With a nearly two year gap between season 1 and 2, an additional director Kim Jin Woo onboard, anticipation from drama fans about the fate of Jo Jo ( Kim So Hyun)’s love life, and high expectations about the overall production value , it may surprise a lot of reviewers scrolling through some of the top reviews, how many fans have scored the drama with adequate ratings. Some of these comments tend to argue along the same ineffable and biased notions that it was a “ bad ending” and “ not as good as season 1”, however, how does the story actually play out through an objective criticism in terms of characterisation, coherency and storyline in season 2?

“ Love Alarm Season 2” picks itself up during the initial time-skip of season 1, with previously “ high school” characters now ensuing careers or studies; Jo Jo is a university major, her current “ complicated ” boyfriend Lee Hye Young ( Jung Ga Ram) works as a technician at JoAlarm ( the development company for “ Love Alarm”) and former flame Hwang Sun Oh ( Song Kang) is becoming a famous national model and endorser for the app, however, Jo Jo has been hiding a secret about her app that allowed her to cut off the signal in order to inhibit her true feelings from Hye Young and Sun Oh . With the desire to reveal her feelings again, Jo Jo decides to pursue the mysterious Brian Cheon in order to unlock this feature.

Before addressing anything about the show, it is probably most prominent to point out the confusing chronology at times within the opening of season 2, by not initially “ leaving” off from the cliffhanger of season 1. Although it is understandable that a wide gap between seasons could have left viewers a little cloudy upon events and thus starting on a different storyline wasn’t “ too illogical”, it was a little head-scratching that screenwriters Lee Ah Yeon and Lee Na Jung didn’t attempt to even address or explain this suddenly “ different” storyline from season 1’s ending. This naturally left a massive hole within story development, not least for our main trio and their previously poorly-tackled characterisation from the past season.


Kim So Hyun wasn’t entirely “ unwatchable ” within her role as Jo Jo, but her performance did feel a little lacklustre due to general line deliverances. In terms of Jo Jo’s character development, there were a couple of more notable traits for Jo Jo than her season 1 counterpart , by actually acting out upon her emotions rather than remaining “ obliviously unaware” as well as a fairly traumatic backstory. On the other hand, Jo Jo still failed from breaking her initial mould as the “ prosaic heroine” of the series due to the same ridiculously staid personality traits imposed onto the character by screenwriters Lee Ah Yeon and Lee Na Jung.

The most evident example of this being Jo Jo’s “ complicated” feelings between Hye-Yeong and Sun Oh, which whilst evidently used to “ heighten” the tension of Jo Jo’s love life, still seemed fairly cruel by Jo Jo’s similar indecisiveness as the first season at times, by not forthright addressing her affections rather than leading on both male leads in such an immature manner . ( This is advocated by a later plot development which proves Jo Jo’s true nature.)

It is important to address this factor of immaturity, due to the evident age difference from different seasons often allowing a character to develop and mature as a consequence of their experiences. Instead, Jo Jo seemed to make the same mistakes as her past self by making ridiculously stupid decisions questioning how on earth she lived so long, let alone pass her exams to get into university. This is exemplified in an early scene of the series when she is working at the convenience store and hears a love alarm go off and her stalker’s uncomfortable actions towards her, Jo Jo’s first thought is to walk home by herself, talk to her stalker and then proceed to run away without thinking to call the police or at least her friend Mon Soon ( Bae Da Bin) in order to ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again. Whilst this scene was used to “ drive tension”, it did seem to gloss over the uglier possibility of what could have happened to Jo Jo as a consequence of her stupidity in reality as well as the more “ romanticised” tones of emotional and physical abuse appearing in the series.

This naturally draws us onto the biggest elephant in the room since season 1, the “continuously brooding” ( and “ preferred” love interest by many devoted fans of the series ) Sun Oh. Similar to his costar, Song Kang is a fairly good actor, however, his performance consisted mainly between stoic, constipated expressions and furious yelling for a major proportion of the series.

Arguably there were some better insights than season 1 into Sun Oh’s fairly estranged relationship with his mother Jung Mi Mi ( Song Sun Mi) and his unhappy family life, however, rather than screenwriters allowing this to gradually mature or allow Sun Oh to develop from his inferiority complex in season one, his personality is still written off as fractious, immature and egotistical within his portrayal in season 2 by often storming off, breaking things and hurting others in the procedure. In particular, this is seen through how Sun Oh interacts emotionlessly his “ girlfriend” Yook Jo ( Kim Shi Eun) and often manipulating her overt feelings towards him, as well as his interactions with Jo Jo.

With his unrequited love towards Jo Jo since high school becomes the main highlight of their “ possible pairing” for many fans and whilst it is understandable why Sun Oh felt anger or upset towards Jo Jo not replicating her feelings, it does not excuse some of his terrible actions towards our female lead. Sun Oh’s actions of publicly embarrassing Jo Jo in front or her classmates , kissing her without permission whilst she is respectfully dating Hye-Hyeong and then throwing another temper tantrum by flaring up in Hye Hyeong’s face without accepting or apologising for his mistakes , made him an incredibly difficult individual to truly romantically pair with Jo Jo by his lack of respect towards her feelings ( and his former best friend Hye Young).

This naturally draws us to the lovelorn Lee Hye Young, who viewers are made aware early on in the series that he is aware of Jo Jo’s ambiguous feelings towards him in their relationship , yet nevertheless does not force or implicate Jo Jo to give him an answer. Whilst Hye Young remained the most respectful towards Jo Jo as an individual and as a love interest, his obsequious beliefs that “ one day she will love me too” seemed a little questionable towards Hye-Young’s fairly hot pursuit of his own feelings towards Jo Jo in in season 1. Consequently, the introduced relationship between the two characters felt more “ obliged” in order to keep the “ storyline moving ”, than intricately complicated as it should have been with Jo Jo’s feelings. In addition to this, there still remained many unanswered questions towards how Hye-Young landed a job at the company as well as more realistic insight into his qualifications at work whilst presumably not in full-education.

Perhaps the one actual interesting element of the second season remained within the mysterious appearance of Brian Cheon ( Ki Do Hoon) who makes the characters ( most notably Jo Jo) wonder if he is actually their “ dead” classmate and seemingly former developer Duk Gu. Whilst this is an overarching storyline in parts of the episode, the ending result felt incredibly letdown and lacklustre by lacking development or screen time as well as wider development for second female lead Park Gul Mi( Go Min Si), rather than in favour of the heroine’s questionable romantic pairings.

As a consequence, the pacing of the show felt oddly imbalanced between moments of genuine interesting development, and dragging scenes of puppy dog eyes by Hye Young and Sun Oh towards Jo Jo from a distance creating many notable plot inconsistencies . The ending of the series was more a matter of opinion that particularly “ bad” or “ good”. Diehard fans who haven’t really acknowledged the direction of the plot, may feel disappointment, yet whilst still undeniably half-baked in comparison to the initial premise introduced in the show back in season 1, it was not an entirely “dire ending” for the show as well .

Ultimately, “ Love Alarm Season 2” did initiate more mature themes and backstories behind our characters, however, lacking character development, inconsistencies, a coherent and riveting plot line in a fictionalised reality and rushed development in parts, made the second season feel more like a surreal dream phase, than a coherent and complete finale for “ Love Alarm”.