I'm gonna have to give mine to Love is for Suckers, because even though it was pretty terrible I loved parts of it a lot (John and Ji-wan, of course), and I keep rewatching scenes from it even weeks after it ended. I'm gonna have to list it under my favorite dramas just because I've rewatched some of my actual favorites less.

Totally agree with Jinxed at First. I would say it disappointed me the most. And it had such a promising start (it reminded me of the film Penelope)...

My Bean of Shame goes to Love in Contract. For the exact same reasons as Unit's
i) It created a Go Kyung-pyo fan out of me
ii) I got enchanted and warped by his character Judge Jung Ji-ho. I got enough of Ji-ho. I know it is enough but was it enough? I wanted more even though bi was full, I could sit it for more episodes if he's taking 58% of each episode time.

If you know how much I waxed his praises in the comment section episode in episode out, you'll see he earned my Bean of Shame uncontested.

I don't really have a drama I could present with the bean of shame. But then I remembered the loveline in Bulgasal and the way my feelings morphed from incredulity and quick "nope" to actually enjoying its brand of (literally) bloody angst and appreciating how wrong it was.

Or maybe it's just the charm of Lee Jin-wook and the fact that his last decent drama was forever ago. (Was it Nine? Or Three Musketeers?)

Shame is defined as "a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior" or
a loss of respect or esteem; dishonor: such as the incident had brought shame on his family.

I agree with missvictrix that WELCOME TO WEDDING HELL had a promising premise (anxiety filled prenuptials) that failed horribly in writing and direction. Was I ashamed for watching the entire series? No, just disappointed that like many shows it could have been much better.

It was more foolish for Song Hye-Kyo to continually be cast with a male lead 10+ years younger than her. WE ARE NOW BREAKING UP was an embarrassing mess.

But this leads me to the conclusion I reached this year that I have been foolish in accepting current, lesser quality shows instead of exploring older shows that I have not seen. I watched HAEUNDAE LOVERS, THE BABYSITTER, GO BACK COUPLE and MASTER OF STUDY which were much better than more than half the new shows I watched this year.

I haven’t fully recovered from the mega let down My Liberation Notes was.
Deserving of my bean of shame

Not a kdrama. But Maid’s Revengewas just so awful but I enjoyed it way too much. If you want to know how bad it was, you can find the episodes on YT. Prepare to binge! You have been warned.

Mine goes to SNOWDROP. The drama picked a very sensitive and controversial topic, upsetting countless people long before it streamed. The writer and producers were clearly forewarned. I was curious and expecting a well written, thoughtful drama, respectful of the importance of the topic, performed by good actors such as Jung Hae-in, Jang Han-na and Yoo In-na and others.

What I saw instead was a forgettable drama with inconsistent writing, needless sub-plots, countless plot holes and drawn-out melodrama. The politicians' wives were farcical, as was Jung Hae-in's death, taking noble idiocy to the extreme.

It is a shame that this script and production has ever seen the light of day.

39 because they put 39 y.o women all round the world in a bad light ha ha
what's the drama all about??

While considering this question, I tended to think of dramas that could have/should have been epic but ended up being... not.

With that in mind, I will pass up Love in Contract and Love is for Suckers (I Love both of these for different reasons, and I stand by that)... and award the Bean of Shame to Cafe Minamdang.

This one broke my heart by being so... non-epic. It had the premise, it had the people, it just couldn't pull it off. When you have a whack job ex-proflier chasing around another whack job who happens to be a successful serial killer... how is this not funny and action packed and crazy good?

It arguably should be the ‘bean of shame(less viewing)’ as that is the pay off and the awarding of a bean of shame isn’t always congruent with the opportunity for shameless viewing of a stinker which still can delight some of us for a host of reasons.

For me, it was ‘The Red Sleeve’ (even though it finished at the end of 2021) as I found Junho’s acting mesmerising and came to really like Lee Seyoung but found so much of the script absurd, nonsensical and downright depressing. I was fascinated by the central historical figures and the tragedy of Seong Uibin, and can’t get over how this drama thwarted the opportunity to profoundly examine the trajectory of Deokim’s life, her resistance to losing her identity, her agency and becoming just an ornament/incubator. Instead, it was focused on a traumatised but also brutal and rigid monarch who has been revered in RL for his competent reign.

As a product of a strict Lutheran upbringing, I am all too familiar with shame and guilt as primary emotions, so I have two shows that I found shameful in their own right, but also as a bonus, made me slightly ashamed of myself.

The first, Good Job, was a slapdash show, neither good nor awful, that was shameful because it wasted exceptional romantic chemistry between the two leads, plus just tossing out there, with little emotional context, what was in my opinion the most tender kiss of the year. It also had a funny scene of aegyo with Kwon Yuri, which made me laugh as aegyo often does.

But then that made me start to wonder—is the reason I find aegyo as satirically practiced by strong female leads amusing is that I also find it appealing? Do I secretly and shamefully wish for my wife to call me “Oppa” and speak endearments to me in a cutesy voice? Fortunately, that proposition will never be tested!

The other show for me that deserves a bean of shame was Tomorrow. That show squandered a visually brilliant opening episode and what was on the face of it, a bold way of dealing with the tough issue of suicide through fantasy. It became a very sappy case by sentimental case show that portrayed a totally incoherent imaginary afterlife.

What was additionally shameful was that I watched the whole thing, even one of the stupidest fantasy episodes I’ve ever seen, of a dog wanting to commit suicide, simply because Kim Hee-Seon is so beautiful. Now, I enjoy watching a lot of shows partly because of the beautiful actresses—I will give the newest one, Trolley, a further watch partly because the star Kim Hyun-Joo is herself extremely attractive—but if that show, or generally any other show, even one starring Kim Hye-Soo, turns too melodramatic I’ll drop it. That I didn’t drop Tomorrow after that stupid dog committing suicide episode is a shameful, and it has prompted serious self-reflection, which I guess is why my Mom always strived to instill a strong sense of guilt in all her children!

My Bean of Shame goes to JINXED AT FIRST for wasting a great premise on cheap Chaebol corporate politics.

Circle back around to Jinxed At First. There was a storyline with a confusing family history involving the second lead where people were asking "This isn't an incest love storyline, is it?" Then, after multiple parentage revelations, the big 3rd act twist was it WAS indeed an incest love story line! The secret was revealed to the second male lead and it CRUSHED him! So that's my bean of shame, and its come by honestly because I did watch the series to the end.

Remarriage & Desires:
Look I don’t mind a good makjang so I make an effort to try some out because sometimes they are so over the top and a delight to watch. Sky Castle is a good example, while I had my issues, it was fun and also had actual critique about society.

But R&D, while only being eight episodes, knocked out more of my brain cells than I can count, and I was legit dumber after watching it.

The women are gorgeous and smart and the men are boring AF (I had a little bit of SLS but meh)
Which is why it baffled me why these women were fighting and obsessing over this boring ass male lead. We also have the typical angelic mum vs evil seductress.

Kim Hee-seon’s role does a complete disservice to her as an actress. She was in Angry Mom one of my all time favs, why on earth did she do this horrible drama!

Jung Yoo-jin was great but her character could have been more complex and Cha Ji-yeon’s character is the one who played the game right and you know what I don’t blame her one bit. Take all that money from your old abusive husband

Anyway yeah Remarriage & Desires is my bean of shame, a lot of dramas were disappointing this year but this one was my most shameful watch.

Bean of Shame goes to Why Her? for their awful use of the truck of doom. By far, one of the worse ones I've seen. So unnecessary.
The overall drama was poorly written too.

When I saw the next post was Bean of shame I started to write my list of dramas and reasons why. So when the post dropped and I saw I had to pick one I couldn’t decide on which one to choose so decided not to comment at all. But reading the post had me in stitches so I thought I should comment on the two I connected with the most. @daebakgrits because I actually could see the scene and hear the bell ringing 🤣🤣🤣 the other was @dramaddictally because I was head over heels for Babi just reading the webtoon so when they had such a gorgeous real life version I was lost; forget his lack of cell village thinking insights who cares, have you seen his face? I was so glad they changed the webtoon so was convinced right up to the end that he would be the end game for her. The harsh reality drop was hard to get over and I am still rocking the T-shirt too. I now get all those characters who can’t let go of their first love…

@dramaddictally!!! You have a “BB” shirt? I might have to see this. Keep rocking the shirt. I support you! 😂 And OMO! So many terrible dramas this year. Is it just me, or did it seem like every screenplay (no matter how terrible) made it out of whatever vetting process is used to make sure you don’t have a stinker? What about the me too movement of a couple years ago? Have writers forgotten how they are catering to western viewers as well? Jinxed was terrible. I dropped it like a the hot mess it was within the first half. I didn’t see the others at all, thankfully.

My bean of shame, though, really could have been from the beginning of the show, but started refreshing and effervescent, and that was Cheer Up. I really, genuinely, enjoyed this show until the last 4 episodes when all the loose ends should have been tied up neatly. It wouldn’t have been that hard. But the jealous loser-kid- would-be-murderer-character-who-really-had-no-charisma-as-an-actor took up too much screen time, and the prophesy went nowhere, and the love triangle that just became painfully dull by the end. I FF all the parts towards the end that looked dumb thanks to DB recaps that I read prior. The only saving grace was the FL and Bae In Hyuk. They were adorable. I was expecting something more like Extraordinary You—which is ironic because I haven’t actually seen it—in terms of chemistry of actors. Maybe I should just watch EY instead…House on Wheels with the main cast keeps appearing on my feeds and they are so endearing!

My bean of shame goes to Snowdrop because I [shamefully] devoured the show week-after-week. The cast was stacked, the college dorm setting was inexplicably magical, and the show was just the right amount of melodramatic for what I wanted at the time.

Since I was so committed to watching this show, I made sure to engage its subject matter critically while viewing it. I followed critiques online, read a bit about the time period/setting, and interrogated the writing and production choices. The show was, unfortunately, quite sympathetic to the oppressive government, from the portayal of the Heo Joon-ho character as an underdog/downtrodden when he's the 2nd or 3rd most powerful person in the country and completely down with maligning and killing students to choosing to make Jung Hae-in's character's cover "student protestor." As I watched, I couldn't help but think of even small decisions this drama could have made that wouldn't have played into the lies a real-life repressive regime told about its own people just to remain in power.

But the story this drama wanted to tell was the one it told, and so it's shame on me for enoying it as much as I did. As tuned in as I was, this is not a show I'd recommend to anyone else.

Oh @unit! I watched it with you and loved it for all the reasons you stated! And now I have a new actor to love-GO Kyung Pyo!

Well this seems to be a Tough Bean Year for me, i have no BoS to give out.

More importantly, are we gonna get more full length year-end reviews from @db-staff soon?

My bean of shame goes to a drama that I shamelessly loved: Bad Prosecutor.

I've already said a lot in the comments and in my review, but really my love of this drama comes down to two things: my love of Doh Kyung-soo and my love of action films. Those two things kept me having fun despite the plot convolutions, sketchy moral decisions, and simple characters. At it's core, it's the story of an unlikely group of allies trying to take down a powerful man against all odds with plenty of action thrown in just because it's fun, and that is a core that I can get behind almost every time.