Rants and Weekly Raves #240 (RAWR)

kakashi: I bought flowers for the garden this weekend! Could have bought many more and guess what... probably will, hahahahahhaaa.
JoAnne: Did you buy flowers from an alien planet?
Yes, how did you know? (Update: it's gonna freeze tonight, my poor babies :((((((
Trotwood: I can relate. I'm still wearing gloves outside all morning. . . in May.

KOREA 

Just One Bite Season 2

We had two episodes since the last Rawr, and we've made substantial progress. We get more background about Hee Sook and Eun Sung's friendship given from the reminders made by the third friend Soo Ji. They make up, apologize, and Eun Sung even gets over (sorta) her antipathy about Hee Sook dating her younger brother. Hurray! They really like each other and he looks like this!

But seriously, my favorite character is Soo Ji. My heart was breaking when she saw Chan Hyuk (through some machinations of her friends). She tries to pretend she is fine, but her friends know she isn't, and he isn't either. All the YT commenters are begging for the writers to bring them back together. 

Special Labor Inspector Jo 

I finally started watching this and what a delight!  I'll admit I dozed through the part where he went from being kind of shlebby to being a superhero/superfighter for the downtrodden but I don't really care about that, I just like watching him and his Scooby Gang, led by Kim Kyung Nam yayyyy, get justice for the little guys, over and over again.  The story-long arc is very personal for all of them and goes back to school days, and man, is the evil chaebol easy to hate even as you can SEE he's being manipulated by his oh-so-quiet but SO much smarter school chum turned lawyer.  Another detail I really enjoy is watching Jo's boss walk the tightrope of fulfilling his official purpose and yet not rock the boat SO much that it negatively impacts his life or any of his employees.  His sense of decency is a bit worn around the edges, but it's still very much the core his personality.

Her Private Life 

There was much gnashing of teeth this week, I tell you.  We all know to expect the misunderstanding, we all know to expect the pain, and yet it still hits as hard is if it were an actual twist.  Mostly people talk about Karate Boy picking away at Deok Mi's confidence but I didn't see him doing that or even wanting to do that; he has genuine concern even if it is self-serving, and I think he highlights valid points.  It's not his fault he has no idea that the very thing he thinks would be a problem turns out to be something that Ryan thinks is adorable.  No, my issue with KB is that 99% of the time he's fussing at her exactly like a brother would, not a lover; I think his interest in her is mostly interest in keeping things as they are forever and he's confusing that as love.  

I have much more disdain for Choi Da In, who waltzes onto the scene and acts like she owns Ryan, when he makes it very clear early on that he made it very clear to her before he left the States that he wasn't interested in a relationship with her.  In pursuit of the man who told her he didn't want her, Da In twists the words he said and makes the woman she knows he DOES want feel exactly the opposite.  To me, that's far worse than anything KB has done, and it's doubly hard to take when she was showing glimpses of being pretty cool and a possible friend for Deok Mi.

Doctor Prisoner 

Slowly catching up.  I somehow only ever pay half attention to this when I'm airing an episode and I really don't understand why, when you have such excellent actors playing adversaries.

Nokdu Flower

Now this, THIS, I'm glued to the screen.  Every minute.  From the very moment that Yi Kang and Yi Hyun were on screen together I have been 100% invested in their relationship and heartbroken in advance for what I am sure will be a sad ending for at least one of them.  Add in all the other plot threads (Japan, peasant uprisings, family politics, the way circumstances can warp us) and I am 100% sold.  My one question thus far is why Yi Hyun's mother and sister were so vehemently opposed to Yi Kang and his mother - were concubines mostly out of favor by the late 1800s?

A Different Dream (New)

I had a hard time getting into this one - it just felt slow and clunky.  Maybe it's the editing because looking back, a lot happens in two hours, and we get a pretty big surprise at the end too.  That surprise maybe shouldn't be one, but I will honestly say I wasn't looking for it since I expected something ELSE to happen. On the strength of that and my curiosity about the character, I'll watch next week.  I definitely had a bit of The Disguiser nostalgia.

CHINA/TAIWAN 

HIStory 3: Trapped

We get more focus on the charged feeling between Shao Fei and Tang Yi. With people clearly trying to kill Tang Yi for his attempts to have his gang go clean and stop the drugs and Shao Fei's belief that he is not responsible for his mentor's death, the two become closer, partly because Shao Fei has decided after yet another failed attempt on Tang Yi's life (really these assassins are so bad, I'd be asking for my money back), he moves in. Cohabitation hijinks begin! I'm still confused about Tang Yi's relationship to Hong Ye. I know they were both orphans adopted by same gangster, but why does she lie about Shao Fei? Interesting. Don't care if it creates opportunities for apology back rubs though.

Detective L

The next case, Higabana, revolves around the mysterious deaths in a group of musicians who play a specific piece of music. We don't get the cronor in this one as much as I would like, but I'm more and more impressed with our heroine with each episode and for the writers keeping her at the forefront of the cases--even when she gets pushed aside, she continues to show why she graduated first in her class. She actually gets to a scene from her independent deductions faster than Det L. and he's been at this work much longer. They continue to keep planting information about the overall mystery concerning the Captain, with this week's episode making our detective more determined because of the tragedy that happens at end.

THAILAND 

He's Coming To Me

I actually almost finished this last week, but for some reason I didn't have subs for the last five minutes or so which are important because that last bit changed the inevitably and more logical sad ending to a happy one. I figured that the dialog would give some explanation for why our ghost mysteriously comes back AND why one of Than's friends can now see ghosts or at least one of them that he falls for at first sight. With the death explained and forgiven, I was ready for all sorts of crazy. I'm not going to give anything away. I'm just going to say that anything you make up in your head would be better for the non answer we get, but I can't be too sad because we are also rewarded with our huge puppy Than flirting, which is a very nice sight.

JAPAN 

Naruto

On episode 63!
Why I love kakashi:
(my Kakasaku fanfic can be found here)

Kinou Nani Tabeti

Subs won't be available for this week's episode until next week. I'm not complaining. I'm happy that this is getting subbed in the first place. 

WESTERN

I watched all of the first season of Dead to Me on Netflix this weekend.  I highly, highly recommend watching.  It's a dark comedy with a fairly outrageous concept and yet, as you watch, you forget that.  You know how in real life you take a step and it leads to another and then another and then another and before you know it you are light years from where you were at the start and have NO idea how you got to this completely unfamiliar place?  It's like that.  A woman loses her husband to a hit-and-run driver, and then befriends another woman she meets at grief counseling.  That's pretty much the last normal statement about any of the story, and I could not stop watching.  Solid acting and fantastic, very authentic writing, too.  Watch, watch.  You won't be sorry.  Well, we'll be sorry if there's never a Season 2, but that's the only thing. I'm pretty sure there'll be a season 2, though.