Drama Rating: 6/10 Neck Score: B
It's a pretty dramatic plot with a death row convict breaking out of prison to help his friend just to get caught up in a bunch of politics and intrigue which leads to him getting his death faked so he is forced to steal a dead cop's identity and try to prove his innocence. There are so many twists and turns to this plot that it takes a good while for him to settle down and take some action, since the first half of the show is him running and being trapped, almost dying, etc., so it takes a while for him to turn and actually fight. As such the romance or any of the relationships take a while to develop, since there sin't a lot of trust at first. Everyone keeps betraying everyone else, usually because they are trying to save them. Lots of death threats, yeah. It's that kind of show.
But that helps the relationships grow more organically. If they had forced the romance harder than that it would have been awful. But I could have had a bit more than was there. They go on a sort of date and they just skipped right over it. She dresses up and is all excited, and he says he doesn't want to talk about work, and then all the sudden it's the nest day. Boo, whatever. I just liked their dynamic and wanted to see them interact not a work. I wasn't asking for a kiss scene or anything. Whatever. Clearly, it's not about the love story. It's about justice and revenge, and the bad guys are plenty bad enough for you to want that above all else.
But not all the villains. Just the top baddies. I still really loved Choi Won Young (shocker) and Yoon Yoo Sun. They were both great at being horrible, but also sympathetic... at times. I loved them to the point where when I thought Choi Won Young was going to die I screamed dramatically some "No! Oppa!" type deals. But then he's one of my ahjussi obsessions and clearly the main reason that I watched this drama, although the rest of the cast was nothing to sniff at. I loved everyone. Except the people I hated.
I really liked all of the cops, which is saying something because there are usually some cops that are extra incompetent and some that are ok. While there were some that were used as more comical relief, on the whole everyone on that team were super competent and it was a well put together team. I loved their chief (Kim Hee Won) and the forensics guy. I loved the prosecutor, and that is saying something, because usually in cop shows they are the worst, but he was awesome. Every time anyone came in the room they asked if he was a bad guy, and I had to tell them he wasn't. That's because he was a bit of a poobutt and had a hilariously sarcastic attitude. He was great. I loved the two NIS bad guys and their relationship with the two other cop guys. It was a weird frenemy thing, but that kinda explains the weird dynamic of the show. There were so many characters on varying levels of good and badness and so that made everyone realistic and sympathetic, except the real baddies, who were just the worst.
So yeah, I liked it. I was surprised how much I did when it was annoyingly stressful at times, especially when our hero just couldn't seem to catch a break. But while it was dramatic, it was more on the chill side. Life and death, but somehow in a familiar way, because it happened over and over? I don't know how to explain it. Everone did a lot of growing, so it was still nice to watch. Plus I liked even some of the bad guys, so it was good. I liked it.
