Unique Premise Fumbled by Mediocre Writing

I expected a lot more out of this show considering its high reviews, and after finishing I have to wonder if I even watched the same show others did.

While I did mark my review as having spoilers, again, please do not read if you strongly plan on watching the show and care about spoiling of any degree.

The premise of the story is good (or could have been), the acting is as good as most other decent kdramas, and the direction is good. However, most of the characters are terribly unlikable and inconsistent in role, and the biggest, gleaming issue is that the story is full of nonsensical plot holes which ruin its delivery. That said, I did not hate it, it just felt painfully average when it could have fared far better and I would not have bothered had I known.

Jisoo is smart enough to start a secret business and run it for nearly 2 years, but simultaneously is an insufferable coward and idiot at nearly every encounter that would test his intelligence (are we to believe there were no issues ever leading up to this point that would require high IQ to resolve?). His phone is openly marked with his business logo, he leaves sound-based notifications on that are tied to said business/logo, he's nonchalant with how he treats his second phone (not even caring enough to keep it on his person, the entire reason why he got himself into this situation), and he didn't even bother to give his phone a decent password (or have a second password on his security app) even though it's somehow his only connection to the business [despite it being implied that he made the security app, and would therefore have full backdoor rights].

For those unfamiliar, with a decent password it could take the FBI or similar agencies weeks to months to unlock the phone if you/the manufacturer refused to do it for them; for an average person/solo person without extensive IT background it would take far longer, if possible at all. Certainly nobody is going to casually guess their way in unless the password is on a post-it note pasted on the fridge like in your grandmother's house. Furthermore, had he encrypted the app/messages, as any person that's capable of operating as he did prior to the start of the show would know how to do, then it could take years of efforts to get in, and that's assuming he didn't also select for disappearing logs or other security backups preventing forced entry. Hell, he couldn't even manage to find the power off button on a telephone he took that had self-compromising information regarding his illegality activities, not to mention willingly letting a bully into his home that would capitalize on this. It's as if even if he messed up early on he had ZERO learning-curve capability. Based on how he's written by the end of the show, it's difficult to believe that he manages to tie his own laces or wipe his own arse in the correct direction, let alone do anything he built up in the prelude.

Not going to bother addressing the other characters since the lead was frustrating enough, but the pure negligence of how technology is treated, such as everyone's phone being immediately, magically accessible and apps usable by people without use privileges is a significant oversight (as well as the aforementioned in the above). I would accept the argument that some people are dumb enough to not use passwords, or to use something like '1234', but when the average IQ in S Korea is 105+ and the entire premise is based on the main character being intelligent/top of his class while still working (so theoretically 130+) it comes off as lazy, amateurish writing that took a chance at too few people noticing/caring about the flaws--based on average reviews being very different from my own, looks like it paid off.

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