365: Repeat the Year (2020)

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD - If you have not watched this show, DO NOT READ unless you want the entire plot to be spoiled for you, and believe me, you don't want that for this drama.

'356: Repeat the Year' is a suspenseful thriller drama about a group of people resetting their lives for different reasons. This simple line was basically what made me decide to start this drama (plus, too much time on my hands), as I love deeply time travel plots that stick to their main line and have no apparent or too obvious plot holes. This genre is quite difficult to portray without making this type of mistakes, but I am glad to know that 365RTY managed to deliver such an interesting story until the very end. I bet that if I rewatch this drama soon I'll find inconsistencies or differences between the initial premise and the ending, but I don't think they would be too big to ruin the later events and that's enough for me.

The 12-episodes format was definitely the best choice for this story. I feel like if this had been a 16-episodes drama the plot would've gone lost at some point and we would've gotten many filler scenes that may bore the audience, so I'm glad that it was short, although I will miss it a lot. But still, the pace that this drama had was one of the best things about it, as we were always straight to the point without running in circles or making confusing story lines that would end up in nothing (yes, I'm looking at you, Memorist). At some point I thought I was breaking my head trying to make up theories that would eventually be debunked or were simply not likely, but this was another of the best things about this drama, that you really could never expect what would come, which doesn't happen that often since dramas can usually be easily predicted, but I'm really glad to know this wasn't the case.

Ji Hyung Joo and Shin Ga Hyeon will forever be one of my favorite couples even though there was no explicit romance ever, which makes me only a bit sad. I loved their friendship so much, how they cared about each other and how willing they were to sacrifice themselves for each other. I loved the character development that we had for Ga Hyeon, as she was a particularly dark person (obviously because of what she went through before the reset), but by the end of the drama, we had a very cheerful woman who was determined to solve this case and get her life back. I don't think we got much development about Hyung Joo, but I think he still became more mature and less reckless, more cold-headed, which is very important for a detective.

I noticed that at the last scene, we have a happy and bright Ga Hyeon and I was a bit confused because she was not like that before the reset, so I was thinking that they gave her the same personality that she had before dying in the previous timeline, but then I remembered that the final Ga Hyeon was never paraplegic, so this dark episode was not a part of her memory, therefore she's a happy girl with her cute dog. It's funny to think that Hyung Joo saw 3 types of Ga Hyeon, though. A dark Ga Hyeon on a wheelchair, an abled Ga Hyeon but with dark memories, and finally another abled Ga Hyeon, but with a bright aura. There's no way I won't believe he didn't have at least a crush on her, so I want to think that's a win for him.

My only problem with this drama is the reveal of the culprit. This drama takes about 8 episodes to understand the reason why all the resetters are dying one by one and eventually get to the reveal of a serial killer who happens to be a Violent Crimes Detective who kills people... For no reason? With no killing pattern? A detective serial killer with no pattern or motive... That's high bullshit for me, honestly. I don't think it was likely to make him suddenly a psycho who just started killing by mistake and ended up liking it, having fun doing it. It just doesn't match either Sun Woo's personality, or serial killers at all for that matter. Still, I think they managed to make it make sense because I have heard of rare serial killers who began to kill after doing it by mistake too, so it's not like it can't happen. But I just don't think this "I wanted to see how all of you would keep believing my perfect crime scenes" matches the type of character that Sun Woo was, especially because even after becoming a serial killer he was fond of Hyung Joo. I just don't see a proper character building there and that's like, one of the most important parts of this drama's plot.

But that aside, I loved the spontaneity of this plot and all the twists that we got. I could accurately predict about 20% of this drama, to be honest. Whenever we believed something, at the end of each episode we would find a completely new way to see things and to me, that proved that the writers and director really did an amazing job to create this story, with the exception of Sun Woo's character building.

Every side character was important to the story and I really liked how all of them had a hidden past that was revealed at a peak and crucial time. The most surprising ones for me were definitely Kim Se Rin and Mr. Hwang. I didn't see any of their stories coming, but it was very pleasant to be surprised in that way. Also, until the very end I thought Lee Shin had gone crazy while trying to hold onto her daughter's life and decided to reset these people's lives just to watch them, but it was actually Mr. Hwang's motive, so all of this was so interesting to see.

Also, did anyone notice that Lee Shin decided to hold onto her daughter's life and rode the train which would actually crash in that very day? It's sad to know that she decided to see how her daughter would grow after 6 years of repeating the same year in order to avoid her dying, but they embarked on a train that would end their lives. This "unexpected future" may not have been the best thing to choose, then. I ended up pitying her and Ms. Song, both of them were basically toys of a mastermind.

I always wonder whether our lives are predicted and if what is meant to happen will happen, and what's not will not no matter how much we try, so I really liked about this drama their strong efforts to change their futures that looked like they would always go the same way as if we're trapped in a never-ending loop. Of course, this is fiction and there's time travel involved, so not the best realistic inspiration, but I like to think that our lives and our future depend entirely on what we do today to change our tomorrow. I will take this as a life lesson from this drama and keep trying to change my fate too.

To conclude this review, I just really want to express how much I loved this drama and that I will be missing our favorite detective and writer so much next weeks! I hope Lee Joon Hyuk lands more leading roles because he's a really good actor and cute as f*. I don't really like Nam Ji Hyun, so I hesitated for that reason to watch this drama, but again, I was bored and ended up loving it. But I really liked her character and acting here, so I may give 'Suspicious Partner' and '100 Days My Prince' a try next time.

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