Beanie level: Eunuch in drag

Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha is total trope city, but the leads already have me in their pockets. What’s a gal to do?

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Just came to squee that HOSPLAY 2 IS HERE!

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True Beauty is not ground breaking by any standards, but the characters are hella fun and the pacing is nice and snappy so far. Nice n’ light. Esp after just finishing Save Me.

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    ha ha.. i thought i was the only one enjoying true beauty despite that show having nothing

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      Bubbly female lead with a typically manhwa “problem”, cute boys, brainless plot – it’s pitch perfect for a pick-me-up show… so far. There could be some awkward taking-itself-too-seriously drama down the line.

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    Tinyyyyyy!!!!!! you are back!!! Hope everything is ok.
    I hated the first episode. But then I was ok by 2nd. But then it was fun from there on. It’s a easy stress free watch for sure!

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      I ammmm! Sort of. Miss you and the chaos beans! I agree about the first ep, it was meh. And I’m glad they didn’t spend too long on Suho not figuring out her secret. The show isn’t particularly smart, but that doesn’t mean it can be dumb.

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    Save Me, while really good, is a very difficult watch. I looked for fun BTS clips of the cast in between episodes just to be able to finish. 😂

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Soooooo… Who else is dying of glee over that rooftop scene in Start-Up ep 7?

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I am SCREAMING because the season finale of Hosplay was SO SATISFYING!

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    It was, it was, it was! Well, except for what happened to Joon-wan, although who knows the significance of the returned package tbh.

    BUT GYEO-UL AND JEONG-WON ARE A THING! YASSSS!

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      I think it’s just a bit of misdirection to raise anticipation for season 2. There needs to be some loose ends to pick up when we meet everyone again.

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Won’t lie. This is pretty much how I feel on Friday’s when The King comes out. Daquiri’s included.

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Gyaaaah! All these HosPlay posts are making me so excited to watch it, but I may not be able to until tomorrow. Uuuuuuuuugh!

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So, like, what if The King was recast with Joo Ji-hoon as King Lee Gon and Kim Hye-soo as Lt. Tae-eul…?

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    Then it wouldn’t be a Kim Eun Sook drama…. A large signature of Kim Wun Sook dramas is her use/casting of hallyu trendsetting actor/actresses— it’s the reason why DOTS was so popular despite the lacklustre plot

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      That would explain why her work is received with such mixed reviews.

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        Yup, with all due respect, she’s the definition of being dependent on star power rather than her sole writing ability (no offence to her and to those who like her writing/work) 🤷🏻‍♀️

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      I hate Descendants of the Sun. I tried watching it over and over again, but always got bored as well as frustrated by the crappy characters. I hate how all KES male protagonists have this weird “I’m amazing and everybody knows it” thing going on. Can’t she write a nuanced male lead? And why do all the female protagonists become doormats at some point in the story?

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        Like I say, her dramas have no substance— no substance in plot, no substance in characters— it’s all just really surface-y and pretty, imo 🤷🏻‍♀️

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    Well, do we want Joo Ji Hoon calling Kim Hye Soo she’s stupid as a bear? Or do we want to hear Joo Ji Hoon say his favourite number is zero? And how it is so MSD??! And do we want to hear from Kim Hye Soo that she is a flat-Earther believer???

    In my humble opinion, only god Lee Min Ho can pull off 0 is MSD, 1 and 0 is your world and mine, and Euler number…… 🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪🤪.

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      Maybe. But the chemistry between the two would be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay scorchier than tepid LMH/KGE. And that floor kiss? Mhm, you know it would’ve been something to write home about.

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    They’d con a whole bunch of people together

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When work-from-home focus is dwindling and you need an epic jam to get your brain back into ‘get ‘er done’ mode:

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So, The King is getting a lot of bad press for its premiere week. Which, I won’t say isn’t warranted.

However, I realized quickly a third of the way through ep 1 that it was giving off a particular vibe. One that I’d felt before from a particular North American movie franchise. A vibe that made me realize that, in order to see it for its charms, I needed to watch it through a very particular lens.

Follow me into the comments if you want to learn The Secret.

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    The Secret, my fellow Beans, to getting through The King (if you’re game for a test of stamina), is to approach it like Twilight. Yes, Twilight. The tween vampire movie based on the terrible vampire book that should never have been published.

    The Twilight movie was a serious, urban fantasy YA “adventure” that, when watched in earnest, was absolutely, horrifyingly horrible in every way. BUT – when watched as a straight up comedy – it was possibly one of the funniest moves I’d seen that year.

    THIS! This… is the trick to The King. Because it’s an epically EXTRA dumpster fire of glorious WTF moments that, when you try and take them seriously as a normal show, just don’t compute. But when viewed as a parody of what it’s supposed to be – it’s actually kind of fun.

    Despite the directing, writing and a lot of the flunked story opportunities, there are some redeeming qualities (I think, anyway).

    Kim Go-eun is a fun, spunky FL. Woo Do-hwan is definitely being under-utilized, but he’s looking fiiiiiine in his bodyguard duds. I’m really digging the unintentional homoerotic subplot between LMH’s King and WDH’s Captain of the Royal Guard.

    The villain, Prince Lee Something-or-other, also has potential, though mostly because he’s actually scary. He’s a raging psychopath who will actually kill anyone in his path. No one is safe. Not his brother, not even children. Yes, he will kill children. Clearly, this bro is bad news bears for everyone – AND, he’s got a piece of magic flute so WATCH OUT!

    And LMH. Well. I’ve only ever seen BoF so I can’t speak from a place of connoisseurship, but he is killing it at the staring game. He can stare like nobody’s business. Dead stare, quasi-dead stare, almost but-not-quite-alive stare – he’s got it, it’s all there. So, yes, looking forward to more staring from him for sure.

    All in all, will I be tuning in next week? Abso-freaking-lutely! We live in strange and terrible times and I can always use a good laugh.

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      OMG @kudoran there’s a magical flute in this, too!!! But I doubt it will be better than “that guy wearing black and playing flute” 😉😉😉 Because no one— ABSOLUTELY NO ONE— will ever be a better magical flute player than the flute player who likes to wear black 😍😍😍😍😍

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      there is still a difference..
      Twilight promised to cater to teen romance fantasies.. and it did..

      King is not twilight, it is just so much worse..

      Heirs is closer to twilight..

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        Considering the amount of adults who also frothed at the mouth for Twilight… not sure the genre difference matters here. Besides, young LMH fans do “grow up”, at least in the literal sense, and their Comeback King fantasies are certainly being catered to.

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      It IS hilarious. Although, I would have believed Going Yoo a million times more.

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        Gong (autocorrect doesn’t recognize him anymore! He needs to do another drama!!! 😥)

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        If it were GY, and also not good, then it would be more disappointing. Though, for argument’s sake, if it were him… maybe it could be salvaged and wouldn’t need The Secret.

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          As much as I always like to love LMH and I the fact that I was surprised and find him not too bad in first episode, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that Gong Yoo would have made ANYTHING better.

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          this one is stronlgy director’s inexperience..

          script wise KES is doling out usual .. it would be funny and fairly decent..

          acting is also not wrong..

          really.. the direction.. her script needs grand choices.. and this director fails

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      I think it has Harry Potter elements. So it’s a Twilight and Harry Potter mashup. King Tan is Cedric Diggory and Vampire? Ahahaha.

      Why Harry Potter? I’m sure there’s time control gizmo somewhere. And King Tam went to save himself. But it went epically wrong 🙃.

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        So the magic flute doubles as time Turner and Marauder’s Map? Fascinating. I’ll accept the cross-over!

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      OMG i hated Twilight yet i kept watching when a new movie came out (not at the cinemas tho). I fully believe it’s all thanks to The Secret lens/outlook/theory.

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        Oh, you know it was. 😎

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        what is the relation between secret and twilight?

        assume by secret you are referring to the law of attraction in universe/wish fulfillment

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          Nope, no relation to that Secret. I explained this Secret in my comment.

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      I never watched any Twilight and I’m not planning to do it, but if I ever retake The King, I will follow this Secret Formula.

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Yep, totally knew Soo-ah was playing the long game this whole time.

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    ???
    too boring for my taste.. but i am curious, did the original FL ever really liked PSJ’s character?

    How does bogum fit into her love life?

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Haven’t watched the most recent episode of Itaewon Class (ep 13), but I’ve been tossing around some thoughts about Geun-soo and his seemingly “random” character shift in the past two eps. I haven’t read through all the recap comments, so maybe someone’s already considered this, but anywho…

POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD. READ COMMENT AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

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    While Geun-soo has, up until this point, seemed like an aimless puppy – sweetly head-over-heels for a girl who has her own issues (not to mention her own growing up to do), I wonder if he’s only just been a blank slate.

    He’s never really had any expectations set for him – either by a parent or himself. I feel like his first taste at discovering something to strive for is how he feels about Yi-seo, yet he’s obviously ill-equipped to pursue her effectively even by normal standards. I think the second taste he gets is joining the DanBam family – specifically getting some brotherly affection from SRY. Pair this with how his father treats basically everyone, and you’d think Geun-soo would pick up on the decent way to be.

    Except…

    He seems to be a mirror of some of the other characters. He mirrors Yi-seo in going after whom he wants by any means necessary – she, after all, gives up school to work for SRY for the sake of love. He also mirrors SRY slightly in this respect – SRY has lots of motivations for his actions, but it’s hard to discount his “get rich” plan isn’t a little bit because of Soo-ah.

    I think he’s also noticed, at this point, that as much as SRY pulls ahead – Chairman Jang has been able to knock him back at every turn. Geun-soo, the man on whom nothing and no one really relies on, may know that being nice is nice – it gets you friends and smiles and fleeting happy moments – but it doesn’t give you wins. He knows this because of Yi-seo’s words and he’s seeing it because of SRY. So… why not give the dark side a go? He doesn’t really have much to lose if he ends up “successful” in the end, right?

    Maybe I’m reading too much into a character that comes from a webtoon. Or maybe he’s actually a secret genius who’s working the inside to ultimately help SRY win in the end. Only time will tell I guess.

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      If only it had been explained so eloquently in the drama itself….

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      I haven’t watched episode 13 yet either but that is a great analysis. I was concerned about Guen-soo almost from the beginning. I always thought Yi-Seo was bad news for him. I hope he can be redeemed.

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On ep3 of I\’ll Find You on a Beautiful Day – am pleasantly surprised at how low-key funny it is! Also, the writing and characters have a vague Le fabuleux destin d\’Amélie Poulain vibe to them.

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Beans, I\’m 1.5 eps away from the end of Weightlifting Fairy and I desperately don\’t want it to end. What do I do? Denial, SWAG!

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I confess. As much as kdrama OST’s get all the feels going, I find they often fall short in a specific category of mood setting.

Specifically when the lead couple with awesome chemistry ends up in a room together and you know what’s about to go down, but they’ve got this beautiful dreamy ballad playing – cause of their undying love and blah blah blah – but c’mon… Let’s be real here.

You know it’s supposed to be some good ‘ol early 2000s RnB… like Usher… like Juvenile…

But mostly – Ginuwine.

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Ok, ok, ok, ok… I get the hype.

Weightlifting swag.

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Hyena is doing all kinds of things right. I\’m also kind of feeling an epic team up at some point, too… any backers?

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    predictable but nice..
    and i like how ML was left flustered

    this is a perfect genre- when ML , FL are balanced by way of wits and are in trying to outsmart one over the other..

    in ep 2 – wife’s comment on the mistress – i see this drama is not going to go ahead with vanilla personalities.. if mistress is indeed an attention freak

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      It may get old fast if they’re head-to-head for 16 episodes straight.

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        true..but i think it will go that julia roberts reporter movie.. where a big bad wolf comes up.. so the two will team up

        me thinks.. FL has some sad story and the building she eyes is someone who destroyed her family..would be the big bad wolf

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        probably the uncle.. ML’s uncle and owner of his law firm = big bad guy

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CLOY… Had me at Hello, lost me before Goodbye.

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    I’m stuck… mid Episode 15…. it’s so tropey….. noble idiocy stuff then she passed out… he rushed out to see her passed out… *paused*

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Opening the door is tough, ‘cause it’s the kind that fights against you when there’s even the slightest breeze.

You grab the handle harder, really give ‘er, and fwoomp it opens, and you’re met with this enveloping warmth that folds you right inside.

It’s a small joint. Maybe about 15 seats total and they’re all taken. But you’re not there to stay. You’re there to grab the goods and get going.

You gingerly step towards the back, sidestepping that one linebacker-esque man whose chair is turned out from his table. It doesn’t take much to be in the way in here.

Behind a small partition at the back is the kitchen. It’s half the size of the restaurant, though you wouldn’t know it by all the action happening back there. The ebb and flow of black-t-shirted kitchen staff seems pretty well-rehearsed.

There’s a reason this place is near-impossible to get a seat in. There’s a reason you’re here in a snowstorm just to pick up.

It’s pizza.

Detroit-style.

A rectangular pie, made from a dough whose ancestry runs deep in the branches of the focaccia family. Airy, soft, delicate, but with enough chew to rev the engines. Dusted with parmesan before it hits the pan, so you get the crunchy tang of a crust on your first bite. First cheese, then sauce, then toppings: drop peppers that burst upon toothy impact, or smoky thick-cut bacon that sizzles out of the oven, or if you’re feeling extra risky – pineapple, for that sweet n’ sour edge that people give you weird stares for.

In the restaurant, the warmth and the smell of fresher than fresh pies is the pick-me-up you’d been hoping for after a long, arduous week of stress, gloom and general blahs.

The guy behind the back counter asks your name for the order. You give it, plus your method of payment. You eye the human pizza-making machines beyond, wondering which pies you’ll be taking home.

Transaction complete. Standard-issue thank yous and farewells exchanged. In your arms now are two hot cardboard boxes. Each one home to your newest, greatest treasures.

Back to the stiff, heavy door, you give it a shoulder and fwoomp – back into the snow you go.

It’s not until you carefully edge back into the passenger seat of your idling car that you glance at the bill. There’s only one pizza marked up.

Lucky you.

The second one’s free.

Love, February

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Catching up on Itaewon Class…

Sae-ro-yi tanking at karaoke is winning lots of extra points from me.

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    And he was having so much fun!!! Loved how he said “do you want to be fired?” when the other guy said “…yes, please stop singing….”

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      This show is a bit all over the place, but I’m really enjoying Park Seo-joon in this role. It seems like he’s having a blast with it, too.

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        I think he excels the most at these kind of everyman roles. He’s much more suited to them than the typical chaebol roles (though he was a hoot in Secretary Kim) and I think he gives them all a nice spin. My favorite character of his is still Go Dong-man from Fight My Way.

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