Overall Rating: B? (A+ beginning with F- ending so we’re being generous on the average here due to how precious Go Ara and Lee Jae Wook are)
Subtitles: I didn’t dislike anything about these subs so at least there’s that!
Brief Synopsis: A pianist suffering from a series of unfortunate events crosses paths with a mysterious young man who is willing to help her achieve her dreams. Watch it on Netflix here.
**Full show spoilers below the image. If you do not wish to be spoiled, do not proceed**
Ending Type: Well it depends a little bit on what you consider the ending of this one. It was a rom com, and our couples all technically “ended up” together. In the last moments of the show, the side couples were together and our main couple kissed. If you consider the ending to be the back half of the show and the actual close of the story, this was full on rage machine like how did anyone get paid to write it bad. Don’t worry, full rant below.
Characters:
Gu Ra Ra (Go Ara)
Sunwoo Jun (Lee Jae Wook)
Cha Eun Seok (Kim Joo Hun)
Lee Seung Gi (Yoon Jong Bin)
Jin Ha Young (Shin Eun Soo)
Jin Seok Kyeong (Ye Ji Won)
Chu Min Soo (Choi Kwang Je)
Ratings:
-Characters: I loved these characters (except for psycho mom and weirdly absent dad) so much. Literally every character was pure and wholesome and fun, and sure they were not highly realistic and some of them were very much caricatures, but for a nice, warm, wholesome story (which this was for the first half) they were perfect. Everything kind of went wrong in the second half, and the last few episodes ruined a few characters (like really Jun you’re going to tell people you’re dead so they don’t worry about you while you have cancer then just show back up like everything’s fine? No thank you), but in terms of warm fuzzy nice characters these were some good ones.
-Story: I mean frankly I don’t even know what the story was? For the first half it was a very cute, sweet love story with a twist of it being a Noona romance where the main conflict seemed to be that Jun was going to need to finish school and grow up a little bit before they could really be together. But then the show started bending over backwards to find reasons they couldn’t be together and have a breakup scene only for them to get back together almost immediately and then do it again and then also Jun had cancer and felt the appropriate way to deal with that was to tell everyone he was dead so they wouldn’t worry? Or something? Y’all it was terrible.
-Relationships: Overall most relationships in this were cute. We got some great found family moments, a fun friend group with our salon women, a lot of friend loyalty with our younger cast, and generally just warmth and joy. None of it panned out in a way that was satisfying for the story, but the journey was great. The main issue were Jun’s parents who were just awful even though I think the story tried to humanize them towards the end but definitely failed.
-Romance: UGH! I don’t even know how to fully talk about this but let’s just say we had three really adorable like truly wonderful and heart-warming starts to three beautiful romances and then everything was terrible. Like two of them got the “we’re in the epilogue and these people are together now but we won’t show them really getting there” treatment and the main romance was just a total freaking mess of the writers constantly breaking them up to get them back together again and over and over until I literally didn’t even want them together anymore because it was so bad.
Free Form Review: I have yet to experience a drama I enjoyed this much that let me down this badly. The start of this was SO STRONG with two charismatic and delightful leads falling into the softest, warmest love possible surrounded by delightful side characters in a small town. Everyone was wonderful and supportive and the entire show was just a warm hug all about this special kind of gentle intimacy and it gave me such good feelings. I was a little weirded out by the potential romance between Rara and Dr. Cha but that was happily taken care of quickly and the two became friends which was lovely.
There was always an undercurrent of “oh no what will happen when scary mom finds Jun,” but then what did happen was just… bad. Like the writing was so poor and lazy and I felt constantly confused and like I had emotional whiplash and just WHAT WAS THAT. As soon as Jun went home the show became a two episode cycle of, “Let’s find a reason for Jun and Rara to break up, everyone will be devastated, then they’ll have a cute moment together to remind us that they do still love each other and aren’t they cute!” The first time or two it wasn’t so bad, but by the 3rd or 4th it was infuriating. There was a point where the story seemed to be establishing that they just needed to wait for Jun to grow up a little bit and finish school and find each other again, in a parallel to sweet Grandpa’s story, but then it just devolved continually from there. Jun, it seems, has cancer. Instead of communicating this with the people he supposedly cares about the most in the world he stages a relationship with another girl and a cruel breakup with Rara, but then feels bad about it I guess and has a nice night with her before leaving to the US for cancer treatment (lol omg who would willingly come to the US for healthcare what a terrible joke) and instead of mentioning that he instead has his mom tell everyone that HE IS DEAD. Because it’s better for them to think he’s dead than to know he’s getting treatment? And then six years later when he shows back up everything is fine and Rara has been waiting (DESPITE HIM BEING DEAD) and all it takes is one surface level conversation and they’re happily ever after? What literal bull crap I cannot even take it. Like first of all, NO. Second of all, HECK NO. This is THE WORST plot device I’ve ever seen and not only does it not make sense, but the amount of “we won’t talk about this we’ll just break up so we don’t have to but then find each other again” up until that point means I have NO FAITH in their ability to be together or stay together. And if that boy is seriously going to have her believe he’s DEAD rather than let her know he’s getting treatment for cancer he DOES NOT deserve to be in a relationship with her and frankly with anyone and none of them should ever speak to him again because seriously what the literal heck. Such a mess, so bad, so upsetting, so disappointing. All of the joy was sucked out of this show which is awful considering that was the only substance there was to it to begin with.
Not to mention the fact that Seung Gi and Ha Young did get resolution to their side romance but LITERALLY NO ONE ELSE DID.
Seok Kyeong and Min Soo had SUCH a delightful build up as the middle aged side couple and then absolutely 0 resolution minus a mention that they’re together SIX YEARS LATER in the final minutes of the finale.
Worse was Dr. Cha and his ex-wife, who was a character kind of and interacted with him EXACTLY ONCE in the actual story, but then at the end he’s going to propose to her and we’re supposed to care about it?
The laziness to the writing was just astounding. Overall highly disappointing, cannot recommend, no matter how cute Go Ara and Lee Jae Wook are. Just wow.
High Points: Go Ara and Lee Jae Wook are delightful.
Low Points: The writing/story and whatever the heck that mess of an ending was. Like wow, so bad.
K Drama Kween 