Good
afternoon, Erin.
Move
over Vincenzo—I think I’ve found my
new favorite K-drama!
Yes,
I found a series of mini-travelogue Hyundai commercials starring IU and Sunny.
And it was the best thing ever.
So,
let’s have a round of applause for the YouTube algorithm, which—for
once—actually knew what it was doing! (As opposed to how it decided that,
because I frequently watch your
videos, all I want recommended to me are videos of girls of East-Asian extract
playing acoustic guitars.)
And,
tempted though I am to write a massive essay on each of those little adventures
those lovely ladies went on, it’s time to transition from the best thing ever
to, um, not that, as we jump into my thoughts (and boy-howdy do I have
thoughts) on 100 Days my Prince.
1.
I cannot properly express to you how much I hate
the 100-Day Prince. I literally wrote down “I hate him” about a dozen separate
times. More of my notes are about how much I don’t like or care about or want
to have to sit through scenes with that absolute pile of dicks and his stupid
sneering face than about the entire rest of the show. He sucks. He sucks, he’s
boring, he’s awful, and I hate him with the fire of a thousand unquenchable
suns. He is literally the most intolerable character in any K-drama I have seen
thus far. I’d rather have watched Dr. Girl from Thirty-Nine and her stupid mopey face whine at jerkwad Nam Do-san
from Weightlifting Fairy for 16
episodes. He’s horrible, and I hate him to the moon and back. Jump in a lake,
you insufferable ham sandwich.
2. Honestly, this show was
kind of a disaster—like, from the start. Even ignoring my white-hot loathing of
the main character—and we’re going to get into that more, believe me—there is a
serious structural storytelling problem that emphasizes even minor problems
that would otherwise be easy enough to ignore. I’ll get into more detail about
it, later on, but just know that that’s the frame in which I’m writing this
whole thing.
3. But, before that, let’s
play the “hey, I know him!” game. We got:
·
Glasses Lawyer
from Vincenzo and the King.
·
The main girl
from My Name as the Crown Princess.
·
Good Boy, of
course, as…as…honestly, I dunno. He was a cop, maybe?
·
The PR boss from Touch Your Heart as the Town Clerk or
whatever the hell he was.
·
The little girl
version of Little Sister from Start-Up
as the little girl version of Main Girl.
·
Nothing to do
with this, but I just found this out: the autistic brother in It’s Okay is the guy who played the
goofy Boss Lawyer in Touch Your Heart.
I am stunned. Good on him.
4. I liked Good Boy, by the
way (which I’m sure is the shock of the century). There wasn’t nearly enough of
him, of course, but I mean that very much beyond even my love of the actor. His
character is mostly just functional to the plot, especially in the last 30% of
the show when they remember he’s a character and give him things to do. Even
his affection for the Main Girl is just a means to an end, for the story,
tugging at it only when an excuse is needed for the plot to progress.
4A. If I were to try to be
fair to the writing (and I don’t think it deserves this, but I’ll give it a
shot anyway), it’s possible the character is no worse written than anyone else,
it’s just that he’s such a strong actor and so full of charisma that he made
the character seem more significant than it was meant to be.
4B. He’s super-charming, by
the way. Almost to the point where he feels like an anachronism—in that there
were times when he felt a little more modern than he probably should have been.
But he’s just so good, isn’t he. Even awful writing can’t keep him down!
5. Actually, speaking of Good
Boy and awful writing, can we take a moment to note how ABSURD it is that he
doesn’t get a romantic resolution to his story? They literally have Ae-wol,
the….whatever a Korean geisha is called, spend most of her scenes trying to get
him to fall for her because she’s in love with him, they get along great, and then everyone in the kingdom
is forced to get married, so they…forget that he has an option waiting around
for him.
5A. Also, as my actually
remembering her name might indicate: Ae-wol is #BestGirl. She’s so great. And,
genuinely, she was a character who had a lot going on…or, like, a potential lot
going on. Which is not unique to many of the characters on this show—but we’ll
talk about that.
5B. Kisaeng! They’re called kisaeng!
10 points to my memory!
6. Oh oh oh! Before we move
on from the Good Boy stuff (for now), I wanted to point out: when he sees Main
Girl for the first time and immediately falls for her, he tries to chat her up.
But, because she’s not interested, he has to pretend (well, pretend that he’s
pretending) he’s just hanging around in the same spot she is by coincidence.
Specifically, he tells her he’s there to admire the view and says, “The moon is
beautiful.” Which made me whoop with delight because “the moon looks beautiful”
is a famously indirect way to tell someone “I love you.” (The phrase is “tsuki ga kirei,” for the record. (And,
of course, you remember how “moon” (tsuki)
and “I like you” (suki) sound the
same.)) Anyway, I thought it was nifty.
7. I still love love love
these poofy dresses. So very much.
8. I don’t know if this is an
insult to the actor or not, but I really wished they’d let Glasses Lawyer be
goofy. He’s so good at that. And I’m not really buying into him as the tortured
and earnest king. Which is maybe just me. Or maybe it’s the actor. Or maybe
it’s the trainwreck of a script. Who knows.
9. I’m sure these impressive
sets for the palace are probably lying around waiting for production companies
to come over and film there, but the quality of the sets is so starkly in
contrast to the green screen work and CGI animals that they’re probably a more
accurate indicator of the budget than any of the other stuff. (Gosh, those
close-ups of the actors “riding horses” were…fantastic.) Which isn’t a real
negative for the show, just amusing.
10. The assassins on this
show are horrendous. They literally can’t kill anyone.
11. I liked Princess My Name—at least insofar as I thought
her character had a good amount going on, a good amount of complexity. But,
again, she didn’t get a good enough share of the screen time to get properly
fleshed out.
11A. Also, there was probably
something to the parallel “I have problems with my wife” stories we were
getting from 100-Day Prince’s time with Princess My Name and Main Girl. I can’t say what, or even if this is the case, but…I mean, maybe
there could have been. If I’d cared enough to wonder further.
11B. I’m just going to put
this here, because it clicked for me, while watching this show: there was
always something about her in My Name
that bothered me, and I could never pin it down. It’s not that she’s a bad
actor or anything, but she’s got this…face. She makes this one face, where she
sorta looks mildly aghast, and she brings it out whenever she needs to show
that she’s emoting. And I mean whenever
she’s emoting. It’s not Prince Dowon-levels of “one face,” but it’s hard to un-see,
once you pin it down. As I have now done for you. Mwa-ha-ha.
12. 100-Day Prince being an
absolute monolith of pricks sucks up so much air time that, in addition to the
(much more likeable) side characters getting short-shrift, even the Main Girl
has no space to have her own personality outside of dealing with his antics. Which
is really unfortunate, since we spend so much time with her.
13. Relatedly, 100-Day Prince
being the main character is…such a bad idea. For so many reasons, not least
because he’s so emphatically horrendous. But, structurally, everyone is playing
straight-man to him, but he doesn’t have any humor to him at all. He loses his
memory and just continues to act like he’s the crown prince, even though he
doesn’t remember that he is. But it’s not for the sake of undercutting his
arrogance or having him slowly reveal his humility when his default mask slips.
He’s just the same dickhead he is as crown prince, as though that is, was, and
has always been his default personality. (And he’s not even a dickhead in an
amusing way, like, say, Jeff Winger is on Community).
Which means everyone is just constantly trying to pull him down to earth and
not succeeding. Repeatedly. And then he regains his memory and is EXACTLY THE
F***ING SAME as when he didn’t have them. Nothing about his character changes,
nothing about him is redeemable or likeable, and yet we’re supposed to be
dragged through the story by him and no one else. And, y’know what, I’m not
even explaining this as well as I should be able to because I just HATE HIM SO
DAMN MUCH that I’m getting angry and can’t concentrate. He sucks, he’s dull,
and he’s a black hole the rest of the cast gets sucked into, diminishing what
could have been a better story.
13A. No, seriously, I was so
angry with him and his stupid arrogance and how everyone in his orbit was
basically just as stupid (for one reason or another—mostly his fault) that I
started rooting for Minister Bad Guy to win just so they’d all be killed and I
wouldn’t have to deal with any of them anymore.
14. Structurally, having
100-Day Prince lose his memory makes Episode 3 a reset of the whole story—which
makes the somewhat tedious first two episodes seem like kind of a waste of
time. Which…it’s not, strictly speaking, but that’s one of the major problems
with this show: it can’t decide what the main story is. Is it the romance? Is
it the palace intrigue? It gets vaguely sewn together because of the backstory,
but one does not service the other at all. In the end, it’s the intrigue that’s
the main focus, but it’s all but irrelevant for the huge chunk of the show that
has 100-Day Prince futzing around as a peasant. And then they bring it back! It’s
like, “Here’s the plot—except, psych, here’s
the plot—except PSYCH heeeeeere’s the
plot!” Just total nonsense.
14A. And I’m not even going
to say you can’t do something like
this. But you certainly can’t do it like this show did it—and certainly not
with making the 100-Day Prince the central character. Make him one of many
“main” characters in an ensemble, yeah, that’s fine. Make him a secondary
character who wanders into Main Girl’s story? Absolutely. But have him be the
focus? No. It totally ruins the flow.
14B. And I just hate him so,
so much.
15. I’ve already mentioned
Good Boy sort of broadly, but let’s talk about his absurd face-blindness. I
know it’s a real thing, but we also know the only reason he has it is so he can
walk by 100-Day Prince in his state of memory loss and not recognize him and,
thus, keep that part of the plot going.
16. And then there’s the
100-Day Prince’s memory loss! It’s such a contrivance—and to the detriment of
the series. Ultimately, the memory loss doesn’t really matter to the story—in
that anything that would prevent him from telling people Princess My Name is having someone else’s kid
would do. If he runs away (in any sense) or simply doesn’t know there’s
intrigue afoot or that she’s pregnant, the show is basically the same. But
better. Like, imagine a scenario where he suspects something is up, but then he
knows that he’s been targeted for assassination and just barely survives. He
doesn’t know Princess My Name is
pregnant, just that he needs to hide and the general belief that he’s been
killed gives him the chance to operate from the shadows until he’s ready to
spring his return! Except, oops, he ordered everyone to get married, and now he
has to get married. But it’s to the girl he’s been pining for his whole life!
But he can’t tell her! And he’s ashamed to tell her (because his people killed
her family)! And he needs to act like a peasant to survive, but he also needs
to get word to someone at the palace about what’s going on! Except…why should
he? He finally has the girl he loves! What’s he going to do, since he doesn’t
care about being prince but also knows the people who are in charge now are
evil? (I’m just spitballing.) My point is just that the memory loss is a lazy
way to go about this, and it keeps him so disconnected from the main plot
thread—and for so long!—that is helps nothing.
16A. Also, I hate him so, so,
so much.
17. In a similar vein, this
show is GARBAGE at providing context for anything
it deals with. And I don’t mean things like how the king’s court functions or
what the social norms of peasant society are. I mean, like, who any of the
f***ing characters are or what they want. Like, it takes 8 episodes to find out
that Good Boy’s goofy scholar friend is Princess My Name’s brother—and, coincidentally, to find out that Good Boy is
the brother of the Evil Queen’s right hand man! And we’re not talking a sudden,
dramatic reveal of these things, either, but a casually dropped detail that
acts as though we all knew this the whole time. (I have “wait, when did this
happen?!” written a half-dozen times.) Same goes for Main Girl and her dad
staying at the local tavern after their house gets wrecked. Or why the king
needed a new wife. And who in the heck
is Won-deuk? Is he even real?
18. And explain to me how
they forgot about Good Boy x Ae-wol!!! I am so
angry about that!
19. No, literally, I have a
bit in my notes where I am fuming about how annoying and nonsensical the story
is, and I say, “if Ae-wol doesn’t suddenly show up to offset some of this, so
help me I will—” and then she showed up on screen and I cheered. And the show
just…forgets about her, after that.
20. …well, if nothing else,
this show helped me learn that Asian archery traditionally draws its arrows
differently than, say, European archery. Though I cannot claim that not being
able to go off on 100-Day Prince for firing an arrow like a dummy makes me very
happy. (I hate him so much.)
21. They use the “I suddenly
have to poop!” trope twice.
22. Little-Little Sister from
Start-Up is so cute. I thought so
then, I think so now. (I really, really hope puberty is kind to her. For her
sake, that is.) And I don’t think I mentioned it back with Start-Up, so I’m saying it now.
23. I’m not sure the timeline
for everything makes sense, since they keep referring to what happened “10
years ago,” but it’s had to be about 15 years since they were kids and her dad
was killed and all that. Otherwise, they’d either be about 22 now or 16 then. And we know neither of those is the case. But it could just
be a translation issue. Or a context issue. Or a Daryl-stopped-caring issue.
Who knows.
24. I’m not sure the
assassination plot being Minister Bad Guy’s idea makes sense. Or that it’s even
what they said early on. But that could be a context issue. Or a Daryl-stopped-caring
issue. Who knows.
25. “I’ve never smiled at the
palace!” CUT TO: 100-Day Prince smiling and laughing it up with his childhood
friend/bodyguard.
26. Hey—I spotted the royal
historians! Like, sitting off to the side and recording the big meetings and
stuff! How about that!
26A. …I miss Rookie Historian.
27. I like that Main Girl’s
Brother and Princess My Name were in
love with each other. I like it because—and
I don’t know that the show remembers this—he held her hostage and threatened
to cut her head off with a sword that he held at her throat on the night of the
coup. Like, that’s a hell of a meet-cute. How’d they get around that? Does it
feed into their attraction? Do they even think about it? Again, I doubt the
show even remembers this detail, but there is an element of the f***ed up to
their relationship—and that it’s never addressed is a missed opportunity.
(Well, another missed opportunity.
But, gosh, can’t miss a chance to have 100-Day Prince loudly declare that he
doesn’t want to work or whatever.)
28. I don’t have context for
this note, but I have it down that, at some point, Ae-wol told Main Girl to
shut her trap and that I loved her for it. #BestGirl.
29. Do you happen to know the
historical accuracy of those big capes the ladies sometimes wear over their
heads to hide their identities? The shows I’ve seen only ever deploy them for
sneaking purposes, which makes them seem highly suspicious (as in, makes them
stand out). Did women do that kind of thing all the time, really, but we only
see it rarely because we like to see actors’ faces?
30. Logically, all the
hubristic moves made by the 100-Day Prince should have resulted in a
Shakespearean massacre of most of the main cast. Good Boy would make it, the
King would make it, and Princess My Name
would be kept alive long enough to give birth (making her son the crown prince,
regardless of whether the King knew it wasn’t a legit heir). And I guess some
of the villagers would make it, too.
31. Oh—the smooching gets a
passing grade. Almost forgot about that. Because of the anger.
32. No Hyundais, in this one,
by the way, which is just one more reason to hate it.
33. And the cherry on top of
this whole thing is that they have the gall to do a f***ing time jump! Which is
technically one of those coda/epilogue things I don’t really mind all that
much—except f*** this show, I hate it, and I say it counts!
34. Speaking of gall and the
time jump…can anyone explain to me how the ONE PERSON who actually gets
punished for the sins of the anti-crown prince cabal is Minister Bad Guy’s son?
The son. The goofy, amiable,
unthreatening son. Kept under house arrest and threatened with beatings.
Meanwhile, the daughter—who, do
remember, LITERALLY TRIED TO KILL 100-DAY PRINCE WITH REPEATED POISONINGS—gets
to live in the woods with her child and maid. Jump…in…a…lake…show.
35. …but, that said, I’d be
lying if I didn’t say I loved that the “unspeakable rumor” that was floating
around the palace, in the epilogue, was the 100-Day Prince and Good Boy were
lovers. I thought that was hilarious—particularly that the Queen wanted Good
Boy to take one for the team, whether he was gay or not, just so they could
have a reason to unseat 100-Day prince. The epilogue is bizarrely zany, given
the rest of the show, but that was a gag that worked for me.
…are my thoughts.
In the end, I don’t even
think Good Boy could save this one. And I think I’m ranking it at the absolute
bottom of my list. Yes, even below Thirty-Nine.
Can you imagine.
That said, you did tell me that
you didn’t really remember much about the show, and that I should really just watch
it for Good Boy, who was wonderful. Because of course he was. So, in a way,
your record is still immaculate.
My Love from Another Star is next. Which has Sunny. Which makes me happy. (Even
if, thus far, there has not been a single Hyundai.)
She’s in Snowdrop, too, if you didn’t know. I got about 30 minutes from the
end of the first episode before I had put it aside, which means not much
happened to really hook me. Aside from briefly seeing her in a nighty.
Which…well.
Hope you’re on the high side
of the sine wave you’ve been riding, the last couple of weeks. Or that you’re
off it completely. Or that you’ve at least found a new show or two to dive into
as you sort things out. Or that you’re just sort of fine, regardless.
…look, I hope a lot of
things. And maybe statistically one of them will actually come true. Maybe.
Someday. For someone.
I mean, the universe granted
me an IU x Sunny Hyundai travelogue. Surely I can get it to do something nice
for you.
--Daryl
PS – Did you know the guy
who did those Pretty Little Liars
videos you told me about just posted the first of his “unhinged” Glee videos? It was a good time, if
you’ve not seen it already, though not as much fun as his PLL stuff.
PPS
– Speaking of YouTube, I totes found your unlisted cover of “Selfish,” and it’s
rad. Re-list it.
Comments
Post a Comment