Flower Crew is a huge mess of a series. At it its core it is the same vying for the throne Joseon story that Korea just keeps making on repeat. It dresses itself up as a cute comedy of an all male team of matchmakers, but doesn't deliver on that premise. The opening scene is the death of the king followed by an assassination of the prince. Now lets pan to some small town where a lonely peasant girl is breaking her back trying to earn enough money to both survive and hire someone to find her enslaved brother who has been missing since she was a child on the run.

And there it is folks, a comedy for the ages!

This tale follows the point by point checklist of what a Joseon story should possess.

1) Politicians vying for power and trying to overthrow the throne: Check
2) A King with no power who must figure out how to out maneuver the politicians that surround them : Check
3) Peasants caught in the middle of the political fray that will decide the fate of the story: Check
4) An entire subplot about consolidating power by wedding the king to his queen: Check
5) A queen dowager with her own plans for the kingdom: Check
6) A courtesan house that features all the secrets and information of everything happening: check
7) A love that is against all odds and hangs in the balance as everyone plays their cards: check
8) The big bad has a single swordsman assassin that does all their evil wetwork: check

Oh but again, this is a comedy not a drama. Did we tell you that?

For the first few episodes the show actually tries to pretend it is a comedy and not just a stale Joseon tale. The matchmakers actually do some matchmaking. There are attempts at comedy. The shows always has a sound effects laden soundtrack roaring with cat calls, dinging bells, kazoo glides, and other zany noises to say, hey look, this is funny. You should laugh now. And there is enough slow motion tripping and falling into peoples arms and long stares to fill up 30 minute You Tube clip collection video.

And then our second male lead is taken to the palace, crowned as king, and held against his will......and the story never looks back.

Character wise you get a handful of stock archetypes. Our main male lead Ma Hoon (Kim Min Jae) is the stoic soft hearted intelligent nobleman with a tragic backstory. Our second male lead is Lee Soo (Seo Ji Hoon) a noble kind lovelorn blacksmith son who ends up the secret bastard of the now dead king. Our female lead Gae Ddong (Gong Seung Yeon) is a tough as nails ex slave who will do anything for coin (except sex stuff). This is our triangle and this is where we will spend the bulk of our time. For the most part you can like and love these three. They mostly always error on the side of good, and remain heroes for the length of the series run.

That can not be said for the rest of the cast. Our second female lead Kang Ji Hwa (Go Won Hee) has not a single redeeming quality. She is one of the females that will vie to be queen. Along the way she will beat servants, sell of slaves, break promises, degrade our core characters, and help in a plot of attempted murder. Yet the story will still make her the love interest of one of our Matchmakers Do Joon (Byeon Woo Seok) as the second couple of the series. In doing so it basically assassinates Do Joon's character in his willful blindness to accept the monstrous things Ji Hwa does, and love her anyway. Why any of the rest of the cast have anything to do with him by the end is a bit of a head scratcher.

Though you also have Go Young Soo (Park Ji Hoon) as our final matchmaker and likely the most problematic character of the series. Designed to be the comic relief, his character is basically there to annoy everyone. He attacks the female lead constantly. Is jealous that our main lead Ma Hoon is giving his time to someone other than him. (There are lots of references that he may be gay and in love with Ma Hoon. And Ma Hoon seems okay with that and loves him back as much as he can which is kinda cool). Yet, the character will ultimately be given the most backstory of anyone with horrific flashbacks of his time before becoming part of the Flower Crew. This back story has lots of lifting to do, as it is meant to explain is superficialness and justify some horrible actions he will eventually take.

Everyone else is evil and there to do bad stuff.

I will say I never forgive any of the characters, the story doesn't give me time to, nor give the characters enough remorse over their actions to warrant it. There is a lot of betrayal. There is more gore than is to be expected. And there are fight scenes that look like they were made by a high school film class. Which makes for a very lackluster affair. Even more odd is the choice of the soundtrack, which oscillates between love ballads, kpop, and techno, in a Joseon period historical show. There is even a dance number to the techno as the flower crew tries to hire a female to join their ranks. It is definitely the last straw on any viewers looking at this series as anything of weight or noteworthiness. This is not a trend I can get behind Bridgerton!

In the end, this series is utterly and easily forgettable. It isn't good at anything it tries to do. As a Joseon piece it is repetitive, derivative, poorly constructed and a joke in historical context. As a comedy it is tragic, depressing, horrific, and serious. As a romance it falls limp and asks us to ship a side couple that viewers will have a really hard time getting behind and rooting for. While I do like the two main male leads, both doing excellent work here in acting while also being attractive hunks, that is really the only praise I have for this. I could have done without every wasting my time here. 4.5/D/ 2 1/4-stars. Flaws far outweigh the strengths here. Outside of a few bright spots little enjoyment really exists.