They knew were security cameras were placed and this was a blind spot. As long as he didn't go beyong the glass cube or the plant, he was save. So he slowly crawled out.

"Now!" Jimin whisper-yelled and instantly the lights flickered shut thanks to Taehyung at the switch downstairs. Giving him exactly ten seconds to switch off the real sapphire with the fake one he had prepared. And thanks to Yoongi cutting off the wires of the warning system, without cutting the actual electrical wire which would have immediatelly caused an emergency alarm, he was able to pull it off within the time limit. Disappearing into the hole on the floor right when the lights flickered on again. Carefully he put the piece of floor back on and fixated it before going back down the vent. Taehyung already waiting at the opening to help him get down. Jimin quickly screwed the lid on again and put the security bars on before jumping down.

They quickly gathered their belongings and put their disguise back on. Going the same route back which they had come from. Disguised as cleaning stuff they made their way to the backdoor. Walking fast down the back alley and out to the street. When they turned a corner, they started running. Already spotting their car. Yoongi, still dressed as an old man, sitting on the backseat. Eyeing everyone that passed by.

"Took you long enough," he simply said as the two slid inside into their seats and Jimin started the engine. "Right on time I'd say," he said when spotting multiple police cars driving past the street in front of them, to the direction of the museum. "They'll now get onto position. And in five hours they'll notice we're already far gone with the jewel," he chuckled and drove off.

"What did you write on your note?" "My note?" "Yeah, the one behind the fake jewel." "Oh, that one," Jimin said, the cool breeze of the evening brushing against his face, "Just explained that not only the gibberish was meant to be read taking five steps back. The time written in cursive as well."

As they turned into the ring rode, a black suv appeared behind them. Jimin noticed from the driving mirror. As he took the exit and left the ring rode, the suv followed. Whenever he turned into a road, the black car also turned. "Gentlemen, seems like we got a tail." The two other guys took a quick glance behind them as well. Easily spotting what we meant.

Seeing they got discovered, the windows of the black suv cranked down and its passengers started shooting. The rear window broke and Yoongi sighed, pushing the blade out of the sheath as he slid down, taking cover. "Gotta cut something unworthy again," he quietly mumbled and turned around. Fending off the bullets with his sword. Giving them cover and Taehyung time to get his Magnum out once again. "Don't disappoint me, baby," he whispered to his gun before also cranking down the window. He gave Jimin a nod, which he understood instantly. "Hold on!" Taking a sharp left turn, he gave Taehyung a good angle to aim.

He shot all his six bullets. Hitting the windscreen. But it didn't crack, seemingly being bulletproof. He reloaded his magazine, three by three at the same time. He aimed again and shot exactly twice. Perfectly hitting both car tyres, causing the suv to lose control. And another shot, hitting the motor. Sparks popping out from the rimes scratching the road surface and smoke coming from the motor as it hit a light post.

Jimin floored the accelerator, escaping further while dodging the cars in front of them and overtaking them. Sirens being heard from afar all of a sudden.

"Great," he groaned, "Those guys got us unneeded attention."

He turned into a sidestreet and then another. Gearing down. He turned into another street and into a parking lot. "Time to change cars."

"Who were those guys?" Taehyung frowned, looking at his friends then as the car came to a halt. Seeing them shrug. "Not sure, but they did leave us a souvenir," Yoongi said and picked up one of the bullets he had cut from the floor. Holding it between his thumb and index finger. The metal shining in the light. Making a carving visible. He squinted his eyes, trying to decypher the symbol. "What is this?" Taehyung grabbed the bullet. Inspecting it. ".308 semiautomatic," he noted. He turned it a little. Also seeing the little symbol carved on the side. "Is this some bird?"

At the mention of a bird, Jimin perked up. Becoming all ears. "May I see?" He took it from Taehyung and indeed. It was a bird. An owl, to be precise.

"Crap." He slid the bullet into his pocket and immediately grabbed his phone out. Starting dialing a number. "What is it?" Yoongi asked, confused about his sudden reaction. Jimin's lips parted to explain but right in that moment the ringing tone stopped and his call got answered. "Bella-baby? We got a problem."

»»»

next chapter: 0.4 here

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ladyluscinia · 2 years

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I've already expressed that I think people who read Izzy as a clearly racist / homophobic villain are setting themselves up for disappointment - doubly so if they are throwing around "irredeemable" or expecting he'll be harshly punished somehow - because the show is simply... not that kind of show.

But I've also decided they are just plain missing out on good writing.

Just in general, do you know what standard straight romcom couples pretty much never have to deal with? Extreme bigotry as a major obstacle to their relationship. It's not a normal thing to, say, set up an interracial couple and then have one particular character constantly around spouting segregation era views because that's a slap in the face you don't need in a romcom. If a story does go that way it's pretty much exclusively a brief, "oh shit did they just go there?" moment, kills the lighthearted tone immediately, and leads directly to a huge climactic explosion because, again, slap in the face.

So why should Stede and Edward have to face seasons of explicit homophobia and racism (without even a cathartic explosion up front) for the crime of being a non-standard romcom couple? They shouldn't! Canon gay couples deserve to get the romance and the lighthearted tone without having to run through a required Homophobia Exists obstacle course. At the same time, though, that can be kinda difficult writing-wise because homophobia does exist.

And the OFMD writers were actually really fucking smart about it!

Like, as people have pointed out around Izzy, any character being hostile to a gay couple is going to ping homophobia radars, because in reality that is a likely explanation. Same for insulting gay characters based on their appearance or manner (so... the basis of most insults?). This means you probably can't just copy the obstacle characters from a straight romcom and play them out the same way - they would just read as homophobic without ever saying it out loud - but also you need obstacle characters for a lot of the romcom beats. So instead of doing that, they wrote Izzy reasons for his behavior that make sense.

Setting up one of Stede's primary character flaws (and a major theme of the show) as his unconscious class privilege, and then dropping in an aggressively working class guy as the main onscreen antagonist? That's brilliant. Izzy can insult and despise his clothes, his manners, his very existence in the world, and not only does it work, but it's also sympathetic and fixable and crucially based on a real flaw of Stede's. Making him hate Stede for something Stede has actually "done wrong" makes it more difficult to slip into a mindset where a neutral reason (like finding him annoying or something) is just disguising a bigoted one. And then making him hate the relationship because Stede, who he hates, is stealing Edward, who he is in love with? Classic romcom trope AND another clever sidestep of more serious and less sympathetic motivations.

The show is fantastically pulling off getting a man to hate a gay man and a gay romance for realistic, messy, straight out of a romcom reasons entirely unrelated to them being gay, and a bunch of people are STILL obsessed with proving that, no, it's definitely irredeemable, awful, "I'll kill you for being yourself" violent homophobia at work. Why not just consider the alternative?

#our flag means death #and this is all before we even get into the cycles of abuse and toxic defense methods against emotional vulnerability #which hits on the working class struggle to survive AND clever use of comedy violence to play with in universe severity #just... how are the same people putting the show on the highest pedestal i've ever seen the ones also ignoring good rep writing?#izzy hands ofmd #stede bonnet ofmd #blackbeard ofmd #homophobia #racism #ladyluscinia #(disclaimer - i don't actually watch romcoms very often but i'm pretty sure everything i've said here applies)

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odanurr87 · 11 months

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Alchemy of Completed 2022 Kdramas - Part 1

Last year I watched a bunch of kdramas, too many for me to properly review at the rate I write about them. As a result, I'm gonna try something different and quickly review those dramas that released in 2022 that I watched, and maybe recommend a few alternatives here and there in those cases where the show didn't live up to the task. Considering it's been a while since I watched some of these dramas, I binged a couple of them again to better inform my commentary. If you're short on time, or just want to add kdramas to your ever-increasing watchlist, you'll find a ⭐ next to the titles I wholeheartedly recommend, and a 💀 next to those I feel should best be avoided, but you do you. If you still haven't watched some of these shows, this list will hopefully give you some idea of whether you'll enjoy watching them (or not).

A brief note on my rating system before we begin. I use bins for my 1-10 scale in the following way:

Anything between 5 and 6 is considered average

Shows between 7 and 8 are considered above average

Shows in the 9 to 10 range are the cream of the crop

Anything between 1 to 4 is considered below average, with the 1-2 range reserved for the worst offenders.

Thus, I have two possible scores for the average, above average, and cream of the crop categories, what I believe makes my life a little easier when rating shows. I have occasionally given half point ratings (e.g. 7.5) to certain shows when I feel they're halfway to a better grade, but that has been the exception rather than the rule.

So without further ado, welcome to my Alchemy of Completed 2022 Kdramas - Part 1!

A Business Proposal⭐

Episode count: 12

Where to watch: Netflix

Rating: 8/10

Verdict: "You know I'm good at a lot of different things, right?"

We start with one of my favourites and the best short romcom of 2022. Based on the manhwa of the same name by Haehwa (original story) and NARAK (art), Taemu Kang (Ahn Hyeo Seop) plays the 'perfect CEO' stereotype who ain't got no time for love so, after several hilarious events, he eventually hires Hari Shin (Kim Se Jeong) to play the part of his girlfriend to fool grandpa. Unbeknownst to him though, Hari is his employee. Will their fake relationship turn into a real one? You bet your ass!

The show ticks almost all of the required tropes, subverts some -what was a pleasant surprise- and entertains throughout, making perfect use of its runtime. The second lead couple, played by Kim Min Gue and Seol In Ah, also turned several heads, not to mention the latter had great BFF chemistry with Kim Se Jeong. Week after week, I was looking forward to every episode of this show, especially considering how disappointing another romcom that aired around the same time turned out to be, and that you may or may not find in this list. You could say this show aired just in time for Samantha and Rachel to cure my FLAWless disappointment.

Again My Life⭐

Episode count: 16

Where to watch: Viki

Rating: 8/10

Verdict: Lawful Lawyer is back!

The better Lawless Lawyer of 2022. Kim Hee Woo (Lee Joon Gi) is a prosecutor who travels back in time to put the people who murdered him behind bars while the audience wonders which female lead he should date. And between Kim Ji Eun, Hong Bi Ra, and Veronica Park Kim Jae Kyung, well, he's definitely not lacking in choices. Fortunately, time travel is merely used as a trigger to tell the story (similar to 365: Repeat the Year in this respect), so we don't have to worry about kdramas' rather abysmal track record with sci-fi. The show keeps you hooked episode after episode, finding a good balance between the scheming, putting people behind bars, throwing some punches (has those trademark LJG action sequences!), all the while going after the next big fish. Last, but not least, it does an incredibly good job at managing an ensemble cast of characters, and there are a lot of them! If you're a fan of Lawless Lawyer or Lee Joon Gi, you can't go wrong with this one.

Alchemy of Souls - Part 1

Episode count: 20

Where to watch: Netflix

Rating: 6/10

Verdict: Watch a fantasy cdrama instead

Alternatives: Fights Break Sphere, Fighter of the Destiny

When I watched the character promos for this show I thought this could be Korea's answer to some of China's fantasy dramas, possibly Xuanhuan dramas, and I was all for it! I liked the male actor, Lee Jae Wook, in other dramas I'd watched with him (he was great in When the Weather is Fine and Search: WWW), and Jung So Min playing a master assassin and mentor in a fantasy drama was quite appealing. Of course, I was a bit worried when the teaser dropped, with its emphasis on some weak comedy, but I decided to give the show the benefit of the doubt. Sadly, Part 1 didn't live up to the task. It meandered a lot, definitely under-using its 20-episode order, focusing on every romantic relationship under the sun and then some, ultimately delivering an unsatisfactory hero's journey for the ML, while the antagonists played ping-pong with the alchemy of souls. At times, I was reminded of Hwarang, a show I have reviewed very poorly and that seems to have relied on the idol factor to garner popular appeal.

I've previously compared Jang Uk's journey to that of Xiao Yan from the cdrama Fights Break Sphere, in that I expected the former, from the previews, to undergo a similar rise to power as the latter, rigorously training under his master, slowly climbing his way back to power, but with the additional appeal of developing that romantic relationship between Jung So Min's character and Lee Jae Wook's, what would've made for a more rewarding journey for both the character and the audience. This is a tried-and-true formula, also used by the popular anime The Rising of the Shield Hero, to mention but one other example. Unfortunately for us, Jang Uk can hardly be bothered to train (supposedly, he "trained" with twelve masters for years and didn't learn a damn), except at the very specific, and limited, times that the script dictates, instead relying on luck and plot contrivances to "skip ahead" his way to power, what makes for far less memorable scenes. Additionally, the cdrama nails the master-student relationship thanks to the great rapport between Baron Chen's Yao Chen and Leo Wu's Xiao Yan, but there's hardly such a bond between Mu Deok and Jang Uk.

In the end, Part 1 of Alchemy of Souls should've been about Jang Uk's rise to power under the guidance of his master, and later love interest, Mu Deok, but it's too unfocused, its attention constantly diverted by comedy, love polygons, or caricaturesque villains doing dumb things under everyone's noses. Perhaps its only saving grace was the character of the Crown Prince, brilliantly played by Shin Seung Ho, who was able to nail both the comedy and the drama when called for. However, if you're looking for a good fantasy drama with a more traditional (or any) hero's journey, watch Fights Break Sphere instead, with the caveat only the first season has been released, and it's doubtful there'll be a second. I'd also recommend Fighter of the Destiny, with Lu Han. It probably doesn't have as good CGI or sets, but it has a better grip on the hero's journey than Alchemy and nails the camaraderie aspects.

Alchemy of Souls - Part 2

Episode count: 10

Where to watch: Netflix

Rating: 7/10

Verdict: Works better as a standalone watch

I should've probably left Part 2 of the show for Part 2 of my list, but I'm going in alphabetical order so that's that. This is one of the shows I decided to rewatch to refresh my memory and, to my surprise, it fared much better the second time around. Why's that? Read on to find out!

Part 2 of Alchemy of Souls starts strong, much stronger than Part 1 did, something many were doubting when the news hit that Jung So Min wouldn't return for Part 2, instead being replaced by the original Naksu actress, Go Youn Jung. Fortunately, she does an excellent job throughout, but especially in the beginning of Part 2, which comes across as more of a fairy tale (Rapunzel's), and where the show decides to embrace some of the typical marriage contact tropes, as Young Jung's character fake-marries the now uber-powerful Jang Uk in order to escape from her mother's tight grasp. Honestly, I wish the show had started with Part 2, in media res, and used the material from Part 1 for flashback storytelling, in a similar vein to how The Untamed did it. God, that would've been so good! Precisely because Jang Uk has become sort of a demigod he can boss around all of the useless supporting characters from Part 1 (I'm looking at you, Pathetic Assembly of Evil), and pretty much do whatever he wants, so it's quite commendable to see him return smarter and more measured in his decision-making.

As someone who watched Part 2 live back then, it started to lose its initial glimmer when an inevitable reveal kept being delayed episode after episode, hinting that it would obviously occur the next one. Of course, this never happened, but what made matters worse was the fact that the ML was kept oblivious while everyone around him found out and chose not to tell him because... reasons? I can understand one person keeping the secret for his own agenda, maybe a couple, but I find it astonishing that even Jang Uk's friends and family shared this same agenda, as they also kept the truth from him. Additionally, the more this delay continued the further the narrative possibilities were constrained and, thusly, certain scenarios conjured up by fans never came to pass. However, this will not be much of an issue for people coming in blind to Part 2 (or with a healthy distance from Part 1). Perhaps even the fact that the noble idiocy card is played, or that the main antagonist is obstinately preserved by the writers until the very last episode to little effect (when he shouldn't have made it past Part 1), won't present much of an issue to newcomers.

Having said this, I still feel the final battle for the fate of the world remains rather underwhelming and anticlimactic, not helped by the fact that certain characters are resurrected right before said battle. After all, if the show outright establishes death is not permanent, minutes before "the end of the world," why should I fear for any of the characters? Even Jang Uk himself, during this final battle, doesn't show an ounce of worry that maybe this time he will not make it out alive, regardless of his powers, making the fight seem entirely mechanical and perfunctory. The writers even throw in some half-baked plot device about the King's Star being powered by seven other stars, and since it had never been explained throughout the show a character has to exposition-dump it on our laps (there's quite a lot of exposition dump going around in Part 2, what helps newcomers to the show). It's a plot device prominently featured in the cdrama Fighter of the Destiny, which I previously recommended, so maybe it was inspired by it?

In the end, if you still want to get a taste of the Alchemy experience, I wholeheartedly suggest you treat Part 2 as the original show, with Part 1 being the prequel made to cash in on the show's success that, ultimately, you may not even need. Thus, as a standalone, I'm revising my original rating for Part 2 from a 6/10 to a 7/10, bumping it into my above average bin.

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Episode count: 16

Where to watch: Netflix

Rating: 6/10

Verdict: Better luck in S2

Alternatives: Good Doctor, Again My Life

Woo to the Young to the Woo started off with a bang and had me sold after binging its first four episodes (I had a bit of an offset), making me hopeful this could be one of my favourites from 2022. Sadly, it was thereabouts that the quality of the writing slowly started going downhill for me. Woo lost me on two fronts: the weak framing and execution of the legal cases, and the underdeveloped cast of supporting characters, who were mostly neglected in favour of Park Eun Bin's Young Woo. Don't get me wrong, Park Eun Bin nailed the character, and her conversation with her mom in Episode 8 was particularly poignant and well executed, but it wouldn't have hurt to give characters like Min Woo or Jun-ho a case that resonated with them, like "The Strife of the Three Brothers," which was relevant to Young Woo's BFF Geu Ra-mi.

I'll take Min Woo as an example because, out of the whole cast of supporting characters, he showed the most promise. The show mentions in passing that Min Woo is his family's sole breadwinner, what could explain why he's so competitive and regards Young Woo as a threat rather than a boon, but the show never tries to explore this when it has the perfect medium to do so in the form of the legal cases. So why not give him a case that echoes some of his struggles trying to support his family while making headway into the competitive legal world, thus allowing us and his teammates to get to know him a little better? In essence, show us, don't just tell us. How am I then supposed to buy his sudden change-of-heart in "The Blue Night of Jeju" when you've given me nothing to support the fact he's bonded with anyone in the team? (besides Jun-ho who was already his flatmate) Perhaps not surprisingly, this particular episode throws a bunch of arcs left and right for the supporting characters to try and grab hold of, but too little too late.

As a procedural, I feel Extraordinary Attorney Woo is pretty average. It either didn't know how or never intended to handle its supporting cast of characters and successfully integrate them into the narrative, similarly to how a show like Again My Life did. To draw a curious parallel, the final episode of Again My Life gathers all of "the good guys" at the restaurant of Hee Woo's parents. There are 14 of them in total, not counting Hee Woo and his parents, and I feel like they've truly become one big extended family by show's end. Extraordinary Attorney Woo has a similar scene, gathering everyone at Min Shik's place that is meant to convey the same feeling, but they don't quite feel like a team yet, let alone a family. Maybe in Season 2?

If you're looking for a show featuring another savant autistic lead, but with a better grasp on developing an ensemble cast of characters, as well as a romantic relationship between the leads, then Good Doctor is the show for you. On the other hand, if you're looking for a kickass lawyer, well, you probably already know who I'm talking about.

Fanletter, Please⭐

Episode count: 4

Where to watch: Viki

Rating: 8/10

Verdict: A lot of heart in a small package

The first among three shows in these lists that feature Choi Soo Young and Yoon Park as either main or supporting leads. I'd only previously watched Choi Soo Young in So I Married an Anti-Fan, a show not without its share of issues, but her as the female lead wasn't one. Indeed, she was one of the highlights and I was looking forward to seeing more of her work. As such, I was looking forward to this mini-series, more so when I realised Yoon Park would play the role of a father willing to move heaven and earth for his daughter, what is not a typical setup in kdramas (in my watching experience, mind you). Off the top of my head, I can only think of Marriage Contract and Lie After Lie as similar shows, in terms of how much of a protagonist the child actor is. Both are shows I would wholeheartedly recommend.

As for Fanletter, Please, I was positively pleased by how much content and social commentary this show was able to fit into its 4-hour runtime without harming the storytelling, something that even full-length kdramas struggle to achieve. Having said that, I would've welcomed one or two more episodes to let it breathe a little bit more and, of course, to watch some cute family moments! This is definitely a case of so good you want more of it. Still, Choi Soo Young and Yoon Park make it work within the available runtime, what's a credit to them and the script. CSY was on a roll last year (as you'll find out in Part 2!) so I'll have to keep an eye out for more of her dramas, and it was very welcome to see Yoon Park play this devoted father character after the disappointing Forecasting Love & Weather (though he was pretty good in it). Give me more short dramas!

Forecasting Love and Weather

Episode count: 16

Where to watch: Viki, Netflix

Rating: 6/10

Verdict: Couldn't forecast love and I have my doubts about the weather

Alternatives: She Would Never Know, The Rational Life

I have a soft spot for Park Min Young, having watched romcoms like What's Wrong With Secretary Kim? and Her Private Life, or even melodramas like When the Weather is Fine. And who can forget Healer, where she played the part of Lois Lane to Ji Chang Wook's Clark Kent (watch it, it's a classic). I couldn't remember a drama with her that I didn't enjoy watching, so it broke my heart a little to see what a disappointing mess Forecasting Love and Weather turned out to be. I should've heeded a friend's advice to steer clear of Song Kang dramas, even though the script was clearly the worse offender by far.

The show hooked us in with the initial romcom elements, and then decided to veer into slife/melo territory, as the relationships between the different couples started to fray, with conflict being driven at an accelerated pace by the issues that arose from poor communication, or an outright absence of it, and how the different couples handled (they often didn't) the results of their miscommunication. I didn't much mind at the time because I felt they were being somewhat mature about it without overplaying their hand, and because my weekly romcom fix was being delivered by A Business Proposal, but they were treading a fine line... that got utterly ground into dust in the last six episodes. At this point in the show, the nonsensical drama was amped considerably, to the point it could've given Young Lady & Gentleman a run for their money, setting us up for the inevitable breakup. Why? Because the kdrama gods have written that a breakup must inevitably occur in Episode 14 or thereabouts, and this show is not about to subvert that trope!

Like Extraordinary Attorney Woo, Forecasting Love and Weather failed at properly handling its ensemble cast of characters, trying to juggle five relationships to some very mixed results, when it would've been better off simply focusing on the main and secondary couples. As a result, by show's end I could've cared less what happened to the main couple, and was actually a bit more invested in the secondary one, played by Yoon Park and Yura, possibly because they at least tried to talk to each other and work things out. Honestly, Yoon Park's Ki Jun got the better deal out of all the characters in the show. How do you make Ki Jun, the guy who cheated on his fiancée with Si Woo's girlfriend, a more likable, or at least interesting, character than everyone else? You have him grow from an immature baby into a more or less responsible adult. You could argue that the main leads experience growth of their own, but it struck me as a bit aimless, a bit hollow. I mean, 16 episodes for Ha Kyung's boss to tell her you learn more from your mistakes than you do your successes? Seriously? Just go to r/GetMotivated for that.

Would I recommend this show? Unless you want to learn a little about what goes on behind the scenes of a weather forecast, not really, but maybe it's my fault for having high expectations due to PMY. It's not a bad show though, just average. If you want far better executed takes on this concept, check She Would Never Know on the kdrama side, and The Rational Life on the cdrama side.

Glitch💀

Episode count: 10

Where to watch: Netflix

Rating: 3/10

Verdict: Watching an episode of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel would've been more exciting and a lot shorter too

Alternatives: Circle

Can I get away simply by saying watching this show was a glitch? No? Dammit. I should've known better than to watch a Netflix-produced kdrama, even if it does star Nana, 'cause they've all been a bust for me, but Glitch was one of the privileged few shows I watched in 2022 that made me feel I had utterly wasted my time, with no redeeming qualities about it. 500 minutes to tell a story that lacks focus and is all over the place, perhaps stretched thin to meet a Netflix episode quota, with a FL that is not particularly interesting to follow, as she goes through a midlife crisis and teams up with Nana to investigate a UFO cult that may or may not have kidnapped her ex to sell his kidneys. Okay, maybe I made up that last bit about the kidneys.

The comedy doesn't land, the mystery doesn't land, the drama doesn't land, and the UFO doesn't land either. Undoubtedly, the finale is the better episode of the show, not least of why because it marked the ending, but also because the show didn't have any more time to dawdle as it had been doing for the past nine episodes, what gave it some much needed focus. To make matters worse, the surprises and twists at the end of each episode just weren't good enough to keep you hooked, nor, I'm afraid, were the leads. I was tempted at the time to give this show my first ever 1/10 for the way it wasted my time over the span of those 500 minutes, with a story that was infuriatingly inconsistent and lacked a lot of common sense, but it's probably not that bad. Still, I would only recommend watching it to my enemies, probably alongside something like Sisyphus.

Good Job

Episode count: 12

Where to watch: Viki

Rating: 7/10

Verdict: Good fun

Alternatives: Secret Royal Inspector

Another ENA network show, like Extraordinary Attorney Woo, but shorter and more entertaining, as we follow the crazy antics of Eun Soon Woo (Jung Il Woo), a chaebol CEO who doubles as a private detective (think Bruce Wayne/Batman), and Don Se Ra (Kwon Yu Ri), his newly-recruited superpowered assistant, as they aim to solve a 20-year-old cold case while uncovering other, smaller, cases, helping people and rectifying injustices along the way.

Good Job is just a fun ride overall, even if the comedy can be a little hit-or-miss sometimes, especially when it drags on for too long or tries the Marvel route of undermining certain scenes. The writing too could've benefited from another revision, as some events feel gratuitously delayed, like when a character refuses to reveal a certain name only to do so a few minutes later, while others are forced to a head, like Se Ra discovering Soon Woo's batcave. Oh, yeah, he has a batcave, of sorts, and even an Alfred, in the form of Lee Joon Hyuk's Director Hong, whom you may recall from Mystic Pop-Up Bar. He also has a talented sidekick and comedic support, Jin Mo (Eum Moon Suk), both a lawyer and a hacker, who also gets into a romantic entanglement of his own with Se Ra's best friend, Na Hee (Song Sang Eun). This is the mini-Justice League you'll see play dress-up (these scenes are so over-the-top fun!) from episode to episode, as they go undercover to solve cases and get one step closer to their goal. In this sense, this show could be compared to something like Taxi Driver, but, unlike the latter, Good Job doesn't take itself too seriously and neither should you for maximum enjoyment.

While the resolution of the final case felt a bit underwhelming, and perhaps a tad perfunctory (I did appreciate the brief redemption arc for one of the antagonists though), Good Job achieves in 12 episodes what Extraordinary Attorney Woo could not in 16, making its cast of characters grow into a team, one I would not mind accompanying in more adventures in future seasons. Will that happen? Probably not, so if you're looking for more fun adventures of the sort, and don't mind traveling to the past, I would not hesitate to recommend Secret Royal Inspector, with Kim Myung Soo and Kwon Na Ra.

Grid💀

Episode count: 10

Where to watch: Disney+

Rating: 4/10

Verdict: Another nail in the kdrama sci-fi coffin

Alternatives: 365: Repeat the Year, Reset, Circle

Sci-fi is one of my favourite genres, but kdramas have had a rather lousy track record at delivering good quality sci-fi and, sadly, Grid does nothing to change that. Our story starts in 1997, when a mysterious time traveler known as "the Ghost" laves a program for an energy grid to replace Earth's failing magnetic fields. This Grid is now managed by the Administration Bureau who intend to track down the Ghost and unlock the secrets of time travel... eventually. The show's comprised of only ten episodes, yet the pacing of the first half is slower than it has any right to be given the events depicted (hint: they aren't that exciting) and the dialogue isn't stimulating enough to sustain such a slow burner. This "season" could've been compressed into 5 or 6 episodes and it would've been stronger for it. Of course, then it would hardly qualify as a "season" (though Netflix seems to think it does).

The main plot line focuses around this serial killer and the fact that the Ghost is helping him evade capture. Why is this time traveler aiding and abetting a criminal? Honestly, this question was never interesting enough to fuel ten weeks of watching (the pain!) and it shows. Additionally, it is not answered conclusively, although there are some bread crumbs for the viewer to put the pieces together. In fact, this statement captures the show in a nutshell; it raises questions, but never provides any conclusive or satisfying answers, playing on the viewer's knowledge of other (better) time travel stories so they can come up with their own. Perhaps the worst example of this is the season finale, which is only meant to set up events for a possible S2 (in your dreams, or nightmares), thereby raising even more questions.

The writer behind this, Lee Soon Yeon, is apparently quite good, having written for Stranger and Stranger 2. I haven't watched either show so I can't comment on them, but time travel stories aren't for everyone. Having said that, the "mysteries" that are supposed to keep viewers hooked were also underwhelming. I remember reading an article that recommended Grid as a show that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I suppose it's possible to fall off your seat while asleep, right? If you want a show that uses time travel well, though in very limited fashion, merely as a trigger for the plot to unfold, watch 365: Repeat the Year. The cdrama Reset is a great exponent of using a time loop and one of my favourites from 2022. If you want kdrama's best exponent of sci-fi to date, watch Circle (review on the way).

If You Wish Upon Me⭐

Episode count: 16

Where to watch: Viki

Rating: 8/10

Verdict: The genie from Aladdin would be proud

First things first, there is a better version of this show if you take out the gangster storyline, which was entirely superfluous, and better integrate the sister storyline into the main plot. You can also drop the jealous doctor who added surprisingly little beyond being jealous at the required times (what a waste of a perfectly good character). Repackage it all into a shorter, 12-episode, season and this show could've reached 9-10 territory for me. Those are pretty much the weakest aspects of the show.

With that out of the way, it's a very good show. People have compared it to Chocolate given that it takes place in a hospice ward but, for my part, I dropped that show after 5 or 6 episodes, partly because of the ML. No such problem with Ji Chang Wook's character here, an orphan and ex-con with a heart of gold, and a cute dog he's named "Son." Despite all the abuse he's been subjected to throughout his life, he slowly starts to open up as he does community service at the hospice. Paired with Choi Soo Young's flirty Nurse Seo (love her!), these two alone make a powerful case for watching this show. Sung Dong Il also delivers a great performance and has some wonderful exchanges with Ji Chang Wook's character.

The show follows the "case of the week" formula for the most part, certainly during the first half of the drama, as Team Genie tries to fulfill the final wishes of the hospice's patients and often positively impact other people's lives in so doing. Be prepared and have tissues at hand. Beyond the gangster detour that wasted our time towards the end, and drew dangerously close to upending all the good will the show had garnered throughout its run, the final episode really brings it home, coming full circle and delivering a really satisfying conclusion to our story, one final surprise as Team Genie brings down the curtain on their show and bids us goodbye.

In short, yes, it could've been better with a tighter focus but, as it stands, it's one of the better shows to have come out in 2022, and perhaps Ji Chang Wook's best work since Healer (with the caveat that I have not yet watched Suspicious Partner nor Lovestruck in the City). And Choi Soo Young is now 2 for 2! (this girl's on 🔥🔥)

Jinxed at First💀

Episode count: 16

Where to watch: Viki

Rating: 4/10

Verdict: Oh, it's jinxed alright

Alternatives: My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, Goblin, Scripting Your Destiny

I had measured expectations for this drama. Na In Woo had previously worked with the same director in 2021's River Where the Moon Rises, a show I enjoyed a great deal, though mostly because it was the first time I delved deep into the history behind the drama, namely the tale of Princess Pyeonggang and On Dal the Fool, and the history of the Three Kingdoms' period. He was brought in late, with production underway, to replace Ji Soo; he barely slept, had to adlib a lot of his scenes, and still managed to have great chemistry with Kim So Hyun and, to my mind, had the better grasp on the character of On Dal. I'd hoped Jinxed at First would give him another opportunity to shine, but, alas, that was not the case.

The first episode alone is a hectic storytelling mess (and, incidentally, River Where the Moon Rises alumni reunion), rushing through a lot of backstory and setup for the rest of the season. We're introduced to Soo Gwang, a bright student with a promising future and powerful friends, whose life takes a turn for the worse when he meets Seul Bi (Seo Hyun), a woman imprisoned since birth by his best friend's dad because of her strange ability to see a person's future through a single touch. Cut to a year later, where we find Soo Gwang working as a fishmonger under a different name, only for Seul Bi to track him down again, determined to remain by his side.

Honestly, I'm not sure what genre this show wanted to be, but I'm pretty sure it failed at most of them. For the first 6 or 7 episodes it tried to resemble something like My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, as Seul Bi is just as innocent and naïve as Miho was (even if Miho sold it better than Seul Bi did, to my mind), and both male leads were resolved to get rid of her. This is perhaps the strongest portion of the show, as Seul Bi adapts to her new environment and neighbors, making new friends while at the same time helping Soo Gwang get rid of his (never explained) bad luck. I even enjoyed some of the comedy. However, unlike My Girlfriend is a Gumiho, there is not enough chemistry between the leads to have them fall in love with each other over the course of 6 or 7 episodes. Well, not in Soo Gwang's case at any rate, as Seul Bi has been infatuated with him for years. Upon falling in love, the trope that naturally follows is a break-up, after which point the show starts to resemble more of a makjang, turning to corporate and chaebol intrigue and infighting. This is also around the time Soo Gwang's best friend, Min Joon (played by Ki Do Hoon, from Scripting Your Destiny), decides he's in love with Seul Bi (what?), something even more out of left field, especially when he's already engaged to Lee Ho Jung's (Soljiwan!!!) charming character, Ja Kyung, who effortlessly stole every scene she was in. Min Joon, if you don't want her, I'll gladly take her off your hands!

Seemingly having exhausted the depth of its narrative well, the show dragged its feet for several episodes, eventually deciding the story was better served by turning a character into a psychopath, who also wanted Seul Bi for himself and was willing to kill anyone in the process, an eye-rolling set of circumstances eventually resolved thanks to Seul Bi's expansive (aka nonsensical) repertoire of supernatural powers. And, of course, in a show of this caliber, the amnesia trope could not be absent, a card that is dealt in the very last episode and resolved at the very last minute. What a payoff.

When I first learned of this drama I recall reading an outline that went something along the lines of, "Unlucky man meets a goddess of luck." Would it have been too much to ask for a show fitting that description, but in the vein of the excellent Goblin instead? Or maybe something like Scripting Your Destiny, which is certainly not as good as Goblin, but is still way better than this, and much shorter too. If you want to watch a show that features a romantic relationship between a god and a human, I encourage you to give those a try instead, as well as the aforementioned My Girlfriend is a Gumiho.

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