The beginning of this drama was definitely the best part of it, but saying that I was disappointed with the second half is much too harsh, because I still love Haru and Dan-oh so much together. But it's true that there was a lot of mystery and intrigue in the beginning, and that our questions were answered as we asked new ones. The pacing definitely slowed down near the middle and there was a lot more fluff and repetition — but it's understandable considering the nature of the premise. Even so, I felt like there was a lot of meta and fourth-wall-building that was hinted at but never truly explored, which is sad because I had got so many theories in my head about the writer and about the outside world and we never got to see it.

Something about the ending is both satisfying and really unsatisfying again at the same time — I DESPISE time jumps, but I appreciate that they both knew what was about to happen before Haru disappeared, and that they remembered each other at the end and it wasn’t one of those open-ended “let’s stare at each other, I think I know you from somewhere” scenes. Still though, I wanted something with more OOMPH. Maybe something to break the fourth wall more in which Dan-oh and Haru interact with the portals and the writer of the comic directly, some sort of confrontation. I thought that was the strongest part of this drama: the beginning, when they both actively pitted themselves against the writer. There was a lot of opportunity for something more meta, but the drama never explored that.

Ju-Da’s storyline also kind of tapered off for me, I thought there was so much potential in the contrast between her weak stage character and vengeful shadow self, but in the end she never did anything to break out of it. I know reasons were given, but it really just feels like lost potential. Going off of that — for a main role (in the drama), Nam Ju’s character did a whole lot of nothing. Even so, I’ve never found myself so invested in the first, secondary, tertiary, AND QUATERNARY ship.

The acting was honestly amazing by THE ENTIRE CAST. The blinking, tearing up, ephiphanies...you could see all the emotions on all the characters, EVERY TIME, and it HURT me. Extraordinary You tugged at all my heartstrings.

Also: Amazing OST.