From my personal opinion, nothing I've seen makes sense.
The 3rd season (which I consider part two of season two, but never mind) has been a disaster from all viewpoints.
The script feels rushed, focusing on the sole purpose of marketing the series to its vast global audience, which, for Netflix, as usual, means only the USA.
The ending however dramatic it may be appears flat, lacking any real emotional depth.
It's not enough to sacrifice the character who, by the way, all already expected to die as a means to unify the whole season finale.
Not only isn't enough, but also within this scenario it even fails to obtain the emotional impact it wanted to give.
[And no. Sacrificing for 222's baby makes little sense in the context of the promise. Who gives you the assurance that they will let the baby live and be fine? And plus who you think is gonna raise this child after? The Front-man?]
Netflix pursued deaths for shock value and that's all.
Netflix avoided pursuing character developments, it wanted flat, archetypes: good is good, bad is bad. To such an extent that all the characters seem far more like parodies than layered human beings.
Netflix pursued basicness and repetitiveness, clinging to the certainty that it would have “sold” well regardless since they knew the public have become attached to it, so they didn't bother to stay faithful to the initial season or to the theme of the drama.
There's no authorial integrity left in the series, it is merely a product.
Which is ironically saddening.
Its open ending is awful and doesn't even make sense in view of narrative fiction.
Why the hell should the US be able to play a typically Korean game? And why would a big man eagerly get slapped by a lady in a suit?
This isn't to reinforce harmful stereotypes, it's just that there are notable difference regarding humans interaction in each society, and South Korea and the US are vastly different in this.
And I could go on for hours outlining how, from a purely authorial, scriptwriting point of view, very little of what we see on screen is even vaguely well done.
And i'm saying this for a screenwriting and film productions gradute point of view. That's why I know painfull well that what Netflix has done make sense in the sole context of creating a market product to sold.
That's why I know that the scripit for the series makes no sense at all and is merely a well done homework assignment.
Average, certainly not the worst thing ever seen, but disappointing nonetheless.
A marketable work, as Netflix favors and wants, but one that loses everything it had and completely sells out to a more casual and distracted watch who don't wants/care to focus on the plot holes left, the subplots told only to fill time and the lack of emotional impact and psychological depth of the characters.
A watchable final season, appreciable in its own way, but one that leaves, at least for me, a bitter taste in my mouth that shouldn't be there.
Is this subjective? Sure.
And I'm not saying that all films/series must be complex and full of philosophical insights, moral debates and heavy content.
We need light-hearted things that are enjoyable to watch in their own way, but without being too angsty. It's just that these are two different things.
This series wasn't created for the purpose of being light-herted entertainment. There was criticism. There was social analysis. There was philosophical and moral depth. So the point still remains that it has morphed into something that wasn't meant to be.
And to me, personally, it left me with the sadness of the real ending. The one behind the scenes, the set lights and cameras: the merciless victory, once again, of unbridled materialism.
All is a product and everything must be exploited. Even at the expense of stripping it of its identity.
A system of capitalism that devours everything and leaves nothing but the remains of decay behind.
