What Dramas Am I Watching This Week?

So here's what I'm watching this week! Of course the list is split by country and the amount of episodes I've seen so far are written below! There will be spoilers from now on so if you aren't caught to the episode number on list, you might want to go watch that episode and then come back! If you're interested in previous lists, click here and if you want to see a list of my favorite asian OTPs and ships, click here!

KDRAMA

FINISHED 38 Task Force (16/16): A special task force will mix cops and criminals in order to catch bad guys, but this time the good-bad guys will be con artists who use their skills of fraud and deception in order to help catch tax evaders.

So if you remember back a while ago I attempted to watch this drama but ended up dropping it after like 4 episodes cause there was so much I disliked but since it was pretty early on in terms of my kdrama watching adventure I had less patience for things that I mostly just tune out now. I was really missing out on a con artist drama while Leverage was off air last week so I thought why not go back and retry this one especially since all the reviews I've read for it said it was so good. Having seen the whole show now I still don't love it as much as other con artist shows I've watched but it wasn't half bad either. I do have to admit that I still didn't love how much screen time was devoted to Song Il cause I was watching this for Jung Do cause at first he was too bumbly for my taste but then he ended up leading cons instead of Jung Do and that was weird af. I did love the whole squad and the feeling of being a team but I also low key loved every time Jung Do played them cause he was the ultimate badass. I really liked that we spent a few episodes dealing with each bad guy before moving onto the next cause it gave us a feeling of triumph rather than wallowing in struggles like other investigation dramas. I didn't love Sung Hee's character though pretty much from start to finish and I was really just glad that there was no overt romance between her and Jung Do cause I low key shipped him with Mi Joo the whole time. I really enjoyed how the drama ended overall but I do think that Choi got the least amount of punishment for being the biggest Big Bad of the group and it super sucked that Jung Do had to go to prison all over again! Overall I'd give this show a 8.5 / 10.

Catch The Ghost (10/16): "Catch the Ghost” is a romantic investigative drama about a woman named Yoo Ryung who solves cases with her overflowing sense of justice and exceptional spatial perception but always gets herself into trouble because of her rash actions. She meets the Wangsimni station constabulary chief, a man who avoids cases and seeks stability. However, he always ends up cleaning up after the problems caused by Yoo Ryung and holds the key to solving the cases.

Ji Seok finally found out the truth about Ryung both sneaking into the tunnels and also about her losing her sister though I still cannot figure out why Ryung was so hesitant to tell him the truth. At this point in their relationship she trusts him completely so why can't she tell him about her sister whether that was before or after she got caught. If he knew the truth, he'd be right there down in the tunnels with her consequences be damned! It also super super sucks that every time she does something against regulation it's Ji Seok who gets punished cause whether he knew or not, he's not able to control his subordinate but I mean how far can the man go to control another human being?? I did sympathize with Ma Ri this week because she's been working on this case for 2 years but for her it feels like Ryung swooped in and figured it all out on her own but that didn't excuse her behavior this week no matter how much I love her. It was an asshole move to expose Ryung for abandoning her sister to the whole squad but I suppose the worst move was when she decided all those years ago that just cause Jin wasn't kidnapped meant that she probs wasn't a victim of the Subway Ghost. I can't wrap my head around that logic cause so what if Jin was abandoned? I also suppose I don't understand why Ryung was so sure that her sister was killed by him. The whole squad looking down on Ryung was strange too but I think I have to chalk that up to korean values that I don't understand. As I thought the Grasshoppers were related to the Subway Ghost but unlike what I thought they're not just selling the stollen wallets to him but in fact one of them is the Ghost though it looks like it's a case of DID.

Chief Of Staff Season 2 (4/10): The second season of Chief of Staff. The real political players behind the spotlight take a dangerous gamble. Super Adviser Jang Tae Joon heads towards the peak of power and fiercely struggles for survival. Jang Tae Joon worked as the chief aide to Lawmaker Lawmaker Song Hee Sub. He now returns as a lawmaker and achieves the height of his power.

I will never get tired of Tae Joon sweeping the legs out from under all of his competition over and over whenever things look rough. It also helps that Minister Song is such a complete idiot that everything he ends up doing actually helps Tae Joon more than it hinders him. By repeatedly pressuring Chief Prosecutor Choi, all he did was make Choi understand that something sketchy was going on and that it probs had nothing to do with Tae Joon being corrupt but man oh man when Tae Joon turned the tables in the interrogation room, I was screaming. I still truly don't understand why Assemblyman Jo keeps helping Minister Song practically every chance he gets cause Song literally never keeps his promises but I'm hoping that now he'll pick Tae Joon's side cause Tae Joon is the only one who does as he promises! I'm interested in this new character we met this week who seems to want to become Tae Joon's Chief Of Staff cause he seems like a skeevy dude who'll do literally anything to get results but you know what if he's working for Tae Joon that might not be a bad thing. There's only so far you can go when you're fighting fair while rolling in the mud. After this week I'm more certain than ever that Chairman Lee is the one who killed Sun Young's old Chief Of Staff cause he's not doing any favors by running around threatening Sun Young and by Chief Of Staff Oh saying things like be careful or you might get hurt. I suppose it was about time that the villains started actively murdering others cause if they can't beat the heroes in politics, then killing them off one by one is the only option left. I'm still low key hoping that Choi joins our side cause he does seem like a good guy.

FINISHED Extraordinary You (32/32): What would you do if you found out that you were, in fact, a character in a comic? And an extra character on top of that? Change the course of the story, obviously! Eun Dan Oh is a 17-year-old high-school student from a wealthy family who suffers from a lifelong heart condition that inevitably means she will not live past her teenage years. However, when Dan Oh realizes she is experiencing long gaps in her memory as well, she comes into the unhappy inheritance of another fact in her life: she is a character in a Korean webtoon and all of her actions are predetermined by the artist who draws her. To make matters worse, she discovers she is only a supporting character in the cast. With her newfound understanding of the world she inhabits, she is determined to find true love in her own plot-line and circumvent the author’s plans for her character by utilizing the flashes of storyboard she alone is able to see.

The finale just aired and I'm feeling kind of mixed about it. When I started this drama all those weeks ago I was so in love with the concept and I was counting down the moments until the next episode aired but something shifted in the last few weeks and I found myself still enjoying the show but not as much as I did before... Part of it I think had to do with how the show focused so much on Kyung who I really couldn't care less about and part of it had to do with how oversaturated Dan Oh and Haru ended up being so half of their scenes had no meaning. Don't get me wrong there were still some super romantic moments like the diary letter this week and when Dan Oh and Haru exchanged those paper chain necklaces but I think the show should have devoted time to the other characters too the way it did at the start. Like straight up Secret is the worst written manga no? If I were a reader, I'd be pissed as shit! I mean Kyung and Dan Oh got more page time than Joo Da and Nam Joo despite being side characters though low key if it this much attention was given to Yi Jung and Ga Eul in Boys Over Flowers I wouldn't exactly be complaining. The other struggle with this finale was that it felt like so much was left dangling or wrapped up oddly. I mean Kyung went from this asshole to a good guy who was magically forgiven by everyone and Joo Da who was slowly falling for Do Hwa switched back to Nam Joo for no real reason. Squid Fairy's love interest was self-aware the whole time and she knew Squid Fairy was too but decided not to say anything for who knows what reason and Kyung's younger brother who felt like a villain ended up being nothing and I still don't know why he was so obsessed with Kyung. Having said that I did like the finale as a whole and I love the idea that Dan Oh and Haru find each other over and over across every manga the writer writes cause it's just as romantic as the idea of reincarnated lovers finding each other. Overall I'd still give this show a 10 / 10 cause of how fun the show was even if it didn't sound like I was thrilled this week!

FINISHED Hotel King (32/32): An heiress struggles to keep her 7-star hotel afloat with the help of the general manager who attempts to take revenge on his father. While the relationship of the two deepens into love, they also gradually learn about secrets surrounding the death of the late chairman which lead to a shocking revelation.

I started this drama expecting something totally different than what we ended up getting and though that wasn't entirely a bad thing, it did temper my enjoyment of this drama a little. What also caused me to suffer was the large episode count cause this felt like a 16 episode drama stretched to 32 episodes cause we went through the same problems over and over to the point where I was exhausted by the final stretch and just wanted the show to be over. Like I said I expected this drama to be a bit closer to a slice of life with romance and chaebol politics so at first I was meh about this show but once I changed my viewing lens to melo rather than slice of life, I was able to enjoy it more. I fell in love with Ah Mo Nae and what a complete badass she was from the first moment we met her. She was a little naive but I loved that she was smarter than she let on cause it's such a favorite trope of mine when a female or male lead acts dumb in order to convince everyone to look down on them so that they can outsmart others. Jae Wan took longer for me to enjoy cause he was just such an ass at first and I didn't particularly love the two together cause I had major SLS but as soon as the angst kicked in and Jae Wan was totally torn up about loving his fake sister, I was all about the main romance. I don't love when a female lead is only in a show to take care of the male lead's man pain but in this show it felt less like that was Mo Nae's only role so I was a huge sucker for how she felt like an angel come to save Jae Wan. Having said that I do have to admit that I was disappointed that as the show went on, Mo Nae started to exist just to love Jae Wan cause even when they were trying to save her hotel, he did all the work and she just stood around being like I love you. I also did super hate the final episode and the random breakup we got cause it felt like the writers just needed some sort of drama since we got rid of the villains in the episode before. I did really enjoy the whole cast of this show though and the villains were amazing to watch despite like I said the story with them dragged a little too much. Overall I'd give this show a 8 / 10!

Leverage (10/16): "Leverage" will tell the story of Lee Tae Joon, an elite insurance investigator turned scam strategist who recruits the best "players" in order to catch the real criminals who think they’re above the law.

Thank goodness this show is back this week cause I defs went through withdrawals last week! This show is everything and I'm so pissed that we ended where we did! So we officially met the Big Bad behind the curtain this week or at least that's who I think we're supposed to think he was and straight up I didn't recognize who he was until the show laid it out and was like oh shit that is Tae Joon's friend Joon Hyung! He's the one who picked Tae Joon up from prison and ran into him at the monastery and called Tae Joon's ex wife to ask her if he was working. I mentioned that week that Joon Hyung was totally sketch and as we just found out, it was true. I do wish he had popped in and out like more than just back in episode 3 cause that was weeks ago and I didn't remember him at all! I'm not entirely sure about the timeline but if I had to guess, Joon Hyung must have wanted to buy Mirae cause of Asana being a miracle drug so he clearly set up Tae Joon to steal it through that fake Chinese doctor and once the stocks fell bought Mirae like he planned. All those people in the know (like the Chief of Police and Chief Prosecutor) were probs all there in order to make sure he got away with it but I think where he erred was in that he didn't know Asana had crazy side effects so he accidentally killed Tae Joon's son and now has to hide it cause if it got out that Asana isn't the miracle people thought it was, Mirae would basically become bankrupt. I am low key worried though that next week when Tae Joon has to take the stand that he'll end up being raked along the coals cause I can't imagine the fact that he's an ex-con will be a good thing. 

FINISHED Melting Me Softly (16/16): It’s a story about a man and a woman who participated in a project to be frozen for 24 hours, only to be waken up 20 years later due to a mysterious scheme. Once out of the freeze, the two experience a dangerous side effect from the project wherein they must maintain a core body temperature of 31.5 degrees Celsius (approximately 88.7 degrees Fahrenheit) to survive. Coupled with the warming of their hearts from romantic attraction, they find themselves in a sticky situation. Ma Dong Chan is a star variety show PD, who makes hits out of every show he creates. He decides to personally participate in his show called “Frozen Human Project,” but instead of waking up 24 hours later, 20 years have passed when he opens his eyes. Everyone he knows has aged 20 years, while he has maintained his perfect physique and youth from pre-freeze.

Well it's officially over. A truly meh ending to a truly bad show. I've been trying so hard for so many weeks to not say that this show was not good but in the end that's what it was made worse with how high all of our expectations were. Wookie you really failed us all in choosing your comeback show and honestly I'm going to be heartbroken if we have to wait another year before we can see you in a new drama. As I expected Mi Ran did end up going back in the capsule though I was wrong about Dong Chan having to as well but the reasoning for it was so lame. Like I get the idea of love making her try to take the knife for Dong Chan but once again she refuses to think and focuses on her emotions. Instead of shouting to him to look out or realizing that he'd probs have a better chance of getting better since his body temperature was normal, she jumped in losing another 3 years of her life. It was low key hilarious that poor Dong Chan is now like close to 40 and his family is like Mi Ran when will you get married and she's like I'm 24 and I want to wait 6 years and I'm like girl at this point you need to think of the other guy! It was hilarious that her friend married Dong Chan's old employee and that they're miserable now cause he was the worst but I also loved how Dong Chan's sister and her first ex (the police officer) are in this hilarious place where he suddenly loves her again and she's like nah bro. Overall I'm sure the finale wasn't as bad as I made it out to be but I was just so disappointed with everything that I just wanted it to end so I'd never have to go back so here we are with me rating this show a 5.5 / 10.

V.I.P. (12/32): VIP is a drama that seeks to find an answer in the secretive relationships we hold in today’s society. Jung Sun is a competent and successful career woman who works as a deputy manager at Sung Woon Department Store. Her job as a member of the VIP Management Team is to satisfy their top one percent of customers who are the special VIPs and VVIPs. Not only is she professional at work, but she has a happy household with a wonderful husband, Sung Jun. However, one day she receives an anonymous text message. It says that her romantic husband is having an affair with someone at the office. Anxious to lose everything she has, she desperately studies the office and her co-workers to find out the woman Sung Jun is seeing. In the course of events, secrets behind each of the workers at the VIP Management Team are revealed. Will Jung Sun find out the truth behind the anonymous text message?

I'm high key obsessed with this show even though I hate it at the same time. The whole cheating thing makes me sad but I love the way the mystery is playing out and the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. I cannot tell you how relieved I was that Hyun Ah wasn't the mistress cause I loved her and her bitchiness is everything cause she's the fun kind of bitch not a second female lead level type of bitch. I also love how much she loves Jung Sun tbh and that despite everything she was on Jung Sun's side and I loved her calling out Sung Jun. As the show goes on I'm less and less inclined to believe the cheating is real just based on the way the mystery is playing out. I said two weeks ago that it's possible that this whole thing is actually about chaebol politics and the fight between the two VPs and that Sung Jun is pretending he's been cheating in order to protect Jung Sun from the truth but seriously if that's true the secret better be the biggest juiciest thing ever cause damn cheating is ruining their relationship and straight up why was he so sure that she wouldn't divorce his ass like I would have. The friend also knows what's going on and it really adds to my thought that he's not cheating cause why would Sung Jun tell his friend? I do really enjoy the VIP management stuff a lot though and I really like how a lot of times it ends up paralleling what Jung Sun is dealing with. I also have a feeling that Yoo Ri might not be sleeping with the VP though his wife clearly knows her face so if I had to guess I'd go with secret love child not secret mistress. We also learned that Mi Na is pregnant and I'll be curious to know if her freakout is as simple as the fact that she's going to have to take off from work once again cause of her pregnancy or if it's cause it's not her husband's child.

CDRAMA

Dive (24/30): A story that revolves around a diving team in the brink of disbandment. Coach Yu Feng grooms four athletes to represent the school and turn the tide for the diving team. He finds Jiang Bai Long, a former star of tomorrow in the diving world, Wei Te, an exchange student from Thailand, the newly-enrolled star athlete Lu Hao Ran and his partner Tian Lin.

We're nearing the end of this drama and I'm still leaning towards meh about how I feel for this drama. A lot happened this week but I still feel like nothing really changed awkwardly enough. Haoran switched to the rival diving team cause he's still pissed that Bailong won't dive with him but it's like at this point doesn't he realize that he's not a good fit? I mean they dived together in the first competition and did so poorly so that should prove it. I really wasn't all that surprised though cause I had a feeling for a while that he seemed the type to switch teams but I really feel bad for poor Tianlin who just loves Haoran but keeps being shit on. I love that he's so close with Weite on the side though cause he deserves a friend who appreciates him and I'm low key in love with how he's partnering with Bailong in the end even though Haoran tried everything under the sun to be with Bailong. Bailong and Mi Ran are dating now but literally no one cares about Mi Ran's rich family problems and how her mother doesn't like Bailong or how she wants Mi Ran to marry a rich guy to save their company. Weite and Caiyi are still dancing around dating and as the show goes on it feels less and less like Weite sees her as anything more than a friend. When he was so obsessed with his ex, it made me want to be like Caiyi go and flirt with some random dude and see if he gets jealous but there are no other guys around her other than maybe Tianlin which tbh I wouldn't be against.

DROPPED No Secrets (24/45): A story about a young man who can read people's minds and a worthless lawyer who come to protect each other. A tragic case from the past revolving around a car accident connects the lives of Lin Xing Ran and Jiang Xia. After 10 years, the young man who can read minds and the impulsive public defender meet again. Meanwhile, Zhang Xiao Quan is Lin Xing Ran's boss who has a reputation for never having lost a single case while Gu Si Yu is a colleague who becomes a bitter rival.

Remakes are always interesting cause I can never decide if I prefer cdramas or kdramas. 9 times out of 10 I would say that I prefer the way kdramas tell their stories but every 1 out of 10 times a cdrama really captures my heart so I can never convince myself to skip one just in case I end up loving it which was the case here. Having said that it would be clear if you read any of my reviews for this show that I just couldn't connect to this show. Of course being a remake I kept comparing it to the original kdrama which might not be fair but I'm sure that if this show had been good that I would have enjoyed it anyway. At some point I want to check out Come Jang Bo Ri cause that's the original kdrama version of Because Of Meeting You which is the newer cdrama remake which will be interesting to experience cause the cdrama is one of my favorite dramas so see I'm not biased! As you can tell though I decided to drop this one cause I found myself fast-forwarding through much of the show and rather than waste my time I figured I should stop watching it all together so I can devote that time to something I enjoy.

xoxo Allie