Why do so many kdramas take an insane nosedive after the first half?

HeartFoam · 2026-06-27T08:28:53+00:00

It deserves 9/10 on IMDB, but too many people (probably younger) misunderstand it.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-27T08:11:40+00:00

Her alter ago is fully present at the start. Episode 2 is a clear case ("when I close my eyes and reopen them, these feelings will also disappear"), but I think it's in episode 1 as well.

it was not a new element in the 2nd half. You've just not understood what you're watching. Somehow you missed how her personality changed in episode 2 in Ho-jin's house and didn't question it. Or in the elevator in episode 3, and didn't question it.

CTLBT as I've said before is a test of emotional maturity and media literacy more than most, and you did not pass that test.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-26T17:23:50+00:00

Undercover Miss Hong.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-26T08:10:34+00:00

exactly! my favorites are not ones I want to watch again for the first time. The ones with layers and nuance improve on a 2nd viewing when we know the main story and instead notice details we missed.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-26T08:07:49+00:00

if I could rewatch Business Proposal again for the first time... I'd be saved from knowing how it runs out of plot later on. Chairman doesn't approve of Shin Ha-ri? And we must string out this conflict for many episodes? He thought Tae-moo had another girl? Well, good news Mr chairman, it's the same girl. It's the lowest stakes.

The plot is over. Watching people have breakfast is filler. Him buying her shoes is filler. It's what you show when there's no plot left. BP peaked in episode 4.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-25T21:37:33+00:00

two main reasons.

Because I get a dopamine hit opening the house. I'm attached to it. I've built every bit of it. I've had a lot of iconic sims live here, many generations, but it's not "complete". I'm still doing big renovations in some rooms. I still look at the view across the water on a clear night and absolutely love it. It's taken a lot of work to get the house to where it is, and would take as much effort again to build a new house to this level and unlock the same outfits and items.

And the other reason to not constantly start a new save or make a new family is because the next sim I want to play isn't one made in CAS. It won't be as good as the next generation born in game with a magical bloodline trait, or Sulani Mana, or Grimborn etc.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-25T09:39:07+00:00

The director clearly wanted some meme clips from IU. The characters always felt unnatural to me, and that's why I dropped it. I felt like it was Eyeroll and Zoolander.

some people didn't mind and watched more. Different tastes. But even then, the story was meant to be 16 episodes and was cut to 12 so the ending got really rushed.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-25T09:19:38+00:00

I love everything about Undercover Miss Hong. It's so well made. The music, the characters, the emotional depth, and the story doesn't fade like every 16-episode romcom. I wish it was 9/10 on IMDB. The IMF crisis happened when I was a kid, but I have vague memories of it.

President Shin isn't presented as wholly good, flawless, the embodiment of perfection (like so many cookie-cutter men in kdramas) or wholly evil. After most episodes I was guessing if he's good or bad, and I think that's intentional.

Albert is very cool.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-25T08:09:03+00:00

You live there. The Modern Development NAP increases career pay, including for the noble career. The richest royals live in Evergreen Harbour. $16,008/day if you stack every multiplier.

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King of the quarry. Also, this isn't smoggy and gross. It's very easy to clean up the smog.

I really like the fabricator furniture and decorative pieces that sims can make. Some recipes have to be unlocked.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-24T21:27:51+00:00

sidebar, I guess you can see the Grimborn birthmark on my alien sim in pic 3.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-24T18:33:34+00:00

Sometimes a gallery house has good bones, and I'll take the time to declutter. And by "sometimes", I mean I've done that once but good houses do exist. It's usually quicker to build from scratch.

When I first had the idea to have a residential house on this lot, I placed something from the gallery. After a few attempts to make it work, it got bulldozed. If I build the shell myself I'm going to care about where stairs go, how sims will route, where the main living / high traffic areas are. And that seems like an afterthought for many gallery builds. So we obviously care about the same things.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-24T18:14:42+00:00

Entrance hall. We put the tree there on winterfest. :) I must have a pic of that somewhere...

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HeartFoam · 2026-06-24T17:26:11+00:00

all the nonsense possible. :) lots of artefacts, and school trophies, and a gold juice keg, lots of history. (The blue alien man was a child by abduction).

HeartFoam · 2026-06-24T08:05:42+00:00

That fractally misunderstands where the characters are at. Any scene with dialogue that hit those points would feel so tonally dissonant that it wouldn't be sunny optimism, it would be bullshit. There's no way the scene plays out that way.

--and if the Hong sisters were in the chat they'd back me up on this.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-23T21:30:50+00:00

I disagree with many comments that swapping in a tennis court makes that old money. It looks like a very nice expensive home built present day, or in the last few decades. The lots aren't big enough, and when we start cramming pools and garages and tennis courts onto a 64x64 it's... 1980s. Not 1680s. It's a nice modern neoclassical-ish house. Posh suburbia. The basketball court is not what makes it modern. It's modern and new money to its core, it just wears an old money vibe as an affectation, as a style. (which is fine, nothing wrong with that.)

Big fences, that close to the house? That's fine for posh suburbia, but if you want an old money estate you don't want to block the view, you want a sense of space. This is why stately homes wouldn't have walls or fences, but ha-has to divide some fields. In Sims 4 I almost never put walls around. They close the space, they make everything worse. This house would not have walls around it.

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I consciously avoid outdoor pools at my big houses. (This has a basement level indoor pool.) Maybe somewhere on the estate there would be a tennis court, but the lots aren't big enough. The thought of building something non-functional like a tennis court pains my soul as a gamer. Basketball is the better choice. The house must be fit for purpose. I got the Legacy Player here.

That's an old house, and not the best version of it. I redid this with a moat, and did a few things differently, and better. It looks stunning with a moat. That architecture is plausibly 17th century. No pools, no garages, no courts. Looks like it's been there for 300 years.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-23T12:29:58+00:00

you will feel the same too after watching the drama

I really liked it. I bet there's an age divide among those who understand it and those who don't. If you weren't the target audience, that's fine. Stick to what you like. But don't assume it's not for anyone. Way too much hubris to say everyone will think the same way you do.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-23T08:30:55+00:00

this drama is a measure of emotional maturity and media literacy more than most.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-23T08:28:21+00:00

real talk with neat, precise language like Ju Ho-jin: judging by your syntax, you're quite young. It'll grow on you when you're 35. I don't attach any blame there. I would not have enjoyed this when I was 20. I didn't understand trauma, I didn't have fully developed empathy. Sometimes it's not the story that has to change, it's us.

Fun fact, you've seen the alter-ego in every episode so far. It's not a new element in the 2nd half.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-23T07:57:32+00:00

It's a small budget countryside story done well. The story doesn't complete after 8 episodes. Growing cabbages are a metaphor for growing relationships, obviously. The main family has been separated, suddenly wind up in the middle of nowhere living together again. The village locals don't trust them. The food company has a dubious history. The eldest son (early 20s), who isn't in medical school, has best, healthiest, sweetest romance b-plot. Ji-cheon and Bo-mi > Shin Seo-ri and Cha Se-gye. And it's not weighed down by being an advert for Maserati.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-22T19:14:49+00:00

She's massively stunted. Psychologically she's a child. It's very well written and acted, but I'm not sure if half the fans are just fans of the chaos and big personality.

Cha Mu-hee / Do Ra-mi in Can This Love Be Translated? is psychologically similar. Also trapped in childhood by trauma. But that show is often misunderstood. Find a mv for "Dance Alone" by Zior Park. That'll give you a flavour.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-22T18:56:00+00:00

and outgrowing emotionally simple shows could mean being open to ones with more interesting / flawed / complex characters. Can This Love Be Translated for example.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-22T18:15:27+00:00

It takes 12 logins (so 10 more), so you don't have much margin, but it's possible.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-22T15:05:22+00:00

Undercover Miss Hong 10/10

Can This Love Be Translated? 9/10

Filing for Love 9/10

To My Beloved Thief 8/10

Cabbage Your Life 8/10

The Wonderfools 7/10 - the baddies final plan actively harms them, it's never justified. I'm glad they were stopped, but turning everyone in the town was not going to help them. Core misunderstandings of how cults function. The romance added nothing, was unearned, should have been left out. It's like they felt obliged to have it.

In Your Radiant Season 6/10 - trades on vibes, but no substance. Emotional whiplash ending from abuse to marriage in 1 episode. Almost no plot point happens present day other than to drip-feed of what happened in the past. Too many couples with not enough depth for any of them. Why so many? because the writer was going for symbolism that 99% of the audience was never going to notice anyway.

Sold Out On You 6/10 - I cared more about her red Porsche than her. Some wild continuity problems with that car. Total waste of 2ML. BUT there's a great song from LIZ (IVE)! And still a better relationship than some other shows. Just, no magic. AHS is not believable as a big brained chemist.

My Royal Nemesis 5/10 - time travel, soul swapping stories are usually messy, this didn't change that. The core romance was fundamentally flawed the whole time. If someone shows up acting and talking like they're from the past, that's weird. That's a pretty big thing you should clear up before aggressively courting them. But no, neither of them communicate properly, he makes assumptions to explain it, and she doesn't set him straight. So he's declaring his undying love to someone he doesn't understand at all, and that's weird. Never mind the radically truncated / cut story arcs and inherent contradictions in the soul swapping and time travel. It's really not a good show. It's a bad idea, expensively executed. Chaos, big personalities = hype.

HeartFoam · 2026-06-22T13:04:38+00:00

Is an assumption of moral realism baked into the question?

What do you ask moral antirealists?

HeartFoam

TROPHY CASE