i watched Revenge of Others weekly and one thing that cannot be denied about it is that it was incredibly enjoyable. the fast-paced episodes, the interesting characters, and the complex layers of mystery kept me waiting for the next episode. this show, in its essence, is an interesting exploration of the bullying culture that exists in South Korea that also tackled the themes of violence, justice, retribution, and revenge.

i will address 5 main points:

1) COMPLEXITY -- this show was a mystery/thriller so it is expected that there will be a lot of misdirecting and new pieces of information being revealed with each episode to build up the suspense. however, i think the show was too complex for its own good. everything seemed to be connected and it seemed like they willfully kept things complex and unresolved to keep the viewers guessing but even when we were at the halfway mark, nothing was revealed yet. by that i mean, there was no subplot resolution until the very end. on top of nothing being resolved, they kept introducing new plotlines and new characters to increase the complexity of the overall plot and add to the mystery. i was afraid they would leave the resolution of everything to the very end and of course, that was the case.

overall, the way they introduced information was (intentionally) disconnected, especially the flashbacks. the timeline of the flashbacks was very confusing. i knew they would end up leaving the resolution of everything to the very end but it’s still annoying how they have over-complicated things throughout the whole show just to add to the mystery. all the little clues that were given to the viewers to keep us guessing and all the theories didn’t matter in the end. i generally liked how they have misdirected the viewers at least a couple of times regarding who the murderer might be but there were just way too many variables and characters and storylines going on for there to be any actual thrill in trying to guess things about the plot. because it didn't matter and the clues that were given were only there to confuse us further and none of them actually led to anywhere. you just had to watch it and accept what the show gives you.

2) LOGICAL FALLACIES -- despite the overcomplexity i talked about above, i actually liked how detailed the main story of this show was. however, the main story and the characters' actions were full of logical fallacies that you would not even realize are there if you didn't actually question their actions. i went into detail about a lot of these in the reaction thread i did for this show on Twitter, but one of the main logical fallacies was how Chanmi was incredibly gullible at times while being smart and reserved at other times. Sejin's whole story where he painted Sooheon as the culprit was full of holes yet Chanmi attempted to shoot Sooheon based solely on his witness account and some circumstantial evidence despite being emotionally involved with him. then only a few episodes later, the same thing happens again. Osung, who they know to be a cunning liar and manipulator, said Wonseok was the one who pushed Jaebum and Chanmi didn't even question it when her not questioning witness accounts almost led her to kill someone innocent who she cares about. her carelessness and naivete were inconsistent. she was distrusting at times yet she also believed things very easily at other times. this just seemed to be a thing where whenever it was convenient for the plot for her to believe what she heard, she did. overall, i think the logical fallacies were caused by the overcomplexity of the plot. if you're giving the story THAT many details, you're going to have some plot holes.

3) BULLYING CULTURE -- clearly, the deeply complex culture of bullying was one of the main themes of this show. they showed the extent of the bullying that exists in schools, its intensity, and how far the students actually observed the silent "rules" that came with this interwoven culture. one thing i found interesting was how the show portrayed the "bystanders." when Junggyeong, the rapist, was at school bullying the victim or any other student, he was never confronted by anyone or more specifically, he wasn't confronted all the time. yet, when he had to leave the school, all the students were cheering out the windows, acknowledging his bad actions and expressing their thoughts on how he deserved what happened to him. i thought that was interesting because bullies almost always require bystanders who do nothing seeing as they will bully people in public to showcase their power. if enough students were to stand up when they saw Junggyeong bully others, he or the other bullies wouldn’t be so confident in their assumed power the next time. another parallel to this scene was when Osung was live streaming a fight between two students and the whole school joined the live and watched two people very violently fight each other. this scene provided us with another look into the workings of the bullying culture that the kids at this school were clearly so accustomed to. they saw violence taking place yet all they did was watch and react as if it was not actually happening in real life and people were not actually getting hurt.

i think what happened in the finale shows that the two instances of irony regarding the bystander students were very much intentionally included the way they were in the show. in the end, just when we thought everything was over, Osung dies while Sooheon tries to defend himself from him and we see that none of the students tell on him to the police because they all thought Osung deserved to die. so, suddenly, they didn't look at the case as a murder, even though an 18-year-old kid died in front of their eyes. they looked at it as retribution/justice/revenge. this way, we see that the students, the bystanders, yield the power to change the course of police investigations. i can’t help but think that this is another reference to the bullying culture at school and it is once again showing that the bystanders have all the power.

4) APPROACH TO VIOLENCE -- i thought this show had an interesting approach to school violence. one that i personally would not expect to see. this show explored the dichotomy of justice/revenge, and other themes of intent, responsibility, and retribution. what was interesting is they explored these topics through the perspective of the bullies, as well as the victims. for instance, you had Chanmi who did not want to rely on the cops to bring justice to her brother (they were useless anyways). she wanted to straight up kill the person who murdered Wonseok. then, you had the trio of Soyeon, Ojung, and Sooheon who were taking matters into their own hands and creating their own justice by punishing the bullies, or more like the criminals, who had severely hurt people in irrevocable ways. this means they believed in violent retribution. they believed in speaking the bullies' language. they believed in dominating them through their own weapons of violence. just like Chanmi. but of course, the incompetency of the police and the politicized and unjust nature of "justice" in South Korea (they even criticized certain policies re: the punishment of minors, etc.) played into their approach to things.

but we also saw a different side of things with Jaebum at the end. a gray area. he had been violent and done things he can never take back while he was taken over by his other personality. he had suffered memory loss and didn't even remember doing these things. now, would it have been "just" if Chanmi shot him to avenge her brother? would it still count as retribution if he cannot even take responsibility for the things he doesn't remember doing?

the show posed a lot of important questions regarding violence: is it okay to use violence with violent people? are some crimes worse than others? is it okay to hurt people if they hurt others unintentionally? what role does intent actually play in how we respond to violence? can you still be held responsible for the things you did when you didn't intend to do them? is it okay to enact violence in the name of revenge? who gets to decide what others deserve? to what level? with these questions posed and these themes explored, the show portrayed high schoolers using violence because the justice system or the law enforcement didn't protect them from violence. in the end, we also saw the students continuing to get justice their own way and enact revenge the way they want as they chose to protect Sooheon and not report anything about what happened.

5) INCORPORATION OF ROMANCE -- from the start, we all knew that the genre of this show wasn't romance so there likely wasn't gonna be any romance in it. however, there was "romance" throughout and i actually loved how they incorporated it into the genre. in kdramas, there seems to be a thing where they try to not mix romance as a genre into non-romance shows. romance is a part of life and it happens naturally. it is okay to include romance in non-romance shows because it doesn't have to be the focus of the show. romance plotlines in non-romance dramas are often badly written & poorly integrated but in Revenge of Others, the romance came naturally and it was built slowly on top of feelings of worry. so much so that, when Chanmi and Sooheon finally held hands at the end and confirmed their feelings for each other, they didn't even have to say "the words." they just knew and it was that. Park Solomon and Shin Yeeun had great chemistry and i thought they complemented each other quite well since Yeeun has a colder vibe while Lomon brings in the warmth.

OVERALL -- i really enjoyed watching this show over the weeks. i thought the finale was okay even though it was not completely satisfactory for me. i thought it was an interesting twist that Jaebum was the murderer and he was actually responsible for all the bad “acts” (e.g., the murders) yet Osung was still the actual villain. nevertheless, although an interesting twist, i don’t think Jaebum’s personality disorder was a very well-constructed storyline and that is why the finale was a bit underwhelming. the thing is, they wanted to keep Jaebum on the sidelines throughout the show so the viewers didn’t immediately doubt him but his storyline requires much deeper exploration. dissociative personality disorder (DID) is often caused by trauma. how did he develop it? when exactly? of course, the clues as to him having two personalities were given often, but it wasn't very well-explored in its entirety. in the end, it just seemed like they didn't want a basic murderer reveal. they wanted it to be unique, like, yeah, it was Jaebum but actually.. it was his other personality.

now, it is important to remember that this show relied heavily on narrative manipulation to keep the mystery theme going. a lot of the plotlines actually seemed to only make sense based on whether it was convenient for the plot or not. nevertheless, this was undoubtedly one of the best shows of the year with a great look and directing, incredible performances, and interesting themes.