Sigh. Spoilers for the entire series below (it ain't good):

I actually quite liked the first 4 episodes. It was just a highly entertaining teen drama. After that however the whole thing just crashed and burned. The mystery wasn't all that mysterious, the reveals were underwhelming, and the most shocking thing is the fact that a student was in a relationship with a teacher. I'd even argue the show played things too safe.

It also became incredibly frustrating to watch. Hope you weren't invested in the growing relationship of the ML & FL, because that pretty much gets thrown in the trashbin after episode 4, instead pivoting to our FL's romance with Ri-an (technically the SML I guess).

Problem is, their romance has no depth beyond some cute flashback scenes with absolutely no depth that the show likes to use to make us forget that Ri-an is a horrible person. He's a bully that lets his lackeys do the dirty work without getting his hands dirty himself. Oh, and he's also incredibly possessive of the FL, basically acting like he owns her at certain points, something the show never addresses.

Their present-day romance is just toxic, and our FL being determined to protect Ri-an is insufurable and feels at odds with her entire story arc and development (it's a shame, because she arguably has the strongest ending).

The show seemingly refuses to admit that Ri-an is horrible. The FL at one point says that he deserves better than her, and I just wanted to bash my head against the wall. The reveal that she had a miscarriage is good on paper, yet it completely lost me when Ri-an got involved. A shame, because there's something good there, but it also just feels like a rather pathetic attempt to make Ri-an likeable.

It's funny, because on the contrary, you have He-ra, who is one of the more likeable characters simply because the show never pretends that she's a good person.

And our ML and his revenge? Yeah, don't get too excited, as that whole thing is anticlimactic and underwhelming, and there are no real consequences for most people.

Oh, and there's also an after-credits scene. The less said about that the better.

Usually, teen romance has more hype than substance. I don't care if it is from Netflix

Today I unintentionally watched The Hierarchy from start to finish with sister. We joked that its main purpose is for product placement, and all the rest including the plot and characters and everything was designed based on the sponsors which are huge brand names.

There is next to no plot and you’ll see so many scenes of rich chaebols using for example Bentley, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Chanel, Dior, Celine, Tory Burch, Nike, from top to toe. Even water chaebols seem to only drink the brand Avian. One character got an Hermes Berkin and her attitude changes from suppressed to daredevil. One even gives Hermes products to her housemaids because she is just that rich. There are so many funny things about it.

We think that it will have more seasons with many more brands coming to join if the sales of the featuring brands increase. For some reason, I think these brands want to position themselves as luxurious brands as regularly as possible now, which I think might be because their sales decreased.

So it’s a series made mainly to be their new ‘market’.

But it was a mindless fun high-end brandname catalogue with a Kdrama tie-in, so I am a bit sad that the rating went down from (my) rating of 7 to 4.7. 😅

Another joke about this one is that the elite students depicted in this show seem unable to tell their secrets to their closest friends. Instead, they have their own investigative team or detectives to find their 'best friends'' secrets and, if they so wish, use it upon their whims. And with those detectives in mind, it seems like their even more influential parents are unable to detect if their offsprings are dating their rival's heir or not.

I only watched 2 episodes, argubly 1 since I was barely paying attention to the 2 episode. I watched the first and last episode and maybe that was an episode or two too many?

I get that I'm not the target audience and I'm glad these young actors got such an opportunity to be in this but man, I could not get over just how young this felt on ALL fronts. It reminded me of fanfic and YA books. Teachers that look like students, adults with no power over the school, and just all of it just so dramatic.
One of the things I hated the most in the first episode is the way the transfer student was treated by the other scholorship students. If he's new then *obviously* he wouldn't know anything about the school yet they were swearing at him, insulting him, ignoring him, and getting hostile with him for not knowing anything about the school. Like at least tell him first and then act that way.
But the biggest surprise: is there supposed to be a part 2?!

It also reminded me of dynamics I've seen in sageuks regarding the class differences and it's quite disgusting seeing it play out each time. Like the lower classes are always suppose to apologize for just existing and accept any and all mistreatment.

As always, it kinda surprising there aren't more school dropouts.

Everyone has one tone expression, the plot is so tacky. It is like The Heirs, gen Z, Netflix version.