I really enjoyed the first half of this series as it was easy for me to pick up what was going on. Someone imprisoned on purpose to pick up intel for a case. The twists and turns are really good and this show is very suspenseful. It’s really too bad it got too confusing for me to be fully immersed.

Kang Ha Neul is an excellent actor. This drama really couldn’t showcased that more, but when it did it was amazing. It’s a good thing he’s a scene stealer because he’s the main character. But as for his character Yo Han? I didn’t know whether to like him or not. At the beginning I liked him as some sort of underdog, with his grandma dying I sympathized with him. But his character started to fall flat when he got out of prison- and that’s when the show started to really get confusing for me.

It’s not the genre of suspense/thriller that makes things hard for me. Flower of Evil does an amazing job at having plot twists and tense situations and mystery but I understood all of it. Insider has too many things going on for me to understand. It started getting really dicey when the little boy Minhowas introduced (and sadly died).. it’s like all the most intriguing characters get the shaft here. The show focuses on the bad guys too much.. there’s a lot so I can’t even remember the names.. but they all jumble together for me. I watch and go - oh this guy is bad so that’s why the main characters are doing this. I had to do that a lot, just accept things without understanding. And I hated that. But to the shows credit, when you do understand the show is really really good.

As I said earlier, everything that goes down in the prison is phenomenal. The gambling and hierarchy is amazing. The cinematography is really good. This show has so many good things but I think it just needed to ground itself. Instead of showing the bad guys so much, just show a few moments of their plotting to add to the suspense and twists. It was hard trying to find their motivations and what they were planning the same time as Yo Han.

My favorite character was Seon Oh, coming from the whole prison arc he was a wild card. I loved him and was disappointed how his character arc ended up.. in sort of no where. He had the main character energy for me. Yo Han’s character was all over the place with the revenge.. I didn’t know where he drew the line- like killing or letting someone die. It’s not bad when a main character is an anti hero- but Yo Han didn’t explain.. you don’t know much about his childhood (unliked Seon Oh). You just know he has a grandmother that was murdered and have to fill in the gaps of his life from there. So Seon Oh was better. He had the experiences that we know about so I sympathized with him more, and even thought he wasn’t doing the best things I still rooted for him. His dad was murdered and he was forced to do bad things with the impression that if he didn’t he would be alone again. I understand why Yo Han is the main character, but I wish the writers would’ve picked up on Seon Oh’s potential. Yo Han isn’t the cookie cutter good guy, so that’s good- but Seon Oh is better. To me.. I could go on and on about why but this is just my opinion.

Lastly I’ll recommend to very smart people. I’m not dumb, it’s just hard for me to understand more than several plot lines at once. This show is thrilling but gets tangled up after the prison arc. That is my review 8/10