Oh. My. Gosh 🤣🤣🤣

I frakking love these writers. I don't actually, it's not a proper, technical or wholesome, correct or right love but let me get this out.
So there are like… black listed writers I hate and who's works I would rather see burn with the fire of a thousand suns. And then there’s THESE guys, who honestly I feel the kind of pride you feel for like … when something in your fridge ends up growing 100 different kinds of mould. Terrible, awful, horrible, kinda gross, but WOW isn’t fungi just so FASCINATING? (I’m apologise, this was the best metaphor I could come up with on the spot). Like, I should properly blacklist the Vagabond crew but instead I feel this endearment, this morbid, immoral attachment to them, for them being the way they are. (especially when I made the RIGHT call this time and capped out at the half way mark *evil giggle*)
Incredible, honestly.
Of all shows that I think Sic's Zombie Law* is most applicable to, this is it.
And Gaus Electronics better be frakking AMAZING for you KDY, is all I can say.

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"because it turns out that most of the information we were given had nothing to do with how things wrapped up."

Ofc it didn't. That's why @leetennant could relay watch this for me because nothing that happened in the first half was necessary or important.

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* Sic's Zombie Law is a narrative law that says anything that can't get WORSE by having zombies in it and/or would get BETTER for having zombies in it, should have zombies in it. Making sense is not necessary at that point.

At least they make sure there won't be season 2. Good.

"The women were disposable from start to finish", is the one thing i'm quite upset about. With what and how production team treated these characters just put me off. Hyejin is the most pitiful character.

Somehow I didn't expect Miho to get sick and die despite protesting about how she tried to save everyone earlier without having protection. I was expecting Changho to die instead. Then i thought it over and, i think, sensible(?) characters in genre like this mostly die in kdramaland.

Man, this show was so disappointing. I was really hoping for more from LJS's comeback drama. Is it too much to ask for a fantasy rom com next?
via GIPHY

The writers just added new details when needed and skimmed over them like "it's fine, it makes sense", and so many of them led to nothing??? How did Soon-tae join the BM squad and become #2? Who killed No Park's daughter? Where is the justice for said daughter and Hyejin? Why bring up the killer son if he wasn't going to do anything?

The writers didn't care about the characters, just the twists they could throw at us. It sucks. (honestly, GoT vibes...)

I was tracking this because I’m a LJS fan, but wary due to the writers of Vagabond (which I heard a lot about the open ending) + on Disney plus. Happy I skipped. It’ll probably get watched like Doctor Stranger: in the background when I have things to do but am happy to look at LJS intermittently.

I actually hesitated watching this final 2 eps cuz imma be honest, I got bored. I gave in (BIG mistake) and decided to just end it

I guess this was what annoyed me the most. It was like they gave us so many plotlines and then just completely forgot about it. Really what was the point of mentioning the chairman's son and then absolutely nothing happens? What, did they just give up on finding him? What if Miho didn't come through with the fish farm evidence? Did they think they could bank on Miho's evidence afterwards? They could've still sought after the son for a backup that Doha clearly has a million of. But no. They were running out of episodes to actually make use of it.

If i could describe my reaction when I saw this using one meme, it would be that one disappointed Indian man with his hands on his hips meme.
The part of me who was following the entire storyline waiting for all the evidence they gathered to actually amount to something was so disappointed.
The other part of me who remembered the genre of the show, which was the main theme for the first half, would make more sense for this ending cuz from the start, everyone played dirty and Big Mouse wasn't a nice guy, he would've done anything to get what he wanted.
If we were given lesser narratives and idk SCRAPPED the entire elections storyline and just stuck to the violence/scum/darkness of it all then that ending would've made more sense and not have left a bitter taste in my mouth.

FOR REAL.
I really wasn't expecting Miho to die. That was surprising and lowkey sad but when I started this show I had a feeling they would kill one of them off due to the genre of this show but was it really necessary? Her character arc was rushed, despite her big reveal, it didnt do much to the plot at all. The final 2 eps just consisted of her sitting and staring off like dang I can do that too.
Hyejin, oh Hyejin. A brave soul lost in the winds. No mention of her, when her murderer got screen time it was just disgusting and painful to watch.
The mayor actually putting Juhee in the mental hospital came as a huge shock to me but I'm so glad she made it out alive.

I started this show cuz it was LJS and the story looked promising. If only it was written better, it (and everyone in the show) could've lived up to their true potential.

This is why I seldom watch kdramas of this genre all the way to the end. "Writer collapse." Stitching everything together with ridiculous melodramatic twists and random deaths and it all just kind of ends.

When I saw the teaser for this drama I was asking people if it actually had a female lead, as it seemed mostly the lead character and a couple of other guys ego-tripping though the plot. Turns out I was right. She was only there to show the guys off.

At least end is not in "WTH I don't get it way"
Lmao

After the episodes ended, I once again felt like I should've written down my thoughts somewhere because I'd definitely forget what happened and sure enough, I've forgotten things haha
And that's because, for me at least, simultaneously so much and so little happens.

I guess my questions are how exactly does the toxic water work? The prisoners got sick over months yet Miho got weeks and the mayor got minutes?
Also were the patients in the hospital, whose families signed NDAs, prisoners? Were the pills given helping or harming them? Were those just 2 different messed up situations? Were they using them as guinea pigs with the pills and also exposing them to toxic water?
Why were the faux psycho's siblings so defensive when they knew he did nothing wrong and just took the fall for money? And even if the brother didn't know, the sister knew he didn't do it!

And so there's just no backlash to Chang Ho just continuing to be Big Mouse when his whole thing was "just until I get the mayor and the rest of those guys"?

Hye Jin hurts my heart but at the same time, it felt real. There are countless abused women who just end up missing and it just sucks. It sucked even more because it felt so pointless. The abusive husband didn't become more *anything*. He wasn't menacing, he wasn't more pathetic, he wasn't more hardened, he wasn't more focused. And it's so gross and infuriating the more I think about it. Not sure I can ever see that actor again without wanting his characters to be punched in the face.

I don't think the NF guys got a satisfying ending at all. I think it said they got 10 years and we see them getting beaten up. Fine, sure, they're low on the totom pole now and yes, in my head I know being beaten up is a bad thing and yet it doesn't seem like enough. They killed and were complicit in so many deaths. They're disloyal, pompous jerks who aren't the least bit repentent and it just wasn't cathartic for me.

If Vagabond had an "unending", Big Mouth had a definite ending and I guess that's something?

Has there ever been a drama like this where the ultimate stakes were so low?

Why did we swap out some Grandfather-esque Chaebol and illegal medical experiments for a Mayoral election race?

Oh no *bites fingernails, girds loins, hangs on for dear life*, who but WHO will be Mayor of this small Korean city?

The cliffhanger for episode 15 is literally a Mayoral debate. Edge. of. my. seat. TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR THIS DEBATE BETWEEN MAYORAL CANDIDATES.

Meanwhile, Miho for some reason is the only character still in the actual drama and I wish someone had warned me about this because it makes the much-anticipated death of one of Yoona's insufferable characters a little less satisfying what with her being the only Big Mouse character still in the drama Big Mouse*.

Also I wanted explosive haemorrhaging.

*Apart from Jerry. Don't mention the war.

In the end, this show committed the worst crime that something like this can do. It stopped being crazy and instead embraced boring.

I ff'd so much of the last two episodes, I'm not sure I can claim even my half bean. Although if I don't, then does that mean @sicarius also doesn't get hers?

what is with 2022 kdramas and their endings?

I'm not sure how to feel about the drama, but I think I'm happy with it. I liked the ending. Yes, I thought killing Miho like that was unnecessary and, though I could see your point about the female characters, I think that was because the drama had so many characters to deal with, lots of them got a suspenseful ending, like the nurse in the hospital and chairman son, I mean, why talk about him so much, if you are not going to do anything bought him, or the fact that someone else went to prison in his place, one would expect that the drama is going to avenge the one who wrongfully dies, but no, nothing and the list goes on. Still, I am happy with how things ended, the message was loud and clear, let the law deal with you, cause if not we can be much more dangerous than you can ever be, and if decide to do it ourselves, it's going to be clean cut. I liked that, that was a Gothom-like kind of justice, they got batman and friends, and we got Big Mouse!

To play devil's advocate because I've seen this mentioned alot: regarding the introduction of the serial killer grandson that amounted to nothing, I think he was included/mentioned to show that Chang Ho had tried every *legal* recourse to take down the mayor and dismantle his power and when ALL that failed, the only thing left was to kill him.

Also it shows, yet again, how destructive and toxic the chairman is/was that he had an innocent guy take the fall for a serial killer.

I think this was the thought process behind this specific plot point.

Honestly, it still just leads to more questions but I think that's what they were going for.

Vagabond > Big Mouth
Haha

I really enjoyed the drama until the identity of Big Mouse was revealed, which was a bit of an anti-climax. Without this mystery it became a common thriller with more and more obvious plot holes, dragging towards a rushed finale. Miho's illness and death were also so unrealistic and rushed that it did not have the emotional impact it could have had, although I can understand that Chang-ho could only rise to being the new big leader without her.
The best part for me was the demise of the Mayor brought about through the water in his own swimming pool - nice twist.

@dramaddictally This recap was an absolute joy to read because of all the sarcasm I could read between the lines 😂😂😂 Agree with every single point.

I concluded that this drama was about the trajectory of Chango Ho's character from Big Mouth to Big Mouse without the detailing of the journey because nothing matters in this drama, except BM.

I'm happy that it gave us a closure, so I can put this behind me and move on.

@sicarius Do you know what is the difference between created by and written by? Wikipedia and AsianWiki attribute the story creation to the writers of "Vagabond", but writing to another person named "Kim Ha Ram", whereas MDL credits the work solely to Vagabond writers. Is creation an overview and writing is about detailing? If this is the case, poor writer had to make sense of jumbled points😂😂😂

"Chang-ho is busy preparing to become mayor and riding around in SUVs with an entourage, while Mi-ho takes the bus home alone after her doctor’s appointment. For me, this sums up their relationship."

Why even bother making them husband and wife? (except as a mechanism to get her into the prison). She could just as easily have been his sister, cousin, friend or neighbour that happened to be a nurse. Apart from CH wheedling to get her to go out with him, plus a short fumble under the bedclothes buttoned securely into matching pyjamas, there was absolutely no indication they felt more for each other than any brother/sister relationship. I've never seen such a se.xless marriage, even when CH wasn't in jail.

No wonder he didn't care about her having to catch a bus. Why invest any concern for someone who exists only to work unstintingly on your behalf and bows out at the end so you can go on to bigger and better things unencumbered? It was an appalling end and not even a believable one. They got rid of the only person in the show capable of thinking (until she ran into the mine of course - but we could argue she only did that because the script writers needed a way to get rid of her).

I get that time in the BM universe moves at a gallop, but Mi-ho was diagnosed, treated and expired in record time, all without ever looking ill or losing a single hair. We did not even get a sense of time passing nor have the time to feel any kind of anticipation or dread. If you're going to kill a main character, make it count. Wring every last tearful blub from the audience, but this was treated with no more importance than anything else.

Well I love LJS and can look at him for hours, but quite frankly, I'd have been better off just looking at him wearing nice suits in photoshoots and not bothering with this show. I don't think I have the energy to pick it all apart, but less breakneck speed, less unlikely twists and turns and MORE skill in using the remaining elements would have made all the difference.

Mi-ho and the Mayor were the only characters with any kind of depth, mainly because they were the two that actually had conversations with other characters, but they were both tossed aside at the end.

I'll finish by saying my phone wants to change Mi-ho to "Mix-up", and it does make a good point. This was a mixed-up sleight of hand posing as a drama and while it wasn't truly terrible, some truly terrible plot and character decisions were inexplicably made. I'd far rather have seen CH and MH become corrupt gangster and moll than this ending. He may look good riding around in SUVs with his entourage, but where are the brains in this organisation?

Took me forever to be able to watch this 😂. The plotline had a number of issues towards the end as is sadly common in k-dramas, but overall I thought it was pretty well done. The fact is that k-dramas aren't usually very "balanced" when it comes to plotlines for multiple leads, they're always about one lead more than the other. Sometimes the female lead, sometimes the male lead, that's just the way it is. I guess if you really wanted to see one of more than the other and they weren't the one in focus that's annoying, but for me the balance felt fine. I thought Miho dying was sad but it was no disrespect to her character, she went out strong. As someone who has lost people to cancer caused by toxic water contamination and involved in the slow moving and probably never to be fruitful litigation, this spoke to me. The frustration and pointlessness and realization that you can't fight the system resonates. Yes, Miho shouldn't have died, but that was kind of the point. I think you're *supposed* to be left feeling upset about it. And then the rest is mostly wish fulfilment. It doesn't happen in real life and probably shouldn't happen, but at least in fantasy the powerful do have to face consequences of some kind.

That scene when Mi-Ho took charge gets me excited too.. She was portrayed as always behind Chang-ho and that part gets to highlight her intellect as well as being able to lead those goons.. then, watching the hospital scene, I should be feeling quite sad about Mi-Ho dying.. but i didn’t because it felt like a convenience to move the story into something..

Now, what if, Mi-Ho and Chang-Ho knew about the cancer before he went to jail? Would that be a more driving force/motivation for him to do anything to get out and prove his innocence? Then along into the story they found out the cause and now it gives them more reason to come after Mayor Choi? Not only that, it will also require the couple grounds to team up together and then it will also be a stark contrast to Mayor Choi’s marriage as well..

Wishful thinking..

I agree with you, I started this drama months before but it was only about this time that i get to finish it, as it did not make me want to watch the next episodes more religiously.. the plot was just all over the place..

I think I needed to start my 2024 by watching a great drama (Moving) and a bad drama (Big Mouth) so I can prepare to rate the rest of the year dramas if I should finish it or not. Each thread of the story in this drama just gets cut off or leads to nowhere and I kept on watching it! This bad drama was my “WTH” drama; it was messy and I watched ALL of it.