I don’t think I’m the only Beanie to have desperately stuck with Queen of Divorce in the hope that Kang Ki-young could, for once, bag the girl and all the credit for saving the day.
Secondary Voice
It turns out his character, Ki-joon, didn’t manage to do any of it, even though he did not stop trying throughout 12 painful episodes. Ki-joon sshi, 화이팅, my good man.
Third Voice
Ki-joon sshi, just a friendly suggestion: how about you just try dating someone else? This may well be the right solution for you.
Fourth Voice
I’m tempted to start an online petition for someone to write Kang Ki-young a proper main lead role. Pretty please.
Look at him, writer, LOOK AT HIM! The script’s so bad you made him cry.
Whose fault is it?
So, first of all, Beanies, let me spill the tea.
The director is Park Jin-seok (Jin-suk in some sources because nobody can agree on how to romanise Korean names). The same guy who directed Sell Your Haunted House.
The writer is Jeong Hee-seon (or Hee-sun because see above). I can find only one other work under her name, Drama Stage Season 3: Big Data Romance which I have never watched.
If you’ve watched any of those other works, please feel free to judge whether it was a case of poor directing or poor writing. My opinion is that you need characters who are appealing and meaningful on paper first to make it work on screen.
I watched SYHH and enjoyed it, but I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the actual filming style and direction, which comforts me in the belief that everything starts with the writer. The director can only amplify the story.
But, it may also be a case of both the director and the writer not clicking together well enough to make Queen of Divorce work. I don’t know. I want to blame Jeong Hee-seon, but she did not make me watch every week. I did that to myself.
Well. Shit.
Darts & problem-solving skills
So, if you came across the drama’s poster or if you had time to read the hangeul on the credit, the Korean title is: 끝내주는 해결사.
Looks cute, right? It means something along the lines of “great problem solver”, which I can only assume relates to either:
Kim Sa-ra
The Solution
In any case, this reminds me of the first time I tried playing darts.
random story time
The scene plays in a dimly lit pub in the British countryside. I am here on holiday and this is my first time going to a pub. I am old enough to order and pay for my own drink and this is precisely what I do. I proudly order myself a ginormous pint of pineapple juice. I even have to repeat the order twice because the guy behind the bar keeps insisting they have a fantastic choice of locally-brewed beers. Pineapple juice juseyo, dammit!
There’s a group of young people my age and they have no difficulty spotting me because I’m not local. They do the normal socializing thing of talking to me. I politely stop slurping my juice to answer.
Do I want to play with them? OMG, is this my chance to make chingus? I absolutely want to play with them!
They take me to the dart game board.
It’s easy, one of them says. He shows me. And I get excited at the thought of finally being able to socialize like a normal person. I grab the dart and hold it like my social life depends on it. I go back and forth with the dart between my fingers, like you do with a toy car to build up some speed between releasing it.
Except that the toy car will always go forward. The dart, as it happens, flies behind me and ends its erratic course planted nose first into a wooden table, just in front of a plate of food that someone was about to consume.
I didn’t just miss the target. I threw the dart away from it even though I thought I was aiming at the target. Bye-bye social life. It was nice to imagine you existed.
Anyway, I have a feeling that the great problem solver’s script has missed its target with the same level of over-excited inaccuracy as me.
After 12 episodes, we all know that the only thing that is great about The Great Problem-Solver is that it’s finally come to an end.
The problem-solving aspect remains questionable.
Secondary Voice
Oh no, I don’t have custody of my son since the divorce. What could I do? I know, I’ll remarry my ex and then proceed to throw everyone in jail.
Third Voice
What’s stopping you, Kim Sa-ra? Fight for LGBT marriages to be legalised in South Korea and propose to your former mother-in-law. As per the Solution’s principles, the less practical and sensible approach is deemed to be the greatest problem-solving.
Kim Sa-ra, the strong but weak, sensitive but cold-headed, confident but unsure, alone but surrounded by friends, emotionally unavailable but loved by all, fragile but indestructible, smart but stupid woman
People don’t make sense.
I want a group of friends as loyal as Kim Sa-ra’s but I hate socializing. (even when there’s no dart involved)
I want to lose weight but I want to eat all the cake.
I want a close relationship with my mom but I don’t want to confide in her.
So, I can get behind the idea that Kim Sa-ra may have contradictory traits.
But not to the point where she is a walking meaningless anomaly. Writer-nim, you can’t tick all the character’s traits. You need to choose!
One of my favourite I-am-a-walking-contradiction moments from Kim Sa-ra:
She spends a year in jail, training herself to become more badass. She’s practised so much, she can probably put hair gel on her foot and high-kick style her hair every morning. That high kick was fire. But, do you think she could have learned how to use basic moves? Nope.
Cue to Kim Sa-ra being trapped inside a flat on fire and all she’s got to dig her way out is a hammer. She does what every great problem-solver would do: She rushes to faint as neatly as possible in a corner, ready for Ki-joon to find her.
Secondary Voice
Why can’t you release that high kick power into a low kick, aimed at the glass panel on that bloody front door? Kim Sa-ra, the fierce fighter who can only hit obstacles that are suspended 1.8m off the ground…
Third Voice
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that she doesn’t want to hurt her foot. If only the glass panel could be destroyed with the swing of a hammer… Not a chance, we all know all fragile those Korean hammers are. They can crush your skull, as per Killer Paradox, but they are obviously defeated by a glass panel.
I’m not even going to mention that lousy hit at a plank of wood before she collapsed. Kim Sa-ra, you didn’t even try.
The only explanation I can come up with is that Kim Sa-ra has never watched The Shining. I got all my best door-destroying moves from it.
We’re all mad in here
The lack of character consistency is painful to watch, to say the least, but it’s not just a case of Kim Sa-ra being irrational. Nobody is rational at any given time.
Noh Yool-seong is perhaps the most logical character out of this range of complete maniacs. And still, he has the consistency of a takeaway delivery service. Some days, you get everything you’ve ordered. Others, everything’s wrong and you’re missing half the items, and you don’t even know why.
For someone who’s got a hefty amount of blood on his hands (whatever floats your boat, Yool-seong sshi), he has that permanent expression of surprise on his face when he accidentally offs or attempts to someone. It’s like me ramming cake into my face while knowing I was going to do it anyway, saying “Omo, omo, what is happening?” all the while cutting the next slice. I’m not even kidding myself, and I’m ready to bet this is the same for Noh Yool-seong. But this gets even funnier when you notice how blaséd he is about any death (and particularly the ones he keeps accidentally or intentionally orchestrating).
Secondary Voice
Honestly, I’m with you, Noh Yool-seong. Murder is cheaper than bribery.
Third Voice
But bae, it stains more. Think of the dry cleaning invoice.
Noh Yool-seong’s logic is that kidnapping and threatening his ex-mother-in-law on a roof is all part of a normal, non-threatening, perfectly friendly conversation. Can we truly blame him when his former MIL fell off after he shook her like a prune tree and dangled her on top of a building?
Secondary Voice
The writer is trying to pass it as an accident… So perhaps the shock on Noh Yool-seong’s face is him wondering where the accidental Truck of Doom is.
Third Voice
The writer responded to your ToD prayers in a later episode, Yool-seong.
For someone who is so quick to eliminate people, I really don’t get why he hasn’t tried to remove Sa-ra. His way of getting rid of her is to sit her comfortably on a chair inside a shipping container to Senegal.
Secondary Voice
Yool-seong, I expected better from a pro. Just get it done, don’t ship her.
Chairwoman Cha, the mother of our dragon in suits, is the strongest shade of weak I’ve seen in a long time. We are introduced to a powerful woman who seems to cast a long and never-ending shadow over her son. He may be going to his roof playground to murder his MIL, but he’s a submissive little boy in front of Mamma, constantly seeking her approval.
So, you would think that he learned all his murdering tricks from her. Who else would have taught him how to swing people off a roof with such gracefulness and elegance? Who else would have taught him to cheat, lie, and manipulate to get business done? (Law Firm 101: if you can’t lie to the client, throw them off the roof) But by the look of Chairwoman Cha’s terrified expression when she realises the extent to which her mini-me in a suit has gone, she did not teach him the ropes of murder and throwing relatives under the nearest bus (or did she?). So, I’d like to know who did, because that teacher deserves a raise.
For the love of Kim Sa-ra
Ki-joon must have done something horrible in his past life because he is cursed with unhappy love in this one.
We did get a glimpse of Ki-joon and Sa-ra’s past. What we didn’t get (or perhaps my complete lack of attention throughout most of the drama missed it) though is how this weird relationship failed to evolve further.
There are photos of them together. We don’t get much, but we get a sense that they would have been together for some time. I’m basing it purely on the fact they seemed to share the same friend group in the past and would have been intimate enough to plan a holiday together. So, I’d have expected he knew Sa-ra’s mother…
Also, I am still struggling to understand how Sa-ra ended up pregnant from apparently someone else when she was in a relationship with Ki-joon. I’m not questioning the feasibility of it. I get basic biology. I’m questioning the how it happened and why she proceeded to get married as a result (which makes me think that it would have happened with consent).
And then, she immediately decides to ghost her ex for years.
Secondary Voice
Ki-joon is obviously a better person than me because the last thing I’d want is get back with the person who cheated on me and left me hanging like a dry fish at the airport.
Ki-joon, my good man, what’s so loveable about Sa-ra?
Third Voice
Excluding her short shorts.
But, what truly pains me is that he’s not the only one blindly adoring Sa-ra and wanting to help her, even though she has no interest in anyone else.
Sa-ra may be the Queen of Divorce, but she’s also the queen of not giving a shit about anyone but herself and her son. Even those few moments with her son sound quite devoid of emotions when compared to other mother-children relationships we’ve seen in K-dramas.
Their relationship is forcibly described as symbiotic and beautiful, but I have not seen any of it on screen, or any that I could believe. So, I’m going to assume that Kim Sa-ra loves only herself and that takes me from the great problem-solver to the toxic problem-maker. Even the way the writer has Sa-ra crying that she can’t live without her son doesn’t scream motherly love to me. In the rest of the misadjusted personality Kim Sa-ra has inherited from the script, this looks more and more like someone perceiving their son as an extension of herself, an item that belongs to her and that she wants back at all costs. Terribly unhealthy, but thankfully, her son seems to be just as emotionally challenged, so this is the perfect match in this hellish script.
Yet, despite this display of a weird and sick relationship, all characters around Sa-ra remain blind to it. They are empathetic to the point of understanding emotions that Sa-ra was never written to feel, such as the strength and beauty of a healthy parent-child bond. So, they feel her pain even though I am not sure they feel the same pain as her.
The hermaphrodite Kim Sa-ra
@attiton explained the hierarchy of main and second leads in many comments. (and you should definitely refer to all of the comments because I am not mentally equipped to make as much sense). But basically, the question has always been: Who is Kim Sa-ra’s ML?
Pretty early in the drama, Seon-ha DB-sunbaenim noted that Ki-joon was not written as an ML. Despite what the drama’s poster is trying to make us believe, there was no need putting Kang Ki-young’s name in second position because his character was never designed to complete Sa-ra.
I have come to the conclusion that Oh Min-seok’s Noh Yul-seong was indeed the ML of this drama. The outrageous caressing that his face received from the camera in the final episode, an hour in which he not only fell from whatever grace he had, but also began to descend into a physical and mental isolation, demonstrated an attention to his physical beauty and the transformation of his character into a true villain that no other person received in this drama, no matter their role.
Secondary Voice
I want to scream at the writer for tricking us til the end.
Third Voice
I want to scream at myself for willingly choosing to be tricked until the end.
But, the more I think about it, the more I realise that even Yool-seong isn’t the ML in the story. He is the villain, but the villain who despite his omnipresence isn’t much of a threat. Sa-ra spends 10 episodes dancing around him while demonstrating that she is anything but a great problem-solver. And when she tries, it takes her only 2 episodes to put his glorious suit and 90s hair flick style behind bars.
Secondary Voice
Kim Sa-ra, what were you doing for 10 episodes?
Ki-joon, despite his good intentions and gentle soul is not the lead Sa-ra needs. She tells him as much in the end when she jokingly rejects his proposal with her let’s-get-married-for-5-years-and-then-divorce speech.
My love comes with an expiry date, says Sa-ra.
So does my patience, thinks Ki-joon, who’s polite enough not to mention it. But this isn’t the big bravo we wanted.
We wanted sweet, sweet love and passion, and we got a relationship that could have been an email.
From: Ki-joon
To: Sa-ra
Hey, I don’t hate you completely.
See you some day for coffee.
Bu-bye
I believe that there is no pendant for Kim Sa-ra. Kim Sa-ra by herself is in a complete relationship. She is her own ML. She doesn’t need anyone because she’s not written to be someone who gives to others. She only gives to herself. She wants her son for herself. She wants revenge for herself. She started The Solution for herself, not to help others.
Kim Sa-ra is a hermaphrodite. She is her own FL and ML. She doesn’t need anyone else. She is the snail of Dramaland.
🤣🤣
I didn’t watch this show, but I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this. Your essays always enlighten me and give me so much joy reading. It’s a pieace of entertainment on its own. Thank you !!
I was thinking king of watching this because of my steadfast love of that first guy who’s name I never remember and I can only vaguely point at and say, hey! It’s that guy! From that thing! I love him!
But….I think I’ll pass?
I would pass. In fact, I wish I did pass. It makes no sense from start to finish, and I think @attiton is right in saying they were counting on the star power to hide the plot holes. The problem is that this is just a giant hole with not enough plot to have any of the actors shine briefly on screen. It feels very awkward for everyone.
Thank you, I laughed so much. 🤣🤣🤣
Now I almost want to see it so I can laugh more when I re-read this comment!
And yes, I agree, we should have an end of year article with the worst writers.
We got a relationship that could have been an email.
Dead, Cecee. Dead from the truth of it. 💀.
And thanks for the shout-out to my commentary, although I in no way deserve the august title you gave me (tho when I read it I said, and I quote, “Squee!”).
Now, to (snail) meat of the matter, I take your point about Yul-seong not being able to be both villain and ML as that, in and of itself, doesn’t make any sense (although by ML I had sort of meant more specifically that he was the guy who we were meant to care the most about–and that was definitely our villain).
And I even agree that you could consider Sa-ra to be both ML and FL, but, in a very real sense, wasn’t she just horrible at being both of those characters? You could just as well have called her son (eeew) the ML, rite??
In the end, I decided that the whole show was supposed to rest on star power to distract us from the holey plot. And many did tune in for KKY, including me–and it sounds you.
PS: I’m watching Sell Your Haunted House now, and the direction seems juuuust fine.
I know someone who has never written a TV drama shouldn’t cast stones, but … how can writing be so bad? I feel like it’s actually more work to create such inconsistent, frustrating characters and drop them into hole-filled, irrational plots. Is there an honest belief on the writer’s part that it’s a quality script? Or just lack of trying and a belief the audience will show up regardless?
I think you’re onto something. It feels like it’s more work indeed!
I am wondering if it’s more a case of not having enough time to develop a strong idea, and then there’s no foundation for the rest of the story. I can’t believe a writer would willingly come up with a holey plot, so I’m looking for an excuse!
Sometimes, I also feel like “seasoned” drama watchers–as the three of us certainly are 😋–can tell that the issue was that a 16-episode drama got shortened to 12…but I definitely didn’t get that impression here. Y’all?
It’s like it was poorly written to start? I mean I hesitate to say this, but maybe someone has to admit it so that we can discuss: Maybe KKY isn’t actually up to carrying a traditional-like ML lead?? He certainly didn’t hold a candle to Oh Min-seok’s charisma here. You know you’re in trouble when the good guy totally loses out pretty much every drop of attention to a triple-murderer who clearly doesn’t give a rats’-ass about his own freaking son (@hacja ‘s still fuming about this in his underground lair, I bet)!!
We need someone to write KKY into a proper rags-to-riches ML story or any form of tale where the underdog truly wins out, gets the girl, makes it big, defeats all the baddies (they tried to do that here, but faiiiilllled…probably because Lee Ji-ah needed to take top, top billing, wouldn’t you say)?
I would have been happy with Ki-joon and Yool-seong being both solid characters… but honestly, the drama made murder more appealing than the fight for justice!
I’m rewatching Terius (Terrius?) at the moment and I really liked KKY’s character in it. Not a ML role but it was a gender-reversed role; stay at home dad who’s friend with all the other housewives. The writing is much stronger but all the interactions between the moms and him are so sweet and natural.
So I’d be happy having him in a life ensemble story, like Hospital Playlist where friendship takes the lead over romance (so Hospital Playlist minus the coupling) – so a story with no underdog.
But I’m also buying rag to riches plots when they work. The character nobody takes seriously and who somehow wins because he never gives up?
Last thought of the day: A more “mature” romance, and I don’t mean in terms of age but in terms of behaviours. The man’s 40; perhaps age for new awakening after separation or early widowhood.
Or, hear me out: a spirit story perhaps? A man who’s plagued by spirits since having a near death accident; he dreams of the last thing the dead see but he get the vision 24 hours before they die and doesn’t realise what it is until he spots a pattern in his dreams.
I realise I can’t control myself. I said “last thought” earlier on and I’m still trying to bring further last thoughts after the last thought 🤦🏻♀️
It feels like the problems went beyond episode length. I didn’t get a sense the writer knew who the characters were, let alone what made them tick. It’s like someone said: Let’s get on the female revenge trend, failed marriages are popular so — she’s the revenge queen of divorce! The enemy? A chaebol of course. The plot? Let’s not resolve things too quickly — so she’ll have to put herself and others in danger lots of times to up the dramatic factor.
As for KKY’s character, he needed a chance to be capable at more than saving the FL from ludicrous moments of danger and being loyal in order to be a legit ML.
I’m pretty much immune to to Oh Min-seok’s charisma, and Kang Ki Young did as good a job as he could given his character. But lets face it: the real problem was Lee Ji-ah. While its my lifelong mission as a caped commenting crusader to emerge from my lair to heroically defend female leads and second female leads and the actresses that play them, she was awkward in every aspect of the role. She was badly dressed, she moved stiffly, she delivered her lines badly, she didn’t know how to act as a loving Mom, when she formulated and announced her ridiculous plans, she looked condescending and smirky, and even in dire circumstances she acted like she knew the director was about to call “cut” so that when her character was rescued by KKY of course she didn’t show the gratitude that most characters would feel. So I didn’t even bother to have Alfred, my butler, fire up the snark-mobile for this show.
I mean, I know why @indyfan suggested it and she’s almost never wrong, but I think she might be trying to bring more people to rearrange boat chairs on the Lusitania or something.
I’m 20 min into the first episode and I think even I would have done a better job at editing all the scenes together. This is Tiktok level of editing. Not a flipping transition and flat direction all around.
What am I even watching? Lee Jae-wook sent his acting skills on a break and is actively using no acting whatever in every scene. He’s just here as a bad fashion model, and as much as I appreciate the dedication to low action high cheap fashion sense, who hurt you bae?
I’m sorry @indyfan, I can’t even make it to the end of the episode!
😂 This is why I thought you’d be great. Some of us had hopes at the beginning, minimizing the red flags, but you saw the disaster-in-making within minutes. I think in one of the more recent recaps we even thought they’d placed a cutout of LJW with a hidden voice recording; he was that immobile. Gorgeous, tho.
But yeah, it’s better for you not having watched it tho we would have enjoyed your takes. Our paths will cross on a better show, inshallah.
Cecee is done DramaQueening
March 15, 2024 at 11:28 AM
Kim Sa-ra or the Snail of Fate
I don’t think I’m the only Beanie to have desperately stuck with Queen of Divorce in the hope that Kang Ki-young could, for once, bag the girl and all the credit for saving the day.
Secondary Voice
It turns out his character, Ki-joon, didn’t manage to do any of it, even though he did not stop trying throughout 12 painful episodes. Ki-joon sshi, 화이팅, my good man.
Third Voice
Ki-joon sshi, just a friendly suggestion: how about you just try dating someone else? This may well be the right solution for you.
Fourth Voice
I’m tempted to start an online petition for someone to write Kang Ki-young a proper main lead role. Pretty please.
Look at him, writer, LOOK AT HIM! The script’s so bad you made him cry.
Whose fault is it?
So, first of all, Beanies, let me spill the tea.
The director is Park Jin-seok (Jin-suk in some sources because nobody can agree on how to romanise Korean names). The same guy who directed Sell Your Haunted House.
The writer is Jeong Hee-seon (or Hee-sun because see above). I can find only one other work under her name, Drama Stage Season 3: Big Data Romance which I have never watched.
If you’ve watched any of those other works, please feel free to judge whether it was a case of poor directing or poor writing. My opinion is that you need characters who are appealing and meaningful on paper first to make it work on screen.
I watched SYHH and enjoyed it, but I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the actual filming style and direction, which comforts me in the belief that everything starts with the writer. The director can only amplify the story.
But, it may also be a case of both the director and the writer not clicking together well enough to make Queen of Divorce work. I don’t know. I want to blame Jeong Hee-seon, but she did not make me watch every week. I did that to myself.
Well. Shit.
Darts & problem-solving skills
So, if you came across the drama’s poster or if you had time to read the hangeul on the credit, the Korean title is: 끝내주는 해결사.
Looks cute, right? It means something along the lines of “great problem solver”, which I can only assume relates to either:
In any case, this reminds me of the first time I tried playing darts.
random story time
The scene plays in a dimly lit pub in the British countryside. I am here on holiday and this is my first time going to a pub. I am old enough to order and pay for my own drink and this is precisely what I do. I proudly order myself a ginormous pint of pineapple juice. I even have to repeat the order twice because the guy behind the bar keeps insisting they have a fantastic choice of locally-brewed beers. Pineapple juice juseyo, dammit!
There’s a group of young people my age and they have no difficulty spotting me because I’m not local. They do the normal socializing thing of talking to me. I politely stop slurping my juice to answer.
Do I want to play with them? OMG, is this my chance to make chingus? I absolutely want to play with them!
They take me to the dart game board.
It’s easy, one of them says. He shows me. And I get excited at the thought of finally being able to socialize like a normal person. I grab the dart and hold it like my social life depends on it. I go back and forth with the dart between my fingers, like you do with a toy car to build up some speed between releasing it.
Except that the toy car will always go forward. The dart, as it happens, flies behind me and ends its erratic course planted nose first into a wooden table, just in front of a plate of food that someone was about to consume.
I didn’t just miss the target. I threw the dart away from it even though I thought I was aiming at the target. Bye-bye social life. It was nice to imagine you existed.
Anyway, I have a feeling that the great problem solver’s script has missed its target with the same level of over-excited inaccuracy as me.
After 12 episodes, we all know that the only thing that is great about The Great Problem-Solver is that it’s finally come to an end.
The problem-solving aspect remains questionable.
Secondary Voice
Oh no, I don’t have custody of my son since the divorce. What could I do? I know, I’ll remarry my ex and then proceed to throw everyone in jail.
Third Voice
What’s stopping you, Kim Sa-ra? Fight for LGBT marriages to be legalised in South Korea and propose to your former mother-in-law. As per the Solution’s principles, the less practical and sensible approach is deemed to be the greatest problem-solving.
Kim Sa-ra, the strong but weak, sensitive but cold-headed, confident but unsure, alone but surrounded by friends, emotionally unavailable but loved by all, fragile but indestructible, smart but stupid woman
People don’t make sense.
I want a group of friends as loyal as Kim Sa-ra’s but I hate socializing. (even when there’s no dart involved)
I want to lose weight but I want to eat all the cake.
I want a close relationship with my mom but I don’t want to confide in her.
So, I can get behind the idea that Kim Sa-ra may have contradictory traits.
But not to the point where she is a walking meaningless anomaly. Writer-nim, you can’t tick all the character’s traits. You need to choose!
One of my favourite I-am-a-walking-contradiction moments from Kim Sa-ra:
She spends a year in jail, training herself to become more badass. She’s practised so much, she can probably put hair gel on her foot and high-kick style her hair every morning. That high kick was fire. But, do you think she could have learned how to use basic moves? Nope.
Cue to Kim Sa-ra being trapped inside a flat on fire and all she’s got to dig her way out is a hammer. She does what every great problem-solver would do: She rushes to faint as neatly as possible in a corner, ready for Ki-joon to find her.
Secondary Voice
Why can’t you release that high kick power into a low kick, aimed at the glass panel on that bloody front door? Kim Sa-ra, the fierce fighter who can only hit obstacles that are suspended 1.8m off the ground…
Third Voice
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that she doesn’t want to hurt her foot. If only the glass panel could be destroyed with the swing of a hammer… Not a chance, we all know all fragile those Korean hammers are. They can crush your skull, as per Killer Paradox, but they are obviously defeated by a glass panel.
I’m not even going to mention that lousy hit at a plank of wood before she collapsed. Kim Sa-ra, you didn’t even try.
The only explanation I can come up with is that Kim Sa-ra has never watched The Shining. I got all my best door-destroying moves from it.
We’re all mad in here
The lack of character consistency is painful to watch, to say the least, but it’s not just a case of Kim Sa-ra being irrational. Nobody is rational at any given time.
Noh Yool-seong is perhaps the most logical character out of this range of complete maniacs. And still, he has the consistency of a takeaway delivery service. Some days, you get everything you’ve ordered. Others, everything’s wrong and you’re missing half the items, and you don’t even know why.
For someone who’s got a hefty amount of blood on his hands (whatever floats your boat, Yool-seong sshi), he has that permanent expression of surprise on his face when he accidentally offs or attempts to someone. It’s like me ramming cake into my face while knowing I was going to do it anyway, saying “Omo, omo, what is happening?” all the while cutting the next slice. I’m not even kidding myself, and I’m ready to bet this is the same for Noh Yool-seong. But this gets even funnier when you notice how blaséd he is about any death (and particularly the ones he keeps accidentally or intentionally orchestrating).
Secondary Voice
Honestly, I’m with you, Noh Yool-seong. Murder is cheaper than bribery.
Third Voice
But bae, it stains more. Think of the dry cleaning invoice.
Noh Yool-seong’s logic is that kidnapping and threatening his ex-mother-in-law on a roof is all part of a normal, non-threatening, perfectly friendly conversation. Can we truly blame him when his former MIL fell off after he shook her like a prune tree and dangled her on top of a building?
Secondary Voice
The writer is trying to pass it as an accident… So perhaps the shock on Noh Yool-seong’s face is him wondering where the accidental Truck of Doom is.
Third Voice
The writer responded to your ToD prayers in a later episode, Yool-seong.
For someone who is so quick to eliminate people, I really don’t get why he hasn’t tried to remove Sa-ra. His way of getting rid of her is to sit her comfortably on a chair inside a shipping container to Senegal.
Secondary Voice
Yool-seong, I expected better from a pro. Just get it done, don’t ship her.
Chairwoman Cha, the mother of our dragon in suits, is the strongest shade of weak I’ve seen in a long time. We are introduced to a powerful woman who seems to cast a long and never-ending shadow over her son. He may be going to his roof playground to murder his MIL, but he’s a submissive little boy in front of Mamma, constantly seeking her approval.
So, you would think that he learned all his murdering tricks from her. Who else would have taught him how to swing people off a roof with such gracefulness and elegance? Who else would have taught him to cheat, lie, and manipulate to get business done? (Law Firm 101: if you can’t lie to the client, throw them off the roof) But by the look of Chairwoman Cha’s terrified expression when she realises the extent to which her mini-me in a suit has gone, she did not teach him the ropes of murder and throwing relatives under the nearest bus (or did she?). So, I’d like to know who did, because that teacher deserves a raise.
For the love of Kim Sa-ra
Ki-joon must have done something horrible in his past life because he is cursed with unhappy love in this one.
We did get a glimpse of Ki-joon and Sa-ra’s past. What we didn’t get (or perhaps my complete lack of attention throughout most of the drama missed it) though is how this weird relationship failed to evolve further.
There are photos of them together. We don’t get much, but we get a sense that they would have been together for some time. I’m basing it purely on the fact they seemed to share the same friend group in the past and would have been intimate enough to plan a holiday together. So, I’d have expected he knew Sa-ra’s mother…
Also, I am still struggling to understand how Sa-ra ended up pregnant from apparently someone else when she was in a relationship with Ki-joon. I’m not questioning the feasibility of it. I get basic biology. I’m questioning the how it happened and why she proceeded to get married as a result (which makes me think that it would have happened with consent).
And then, she immediately decides to ghost her ex for years.
Secondary Voice
Ki-joon is obviously a better person than me because the last thing I’d want is get back with the person who cheated on me and left me hanging like a dry fish at the airport.
Ki-joon, my good man, what’s so loveable about Sa-ra?
Third Voice
Excluding her short shorts.
But, what truly pains me is that he’s not the only one blindly adoring Sa-ra and wanting to help her, even though she has no interest in anyone else.
Sa-ra may be the Queen of Divorce, but she’s also the queen of not giving a shit about anyone but herself and her son. Even those few moments with her son sound quite devoid of emotions when compared to other mother-children relationships we’ve seen in K-dramas.
Their relationship is forcibly described as symbiotic and beautiful, but I have not seen any of it on screen, or any that I could believe. So, I’m going to assume that Kim Sa-ra loves only herself and that takes me from the great problem-solver to the toxic problem-maker. Even the way the writer has Sa-ra crying that she can’t live without her son doesn’t scream motherly love to me. In the rest of the misadjusted personality Kim Sa-ra has inherited from the script, this looks more and more like someone perceiving their son as an extension of herself, an item that belongs to her and that she wants back at all costs. Terribly unhealthy, but thankfully, her son seems to be just as emotionally challenged, so this is the perfect match in this hellish script.
Yet, despite this display of a weird and sick relationship, all characters around Sa-ra remain blind to it. They are empathetic to the point of understanding emotions that Sa-ra was never written to feel, such as the strength and beauty of a healthy parent-child bond. So, they feel her pain even though I am not sure they feel the same pain as her.
The hermaphrodite Kim Sa-ra
@attiton explained the hierarchy of main and second leads in many comments. (and you should definitely refer to all of the comments because I am not mentally equipped to make as much sense). But basically, the question has always been: Who is Kim Sa-ra’s ML?
Pretty early in the drama, Seon-ha DB-sunbaenim noted that Ki-joon was not written as an ML. Despite what the drama’s poster is trying to make us believe, there was no need putting Kang Ki-young’s name in second position because his character was never designed to complete Sa-ra.
(you can read it in its full glory here)
Secondary Voice
I want to scream at the writer for tricking us til the end.
Third Voice
I want to scream at myself for willingly choosing to be tricked until the end.
But, the more I think about it, the more I realise that even Yool-seong isn’t the ML in the story. He is the villain, but the villain who despite his omnipresence isn’t much of a threat. Sa-ra spends 10 episodes dancing around him while demonstrating that she is anything but a great problem-solver. And when she tries, it takes her only 2 episodes to put his glorious suit and 90s hair flick style behind bars.
Secondary Voice
Kim Sa-ra, what were you doing for 10 episodes?
Ki-joon, despite his good intentions and gentle soul is not the lead Sa-ra needs. She tells him as much in the end when she jokingly rejects his proposal with her let’s-get-married-for-5-years-and-then-divorce speech.
My love comes with an expiry date, says Sa-ra.
So does my patience, thinks Ki-joon, who’s polite enough not to mention it. But this isn’t the big bravo we wanted.
We wanted sweet, sweet love and passion, and we got a relationship that could have been an email.
From: Ki-joon
To: Sa-ra
Hey, I don’t hate you completely.
See you some day for coffee.
Bu-bye
I believe that there is no pendant for Kim Sa-ra. Kim Sa-ra by herself is in a complete relationship. She is her own ML. She doesn’t need anyone because she’s not written to be someone who gives to others. She only gives to herself. She wants her son for herself. She wants revenge for herself. She started The Solution for herself, not to help others.
Kim Sa-ra is a hermaphrodite. She is her own FL and ML. She doesn’t need anyone else. She is the snail of Dramaland.
Kurama
March 15, 2024 at 12:01 PM
Waow, I don’t think this drama deserved your writing!
Cecee is done DramaQueening
March 15, 2024 at 12:15 PM
It definitely deserves my poor formatting though 😭
Healer’s
March 16, 2024 at 4:16 AM
🤣🤣
I didn’t watch this show, but I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this. Your essays always enlighten me and give me so much joy reading. It’s a pieace of entertainment on its own. Thank you !!
isa: I'm not a serial killer I'm just really passionate about things
March 15, 2024 at 12:31 PM
I was thinking king of watching this because of my steadfast love of that first guy who’s name I never remember and I can only vaguely point at and say, hey! It’s that guy! From that thing! I love him!
But….I think I’ll pass?
Cecee is done DramaQueening
March 15, 2024 at 1:38 PM
I would pass. In fact, I wish I did pass. It makes no sense from start to finish, and I think @attiton is right in saying they were counting on the star power to hide the plot holes. The problem is that this is just a giant hole with not enough plot to have any of the actors shine briefly on screen. It feels very awkward for everyone.
Kodra aka Qanon something
March 15, 2024 at 1:01 PM
Thank you, I laughed so much. 🤣🤣🤣
Now I almost want to see it so I can laugh more when I re-read this comment!
And yes, I agree, we should have an end of year article with the worst writers.
Seon-ha
March 15, 2024 at 1:32 PM
Dead, Cecee. Dead from the truth of it. 💀.
And thanks for the shout-out to my commentary, although I in no way deserve the august title you gave me (tho when I read it I said, and I quote, “Squee!”).
Now, to (snail) meat of the matter, I take your point about Yul-seong not being able to be both villain and ML as that, in and of itself, doesn’t make any sense (although by ML I had sort of meant more specifically that he was the guy who we were meant to care the most about–and that was definitely our villain).
And I even agree that you could consider Sa-ra to be both ML and FL, but, in a very real sense, wasn’t she just horrible at being both of those characters? You could just as well have called her son (eeew) the ML, rite??
In the end, I decided that the whole show was supposed to rest on star power to distract us from the holey plot. And many did tune in for KKY, including me–and it sounds you.
PS: I’m watching Sell Your Haunted House now, and the direction seems juuuust fine.
♡Peach_Mochi♡
March 15, 2024 at 1:55 PM
I know someone who has never written a TV drama shouldn’t cast stones, but … how can writing be so bad? I feel like it’s actually more work to create such inconsistent, frustrating characters and drop them into hole-filled, irrational plots. Is there an honest belief on the writer’s part that it’s a quality script? Or just lack of trying and a belief the audience will show up regardless?
Cecee is done DramaQueening
March 15, 2024 at 2:32 PM
I think you’re onto something. It feels like it’s more work indeed!
I am wondering if it’s more a case of not having enough time to develop a strong idea, and then there’s no foundation for the rest of the story. I can’t believe a writer would willingly come up with a holey plot, so I’m looking for an excuse!
Seon-ha
March 15, 2024 at 2:38 PM
Sometimes, I also feel like “seasoned” drama watchers–as the three of us certainly are 😋–can tell that the issue was that a 16-episode drama got shortened to 12…but I definitely didn’t get that impression here. Y’all?
It’s like it was poorly written to start? I mean I hesitate to say this, but maybe someone has to admit it so that we can discuss: Maybe KKY isn’t actually up to carrying a traditional-like ML lead?? He certainly didn’t hold a candle to Oh Min-seok’s charisma here. You know you’re in trouble when the good guy totally loses out pretty much every drop of attention to a triple-murderer who clearly doesn’t give a rats’-ass about his own freaking son (@hacja ‘s still fuming about this in his underground lair, I bet)!!
We need someone to write KKY into a proper rags-to-riches ML story or any form of tale where the underdog truly wins out, gets the girl, makes it big, defeats all the baddies (they tried to do that here, but faiiiilllled…probably because Lee Ji-ah needed to take top, top billing, wouldn’t you say)?
Cecee is done DramaQueening
March 15, 2024 at 3:13 PM
I would have been happy with Ki-joon and Yool-seong being both solid characters… but honestly, the drama made murder more appealing than the fight for justice!
I’m rewatching Terius (Terrius?) at the moment and I really liked KKY’s character in it. Not a ML role but it was a gender-reversed role; stay at home dad who’s friend with all the other housewives. The writing is much stronger but all the interactions between the moms and him are so sweet and natural.
So I’d be happy having him in a life ensemble story, like Hospital Playlist where friendship takes the lead over romance (so Hospital Playlist minus the coupling) – so a story with no underdog.
But I’m also buying rag to riches plots when they work. The character nobody takes seriously and who somehow wins because he never gives up?
Last thought of the day: A more “mature” romance, and I don’t mean in terms of age but in terms of behaviours. The man’s 40; perhaps age for new awakening after separation or early widowhood.
Or, hear me out: a spirit story perhaps? A man who’s plagued by spirits since having a near death accident; he dreams of the last thing the dead see but he get the vision 24 hours before they die and doesn’t realise what it is until he spots a pattern in his dreams.
I realise I can’t control myself. I said “last thought” earlier on and I’m still trying to bring further last thoughts after the last thought 🤦🏻♀️
Seon-ha
March 15, 2024 at 3:39 PM
Now, I’m always gonna say yes to a romance that includes people over 40. Sometimes it happens you know? 🤣😆🥹
♡Peach_Mochi♡
March 15, 2024 at 5:02 PM
It feels like the problems went beyond episode length. I didn’t get a sense the writer knew who the characters were, let alone what made them tick. It’s like someone said: Let’s get on the female revenge trend, failed marriages are popular so — she’s the revenge queen of divorce! The enemy? A chaebol of course. The plot? Let’s not resolve things too quickly — so she’ll have to put herself and others in danger lots of times to up the dramatic factor.
As for KKY’s character, he needed a chance to be capable at more than saving the FL from ludicrous moments of danger and being loyal in order to be a legit ML.
hacja
March 16, 2024 at 8:08 AM
I’m pretty much immune to to Oh Min-seok’s charisma, and Kang Ki Young did as good a job as he could given his character. But lets face it: the real problem was Lee Ji-ah. While its my lifelong mission as a caped commenting crusader to emerge from my lair to heroically defend female leads and second female leads and the actresses that play them, she was awkward in every aspect of the role. She was badly dressed, she moved stiffly, she delivered her lines badly, she didn’t know how to act as a loving Mom, when she formulated and announced her ridiculous plans, she looked condescending and smirky, and even in dire circumstances she acted like she knew the director was about to call “cut” so that when her character was rescued by KKY of course she didn’t show the gratitude that most characters would feel. So I didn’t even bother to have Alfred, my butler, fire up the snark-mobile for this show.
Seon-ha
March 16, 2024 at 9:42 AM
** Stands and stares in stunned silence for the second time today at @hacja **
First a hilarious meme…and now a reasoned and accurate criticism of Lee Ji-ah?
You feeling OK, man?
indyfan
March 16, 2024 at 12:11 AM
You had me in stitches. I’m so glad I spent the time not watching QoD reading your write-up. (Tho I didn’t drop till #4.)
If you’re looking for another disaster for your epic posts, I invite you to The Impossible Heir.
Seon-ha
March 16, 2024 at 4:35 AM
Oh no, oh no, Cecee. Don’t do it. You’ll blow an actual gasket. Please. Jebal. 제발. No.
indyfan
March 16, 2024 at 5:08 AM
While I could already see Cecee’s penknife glinting under the cold blue light of their screen, I admit, it may be a risk to their health. LOL.
Cecee is done DramaQueening
March 16, 2024 at 7:55 AM
Muahaha, is it that bad?!
Seon-ha
March 16, 2024 at 9:39 AM
I mean, I know why @indyfan suggested it and she’s almost never wrong, but I think she might be trying to bring more people to rearrange boat chairs on the Lusitania or something.
Cecee is done DramaQueening
March 16, 2024 at 10:19 AM
I’m 20 min into the first episode and I think even I would have done a better job at editing all the scenes together. This is Tiktok level of editing. Not a flipping transition and flat direction all around.
What am I even watching? Lee Jae-wook sent his acting skills on a break and is actively using no acting whatever in every scene. He’s just here as a bad fashion model, and as much as I appreciate the dedication to low action high cheap fashion sense, who hurt you bae?
I’m sorry @indyfan, I can’t even make it to the end of the episode!
indyfan
March 17, 2024 at 4:33 AM
😂 This is why I thought you’d be great. Some of us had hopes at the beginning, minimizing the red flags, but you saw the disaster-in-making within minutes. I think in one of the more recent recaps we even thought they’d placed a cutout of LJW with a hidden voice recording; he was that immobile. Gorgeous, tho.
But yeah, it’s better for you not having watched it tho we would have enjoyed your takes. Our paths will cross on a better show, inshallah.
indyfan
March 17, 2024 at 4:40 AM
@attiton Ha! The ship has already sunk, there’s no rearranging the chairs, it’s asking to folks to join us in a watery grave.
Seon-ha
March 17, 2024 at 8:22 AM
I must say, as someone who really loved the first two episodes, that I’m surprised by your reaction @darkcc ! I only jumped ship this week.
Maybe I just found our MLs too attractive to notice the issues straight away, though. I’m definitely not above being distracted by ze bee-au-tay.
And, @indyfan, I hope this turns into a beautiful hate-watch for you. I can find those cathartic when they happen in just the right way (Not Others).
indyfan
March 18, 2024 at 12:29 AM
@attiton Am I embarking on my first pure hate-watch? Hmm, I didn’t think of it like that. But you might be right. Something to ponder on.