Glad to hear you're okay, as are we, @marcusnyc20 bong-soo.

I'm enjoying HOSPITAL PLAYLIST. The music is great, and I love the garage band that doesn't practice in a garage. They look like they're having such a blast. I'm happy as a clam to see Yoo Yeon-seo after missing him in ROMANTIC DOCTOR, TEACHER KIM 2 -- and after his tragic turn in MR. SUNSHINE.

As for KINGDOM 2, it is epic. It picks up right where season 1 left off, so I'm glad I rewatched it to refresh my memory and maybe notice details I'd missed the first time around. When I get a breather, I'll watch season 2 again. It has been well worth the wait as far as quality is concerned. It just feels weird to have it spread out over years instead of a couple of months like normal Kdramas. Reminds me of the original STAR WARS movies. On the other hand, if Netflix was the only way it could be staged as the author envisioned it, so be it. Writer-nim has written a heck of a story, PD-nim and crew have captured it perfectly, and the cast have marvelously brought it to life in all its zombified glory. I'm not a fan of horror movies, but for me this isn't a horror movie so much as a sageuk on steroids.

WEATHER turned a corner for me this week, and now I finally grok why Mom and Auntie, as well as Hae-won, are so freaking weird. It's interesting to see how the child's being kept in the dark about her severely dysfunctional family continues to affect her as an adult. (I realized that what has been ringing my chimes is the authenticity of the emotions and attitude Park Min-young has been conveying. Like Esom's gritty performance in THE THIRD CHARM, it's painfully realistic.) Her situation is the opposite of what Eun-seob has had to deal with: he knows all about his family baggage, and made his peace with it long ago. I had been thinking that there might have been a whack-o birth secret such as Auntie being Hae-won's real mother, but the twist is way better than that, IMHO.

I've also noticed that the womenfolk in Bookhyun Village are the movers and shakers in all kinds of relationships, while the male population seems to be predominantly beta. It's a refreshing departure from the old wrist-grabbing stereotype.

@audrey11 ohduhree,
Amen to LJG in ARANG & THE MAGISTRATE, one of my all-time favorite sageuks, fusion or otherwise, which also introduced me to Shin Min-ah, Yeon Woo-jin, and Jung Bo-suk, along with scads of fine character actors. It's my gold-standard for world-building in fantasy dramas. Jade Emperor's flowery goat still cracks me up, and his rivalry with Yeomra is wonderfully petty. The music and literary references such as "The Butterfly Dream" of Zhuangzi [Chuang-tzu] elevated the whole production, and added a poetic Taoist dimension that prompted me to read up on the subject. MC Sniper's rap cranked up the excitement in the fight scenes just as it did in CHUNO. Dang, now I really want to see LJG and Jang Hyuk slugging it out in an old-school sageuk. Ha! I just remembered Yi Bang-won's fan in MY COUNTRY. LJG vs. JH with fans, at 10 paces. ;-)