Honestly pains me that I cannot force the entire world to watch this show.

Look. Okay. I should note before I start that if Ji Sung was selling tickets to an event where he just sat and read the phone book out loud, I'd probably be first in line. I am that level of biased. BUT.

THIS IS THE SHOW THAT MADE ME SUCH A FAN. Which is why I am here, writing a review, when I have never done such a thing before.

I will never shut up about this show. It made me (I cannot believe I'm saying this because it sounds so cheesy) a better person. Because it focuses on what it means to suffer, on what it means to live, and on all the ways human beings try to help each other to alleviate suffering. I found myself sobbing in the middle of the night after finishing the last episode and wondering if I could go volunteer and my local nursing home. It had that level of impact.

STORY:
This is the only weakness in my opinion, and even then I really didn't care. I deducted a point because this show was wildly unrealistic in a lot of spoilery ways--but aren't all medical dramas like that? Like we're supposed to believe that all the rarest diseases in the world just happen to show up at this one hospital? It's that kind of unrealistic. I was willing to suspend disbelief, especially because the unrealistic parts ended up contributing to the overall theme of the story and making it that much more poignant. Like I said, the setting of a pain clinic opens up an overall exploration of what it means to suffer and what it means to live.
I will say, the antagonist of the story really pissed me off to high heaven. Her motives were too petty to be really strong. But she overall had very little face time. I mostly just booed her whenever she came on screen.

ACTING:
Ugh. So good. Just...so good. Although as noted above, Ji Sung can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes. The FL was also fantastic--ALTHOUGH she wore terrible extensions for the ENTIRE show and I did not understand why. But whatever. She was great, he was great. There were also a few side characters that were a lot of fun; there was great chemistry in the group of residents/fellows/interns/whatever. There are so many different stages of doctoring and I don't know them all. But the group at the pain clinic was a lot of fun and provided some lightness to an emotionally heavy drama.

OST:
Stuck in my head 24/7. The stand outs are Look At by SALTNPAPER, Way Back by Safira.K, and Star by MINSEO.

REWATCH:
Already rewatching it. It was heavy, yes, but the good kind of heavy that makes you think and feel grateful and want to give the world a hug.

Watch it. Watch it now.

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