I just said bittersweet goodbye to Vincenzo. On the sweet note, I’m glad that Vincenzo and Cha-young came clean with each other about their feelings. Their kisses at the end were so sweet and passionate. I was squealing and fangirling hard for the whole scene <3. I also love them using the meeting of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl as the analogy for their promise. That’s so romantic *heart eyes*.

However, there are few things I wish they had done it differently for the finale:

1) Han-seo’s death is unnecessary! Han-seo should have been able to survive the shot and lead a different life without Han-seok. If you want to punish him, give him some critical wounds, but the boy deserves to live!

2) Vincenzo’s first face-off with Han-seok after he got out of prison was badly written. It’s totally out of character that Vincenzo fails to counterattack Han-seok AT ALL. It’s the number one rule in fighting that you disarm the opponent before you face away from him for whatever reason. Vincenzo is a pro, it’s hard to believe that he would make this basic mistake, not once but twice in the show. The first time was when hit men attacked Cha-young at home, Vincenzo knocked the guy with the hammer down and turned to Cha-young without disarming him, leaving him a chance to throw the hammer at them. This time, Vincenzo totally could have joined Han-seo to bring down Han-seok. They could have wrestled a bit and Han-seok/Cha-young might have got shot in the middle. Like, the result would have been the same, but it would have been more believable that way.

3) In ep 20, the show makes a big statement about the role of villains in fighting villains. However, I don’t really agree with the whole of it. Vincenzo has showed that he has the brain to PREVENT villains from making more crimes. Shouldn’t we all strive to achieve that goal instead of letting villains do more terrible things and punish them afterward? Like Han-seok, if only he had been punished early, he wouldn’t had been able to kill that many people at the end. I think it’s unnecessarily arrogant and cruel to play with your enemy, let them run amok with crimes, and punish them ruthlessly for the new crimes they commit.

4) The Russian “atonement” punishment was way too violent and cruel for me to handle. I felt the same about the terrorist attack in ep 17. I hope nobody watches this show and tries to use these approaches in real life because that would be real scary.

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    Agreed with all of your points. Vincenzo and Han-seo could easily outmatch Han-seok “together”. But i guess the purpose of those scenes are Han-seo’s death. I cannot watch Han-seok’s death as well. I literally cover the scene and just read the subs. I decided to just take the show for granted and not to think too much about the crooked moral compass of the leads.

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      Me too. I couldn’t watch Han-seo’s death either, and the Russian thing too. The writing of how they deal with Han-seok and Han-seo ruined the finale for me. I only half-heartedly forgave the show because they gave me a proper closure for Vin-Cha couple.

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        I read on Twitter that the production struggled over the ending. I personally think they want to give the villains a death as painful as possible to emphasize Vincenzo as mafia. But after that, it’s also not possible to give the usual happy ending for the leads because they’re not the nicest people on earth either (as usually portrayed by drama leads). Well that’s how they decided to make the ending after all lol

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          There are so many ways to meaningfully kill the villains without the gory torture, but they just had to go the hard way :(. They should have just focused on our leads and the Geumga gang instead. Anyway, it is what it is now. I plan to rewatch as many enjoyable cuts from the show as possible to forget what they did to Han-seo :((

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