Rants and Weekly Raves #288 (RAWR)

kakashi: How is everyone doing? I'm finishing week 3 of lockdown (well, ours is a soft lockdown). I have my ups and downs. I also have nightmares of crowded places I need to walk through.
Panda:  How's everyone? Surviving? Take it a day at a time is the best advice I have heard. LOL. This is my 5th week at home, 4th with the kids, and now their school is closed physically till August (new school year) so... In more cheery news I finally finished Kingdom! YAAAY! Note this in no way was due to drama's quality but my general funny mood and lack of concentration. Needless to say, I absolutely loved it maybe even more than season 1 and I can't wait for 2021 and an anti-hero Jun Ji-Hyun
JoAnne:  Yesterday we neighbors all stationed lawn chairs around the back yard and yelled at each other for a while, drinking coffee.  That was fun... I'm on week 3, I think, but I'd been home for most of two weeks just a week or two before that so it feels like I've been home since Christmas, honestly.  Which is fine, really, I can do my job from here just about as easily as at the office and I've no kids or school to deal with anymore, but here's the problem:  there are lots and lots of things I like to do in my house.  Work is not one of them, and the things I DO like to do keep taunting me.  Cruelly, because I'm actually working MORE. Also, America is out of flour now. 
Trotwood: I feel very fortunate to be able to be home alone and to have a job that hasn't cut my hours or fired me. We have moved into the next phase now that we've been able to get all the students moved off campus except for the students who are housing insecure. It's hard to remember .what day it is with this work/home blend. I didn't watch every thing on list but read more this week. I also watched the whole first season of The Vicar of Dibley because there were days that I just didn't want to deal with anything new


KOREA

I'll Find You on a Beautiful Day/I'll Go to You When the Weather is Fine

I’m still wondering about the background of Eun-seob and his relationship with his blood relatives. Why is it that the uncle feels like he’s owed anything when he’s done nothing for him really? I’m with Yeo-jung here. He deserves to be taken care of and live with the family that loves him. I’d feel awful if I were her, too, because I’d feel as though the love I gave all these years wasn’t enough to prove to him that people can love and not leave forever. The sticking point is going to be about the fact that Hae-won’s job isn’t here really. To live, she will need to go back to Seoul. But once again, the person who moved me the most was Hwi. When she cries about loving her brother for her whole life, I really felt that love and from Eun-seob’s smile, I’m hoping he does, too.

365:Repeat the Year

More people dying and more people lying. We wrap up the hit-and-run case, but of course that only leads to more questions about who knew whom and when. I don’t care that those flowers were delivered to the headquarters/clinic place. That doesn’t mean anything because to me it could mean they are for anyone in the room and just because the recording backs up Jung Tae’s story about working for Shin, I still don’t trust her. And what is with the museum of artifacts from the dead people? Still, Is anyone going to write about how loveable Hyun-Jo’s detective group is? They are hardworking and hilarious and so much like family. I love how they are shipping him so hard with Ga-hyun.

The World of the Married/ A Couple's World

I only watched one episode, so I don’t know if what’s hinted at in the previews are true, but I hope it’s not. I don’t want Sun Woo to dissolve into becoming a terrible person because it seems everyone around her is so terrible. It’s been a long time since I felt so little sympathy for the death of a person as I did her MIL (not really a spoiler), and her husband becomes more and more terrible and selfish as the minute go by. Everyone is acting on all cylinders and the writing is top notch, but I’m not sure I’m going to continue because I don’t need to be this mad and I just want her to walk away. 

CHINA/TAIWAN

Amensalism

This is the only new drama I started this week. I know I keep saying I need fluff, and this looks to be completely opposite of that. It stars Prince Chiu as a top bodyguard who also happens to have nightmares that predict people’s deaths. These nightmares have been going on for 19 years until he meets Loren Ren’s character, Bi Keiwei, a lawyer on the hunt for the same guy he’s seen in his dream killing people. He becomes drawn to her because with her he actually prevents a death AND finally is able to sleep w/o a nightmare. Of course, though, they are connected by a past tragedy. I enjoyed the first two episodes despite the needless drawn out visuals of his heart constricting (no really, we see a heart pumping and being bound) when he’s under duress.

JAPAN

Kono Otoko wa jinsei Saidai no Ayamachidesu/ This Guy is the Biggest Mistake of My Life

No new episodes because apparently last week’s episode was the last one. What was that ending? A non-ending? Are we going to get another season? I did find out that the lead does excellent cooking videos on Youtube though. 

Shiranakute Kariyama/No Need to Know/Off the Record

 . . . and speaking of trash endings. I did marathon the rest of the show. And it lovely and challenging characterizations and made me question all sorts of things about love and marriage and timing and faithfulness, and then we get the last five minutes where the douchebag that tried to ruin everyone’s life just because he couldn’t believe people should be happy when he was miserable turns out to have this super successful career. Where is the lesson in that, show?!?! So angry. Why even add that at all? I've been ranting about this on twitter for while. This may be THE show of 2020 that ruins the whole things because of inexplicable finale choice.

THAILAND

2Gether: the Series

The Series: I watched this week’s episode twice because it was so enjoyable. We get to see how Sarawat fell for Tine a year ago in an accidental meeting that Tine, of course, doesn’t remember. WE find out that he knew that Green wasn’t seriously chasing after Tine but that he decided to “help” Tine just so he could spend time with him. Sarawat’s face when Tine tells him that they don’t have to pretend to be boyfriends was a gem of heartbreak, but watching Tine start to come to terms with his own feelings of loss and jealousy was so pleasing. This show wasn’t on my radar for the spring of all boatload of BL shows coming out, but the quality of the production and the acting has been a much welcomed surprise. 

My Engineer

We get some slight movement with the secondary couples and friends showing up with some real truths. Mek’s stash of Boss’s pictures comes as no surprise to his friend who figured out his crush when they were freshmen, and Duen’s friends notice how sad he is after he rejected Bohn. All the friends are supportive. Even Ram’s little brother is shipping him with the mysterious texter who makes him smile. So are we going to get fluff all the time? Probably not from Duen’s dad, but he seems a pushover despite his military work.