332. Never Let You Go 小女花不弃 (2019) Chinese

Ariel Lin, Vin Zhang, Ausitn Lin, Tiara Huang

Drama Rating: 5/10     Neck Score: A+++

I am at the point where I will watch anything for Vin Zhang and I need to stop, because while he is awesome, not all his dramas are. Also, he is usually the broody second male lead who never has a chance. That's why I was so excited for this one. He was the male lead and he wasn't an evil broody one either (not that he didn't have his broody moments, but those are hot, so I wasn't complaining about a few). To make it even better, Ariel Lin is the lead, and I love her, so I was really excited for this one. But, in true C-drama fashion, the drama took some drastic turns to the point that it became completely unrecognizable by the end. But the redeeming quality was that the main couple is cute beyond all reason. Yes, I watched just for them, but it was too long a drama for just that. There was sadly not enough main couple being cute scenes. I would watch 50 episodes of just that, if they'd let us. But no, they didn't do that. There really might only be 5 episodes worth of good content. Sigh.


I missed the good old days of the first third of the show where the biggest drama was that they thought they were siblings and he had to pretend he didn't like her (or force himself to not like her because incest is uncool, you know). Times we're simpler back then. But there were way too many evil people in this show. Then there were even more selfish, self-justifying people who let bad things happen or even caused them to happen to our OTP because they wanted to protect themselves. It was really frustrating.

Then it suddenly took a crazy turn and everything changed, right when our couple learned it wasn't impossible. So many people fake their own deaths in this show. Multiple times. Just saying, it's that kind of drama. Then there is also the mid-season bitcas, when all the sudden we get the love triangles we didn't have to deal with before. The second leads were the worst too. They made me not want to watch for a while because they had way too much screen time and they were both scum. Manipulative jerks who took advantage of how nice our leads were. Seriously, I had to slow down my pace a lot because it was so irritating. But there were still enough cute moments at times that I would keep watching it. But they were way too few and far between.

Then the last third (not an equal third by any means; it was probably the last fourth, but whatever) was way too fast. It was like they wasted so much time going in circles in the middle, as the second leads manipulated our leads over and over until they broke down and actually drew some times and made it clear, that when they finally got around to solving the plot, they had to super rush and it escalated like a speeding train about to be wrecked. It was more of the same, but at exponentially higher odds. Everyone went crazy but our leads, but that made them have to take extreme measures. More secrets and playing the double agent and not telling each other things so the other gets hurt. Mostly it's him faking his death or pretending he has given her up to protect her so she is hurt.

Really, this show would have been a lot better if they had worked at a team for more than two seconds. I realize most of the time it wasn't their fault they couldn't. They were forcibly separated a lot, not knowing what the other was doing, but a lot of it was Mr. Lotus Knight being bent on keeping his solo act up in order to "protect" her. That got old too fast. There were long lengths of time when he wasn't even in the episodes. It sucked. I was 100% team Hua Buqi (Ariel Lin) the whole time though. She was smart and sassy, and didn't take crap from anyone the whole time. But it was also hard to watch because despite all that, when everyone in the world wants you for different reasons, your life is going to suck no matter what. She was fighting a losing battle the whole time, but with such grace and spunk. It made me so angry for her.

But really, I wouldn't have been quite so angry at this show for all the time wasted in the middle if the ending had been satisfying. But it was not. It was rushed and way too extreme. They waited until the last second to do anything, and of course they couldn't prevent anything and it all came down to last desperate measures and everyone going crazy, death and carnage everywhere. Seriously, I think they killed everyone off at the last twenty minutes with everyone basically going crazy and killing each other. Those kind of high stakes. The mysterious man, who had been the villain the whole time, was way too OP. It was like fighting Thanos who is always one step ahead and also crazy. That throwing everything away for Billutian got really really old, but we still had to wait 51 episodes to it all go down, and it wasn't pretty and then they ruined the one thing that would have made me forgive them in the lamest way possible. "Jack would have fit on that door, Rose" type lame.

I was super angry. They didn't earn any of the deaths. Even the ones of the people I hated. They could have made them so much more satisfying. They also didn't punish some of the people I thought deserved it (like the emperor and his consort). I mean, I know they were never actually going to make the emperor the bad guy, but he was a bad guy and I wanted him to be overthrown. Just not by the actual bad guys. Like emperor dies but someone else who isn't evil or the main guy gets to be the new emperor. None of this redemption for the government. Nope, the ending sucked. I'm still angry about it. It was what. the. heck.

Now I'm just gonna watch certain parts of episode 44 to make myself feel better. Sniff. I need a super edit of just the cute OTP moments. the one hour of fluffy to save the rest of the show.