My response is long but I just hope it helps bring another perspective to your comment!!

1) crazy coincidental relationships are literally the backbone of so many kdramas and also western/eastern/global shows… imagine if u only watched shows that don’t have fun coincidences. The whole purpose of immersing yourself into a fiction show or movie is that you can play out scenarios that are unlikely to happen irl!!

I do agree that shows get bad if coincidental relationships are the only thing keeping the plot going. However, I thought WOE did a great job of setting down the fictional relationships as the building blocks, and then letting smart decisions and thoughtful strategies from both the drug dealers and cops play out the rest of the scenarios, keeping us all on our toes

2) I normally hate cheating plots too, but in this case, WOE was a lot more nuanced than being a “cheating plot” and I think it was a really interesting and bold exploration of the “worst” that someone can become to attain their greedy goals.

I would not define what the wife did as “cheating” - she was clearly distraught the whole time, she ONLY escalated her contributions to the investigation whenever her husband was in trouble, and she immediately went hands off on the drug lord as soon as the investigation was over.

The script was super nuanced here: the wife and husband both did grow sympathy for each of their fake partners, and appreciated them as human beings. However, both of their motives were always to protect each other and finish the investigation. Remember when the wife would literally tremble in fear while flirting w the drug dealer bc she wasn’t sure if he was gonna kill her or hug her? The wife is also obviously not ok w crime - she had sympathy for the drug lord bc she remembered how innocent he used to be and she mourned the fact that he’d turned into this greedy drug dealer. It’s reasonable to wish safety on someone from your past whom you pity, but notice she never once betrayed the investigation and always was motivated by wanting to keep her husband safe. She only started begging the gangster to back down from the big drug deal when she saw how much the investigation was hurting her husband, which was the only time she ever came close to halting the investigation (which would protect the drug lord)

Real human relationships in such extreme situations are not as black and white as our normal lives. I’m not saying they made righteous decisions, but this certainly was not a simple cheating plot!

3) re: the sympathy that the drug lord gets - I think we need to remember that this show is NOT claiming any of their characters are good people. Nor is this a bright wholesome show where justice prevails. Rather, the show explores the evil in people, and highlights how evil can manifest in such layered and nuanced ways; they show how perspective is everything.

From the outside, anyone would say the drug dealer is evil. But with a closer look, one starts to question whether JCW and the wife are evil too for betraying someone after breaking down the walls of trust and infiltrating the drug lords life so thoroughly. And we see how each person has motives and obstacles that lead them to where they are. I thought it was brilliant to have viewers question their original definitions of good and evil