Rants and Weekly Raves #64 (RAWR)

Jaehyus: Gave The Disguiser 5 eps, and it's no Nirvana in Fire for me. Can't keep up with it. I actually don't have too much to say because nothing really registered. I was too caught up with anticipating Block B, seeing Block B, holding Jaehyo's hand twice (that's two times!), and recovering from Block B to really pay much attention to anything. Even Nirvana in Fire fell by the wayside. And whatever I have seen, I can't remember it, really. Although, that said, there was a jdorama.  I'll write more below. 
Nabi: I couldn't keep up with anything this week. I managed to eke my way through the lone final episode of She Was Pretty, but everything else will have to wait for next week...hopefully.
kakashi: The Disguiser and Nirvana in Fire are so good, I never ever ever ever want to return from The Disguiser and Nirvana in Fire land. I also want to keep recapping them forever and ever and ever.
JoAnne: Whatever this is, it's contagious. I can't keep up with anything much, but I'm also on the Disguiser/NIF bandwagon so whatever I do get to see is mostly that.
I watched SWP and I've been watching Nirvana and Disguiser. I can wave sadly at Six Flying Dragons, D-Day, Awl, Glamorous Temptation, et al, but not too sadly, since I'd watch them if I REALLY felt like it.
Shuk: My life is very busy and very complicated and still relatively stress-free. So yay!
I am not the only one thinking what I'm thinking, and no one can convince me otherwise.
(*trotwood sneaking in without an invite*) why would we bother?

Oh My Venus

Should this really be here? We RAWR the previous week's stuff. 
Oh, we have rules? (You know what I mean)
No matter... we can leave Episode 2 for next week. I just finished watching. Of course it's insulting the way they act like she's an enormous whale, but the fact is, the show's about her having gotten fat, so ya can't really complain, right? She's still cute, she's not all Debbie Downer - but she has definitely stopped caring about herself, and guess who's gonna help her get past that? soGanzi, soHot, and soFunny, that's who. So Ji Sub is looking about as perfect as a man could look, honestly, and his manner - reserved, quiet, plain-spoken - is very appealing. Very. Appealing. Sung Hoon is working that voice thing and looking very handsome, himself...and Henry is Henry. If you love Henry, you'll love it. (I do.) Fuck Ears is a dick, of course. The Other Woman looks like she might have a heart, though.
I only skipped through it, lingered long on SJS (his dreamy way of speaking is mesmerizing!), but I got a good impression. Netizens "hate it" though, if you want to believe Netizenbuzz. Which, in general, we probably shouldn't
Very few shows start with a bang at the beginning. I'm willing to give it a few more episodes for the hope sake of more bathtub scenes.
 

She Was Pretty (Finale)

The last episode was pretty much exactly what I expected: a long epilogue in which we got to watch everybody's Happily Ever After in excruciating detail. It was all mostly quite pleasant (Hwang Jung-Eum still snuck in more than enough screeching), but not terribly exciting. And we got very little of Choi Shiwon, whose manic Shin-Hyuk was always one of the weirdest, but most entertaining things that She Was Pretty put on our screens each week.
It was pretty okay.  Everything wrapped up in a neat bow, lots of pretty to look at.  Nothing earth-shattering, but nothing objectionable, either.
See what I mean? All that gauzy happiness is a bit much for a full hour.
And so, I dedicate my final post on SWP to Go Joon-Hee's Min Ha-Ri. I've seen a lot of positive comments about Ha-Ri and Hye-Jin's friendship, which I mostly agree with. They were genuinely loving friends, which is a rare and beautiful thing to see in dramaland, especially between two women. But there was also a lot of criticism out there for the way Ha-Ri handled The Big Lie, and I disagree with most of that. Yes, she should have told the truth, especially to Hye-Jin, a lot sooner than she did. But I found her hesitance very sympathetic, and more than that, realistic. For starters, she did try to tell Hye-Jin about seeing Sung-Joon again -- several times in fact -- and Hye-Jin repeatedly pre-empted her honesty with a series of her signature freak-outs and unilateral declarations that all Sung-Joon related conversation (aside from what she herself offered) was off-limits. At the same time, Ha-Ri was getting something from Sung-Joon that she had clearly never received before from a man: deep acceptance and caring. Yes, it was built on a lie about her identity, but their interactions were mostly genuine, and for someone who had clearly been deeply scarred by the most important relationships in her past, the allure of Sung-Joon was totally understandable. No, Ha-Ri wasn't a perfect person, or a perfect friend. But then really, who is? Her weaknesses were very human, and personally I found her a lot more relatable than Hye-Jin in most ways...except the chaebol goddess part -- that's not relatable for me at all!
I agree with you on this, and got into a long twittertalk with someone about it, mid-way through.  (They disagreed.  They were wrong.)  She wasn't hateful.  She was real, and she struggled with the situation.  We don't always do the right thing as quickly as we should.  None of us.  She's a decent person and a good friend and I liked her fine, although I did worry about it for a bit when I wasn't sure how it would be played out.  When you get right down to it - she had the best role when it comes to do something real and worth watching.  Siwon got it for laughs, and Hwang Jung Eum/Park Seo Joon for the OTP'ers, but for actually portraying a difficult situation sympathetically?  Hands down it was this girl.
Word.
Min Ha-Ri Hwaiting!!

Six Flying Dragons

I can't recall much plot development from what I've seen so far of episodes 11 and 12, but I don't remember being hugely bored either. Mostly I remember pondering the Korean word for "shadow" a lot. It always sounds to me exactly like the Korean word for "painting." I finally looked them both up on Google translate, and it turns out they really are almost identical, but I was missing the final syllable in "shadow." If you're curious, a picture, figure, painting, or drawing is a "geulim" (the pronunciation always evokes the word "cream" for me) and a shadow is a "geulimja."

I'm also quite enjoying this woman's hairpieces, and wish she didn't have almost all of her scenes with the Foul Fowl:
Cho-Young, played by Yoon Son-Ha.

Other Stuff

Mafia Luerd Mungkorn Krating Gif: Just for Trot:
Trotwood: I am literally dying. Shuk=love. I actually asked for this gif for Christmas, but Shuk made it in time for my pre-Thanksgiving birthday.
It took me 3.5 hours to get through this episode of Krating. I kept rewatching, then breathing into a paper bag, walking around to calm down, soaking through tissues, and then coming back to Ken reaching for me (*cough*) I mean Cherry/Yaya from bed. I had to double up on the blood pressure meds.
Don't forget you still have one more episode to go! With all the pathos and passion you could want.

Gokuako Ganbo: a 2014 Jdorama that is surprisingly good.  It's about fixers, who seem to be a type of bounty hunter, and each episode ends with a stern warning that what is shown is illegal.  But I don't think bounty hunting is illegal in the US, so if that's a career anyone is interested in, go for it!  The heroine is an actress I normally don't care for, but here, she fits the role so well as tomboyish, naive, yet tough woman.  And it has Miura Shohei, someone I've liked since Ashita, Mama Ga Inai.  He's just really cute. I'm up to ep 7 of 10.  Think I'll finish it this week. 
Well, of course I am still watching The Walking Dead - tell us about GLENN, you fuckers! and I haven't reached that point in American Horror Story when I'm finally too sickened to continue watching yet this year. I'm looking forward to the premiere of Into the Badlands, of course, and Heroes Reborn has been fun, so far.

Still more other stuff

Michael :(
But Rogelio!
Proud to say I've been Team Rafael since Day One, but the truth is, she should probably just walk away from them both. This Britney episode was tons of fun, though.

And then, Tom Mison. This will get cancelled soon, that much is clear. But it was nice knowing you, dude.
Bring him back in something that stays good.