How to even begin...

I mainly watched this drama without any sort of expectations or background about the story. Never read the synopsis and never seen the teasers, only for the single fact that Lee Seunggi is one of the casts. However, on my first episode, right of the bat, the captions in front had said “Counseling has been provided for the child actors” and damn that scared me. For my entire kdrama journey (I watch all kinds of genre too), it was my first time to see such a note and I was beyond intrigued. So I watched the first episode and I was scared the whole time. It was a first time experience of being scared not because of ghost characters but because of killers (I never get scared cuz it’s a character) but the way the killer has been portrayed on the first ep was damn scary for me for some reasons.

I watch All the Butlers (Seunggi’s variety show) and it has been said there in passing that he is the culprit so I had an inkling. But what surprised me was he wasn’t acting like a culprit at all and my brain was torn between two possibilities and a hope that “oh maybe he’s not the culprit”. Tbh I thought about this until the 18th episode, like is there going to be a big reveal that it’s all been staged and they messed with his head to make him remember things he never actually did. I guess the biggest struggle for me here was not figuring out who’s the culprit because from the very beginning Seunggi was a very plausible candidate, the struggle was the “hope” that “it can’t be this easy, he’s not the culprit is he? No how? He’s build too much rapport with the other characters” but as episodes went by, that hope dwindled little by little. Call me crazy but I think that’s what the writers are actually going for.

Next, this series showed how sick society is. Ba Reum’s psychopathic behavior was brought upon by society and irresponsible adults not through birth no matter how the story wants us to believe with all the DNA and stuff. Which comes to my next argument, imo it’s not Yohan that influenced his emotions but because he lost the violent memories and only remembered the good ones (which was highly influenced by the people around him only telling him the good things). Think about it, if he had been fed bu good things since childhood, he wouldn’t have thought that the whole world was against him. If only his mother was the like Choi PD. The influence of the society plus the push of OZ in that direction happens in real life you know; some into violence and some into taking their own lives. How sad is that. What I hate about the society in this drama is that they all were playing “god”, which was shown at the end when they voted pro to aborting babies with psychopath genes. And they don’t consider themselves serial killers that way? That’s like mass serial killing isn’t it? Messed up.

I’d be biased and talk about Lee Seunggi’s acting only in this review: HE BLEW MY MIND AWAY. I like him a lot really and I know how kind he is but his villainous self in this drama scared the shit out of me. He was that good; like how can you adore and loathe and pity him all at the same time? His character in itself was a roller coaster ride and he pulled it off so well. I don’t think anyone can do better. They did well casting him for this role and kudos to him for taking this role. Hat’s off.

Despite this being an exquisite LSG performance, I give the rewatch value a very low score. Only for the reason that it’s mentally and emotionally excruciating to watch. It came to a point where I had to pause the video a couple or times just to watch something brighter and lighter in the feeling before continuing. Still, I do recommend giving this a shot, just be sure that you are mentally prepared.

Now...lemme just go back to 2019 and watch Little Forest Lee Seunggi cuz I needa wash my eyes from dark Seunggi hahahahaha...watch it guys MOST ADORABLE VARIETY SHOW ♥️