Me upon finishing Overdo.
Did I love it? In the sense of rooting for the characters to end up happily together and liking them as people? No, not really (though I did cry straight through the last two episodes so...)
Did I love it as a drama and a narrative?
This was an incredibly tightly written thematically story about continuation of trauma cycle with characters that often drove me mad but made total uncompromising sense based on their backgrounds and personalities.
The acting was A+. The costumes were A++
It was a dogblood melo genre and it's something that either works for you or doesn't. But underneath its dogblood melo trappings (which I loved - I was entertained and I could never fully guess where it was going), it had such a solid and nuanced narrative about damage and codependency and these really fucked up people.
And it refused to neatly put them into boxes or tropes. No TikTok soundbites for them. None of our mains were pure good or pure evil, let alone that stupid flag discourse targets.
It refused to allow catharsis or healing and sometimes even resolution which felt so fitting and so real.
Even that ending with her left in limbo, hoping he's alive and waiting, even though he's dead semi-mirrors both the initial set up but also feels fitting - she put his life in limbo and now hers is like that. He thinks it's kinder but it traps her forever in a "what if." And is yet another way neither of them was ever able to escape the cycle of codependence and misery.
All the supportings felt real (even if often infuriatingly so) and could often have been mains in other narratives - Miss Ye? Li Boze? Opera Girl? Da'ge? Etc etc.
This drama knew the story it wanted to tell and while it was hoping you'd go along for the ride, it didn't compromise to make you more likely get on (or not get off halfway.) And for this alone I loved it because this is vanishingly rare now.
It was mad and fun the first half and mad and painful the second but it was true to itself throughout.
2087
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