This series is a hot mess, but the one you actually enjoy watching. Let me explain.
Quick summary, Suspicious Partner is about young intern Eun Bong Hee, who just started working in a prosecutor’s office. Her boss, Noh Ji Wook is the type of guy that nobody likes professionally, but gets the job done. The problem arises when in a weird turn of events Bong Hee is accused of killing her ex boyfriend and prosecutor in charge of her case is Ji Wook. She manages to partially prove her innocence but now wants to find the true killer.

So first thing that I want to talk about is how weirdly the show is divided. Instead of standard 16 or 20 one hour long episodes, we have 40 30 minute long ones. That wouldn’t be a problem, I’ve already seen drama that has shorter episodes, but the thing is that it doesn’t work here. It just looks like the episodes were divided like that in post production and weren’t made to be like that. Sometimes episode just end abruptly without sense. Do you have in your country international series that commercial break were made for other format, and commercial just gets in the middle of the scene? Sometimes I felt exactly like the watching Suspicious Partner. Luckily I’ve just binge watched it, but still the credits showing out of nowhere were simply annoying sometimes.

Let’s talk plot then. Honestly there’s not much going on there. Mostly it’s just back and forth romance based on understatements and lack of communication and it’s incredibly annoying to watch characters break up only because they cannot talk about what’s bothering them. Main plot line, with murderer case that Bong Hee is pursuing is so thin that sometimes it’s just get’s abandoned all of a sudden, like nothing happened. And it’s a shame, because villain in this drama is one of the most interesting I’ve seen in a while. And I’d love if this motive was expanded a bit more, since it was so interesting, and I think that in terms of acting Dong Ha showed some amazing skills portraying Jung Hyun Soo.

For most of the time it looks like one of those dramas where characters think that other side doesn’t like them so they don’t admit to their feeling and it’s just vicious circle for like ten episodes till they finally find out that they love each other from the beginning. But in this case it’s not ten episodes, but almost forty. Every time it was close for the main couple to end up together weird event occurred and they’ve just managed to find reason not to date. That was a wild ride, honestly.

The thing that for me dragged the show down were all those cliches. We basically have everything here. There’s childhood trauma that shows in adult life of a character and it’s magically cured by presence of one particular person. We have a relationship that nobody wants to admit to. We have a whole pile of understatements and lack of communication that spoils everything and slows down the whole plot. There’s even a bit of amnesia. At that point I wasn’t sure if I really want to continue watching this show. But…

But the thing is, that beside all of those cliches and filler episodes the show for most part is just enjoyable to watch. If we don’t expect much out of it. If we don’t mind lacking plot and slow development of both action and characters, if we just admit to watch it for fun, this drama is actually not that bad after all.

In the end I’ve found it somehow cute and endearing, with lovable characters (like all of them, seriously). I’d just like for some plot parts to be more developed I missed some closure at the end and felt that some important motives were closed just too quickly. Like, how fast can you forget about psychotic murderer that was about to kill you? And of course, the fact that it took almost forty episodes for the main couple to get together was really infuriating. If those two acted their age, this drama would be ten episodes long. Which, obviously would be a great shame.