Rants and Weekly Raves #269 (RAWR)

kakashi: A life without Baby Yoda in it is not a life worth living.
JoAnne: I could not be LESS interested in Star Wars if I tried, but I have to watch this show for Baby Yoda.
Trotwood: JO!! IS THAT YOU?!?!?! (rushing to hug you and hug you). Now I'm really crying. Please tell me you are back. We need you. The only Korean shows I've up to date on just made m cry and cry. Hardly anyone watches the other shows I watch. We need you. Okay, maybe just me. I need you!
Hugging you back but apologizing nooooooo, no, not back, not really, just dropping in.  I'm not watching enough or even on time to be able to discuss anything, certainly not weekly.  Eventually, though!
Panda: We miss you sooooo much Jo!!

KOREA

Tale of Nokdu

Vibrating in my not so little tushie to watch the finale (SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER its a HEA!!! *beams) and then I'll have a thesis next week.

I just wanted to say this cos I have not said it before I think, but the fight scenes in this are so stellar and that goes for both the men AND women. The women assassins hold their own and then some and it is so realistic. I'm so impressed. One last thing, it was our female heroine's turn to shine in these penultimate episodes and she rose to the occasion beautifully.
What she said. 

When the Camellia Blooms (Finale)

I'm going to out on a limb her and state that if the writers had never included the murder mystery, this would have been an excellent show.I know. The ratings for this show were through the roof in Korea, so the show was extremely successful, but I was more annoyed than intrigued by the serial killer subplot because it was completely superfluous. We didn't need Hyang Mi to be murdered for her to die. She was driving a scooter at night. We didn't need for there to a be a serial killer on the loose for the ahjummas to rally around our heroine. The stories about here about family, especially mothers, was good enough and a much needed discussion. Thankfully, they cleaned up the whole "a mother has to sacrifice her entire life for her children" road they were going down. We all knew that Kang Ha Neul was good, but I hope that with the success of the show, more people understand his range. Keep doing those indie movies though, you precious thing. We don't want you pigeon-holed.   I'm hoping that this shows we can have popular male leads who are jerks in the beginning because we all know the Young Shiks of the world are usually second lead material.

Extraordinary You (Finale)

This show was frustrating to the very last minute, and if you still cared (which I know many of you do not), it was also a sobfest. What happened to the snarky meta that was really the premise of this show? Why did they have Haru not tell Dan oh about what was happening so they could cherish their remaining time together? And this goes triple for our squid fairy and his eternal love? Grrr. They even had Ju Da play with the idea of dating both the lead and the 2nd lead just like we all talk about . . . for about a second. Pfft. Everyone has been talking about how Lee Jae Wook was the breakout star here--boring because the rest of knew he was a breakout in Search WWW. So I would like to give a shout out to Do Hwa, played by Jung Gun Joo, and not just because the Buzzfeed quiz said I'm the most like his character. But maybe that's why I liked him the most of all of these people and my like for him has remained consistent throughout. Thus, he's getting my picture, damn it.
OMG! I forwarded the last 6 episodes I think. I have no idea nor care how they got to college and the ending scene just proved me right. That entire amnesia circle was just URGH. A promising start that just dwindled to a boring cliche.

CHINA/TAIWAN

Royal Nirvana

Watched six episodes - got so annoyed by the twisty-twisty-turny-turny of the first three episodes. Or was it four? Too much! We get it! Crown Prince is smart! He's so smart he even plans the next twisty-twisty-turny better than the ones who want to harm him! It got quite a bit better in episode 6 and I would have continued watching if there were more subbed episodes. Besides, it has tragedy written all over it and I kinda like that kind of thing.

HIStory 3: Making Our Days Count

I'm going to acknowledge the low-key erotica that happened in the first five minutes of this episode, pause. Now can we move on? Because really that whole scene only provided more mystery (what is the deal with Zhi Gang's scar?). I know some people are bothered by the fact that Bo is in high school and is dating an older man, but if you don't think 18-year olds are having sex, than I don't know what I can actually talk to you about. What I want to focus on here is the fact that the relationship between our main couple was both solidified and broken up in one episode, but surprisingly what Hao Ting's biggest fear, that Xi Gu would walk away, did not come true. he's the one that acted the most mature and came back to talk to the parents. He even brought a gift (which I am worried he could not really afford). This and the relationship between Hao Ting and his sister were my favorite parts of this past week's episode.

Some Day or One Day

I really like Alice Ke, so I will generally at least try one episode of every drama she stars in. This show seems to involve time travel, but nothing like that shows up in the first ep. She plays a woman who can't get over the love of her life, who apparently has died in a plane crash. She has dreams of them meeting in high school when he comes into a record shop she works in with a friend of his who clearly has a crush on her from which she awakes in tears. We also get flashbacks of them falling and being in love since she still takes the bus that he used to ride with her (even though it is out of her way to work), still goes to the same juice bar he used to meet her at after work, and she still looks at the videos of them eating together. But we also get some scary things--a nightmare of him locking her in her apartment, real visions of a man who looks just like him with head injury who walks with a cane. The company she works for is developing an app that supposedly will find the person on earth who looks just like you, and she tries to find him, but what she finds is more mystery than she bargained for.

JAPAN

Tokyo Dokushin Danshi/Tokyo Single Man/ Tokyo Bachelors

I never believed that Ishibashi was going to get back his "first" love, so I'm glad that he let her go. The hot tub scene was very poignant, but his talk with her fiance was even more important than that. I think he finally realized how much of all of this was about him and never about her. He had to admit that her fiance loved her more than he did. However, this growth doesn't really last long for he goes back to, with the support of his equally problematic relationship friends, to tabulating everything up. These three guys are nice--could be good for and to themselves if they would just get out of their own way. I was also hoping that Ishibashi would start to see that  Miyashi's sister as a possibility, but then when the show gave that to me, I realize that I'm not really sure I want that. I think she deserves better actually.

La Grand Maison Tokyo

So it now looks like Obana might not only have been framed, but there is a real focus on the idea that he wasn't just arrested for the fight he had but the idea that there was some suspected terrorist plot that let the food become contaminated.  There had to be more because I can't believe that the "shame of Japan" thing could be so pervasive that just an association would keep them from getting the loan. He is changing, and his use of Aizawa's idea to pair chocolate with the eggplant shows that he can take ideas from others now. I do NOT like that Hayami was willing to mortgage the house for the loan though. I know it's too early, and she seems like a nice person, but I'm hoping that Ebina's dad forces the break up of this engagement. Hirako doesn't look happy with her at all (but to be fair, he never looks happy), but he looks less constipated when he's around Matsui.
I'm 10 minutes into episode 1 :)

THAILAND

Until We Meet Again

We opened this week with the repercussions of the suicides in the first timeline, which didn't make much sense until we got the flashback of how In and Korn first meet and the fact that these very same friends tried to keep him away from the gangster's son. We also, finally, FINALLY, got to see PArm and Dean actually talk to each other rather than always be around each other without being with each other. Parm's reaction to the mini-explosion was enough to break down the barrier and get these two awkward people together. And that was the cutest breakfast ever between Parm rushing out in his pajamas when he realizes Dean has arrived early, Dean arriving an hour early because he was secretly so excited, I can't decide who was the cutest. I'm not going to lie; my toes curled when Dean continued his introduction saying he was single.

Blacklist

Does anyone really believe that Title has gone to the dark side for real? (crickets) No one? I thought so, but it's going to be hard to get the rest of the gang to trust him, especially Highlight who thinks he might like Orange despite his first love Cupcake bing back in the picture. Still, I don't really have time for these high school love shenanigans now that we know the drink that poisoned the boys was laced with cocaine and LSD. Even if that rapist principal isn't behind it, he definitely won't stop it since drinking this is boosting everyone's test scores.

Dark Blue Kiss

We get more of the same with PeteKao, sigh, although we do see that the cub who has a crush on Kao is not about to give up and will even use this as an incentive to try to get admitted to the engineering program. The best thing, once again, about this episode, was the SunMork interaction. I love how Sun openly tells Mork that he is interested AND how Mork finds it hard to believe that he's actually gone from hate to love like some, I don't know, drama. But for the first time ever, I was happy to see an ex-girlfriend come back because clearly with Sun's ex-girlfriend back in the picture (they are obviously just really good friends), Mork  is jealous and will have to come to terms with his own feelings about this situation.

WESTERN

The Knight Before Christmas

Yeah, yeah, why does Kakashi watch something she knows she won't like? Cause Kakashi doesn't only do smart, efficient things. So many people talked about this movie, I got curious. It was much worse than I expected. Script: horrible. Acting: most actors were terrible. Romance: flat and boring and so predictable you don't believe it's possible. But then, yeah, it's one of those movies you'll never watch again but while you do, something stirs in your frozen heart. It's actually sweet to see two people fall in love, however badly it's done (well, I would then like to break them up and tear their hearts to shreds but that's just me)
Come on - the guy was a cutie pie, the horse was impressive, and the Christmas decorations were really pretty! My life is not so busy that I cannot afford an hour for that. I do agree that it was predictable and not particularly well acted (and my GOD the wigs on the student and the crone - I even think in the beginning scene the student was looking over the shoulder of the teacher/female lead, rather than her face) but by the time they were kissing at the end, I was smiling. That's enough for me on a rainy afternoon leading into the holidays.

The Mandalorian

A Disney+ show. I've never been a great Star Wars fan. But this! The script is really good! There's not many lines spoken in episode 2, Mandy is not the talkative type but man... the humor! And of course, Baby Yoda is to DIE FOR, so incredibly cute. Even when he eats toads. Would like to binge this, can't you air like Netflix, Disney+? :)