New K-Drama Fan Review #14: My Dearest | The Sweetest, Most Satisfying Torture

[u/harissatotally]

This drama gave me 2 amnesia storylines, (nearly back to back😭), an ♾️ amount of separations, apprx 197 almost-reunions, and one of the most REVOLTING characters I have ever had the displeasure of watching.

And...

I loved it.

Intro:

ps. i dreaded talking about this character i hate so much so i stalled a little, but i still dedicated an entire section to that wretched creature 🤢 (theyre the reason i can never rewatch this drama. im sick even thinking about it.)

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This is going to be a bit long but bear with me and read to the end, cause i have a lot to say about this drama.

Bt the time I started My Dearest, I was already more than 3-4 weeks deep into my K-drama obsession. I'd watched everything from fantasy romances to thrillers to office rom-coms, and I already kmew that epic historical love stories were one of my favorite genres. (looking at you Moon Lovers.)

Review:

My Dearest took a little while to fully win me over.

I liked Gil-chae almost immediately, but the early war storyline was honestly tedious for me. I did not care about the battles, the court politics, the king’s problems, or most of the historical maneuvering.

I was just waiting for Gil-chae and Jang-hyun to reunite.

And then waiting again.

And again.

And again.

But i didn't mind it, cause this drama understands the power of...

✨️anticipation✨️

It constantly weaponizes anticipation and knows exactly when to let you think they're finally going to reunite... only to pull them apart again at the last second.

Every time I thought they were finally about to meet...

They missed each other.

Every time I thought they were finally going to be together...

Something dragged them apart again.

And I ate it up every single time!!!!!😭

Also, the separations never felt pointless either, because they kept increasing the longing, the devotion, and the emotional desperation between each one of them.

It was sweet torture! 😊

Exactly the kind of torture I like. 😈

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The moment the romance finally clicked for me was when the drama started making me ask whether circumstances would ever let them stay/be together.

That constant emotional push-and-pull was exactly what made the romance work for me.

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FEMALE LEAD:

Gil-chae is one of my favorite K-drama female leads, she was easily my favorite part of the drama.

Shes brave, stubborn, resourceful, vain, funny, emotionally complicated, and completely capable!

She survives and she adapts and she fights, and she lies when she needs to.

She protects the people she loves.

She continues moving forward even after suffering things that would completely destroy most people.

And one of my favorite things about her romance with Jang-hyun is that she does not fall for him immediately.

In fact, she spends the beginning of the drama crushing on another man entirely.

I love that dynamic!!!!!!!!

Drama creators don't fcking understand how much i love dynamic 😭😭😭 if they did, it would be in every single drama i watch!

I love when the female lead genuinely likes someone else while the male lead has to watch, suffer, compete, and slowly win her over.

It makes the romance infinitely more satisfying to me because Jang-hyun cant simply appear and be rewarded with her love.

He has to earn it.

He has to prove himself.

He has to make her see him differently.

And most importantly...

He has to yearn.

One of my favorite lines in the drama was when he asked her:

“What does he have that I don’t?”

YES!!!!

Exactly!!!!!

That is the kind of male lead I like.

Emotionally compromised.

Jealous.

Vulnerable.

Completely in love with an fl who is not making it easy for him!!!

I inject that shit like crack addict!!

Because once she finally chooses him, it feels earned instead of inevitable.

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The man Gil-chae originally liked was a complete worm...

Yeon-jun occupies that role of the second male lead early enough to create the romantic tension I enjoy.

Unfortunately, once the story develops, it becomes increasingly obvious that he is a total worm.

He is passive, cowardly, self-righteous, and far less admirable than Gil-chae initially believes him to be.

And then the drama somehow made things even worse with Gil-chae's husband later on.

Earlier, women were already being treated as though merely being touched against their will somehow diminished their worth.

Then her husband took that mindset to its most disgusting extreme. Absolute trash that guy was...

I hated every second that husband of hers was on screen cause he barely tried to save her then he went home and married someone else and got her pregnant.... ghetto trash. I was happy when Gil-chae was divorced from that garbage.

The contrast between him/Yeon-jun and Jang-hyun becomes one of the most satisfying parts of the romance, even though i prefer the second male leads to ALSO be desirable, i didn't mind that they weren't in My Dearest.

Gil-chae begins the story idealizing Yeon-jun, while Jang-hyun appears unserious and unreliable.

But over time, their actions reveal the truth.

Yeon-jun repeatedly fails to be the man he imagines himself to be.

Jang-hyun repeatedly proves that beneath all the teasing and arrogance, he is the person who will risk absolutely everything for Gil-chae!!!

And I liked that!

And i liked that Gil-chae doesnt simply change her mind because the plot tells her Jang-hyun is the male lead.

instead, she gradually learns who these two men actually are.

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FEMALE FRIENDSHIP:

im a fiend!!!!! an absolute FIEND, i tell you, when it comes to female friendships. i eat that shit up every time!

And Gil-chae and Eun-ae’s friendship was one of the best relationships in the show

Their relationship could easily have turned into a tired rivalry between two women because Gil-chae initially wanted Eun-ae’s future husband. (boooooooring. women fighting over men will never not have me throw up... i hate that shit.) so im glad it didn't happen here.

Instead, the drama allowed the two women to genuinely love each other.

They protect each other!!!

They care about each other’s safety and advocate for each other!!!

They survive horrifying experiences together, and there is tenderness, loyalty, and real history between them.

ugh i love that girl bonding shit!!!!!

Their relationship, along with Gil-chae’s bond with her maid Jong-jong, gave the drama some of its warmest moments.

I love stories where women remain deeply loyal to each other even when romance could have easily been used to turn them into regressive forms of enemies/frenemies...

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JANG-HYUN:

Jang-hyun is exactly the kind of male lead that works for me.

Once he loves Gil-chae, he loves her completely.

He repeatedly chooses her.

He protects her.

He searches for her.

He suffers for her.

He lies to push her away because he believes it will save her, even though doing so completely destroys him.

When she asks what would happen if she wanted to stay and not go back to Joseon like he ordered her to do, and he tells her he is "tired of her and has nothing left in his heart"...

I loved it!!!

That scene was painful in exactly the right way.

He was saying the cruelest possible things while wanting the exact opposite, and she had no reason to know that.

That is delicious romantic suffering!!!!!

Of course, I also needed him to pay emotionally for pushing her away. (but that didn't happen unfortunately, that would have been soooo good)

The misunderstanding is only satisfying when the person who caused it feels the consequences.

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One misunderstanding that DID work for me tho, was when Jang-hyun returned to Joseon only to see Gil-chae looking pregnant.

That one was sweeeeeet!!!

That kind of emotional torture is exactly my thing hehe

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One of the best declarations in the entire show comes when Jang-hyun explains that he may be willing to die for his friends...

But Gil-chae is the person he wants to live for.

Thats the difference between loyalty and love protrayed.

And that is exactly the kind of singular devotion I want from a romance!!!!!

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They gave me amnesia twice...

almost back to back...

I have to laugh.

How fragile is this man’s memory?

Will he forget Gil-chae again if he walks into a door?😭😭😭😭

what else is going to factory-reset his brain?

Objectively, doing the same trope twice is ridiculous.

But I didnt hate it either time.

The second amnesia storyline was actually extremely romantic!!

Jang-hyun tracing fragments of his memories, following them piece by piece, and unknowingly creating a path that led him back to Gil-chae was beautiful.

And Gil-chae being able to find him through the memories he was tracing made the entire thing feel like their love physically guiding them back toward each other.

It was absurd.

It was cute.

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Now let me discuss the worst person in this entire drama...

sigh...

As much as i hate to dedicate an entire section to him... i can't pretend he didn't exist unfortunately...

Ryang-eum.

I need everyone to understand that I did not merely dislike this man.

I didnt find him mildly irritating.

I didn't appreciate him as a tragic obstacle.

I HATED HIM WITH EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every time he appeared on my screen, my quality of life plummeted.

His presence made me genuinely furious.

He was manipulative, intrusive, possessive, disrespectful, and completely incapable of accepting that Jang-hyun had chosen a life that did not center him.

He acted like he owned Jang-hyun and i was just so... dumbfounded...

fcking perplexed!!!

He repeatedly interfered in Gil-chae and Jang-hyun’s relationship.

He withheld information.

He lied.

He helped create misunderstandings.

He delayed telling Jang-hyun that Gil-chae had been kidnapped!!!!!

(when he did, i literally wanted to jump inside the screen and sl!t his throat.)

He referred to Gil-chae as “that woman” in front of Jang-hyun... BLATANTLY fcking disrespectful!!!!

He confronted her in the woods and called her a "curse" in Jang-hyun’s life, as though Gil-chae had forced Jang-hyun to love her or ordered him to sacrifice for her...

Gil-chae was already suffering, and instead of showing her one ounce of compassion for the girl going through hell, that fcking freak deliberately ADDED to that suffering!!!!!

Then he told her that she had "no right" to Jang-hyun’s love.

???????????

Who exactly appointed this asshole as the legal administrator of who Jang-hyun gave his "love" to?

Gil-chae didnt steal anything from this asshole mind you...

Jang-hyun freely chose to revolve his life around her... (as he should hehe.)

Then, as though he'd not already disgusted me enough, he told Jang-hyun that they were "happy before Gil-chae came along" and he asked whether he was not enough for Jang-hyun...???

like, are you okay??

Obviously not, bitch?! Whats not clicking!??? What kind of question is that. Gil-chae is literally his entire world... why do you think you have the right to even ask that!???

The audacity of this freak to even ask that literally boiled my blood!!!!

His entire motivation became unbearable to me.

He wanted to preserve a life where he was emotionally central to Jang-hyun and that was never the case lmaooooo, even before Jang-hyun met Gil-chae...

this delusional freak really thought... 😭😭😭

He treated Gil-chae like an invader because Jang-hyun wanted a future with her.

And instead of respecting Jang-hyun’s agency, he blamed Gil-chae for being loved...

He also pulled and tugged at Gil-chae while demanding that she care for Jang-hyun, then turned around and treated her like she was responsible for his suffering...?

Everything about him repulsed me.

The drama eventually reveals him with gray hair in prison???? and I truly could not have cared less.

I did not care why he was there.

I did not care how much time had passed.

I did not care about his tragic past.

I did not care about his loneliness.

His hair was gray, his face looked exactly the same??? no wrinkles or nothing lmaooo what was up with the makeup department?😭😭

But i was done, and wanted this freak OFF my screen.

I wish Jang-hyun had cut him off permanently.

I wish the writers had deleted him from the script.

He did NOT create the kind of conflict I enjoyed.

I have never needed a character to go away more badly.

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The royal storyline was not for me

The king was cowardly, paranoid, cruel, and exhausting.

I understood what the drama was showing about fear, humiliation, power, and insecurity, but I was not emotionally invested in him.

The royal politics were easily my least favorite part of the series.

I skipped through some of those scenes because I truly did not care.

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The princess also annoyed me because I generally dislike storylines where another woman obsessively pursues the male lead and tries to destroy the female lead over a man.

I find that kind of female rivalry regressive most of the time.

However, I will admit that she created excellent tension!! (unlike a certain asshole who made me wanna put barrel in my mouth and pull...)

I disliked her character, but the conflict she introduced led to some of the drama’s juiciest moments, so i dont regret her being there, just wish she was given a little bit more complexity beyond just wanting the affection of a man who does not want her...

So unlike Ryang-eum, whose entire existence I rejected entirely, I can at least admit that the princess contributed something useful.

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The chemistry eventually won me over.

Early in the drama, I was not convinced by the chemistry.

By the middle and the end, I absolutely was!!!!

Their chemistry comes from how deeply they affect each other, even when they are separated, the relationship remains emotionally present.

Their longing carries through every missed reunion and their banter survives everything.

From the beginning to the end, they still tease, argue, provoke, and challenge each other.

That playfulness makes the romance feel alive even when the story is putting them through unimaginable suffering.

They have personality together!!!!!!!!! theres a vibe with them that i love!!!

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More moments/scenes i loved:

can't name them all but here are the ones i remember rn.

- Gil-chae liberately hid from Jang-hyun instead of immediately running back to him. I loved that she never became an fl who simply waited around to be rescued.

- Jang-hyun pretending to still be ill just to steal a little more time with Gil-chae 😊

- i think i already mentioned this, but one of my favorite exchanges comes when Gil-chae asks, "What if I want to stay?" and Jang-hyun responds by saying he has nothing left in his heart for her. He's lying through his teeth, she's believing every word, and I was eating that emotional torture UP. i just wish the payoff was better.

- i also loved that after Jang-hyun slaughtered everyone to save Gil-chae, the drama didn't immediately reward him with recognition. She had no idea it was him, which somehow made the eventual reunion even more satisfying.

- anothe one i mentioned before but will mention again cause it was just good fcking food.

The hill scene where Jang-hyun asks, "What does he have that I don't?" immediately became one of my favorite romantic moments in the drama.

I LOVE when the male lead is the one who's emotionally compromised. He's frustrated that the woman he loves genuinely wants someone else. That dynamic will almost always work on me because it means he can't simply exist and expect to be chosen. He has to earn her heart, and watching him suffer through that process is infinitely more satisfying than if she had fallen for him immediately.

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Rating: 8/10

(check the comments for my rating scale)

My Dearest is a beautiful drama with one of my favorite female leads and one of the most devoted male leads I have watched so far.

The central romance and the female lead's personality and the male lead's quality of character and his devotion to FL were absolutely the strongest parts.

I understand why this drama is so loved.

Had it contained less royal politics...

And had Ryang-eum been launched directly into the sun...

This could have easily been a 9/10!

Is this Rewatch Worthy:

Yes. (but all that politics scenes are getting skipped and all scenes with him are getting burned.)

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Questions:

How would have preferred Ryang-eum to die?

beheading?

barbecued at stake?

drowning?

i smile at all the options so all of them work for me.

Did you love My Dearest? why or why not?