Rants and Weekly Raves #185 (RAWR)
JoAnne: If I squint at the trees against the sky, Trot, I can see the green haze! The red buds are very fat along the highway, too. Has the snow melted where you are yet?
Trotwood: It was warm today! In the 60s, so the last of the snow piles have melted. However, there is warning of ice in a couple of days. I'm not going to look for real positive weather until May. That way I won't be disappointed. I feel as though I may be in a drama lull for awhile. Most of the shows that I am watching have ended, are about to end, or are getting subbed very slowly (my Japanese dramas), and I'm not excited about the replacements at least not yet. Hopefully, this will allow time for my recapping project to get into full swing.
SakiVI: It's too hot for me. I like winter.
So do I. I hate being hot, but this has been a long, painful winter. And I really don't want to shovel again. I'll put up with scrapping ice again like I had to do this week, but I'm tired of shoveling and having to drive through snow. A week ago, I was actually driving through a snow storm while on a conference call. Not a way to enjoy winter.
It's warm here and I have watched zero seconds of anything. Why am I so busy.
Unfortunately, the cute ended. (I would have liked more.) For a variety of reasons, not least because he believes that his mother drove the car that hit Tae Hee and almost killed her, Shi Hyun decides that they can't be together. Because he's still in Soo Ji's spider web and she's losing her freaking MIND over the fact that Shi Hyun could actually care about someone that isn't her or Se Joo, he breaks up with her in a viciously cruel way. Of course he's a wreck over it. Probably more of a wreck than Tae Hee is, but she's not doing so great either.
I do feel pretty bad for Kyung Joo now, because she has pretended to realize that she really didn't like Se Joo after all. It's too bad. Se Joo and Kyung Joo would probably be a good couple, and I think she could save him from his awful family. He is certainly the least fucked-up of the trio, at least
Onward to next week, where we'll have a show down between Soo Ji and Mom. Soo Ji is trying to break up Mom's marriage plans AND keep Shi Hyun for herself all in one fell swoop but Mom is not going out like that.
PS. Appreciated finding out that Tae Hee's mom and Shi Hyun's dad dated BEFORE their marriages, not during...and curious to think that it might turn out Shi Hyun's mom wasn't as nice as he thought he was.
Rumor has it that it turns dark with a stalker ex and the puppy has a scary temper. I've heard this even though I've blocked all things Noona on my twitter to avoid spoilers.
I might do it.
Trotwood: It was warm today! In the 60s, so the last of the snow piles have melted. However, there is warning of ice in a couple of days. I'm not going to look for real positive weather until May. That way I won't be disappointed. I feel as though I may be in a drama lull for awhile. Most of the shows that I am watching have ended, are about to end, or are getting subbed very slowly (my Japanese dramas), and I'm not excited about the replacements at least not yet. Hopefully, this will allow time for my recapping project to get into full swing.
SakiVI: It's too hot for me. I like winter.
So do I. I hate being hot, but this has been a long, painful winter. And I really don't want to shovel again. I'll put up with scrapping ice again like I had to do this week, but I'm tired of shoveling and having to drive through snow. A week ago, I was actually driving through a snow storm while on a conference call. Not a way to enjoy winter.
It's warm here and I have watched zero seconds of anything. Why am I so busy.
KOREA
Laughter in Waikiki
I can't help it, this show just makes me giggle like a kid. My respect for Lee Yi Kyung grows weekly. I don't care what they throw at him, he handles it like a BOSS. The other residents of Waikiki Guest House hit their marks more or less successfully, but he is pitch perfect every time. Sol too. Can't forget Sol, the cutest baby ever. I'll be sorry to see this silly little show go.
I'm not watching this show, but I'm glad I follow a bunch of people who do on twitter because the near daily posting of pics of this baby make me very happy.
Should We Kiss First
All the grown ups know all the secrets, I think. The retrial of Apollo Confectionary has started and man, that lawyer is an unrepentent sleeze. The complicated friendship between our three female leads is finally clearly shown to us, and I have more sympathy for the new wife than I expected to. People are messy and they do messy things and they hurt each other, no matter how much they love each other. I think the next big thing to resolve will be father/daughter, and then the trial, and then I guess Moo Han will die. He looks pretty healthy for a guy who's got days to live, though.The Great Seducer
There's one scene this week where Tae Hee has this stunned expression on her face after Shi Hyun gets really cute and gives her a bunch of pecks on the cheek, and I keep remembering that scene and thinking 'We get you, girl. We GET you.'Unfortunately, the cute ended. (I would have liked more.) For a variety of reasons, not least because he believes that his mother drove the car that hit Tae Hee and almost killed her, Shi Hyun decides that they can't be together. Because he's still in Soo Ji's spider web and she's losing her freaking MIND over the fact that Shi Hyun could actually care about someone that isn't her or Se Joo, he breaks up with her in a viciously cruel way. Of course he's a wreck over it. Probably more of a wreck than Tae Hee is, but she's not doing so great either.
And then there's poor Se Joo, on the side. How must it feel to try over and over to show someone that you LOVE them, and each time, have them assume it is a joke? Like you are not even worthy of considering...I really don't feel sorry at all for Soo Ji anymore.
PS. Appreciated finding out that Tae Hee's mom and Shi Hyun's dad dated BEFORE their marriages, not during...and curious to think that it might turn out Shi Hyun's mom wasn't as nice as he thought he was.
A Poem a Day
Still cute. Still nothing much happening, but an easy watch if you need a break.
That Man Oh Soo
Fine. Now we know what the deal is with the tree and Oh Soo. Goddammit.
The Miracle if You Can Find it to Watch
I found it on one of sites that shan't be named but you all know what it is. Kai and Kim Hyun-Joo are very pretty.
Pretty Noona Who Buys Me Food But Secretly So No One Can Watch Us
I don't feel like watching this. I'm so unromantic. I read about how cuuuute, cute, cute they are again and again and I think: Who cares. Is it just a story of two cute people in cute love? I wanted a noona struggling against her desire for the little neighborhood dongsaeng who comes back from the military a total namja, her giving just enough interest for him not to be a stalker when he presses her to give in like she secretly wants to. Lots of secret almost handholding and shivery getting things down from high shelves and gulp-worthy sleeves-rolled-up tire changes and the like. And then...secret rendevous in Busan with them feeding each other slippery things from the sea and drunken confessions in street bar tents and steamy hotel showers...okay I might have written the story in my head while we were waiting and the issue now is it will never be as good as what I made up. Sigh.
Rumor has it that it turns dark with a stalker ex and the puppy has a scary temper. I've heard this even though I've blocked all things Noona on my twitter to avoid spoilers.
Mystery Queen 2
Catching up. I think the whole ring thing is being handled in a really annoying way.
Part of me wishes I had commented after I had just watched the first of this week's episodes and then watched the second. I feel like I'm still reeling from some of the reveals at the end of this week, and I feel a sense of foreboding. How are they going to wrap up the shift presented to us? I don't mind being wrong about a character, especially because I was going down the exact same path as the admirable Inspector Woo. Still, these happenings are not usually what happens with one week left but with at least four episodes. I still like our couple and wish they would just admit that they are an item. I also think we have another needless death, but will this motivate people to be extra honest about what they want?
Part of me wishes I had commented after I had just watched the first of this week's episodes and then watched the second. I feel like I'm still reeling from some of the reveals at the end of this week, and I feel a sense of foreboding. How are they going to wrap up the shift presented to us? I don't mind being wrong about a character, especially because I was going down the exact same path as the admirable Inspector Woo. Still, these happenings are not usually what happens with one week left but with at least four episodes. I still like our couple and wish they would just admit that they are an item. I also think we have another needless death, but will this motivate people to be extra honest about what they want?
My Ahjussi
This show gets better every week, I swear. Dong Hoon confronts Joon Young about his affair and comes across as very threatening. (Both The Voice and IU are really good at being quietly menacing, actually.) He wants JY to break it off, but not let her know that DH knows about the affair. I think he's just going to let sleeping dogs lie, as far as his marriage goes. Ji An's respect and liking for DH grows daily as she listens in to his life and realizes that he is just as sad as she is, but also a kind and loving person to the best of his ability. Stalker loan shark is completely freaked out to see her friendship, by the way. I'm still not entirely sure his obsession with her hasn't become a sick form of love.
Baby brother has his hands full with that drunk actress, in the mean time, and we learn a bit about Jung Hee, who runs the bar they all hang out at. She's very sad - such a beautiful, nice woman, and so very, very lonely. She lives in a sorry little room above the bar, all by herself, and wishes to the bottom of her heart for it to be with family.
And then at work...Dong Hoon has been put up for director despite stating clearly that he isn't interested in that promotion, and the Joon Young faction is freaking out. I loved the scene where that one smart guy on the other side used the idiot JY minion's own words to trap him. Joon Young has to go. You could almost feel sorry for him, as the show reveals him to be an insecure little striver, but he advances using all the wrong methods and he's just slimy. Case in point: he shocks even Ji An by suggesting she pursue Dong Hoon romantically so that they can get him fired for sexual harassment.
Children of a Lesser God
When Kang Ji Hwan's character Jae in say that he feels like he is in a crime drama and Kim Ok Bin's character Kim Dan is in a fantasy, I really felt it was a meta moment. This show combines elements of both with it's 24-year old mystery of a doomsday cult with a serial killer and a supernatural crime show where one of the detectives has visions and get possessed. It sounds really out there and it is, but it's also quite good. The only English subs I can find are terrible, but they are good enough to follow along the basics and the acting does everything else.
As usual Kim Ok Bin is marvelous, but the supporting characters are interesting, too. We all knew that Kim Dan was the missing girl and thus Byeol, but I think that Prosecutor Joo is Popeye and that there is more to him than the twisted for the money prosecutor he appears. I don't think it helps that his girlfriend is another spoiled heiress, but this time, she's more than annoying; she's fairly cooly deranged--like Bond villain time. She'd eat those Great Seducer kids for lunch and pick their flesh out of her teeth while talking to their parents and wearing Prada.
Happy Sisters
They are saving Se Ran from prison, and I'm annoyed. Of all the characters, I really dislike her. She's dirty, she lies, and she never understands what she does wrong. Plus, she's a freaking sexual harasser! Someone like her just needs to be locked away, but no, because the dad, who never bothered to teach her right and wrong, and who lived in sin with a concubine and enjoyed his life not even doing a proper job, and who let his wife and concubine both abuse Ye Eun, decides to kneel for Se Ran, we're supposed to let all her crimes and misdemeanors go. URGH!!!
You know I'm with you on this one, right? And worse, she's not only not going to prison, the writers are trying to set her up with our favorite courtier, Singer Songwriter guy. WHY? WHY? do shows keep giving spoiled, nasty, child-women very nice men who will have to "handle" them for the rest of their lives? For a conservative country, this is a Korean drama trope that makes no sense. Frankly, I'd rather HoeJo start dating him that's how much I hate Se Ran. Still we did have some good things. Hung Joo is the most steadfast boyfriend ever, and our ex-con manga love story moved forward with cute confessions and his break from HoeJo.
You know I'm with you on this one, right? And worse, she's not only not going to prison, the writers are trying to set her up with our favorite courtier, Singer Songwriter guy. WHY? WHY? do shows keep giving spoiled, nasty, child-women very nice men who will have to "handle" them for the rest of their lives? For a conservative country, this is a Korean drama trope that makes no sense. Frankly, I'd rather HoeJo start dating him that's how much I hate Se Ran. Still we did have some good things. Hung Joo is the most steadfast boyfriend ever, and our ex-con manga love story moved forward with cute confessions and his break from HoeJo.
CHINA/TAIWAN
Meet Me @1006
Jia Le's character is starting to wear on me, but I wonder if it is really her character or that I'm impatient for her to get on board the Zhen Yu train because I'm desperate to save Chen Hao's life. He needs to back away from that cray family. Actually, I'm worried that the brother has more than a normal interest in his sister. I do like that she got Zhen Yu to think more about the family of the victim in his case, and I wonder why he and Si Ming are no longer friends when Si Ming indicates that they knew each other from school. Zhen Yu is kind of an ass, but I wonder if it's more than that. I'm getting really annoyed by her friend pushing a relationship with Si Ming. I'd think they'd have one without her butting in to embarrass them all the time.
See You In Time (Finale)
Okay...let me get this straight: Dad didn't kill anyone, Xing Yu killed Jing Rou - and then when he finds out he loses his last brain cell and kills himself, but not before Dad kills Feng Ying when he's trying to kill Zi Qi to protect Xing Yu's secret. I'm not even trying to follow what was going on with the phone, or addressing the whole virus outbreak/solution or even the hypochondriac hyperventilating bicyclist.
And then, boom! Zi Qi gets the idea to text her DAD about the problem with the vaccine, which predates all the other stuff -so all problems are magically solved, except of course it means that Feng Ying and Zi Qi don't meet. She knows who he is, but he doesn't know who she is. She's okay with an occasional glimpse of him on the street because he's alive and she will always love him.
Just when I'm about to lob my computer through the nearest window while screaming every bad word I know, one day when they pass each other in the road something makes him turn to look at her while she stares at him with tears in her eyes and across the screen scrolls...'to be continued.' I might throw my computer through a window, after all.
The Lovelies were truly lovely, but everyone else in this drama was given very short shrift and their stories were full of holes and inconsistencies. (Okay, the bike porn scenes were pretty good, too.) I'm glad I watched it because I will remember The Lovelies with fondness and I now have the glory that is Hans Chung gracing my Insta, but I'm not sure I'd bother with a round two. How about you, Trot?
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There are words that I should never say out loud and I probably used all of them. This was the most ridiculous finale I have ever seen. I might have accepted the ridiculousness of it if they at least let the Lovelies be together, but what they really wanted was a completely pointlessly tragic love story where, actually, the whole love story has to be erased to show us how much of a love story it really was. It's like they were trying to best Japan's Repeat. Same sort of ending.
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There are words that I should never say out loud and I probably used all of them. This was the most ridiculous finale I have ever seen. I might have accepted the ridiculousness of it if they at least let the Lovelies be together, but what they really wanted was a completely pointlessly tragic love story where, actually, the whole love story has to be erased to show us how much of a love story it really was. It's like they were trying to best Japan's Repeat. Same sort of ending.
Untouchable Lovers
I'm at Episode 34 only because I took a break for a while. The detailed stories are still very interesting, even if the overall storyline is getting a bit tiresome and Rongzhi is being rather boring. I will say this: Prince Kang needs some wins. He's a lot more interesting than Rong Zhi right now, or, frankly, throughout this entire show, which Rong Zhi has barely even shown love for power since coming back to Wei. So, for more dramatic tension, I'd like to see Prince Kang defeat Rong Zhi a a few times so that Rong Zhi has to occasionally have a facial expression.
My Dear Boy
I'm going to be honest. After the rage-inducing See You in Time, I don't think I will be the mood to watch this show this week. I've been getting a lot of rage messages from people who have seen this week's episodes, and I don't want to be angry again during my brief holiday.
JAPAN
None of the Japanese dramas I am watching have new subbed episodes, but I am still patiently waiting for Dean and my Aishi Girl friends.
US/UK
The Walking Dead
Season 8, done and dusted. We're at the dawn of a new era, one in which Negan will be in jail forever and all the communities will live in harmony, just because Rick said so. Okay. Except, Rick? It looks like maybe Maggie and Daryl might have other plans...
Fear the Walking Dead
Morgan heads out to live his lonely life alone but pretty soon meets up with the awesomely strange John Dorey, played by the always awesomely strange Garret Dillahunt, and those two meet up with some bad guys but get rescued by Althea, a pretty cool journalist who drives some kind of armored vehicle. I don't know what it is, they didn't have shit like that when I was in the Army. We had tanks and there at the end we had some HUMVs, and that was about it except for trucks and jeeps. Anyway, they meet up with those bad guys again but prevail, of course, since it's episode 1, and then when they're travelling down the road they meet Alicia, her brother Nick, Luciana, and Strand! Of course, it looks like they're bad guys now...but that can't be right. Guess we'll find out next week.
Siren
So good! I was squirming at how new guy Chris, him of the delightfully lush schnozz, was bleeding away and hadn't been stitched up or bandaged in the military hospital. I wonder why? New mermaid is lovely. I think she and Ryn are lovers, or some sort of pair, not really sisters, and that Ryn just fixated on that word by looking at a children's book of two sisters before she knew more English, because at that point, she was still using mostly sign language when Helen, the local wise woman, was trying to figure out what Ryn was doing on land. And Helen has similar skin issues to what Ryn has when she's out of sea water too long. But Helen does not speak mermaid sonar which makes me think Helen is part mermaid, not all mermaid.
Anyway, this show turned out great.
I love it! I couldn't wait for Thursday to roll around and give me another episode. You might be right about 'sister' and I have thought from the beginning that Helen is more than she seems. I also think little Ryn feels some attraction for both in our marine biologist couple. As for Chris...I wondered if they were observing him because maybe if they cut but don't kill you there are some DNA changes, but that didn't seem to be the case so I assumed he just busted his stitches.
I love it! I couldn't wait for Thursday to roll around and give me another episode. You might be right about 'sister' and I have thought from the beginning that Helen is more than she seems. I also think little Ryn feels some attraction for both in our marine biologist couple. As for Chris...I wondered if they were observing him because maybe if they cut but don't kill you there are some DNA changes, but that didn't seem to be the case so I assumed he just busted his stitches.
Queen Sugar
I am half way through season 2 and love this even more than I did in season 1. I respect these people and their struggles and dreams and I am rooting for them and oh GOD how much do I love Rutina Wesley anyway? I just watched the episode that explains Charlie's mom and their dad, and I always did wonder how they got together and why he 'cheated' because he just didn't seem like that kind of guy. Plus she's so FANCY and he was...not. Now we know the details and it makes perfect sense and I especially love how it redirects a number of relationships within the story. Excellent storytelling. All of the little individual arcs are so well done, really. Every single one is rich enough to be the reason for the show, and they're all woven together seamlessly. It's that show you don't want to watch too fast because then you won't have it to watch anymore for a year.
Lost in Space (New)
Ahhh, watched the whole season in one go, loved it! Mom is the genius here, Dad is smart enough but looks like just brute strength next to the intelligence shining out of his wife and daughters. Lots of really smart women in this, including Dr. Smith - a very scary villain indeed. She's nearly inhuman in her single-minded drive toward self-protection and complete inability to grasp that she is, in fact, a monster. Little Will is adorable; smarter than his years but also still a very vulnerable little boy. I also really liked Robot, and the complexity of his responses depending on the situation. All of season 1 is set on a dying planet where they crash land after leaving a dying Earth, and as we leave them (hopefully for a season 2) they've been worm-holed to Robot's planet...but not with Robot. As far as we know, he's gone forever - but I somehow think that won't be true.
Killing Eve
So funny. And I do love seeing misogynistic men dying brutally, swiftly, and efficiently at the hands of women they attempted to demean. The weird sismance we are about to see develop, in fact, all the female friendships promised on this show, look really good.
Wait! Mark's doesn't have a surprise appearance in Killing Eve, right?
If she was paid to kill him, or she just felt like it, Eve would kill him. But no, he's not on the show.