The conclusion to the teenage boy murders was so unsatisfying. We spent over three episodes learning about these murders, yet we don't get any scenes of the criminal speaking to Simon at all. No verbal confrontation of why the criminal did what he did, so there's no real validation of Simon's theories. Instead, we jump pretty quickly to its aftermath - the end of Jenny's contract, and the next steps of these characters and their relationships. I guess this is just a new type of crime drama that I'm just not used to.
Really happy for Tony and Elaine! They're probably the most deserving of the four couples to win, because of how much friendly teamwork they put in into their relationship. Darron and Alex come a close second simply because of how much they've grown as father-and-son in the 50 days. All in all, I think all four couples are kind of deserving of their places. I'm also really glad that Natalie and Shameema helped Josh and Felix out too; that was a really kind moment.
Great season. If they have a second season, I hope they extend it to eight episodes; six episodes is a bit cramped in terms of content!
Whoa, I admit, I did not expect that ending at all. I always thought it would be Uehara proposing to break up rather than the other way around. Kudos to Nao; she's way smarter than she looks. She's finally starting to find her own two feet. Hope she pairs up with Natsume later in the future, he's a good influence on her.
OK, the relationships in this show are all wrong. They should go like this: Nanase x Natsume, Nao x Issei, Uehara x Saeko, and of course, Micchan x Marina. Daisuke can just die alone lol because he literally has zero facial expressions except for "pleasantly surprised" and "surprised".
Tilda's fight at the end was kind of weird. It was unexpected in a way that it didn't feel characteristic of her to rebel against the Widow. Yes, she's been doubting the Widow's actions for the entire season, but the lines she delivered before the big fight don't really depict her true frustrations or emotions towards the Widow. Again, the show really needs better scriptwriters. Ally Ioannides, Tilda's actress, finally shows off her acting chops though, so at least we get that.
Marton Csokas' acting is driving me nuts. His weird accent is so gimmicky. His accent, more than anything, makes me dislike his character. Also, can't wait for more scenes from Sarah Bolger. She's one of the better actors on the show.
Yara Greyjoy's plan to ally with Dany Targaryen was really predictable. How did she hear about the Queen of Dragons anyway? I don't remember anyone telling her that Dany was in Meereen.
Also, I wonder who Sansa wrote to.
Predictable resurrection, but I appreciate it nevertheless. I'm bummed out about Dorne (episode 1), and I wish Margaery can return to King's Landing soon - the priest guy is an ass - but I'm looking forward to what's gonna happen with Sansa Stark this season. She finally has an exciting story line! Yay!
Well, damn, this episode has everything: 1) Alison and Donnie twerking; 2) An amazing flashback dream sequence featuring Beth that was very well-edited; 3) Delphine returns; 4) Felix fucks Rachel up; 5) Paul being an utter gentleman, "It was never Beth I loved" swoon; 6) Paul dying; 7) Helena returns. Holy effing shit.
Keisha Castle-Hughes is amazing as one of the Sand Snakes. I can't wait to see her in action!
The writing and the directing are so much better in this episode. Even the acting is better.
The kiss between Mary Ann and Logan is adorable.
The romance between Mary-Ann's dad and Dawn's mom is soooo cute, omg. But if the writers for this entire series don't stay on for the second season or the seasons after, I'm gonna throw my own damn tantrum.
The ending doesn't seem believable to me. Zhi He doesn't deserve Da Shu, and the story between Fen Ni and Qin Hao feels way more fleshed out than the main couple.
100% here for Tony Yang wearing a dress and trying to climb over a steel gate. Absolutely adorable.
I hate it when Asian dramas insert excursions to see family in the countryside. These sort of episodes are always so tacky. I'm excited to see the House & Fenni subplot progress though!
Sonia Sui is easily out-acting everyone on this show right now.
I feel like Zhihe's decision to announce a divorce was a bit impulsive. I mean, sure, we heard from her perspective a lot, but she also didn't do a great job at communicating either. Idk, at the beginning of this show, she was such a charming character, but she's become so dislikable in the past few episodes, it's hard to be on her side.
On the technical aspect, I really don't understand why the mainland Chinese broadcasters felt the need to completely replace Gillian Chung's vocals – including the breathing noises she does when they're leaving the government office. That's a bit overdone imho.
Zhihe's mother is a atypical manipulative mother, what the fuck. I can't believe she poked holes into their condoms, and the show presented it as a "comedic scene". If it wasn't for the fact that they had the divorce countdown graphic up the following scene, I would be way angrier about this and I would have instantly stopped watching. That sort of move is utterly despicable.
Damn, Dashu must really suck in bed if Zhihe is taking sleeping pills after sex because she can't sleep afterwards.
You can notice some of the actors trying hard not to break character in some scenes, but good lord, Ray Chang is just so goddamn good-looking, I don't mind looking past that minor detail. (But his suit pants are a bit short for him, eh.)
The vocal acting replacement they have for Gillian Chung's character is going to drive me nuts throughout this drama series. Surely her Mandarin couldn't have been that bad that Sohu felt it needed to be replaced for mainland audiences...
All the side plots are more interesting than the main plot with Angie and Yi-hang. I'm more interested in the story about Sophia and her ex-husband, as well as the development between Ding Ding and Ling Gui.
Really was not expecting that LGBTQ+ plot twist! So cute.
I fast forwarded all the bonding scenes between Angie and Yi-hang. They could have been edited shorter and they would still have the same effect.
I can't tell if it's the writing or the acting, but Asian romantic comedy dramas always feel very clunky to me. They're always super over-the-top, where multiple characters in the show will ignore the actions of an obnoxious Mary Sue character while the rest of them act realistic. It's like watching two characters' completely different cinematic worlds try to merge together to form the TV show's story in the most cohesive way possible.
In this show, it's Eugenie Liu who I have problems with. She acts over-the-top, yes, but compared to other Asian shows I've seen, she acts consciously over-the-top in character, and I think it's this that takes the show away from me. There are some shows where actors exaggerate their acting, but there's a nuance to it that makes their characters still feel genuine and authentic. Eugenie doesn't do that. Comedic acting is a different skill that I find not a lot of Asian actors are good at. But hey, maybe it's a problem with the writing too. It's so tacky, maybe Eugenie just can't do much with it.
Jasper Liu is charming as always though. I'm hoping his character can balance out the annoying-ness of Eugenie's character later on in the show.
This episode is so slow, good god. It drags on and on about Rainie Yang's life in Taiwan, and how conflicted she is about her current situation. This episode is a whopping 90-minute long, and that's all it goes on about. It doesn't help either that her boyfriend - played by Kenny Yen - is legit the most naive and whiny boyfriend ever.
That entire scene where he tells the "prelude" of how he met her was so creepy. He took paparazzi-style photos of Rainie Yang eating in the convenience store in front of his office (with an actual DSLR camera!) for nearly a month before he had the courage to go up to her. Creepy as fuck. And he called his photo-taking as "romantic". How can anyone call that as romantic?! What the heck.
The editing for the fast-forward time cut is done poorly too. I didn't realize that the episode had flash-forwarded to Rainie Yang's imagination until her child suddenly appeared on screen. That episode construction was messy.
I feel like they tried to work far too many plot points into this last episode. It goes from Yo breaking up her engagement with Ryusei to Yo and Ren moving out together -- all within 45 minutes. There's also a few awkward fade-to-black frames inserted in that felt really unnecessary. The two leads have great chemistry together, so I think they could have extended this one more episode. I mean, we spent eight or so episodes in "conflict mode" (with Ryusei as the perpetrator), so having just one episode as the "conflict resolution" makes the series finale feel really unsatisfying.
Maki making an appearance in Shanghai was really unnecessary. Her flying all the way to China added nothing to the overall story line.
The amount of time it took for Yo to teleport from Tokyo, Japan to Suzhou, China is worthy to be in the last two seasons of Game of Thrones.
