Gifs for the Final:
The mutilated Lady was spying for revenge . She knows there is no mercy, but she also knows she has already harmed him, and she shows all her contempt in this bitter smile: https://imgur.com/aQLdOJT
She can't speak, and yet, she clearly says: "Yes, all this time I shared your secrets with your enemy. I have no regrets, even now."
Bong-hwan eating. The King, in love: https://imgur.com/u8rGpIN Also, as far as I remember even from what I have tasted in a kitchen, baked yam or casava tastes crazy good, (especially with butter). Made on a fire with that extra hint of smoke … I think it must really be orgastronomic.
All in, all yours: Bong-hwan will give all he has for this man, even his life. https://imgur.com/GnFK1gT
The Last Kiss
Bong-hwan suddenly feels like this is urgent, like this may be the last chance: https://imgur.com/Jt7TX0k
The Loss
He would think he is crazy. So-young doesn’t enlighten him, and just lets him believe she was also the one who ate yams straight from the fire, and the one hiding with him in that narrow wagon. This way of just taking over the credit from someone In order to gain love …. who does that remind me of?
Anyway, here’s the King who can’t understand how the (nice!) Queen lost her Muchness …
https://imgur.com/uXUXi0U
… This is where you hurry to the flow charts (links in a comment close to this) and Choose Your Favourite, and think up more beautiful details.

I have 50+ gifs on imgur for this entire drama and three three flow chart of how the ending and a second season could be, + a sidestory, or small spin-off, to the imagined Second Season.
I put the links to those charts again in the comments here, because all that choose your own adventure … I hope to hear your ideas to spinoffs and booktitles etcera.

Good title. Because nobody would make a wish involving either of those two :)

@quirkycase , I am a late arrival to your party here, but I still wanted to thank you for your work on recapping this show. Well done!

Human Disqualification, aka "Lost", is a slow-burn drama. Let me stress the slowwwww...burrrrrn. I am not usually a fan of this type of pondering pacing, because it requires the writing, direction, and editing to be top-tier to keep me engaged. However, to my surprise, it all did exactly that - and I found myself hooked.

For some reason, in the past I have never really warmed to the actress Jeon Do-yeon. However, after I watched this show to its entirety and embarked on self-reflection, I realize she is a true professional and is very, very good at her craft. She carries this show with a heart-breaking, thought-provoking, and courageous performance. She has come a long, long way since her performance in Happy End so long ago.

To my amazement, the other actors/actresses in this show are all phenomenal, with special recognition to Park In-hwan, who had me feeling weepy more than once with his portrayal of the stoic, dying father. This was perhaps the best example I've seen of a kdrama in which every actor shined their brightest, within the scope of the role they portrayed.

Ok, so your Friendly Ghost has been raving here, so why can't he give a 10 rating? Two reasons:
1) I feel like the first few episodes introduced some plot-lines that were never quite resolved to a viewer's satisfaction, and could have been left out of the story without losing anything.
2) The "open ended" nature of the last episode could have been wrapped up a little better for us. For example, the exact time-lapse that occurred could have been explained more clearly, especially after scenes at the end showed us the FL was no longer wearing her wedding ring (I had to rewatch a few times to catch that clue).

Now, please Beanies, put my nit-picking aside for a moment and let me give a hearty recommendation for watching this show - provided that you can handle slow-burns and like very thought-provoking and deep dialogue between the characters.

I'm immediately imagining this as a contemporary Korean gender-swapped I Dream Of Jeannie and if that's the case I'm sooooo here for that! Hopefully it's good, I've been desperate for a quality new romantic fantasy/sci-fi k-drama!

That's excellent - you are probably in the minority from posts I've read! I didn't know anything at all about gaming so the first time around I missed an awful lot. It was great to be able to pay attention to details with the rewatch. I was absolutely mesmerized for the full 16 eps!

Hyun Bin was absolutely amazing in this drama.
Btw, it was the first k-drama I ever started and the third I finished.

Hope this has a happier ending than Uncontrollably Fond.....

Kim Woo-bin's long hair is giving a bad Bride of Habaek. I hope Genie chops it off early on in the show.

My biggest squee this week was when I finally watched the finale of the jdrama Ichiban Sukina Hana (My Beloved Flower), which was a beautiful and heartfelt ending to a fantastic drama. Friendship really was the name of the game here, and the drama never once got confused about that, but I also love how this friendship wasn't just between our 4 leads, but also between some of the side characters (and I loved how the finale basically brought back everyone that mattered in some way).
It's really a drama about the connections we make, both past & present, and how those connections can influence the life of you and others, even if that's not necessarily in a big way. After all, sometimes all you need is that one person that doesn't hate you. The story isn't really all that grand, it can often be very simple, but that's also where the beauty in it lies. This was a gem that I won't soon forget.

Yes, I agree there that he was in subtle tears, but I read them as tears of relief that CJ and SY survived the ordeal. I meant that he seemed happy later, when he is back in a suit and looking around at modern Seoul and smiles. But of course we aren’t given very much of him at all, so it’s hard to say.

I'm happy to report that I was never confused, and understood everything the first time around. It's one of my favorite dramas. Glad that you liked it this time!

Lol, Anne 18, confession:
When I just visited r/kdramas I was surprised to see I had been there about 2 months ago and left a comment about Song Kang’s first possible post military drama: FOUR HANDS where he will portray a piano prodigy. As far as I can remember that is my only comment there. I got 3 upvotes LOL.

Rewatched Memories of the Alhambra this past week - binged in 2 days. I was surprised how much I loved it this time around. I found an explanation for all the game logics, was much more understanding of PSH's personality and bouts of crying, and am totally fine with the ending. JW is alive and well and will leave the game confines as soon as his programming team finds him, and they will thanks to his helping new gamers and causing some buzz! Huge squee for Hyun Bin - so impressed with his acting in this one. His scene pulling out the Key of Heaven from his chest was so realistic I started getting worried! Realized this time around from the 1st ep that he's not a good guy, or at least hasn't been acting like one, so his transformation over the course of the drama was amazing. Can highly recommend the analyses of packmule3 at b*tchesoverdramas for anyone still confused about what actually happened, the consistency of game rules, symbolism etc.
This drama has jumped 60 spots in my favs list - now at #15 :) Maybe I'll watch W now?

I watched episodes 5 and 6 and forgot to write up my impressions here. Discussing the show is one of the most pleasurable parts!

In episode 5, I kept thinking about a murder case from the 1980s where a young man from a wealthy background picked up a woman in a bar and strangled her to death. They were school friends and he claimed that he accidentally killed her during "rough sex." (Which was obviously, a lie.)

Having that in the back of my mind made me super uncomfortable in the scenes in the bar where Kang Hyo-min meets the ex-boyfriend/defendant in her case. I understood that she was made uncomfortable because she couldn't reveal that she was a lawyer in his case in front of her friends. (That would be a potential breach of confidentiality.) Yet she also had an obligation to divulge who she was to the defendant.

At the same time I thought, "well, at least she's safe from his sadism." When he started coming on to her, I figured the friends didn't stop it because they thought he was her type.

Everything on these shows depends on dramatic irony, doesn't it? Only we know that the plaintiff in the dating case was pressured into sexual torture for her boyfriend's gratification.

Episode six was a little over the top. How did the established artist copy the young genius? I had no idea. Also, the opening scene with the social climbing friends arguing about who got ripped off by copy cats was more alienating than watching people eating squirming octopus tentacles. I do approve of the consistency of the screen writers for sticking with disability and parenting themes.

Even after six episodes, I still don't like Hyo-min's boss, Seok-hoon. The actor is really good at looking concerned and like he's listening intently, which is 100% of his charm in every role. But! The mentor came back and there is intrigue at work. That makes me want to watch more.

I love that AC dedicated a book to her dog, and that she named him Peter.

I started this series late, and so far have finished 4 episodes (no spoilers). You summed it up beautifully -- and reminded me that I really do enjoy sports tropes, provided that the production respects both the sport and the genre. Although Hot Stove League is perhaps more of a corporate genre (Namkoong Min did not play an athlete), and Prison Playbook is more of a prison genre, baseball adds an extra special something to both of them. Like the MLs these series, Ga Ju-ram has won me to his side (although I did not immediately warm to him). However Winning Try's antagonists seem a bit overdrawn compared to those in Stove League and Prison Playbook.

I feel that the first game at the end of episode 2 had just the right touch, though I must add that I know very little about rugby. (But I do know and love baseball enough to recognize universal aspects of team sports and am enjoying the rugby.)

May you have to eat every meal across from a person who chews too loudly, who snorts like a pig when sipping soup, and speaks/sprays food when talking to you.

The dancing to "Soda Pop" internet trend has hit some of our favorite middle-aged Korean actors. Link is to Youtube: https://youtube.com/shorts/28X0BwVjNpw?si=ckSSYjxfNWmVV-AV