I swear I was open minded as I could be starting this series. From the start I knew that it’s a simple melodrama and I shouldn’t expect much from it, I should just sit down and enjoy. I wasn’t expecting elaborate plot or great action. Just good chemistry and a lot of emotions. And it started just as it should be. Right away we got interestingly composed characters. Shin Joon Yeong is an asshole of an actor who gets diagnosed with terminal illness. No Eul is poor reporter with loan sharks breathing down her neck who lost her job because she was so desperate for money that she took a bribe. She want to make a documentary about Joon Yeong but he’s clearly against it. Until it turns out that they’re actually long lost friends.

So I have to admit, first episode was exactly what I wanted from it. We got some additional plot lines, additional exposition showing what exactly happened before that lead to this situation. And it was a pretty solid introduction to the characters. You know, two full episodes of flashbacks, thanks to which we exactly knew what for the next 18 episodes our main characters will be moping about. And there’s plenty of moping here. And watching longingly through the glass at laughing people. And lying and deceiving. Are you interested yet or should I continue?

So for first couple of episodes I have no objections to. Characters’ actions are pretty logical, even when they don’t seem like that. Like the way Joon Yeong acts. He just doesn’t care at one point. He knows that he’s going to die so he’s not looking at the consequences of his actions. He’s not bothered by the outcome so he just proposes to No Eul during his concert in from of thousand of fans. Does it make sense? Has No Eul showed her interest in him? No to both, but he couldn’t care less, really. And honestly, that totally makes sense, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

And it all was nice and breezy until I’ve noticed one worrying thing. I could swear that last episode that I’ve watched then, and it was something in the middle of the drama, consisted in 90% of two guys starring at a girl longingly from the distance, and honestly it was a bit much. But the notion of it being simple melodrama still persisted, so I hope for the better.

All things aside, Kim Woo Bin gave an amazing performance throughout the whole series. The problem was that characters were absolutely unlikable, doesn’t matter from what perspective to look at them.
Almost all characters in this drama are awful human beings. They lie, deceive, are insincere and get angry easily. They don’t talk to each other, and if they do, they either lie about their feelings or are absolutely awful to each other. Seems like their aim in life is to make their or somebody else lifes miserable.
No Eul is absolutely shameless, trying to get money left and right. Even after getting billion Won from Ji Tae it seems to not be enough from her and she want to get more from Joon Young. And she’s absolutely not hiding her motives here. And no, the argument, that she had financial problems and she tries to provide for her family is not an excuse to her behaviour. And Joon Yeong is honestly not better. Some of his actions can be excused, but most of the time he behaves as a grade one asshole. I’ve figured out that something is wrong with him when he made No Eul believe that he’s in critical state in hospital just to get her confession. And until somewhere half way into the drama, their love-hate relationship is what het this drama going, it’s the guilty pleasure in the purest of forms. But it gets tiring pretty fast to be honest.

Because I swear, 90% of this drama is just everyone suffering from the distance without telling anyone why they suffer. And as it traditionally goes with this type of drama, a bit of communication and honesty would solve most of those problems. Here everyone claim that their method of coping with the situation is the only true one so there’s zero talking and only sulking. BTW, the remaining 10% of the drama is just understatements that further complicate the plot.

The plot is pretty slow, and it’s not the issue of lack of development, it’s just that relationship of main characters is very stagnant. The issues that they’re having are not being resolved, they just get more and more complicated without actually moving forward.

Some events seem to not have any real influence here. We get some informations that are soon to be ignored, replaced by other events. No Eul discovers that Joon Young was the one who stole the usb with evidence in her father’s death, but apparently that’s not a problem for long. Everything seems back to normal pretty quickly especially that she also discovers that he’s dying. And while we’re at it, not much shows that he’s actually terminally ill. Some headaches, some blurry vision and some minor memory problems but for most of the time nothing really indication that he’s supposed to be dead in a month, since he’s living pretty normal life so far. And I know that showing his suffering probably was not an aim of this series, but it just looks hard to believe that he’s really in a bad state.

In the end, it started as a nice guilty pleasure and ended as a partially pleasurable torture. To each their own I guess.