I feel as though people who watched Link: Eat, Love Kill fell into three categories. Those who generally loved the show, a group that absolutely despised it and then those who had a love-hate relationship with it or alternatively fairly “ neutral ” feelings about it. For me, I definitely fell into the former category with having a completely mixed relationship with this series. This is because while I though the concept was interesting and like a lot of fans was intrigued to see Yeo Jin-goo in a new role, the actual execution of genres, the storyline and the weird tropes that were thrown my way did little to really make me intrigued.

I don’t really want to go over all of the events of the plot again but I’ll start off with a brief explanation with the plot. The male lead is a popular chef ( played by Yeo Jin-Goo) who faces a scandal of having a mental breakdown of sorts when he struggles with emotional mood swings. His acquaintances and the general public think that his mental health is on the blink but the male lead has a secret. He has a telepathic connecting with his seemingly dead twin sister.

The male lead begins to wonder if perhaps she is alive but just as he’s attempting to find out more answers to his questions, he ends up meeting the female lead and a typical officer ( Moon Ga Young). She had her own problems, (especially with records to having her own problematic past with men ) and instead flees back to her childhood home. Her mother and grandmother own restaurant, unsurprisingly leading her to meeting the male lead after he opens a bistro in the same place. ( I kid you not that this is also where he grew up.) The male lead hopes to help find answers to his new ability and the fate of his sister, while the female lead struggles with her own past coming to chase her too.

Oh, boy. I really don’t know where to start with this drama. I think aside from the initial contrived plot logic of too many coincidences taking place , Link: Eat, Love Kill has a pretty interesting setup. I’m not going to pretend to say it was perfect or flawless from the outset, as honestly, there was a lot which was problematic with the logic. However, I will say that there was at least some potential with this line of plot thread.

But this is also where the plot began to pear shaped even early on: there were too many genres and too many things happening in a short space of time. There weren’t a lot of opportunities to spread out these genres and even worse, they rarely felt well blended. I do think that perhaps the later half of the series did improve slightly on this and it did begin feeling a bit more settled but even then it was too little, too late.

I think where the biggest problems arose here was what the show was actually trying to be. In the first few episodes, we had so many plot points thrown at us which only seemed to ascend into a certain level of ridiculousness as episodes progressed. ( Without spoilers, there were moments even in later on where big plot revelations felt poorly connected and rarely fitted together with more ease.)

Additionally, the pacing issues of the show seemed to make more noticeable genre clashes feel really harshly put together. I honestly love genre fusion shows and think then when they are written well, they can be brilliant. The problem here was that the genres never really matched one another or helped to balance the other out. The series started off a fantasy note before shifting nearly entirely to crime thriller with cutesy romance slipping in between. This wouldn’t have been so bad if one of the major storylines of the show hadn’t been disregarded so much, leading to this attempt at multiple genres feeling imbalanced.

As I’ve said earlier on, I do think that the show did improve slightly at the ending and there was a little more consistency with some of the plot lines and genres. I don’t think that some of these storylines were entirely well closed off and did feel a little rushed by the ending but at the least conclusion wasn’t that bad and did offer a bit of closure to some of the storyline.

I think I should next talk about one of my major pet peeves with Link: Eat, Love Kill. The acting. Did I think the acting was dreadful? No, of course not. However did I believe that the acting left a bit to be desired? Yes, sadly I did.

I’m going to be really harshly honest here. I like Yeo Jin Goo as an actor. I thought he was incredible in Hwayi , deserving of praise in The Crowned Clown and really, really good in Hotel Del Luna. Which is what really surprised me with his performance here in this drama. By not means did I think it was absolutely awful and beyond watching. However I did think that it was surprising for a good actor to give out a performance and a choose a role which felt fairly flatline and rarely gave him a lot of medium. Admittedly I’m not entirely sure it was the fault of Yeo Jin Goo as I don’t think the writing helped per say ( especially when it came to the male lead’s often wooden dialogue, apathetic attitude at times and woeful angst.)

Sadly I also felt the same way about Moon Ga young. She’s a good actress and I absolutely loved her in True Beauty and Tempted but her chosen role and her performance felt a little underplayed. Again, I don’t think this was entirely Ga Young’s fault. Her character was often resorted to a damsel in distress during the initial part of the series and even into later episodes, she had this needy trait to constantly be saved or rescued by others which while possible serving as a good flaw and point of development, it was rarely changed. I felt as this the show could’ve really gone further with her character and especially her experiences as a victim of sexual assault but instead it was pretty shallow and reasonable rarely given a lot of substance.

The chemistry between the main actors was okay, I guess. I wasn’t buying into it that much in the beginning as I was getting sibling turned childish frenemy vibes initially, but it did kind of improve in the second half with a bit more tension. Still not perfect and honestly far from one of the best onscreen chemistries I’ve seen, but certainly not the worst either. The acting from the rest of the cast was pretty much the same as the main leads; watchable to an extent but definitely varied from performance to performance.

Overall thoughts; Link: Eat, Love Kill was definitely a challenge to get through and sadly not in a good way. As I’ve said before the second part was slightly better than the first and I can see the appeal for viewers wanting Yeo In Goo eye candy or who are able to take this just by face value. For me personally, I struggled to connect to the characters a lot and the tropes and contrived plot did make me question what I was watching even early on. The ending was admittedly one of the show’s stronger points but I have to say that there are better dramas out there for me than this.