Happy Friday! Did everyone have a Happy Halloween? We had our candy ready for trick-or-treaters and walked the neighborhood to see all the adorable costumed families as well as all the Halloween decorations on homes (they were amazing!). We will be spending the weekend removing our Halloween decorations and, let’s be honest, eating up all the leftover candy we can find. My skin will hate me, my tongue will thank me.
Below is our weekly review of the dramas that we are watching which is inspired from The Kthree’s Weekly watchlist and is a way to stay up to date on the dramas we’re liking, loving, and leaving. We watch lots of stories over here, mostly Korean dramas, but we also dip into western shows, so we will cover both. Let’s get into it!
Caution: Spoilers are rampant, tread cautiously!
KOREAN DRAMAS
Vagabond (episode 12)
I have no complaints, in fact, I am having a really good time. Somehow this TV show walks the line between ridiculous adventure, with a serious tone that comes out straight up farcical at times and I think they do it all accidentally. If it is all on purpose, like somehow they changed up the entire tone of the show midway through, then it was a brilliant move because this new Vagabond is must watch TV.
Episode 12 was amazing fun with so many scenes that made no sense. Shot up by a thousand bullets in a car and no one gets hit, in fact I don’t even think a bullet hits a window? Go with it. A random family dude drives a huge tank dump truck in the middle of SWAT and Assassins to block an onslaught of bullets so our team can get away? Go with it.
Recaps: episode 12
My Country: The New Age (episode 8)
Even though this drama has a favorite actor of mine (Jang Hyuk), I don’t really look forward to watching an episode. I think I still haven’t gotten over the red military assassin coming back to life like he stepped out of the pages of Game of Thrones, and the show has not given us any explanation for it. So, I’m grumpy.
I also feel like anticipation is not being used to its best enjoyment as a watcher. They set something up and then the next scene they either give it to us or erase it completely and set something else up. That leaves me feeling a bit – empty?
Recaps: episode 8
Catch The Ghost (episode 3 and 4)
The zippy nature of the first two episodes has been dialed back a notch, but the fun remains as our heroine does basically whatever the F she wants to do in order to find her sisters killer. She does not care about being a cop and getting promoted, she is only using the title of subway cop in order to sneak into the track line of the subway to find the subway serial killer. i love that about her because she really does not care. Though I do wonder if that will be part of her characters growth.
Recaps: episode 3 and episode 4
Melting Me Softly (episode 9 and 10)
This drama has strayed from its premise so far that it is laughable. I basically forget that Miran or Dong-chan have low body temperatures because it does not affect their day-to-day in any way. The only thing it affects is whether they can kiss or not which I think was the initial inspiration that the writer must have been sprinkled with. That along with a shower kiss scene. “Their body temperatures can’t get too high so they have to kiss in the shower, get it? Get it?” I don’t think they thought any farther than that.
Plus, that shower kiss scene kind of made me uncomfortable. I mean, Miran has only pecked a man once in her life like 4 days ago and now she is going to town in a hotel room shower? Too fast, too fast.
Recaps: episode 9 and episode 10
VIP Premiere (episodes 1 and 2)
So lovely and so sophisticated. It is giving me Misty vibes though only at an emotional level because the story is very different. Misty was a drama set in a broadcast network about taking down a high profile female newscaster. This is a drama set in a high-profile department store and is fed by a whodunit mistress storyline. Simple at its core, but how it is coming together on screen is soooooo juicy!
Recaps: episode 1 and episode 2
The Tale of Nokdu (episodes 8 and 9)
Love this show SO MUCH. I really like how Nokdu and the King got to know and like each other as strangers. The King liked him so much that he even ignored that fact that Nokdu was impersonating someone else to take the exam (the King is thorough, y’all. He be knowing things). The King is actually nice, y’all. Meanwhile, Yool-moo is super evil. It is almost as if Yool-moo and the King had a brain switch so that too much evil wouldn’t be on screen at the same time. Or perhaps the King isn’t really evil and it has all just been a huge misunderstanding?
The last cliffhanger was probably the least life threatening of the show, but it held the most impact for our hero who was put in peril and discovered important information all at the same time. I really wonder how they will start episode 10
Recaps: episode 8 and episode 9
Flower Crew Joseon Marriage Agency (episodes 13 and 14)
I don’t even know where to start with this show. Probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I mean, they dropped the main Prince murder storyline, that pulled me into the show to begin with, as if it was nothing. They just swept it under the rug and piled lots of Ma Hoon and Gaedong flashbacks into the mix to make you forget about it.
And, AND, they are giving us more flashback backstories of the side characters instead of leading us through the main storyline plots. The tea party Queen massacre could have been AMAZING. But instead it was just wah wah, off to the next thing.
Flower Crew should really take some clues from the Extraordinary You writer who turns a tennis match into a life or death event and a comical blip bring you to tears with angst.
Recaps: episode 13 and episode 14
Extraordinary You (episodes 9 and 10)
Speaking of amazing, Extraordinary You is the drama that I had no interest in covering at all and has turned into my favorite show on right now. This show is so good, it is witty, comical, dramatic, inspired, it is all those things rolled into one.
I really feel for Dano and Haru as well as all the other characters who are just trying to make it in this comic book world. It is so sad whenever they think that it was better when they didn’t know that a writer was controlling their lives. But, they are always given logical hope to build on in order to think that they can do something, they can live in all those little moments outside of the staged ones.
But the stakes are raised again with Dano’s heart failing more and more. All my puppies wanted to do was meet at that super old tree for a date, writer! Can’t you just give that to them!!!!
Yeah, so, I love this show and can’t wait for the next two.
Recaps: episode 9 (17 & 18) and episode 10 (19 & 20)
When the Camellia Blooms (episodes 13 & 14)
Whenever they move into sob backstories, they lose me. When they stay on the current story at hand, I am there’s. Case in point, that random daughter that showed up this week. Though intriguing, I dont really want to know becuase it will just involve Dong-baeks back story that is already super depressing. Do they really have to drag us through the sob swamp every episode?
I did like Deok-soon’s backstory with the fire, even though it was super tragic at least it made narrative sense. But then they had to go and make Deok-soon (Yong-sik’s mom) and Dong-baek’s mom meet way back when in Deok-soon’s restaurant while Dong-baek was a baby. Which means that Dong-baek and Yong-sik met BEFORE HE WAS BORN.
Yes, baby Dong-baek touched Deok-soon’s belly that housed Yong-sik. Fate has brought them together from way before the cradle – from the umbilical chord! – and my eyes have been rolling ever since.
Recaps: episode 13 (25 & 26) and episode 14 (27 & 28)
KOREAN MOVIES
The Divine Fury aka Saja
A straight up enjoyable mess if you watch with someone else. We watched this for our watch party with the KThree and had an amazingly fun time laughing at all the horror mixed with nonsense tied to a nonsensical plot. Definitely a recommend as a group watch. But I would say that it is a hard pass if you are watching alone (unless you love the actors in it).
Review: The Divine Fury Review
Parasite
Worth all the praise! Y’all, Parasite won the best movie in the world at Cannes for a reason. I do not want to give away any spoilers because it was recommended to me to go into this movie blindly, so I will pass that along to you. Just know nothing about it and you will hit all the “um, what’s happening, omg!” moments that I had and you will love it! It is a slow burn in the opening, but it really pays off around the midway mark and keeps it moving after that.
Review: coming up!
US TV SHOWS
Fleabag (season 1 episodes 1 & 2)
Okay, this show reads like a Samantha origin story from Sex and the City, but only if Samantha were a dysfunctional grief-ridden 30 something cafe owner in England with a dry sense of humor. It is based on actor Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one-woman show of the same name so she is the main actress and the creator of this show. All the more reason to watch it.
Fleabag is one party hilarious, one part raunchy, and one part touching. Though the touching part is way way way under the raunch and comedy part. But it is cleverly done because the touching heartfelt part is actually hidden but in a way that makes narrative sense because the main character hides her feelings through sex with others.
The first two episodes kind of get us situated in this world of hers which is a first world problems tragic place filled with grief and a revolving door of men. Our heroine, known only as Fleabag, is our narrator through her life. She breaks the 4th wall continuously and in pretty hilarious ways so I enjoyed watching the first two episodes. The acting, especially the acting of the men that she shares her bed with, is so good that I honestly believe that they could be real people.
I heard the story really gets going in episodes 3 and 4, so I am sticking in for that. Plus, it is a fun watch, though don’t watch it while working out at the gym or on a plane or with any kids around because it is TV-MA.
And that is everything that we are watching over here! When the Camellia Blooms lost me once again in the background stories that feel like they are created to pull tears. But I love it when it is on the main storyline with Gabuli. Extraordinary You is at the top of the list of my favorite watches followed by The Tale of Nokdu, and I finally have another western show to possibly love in Fleabag. Have a great weekend!
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