Hierarchy sets out to be a riveting tale of murder, mystery, luxury, and of course, romance. Unfortunately, it falls flat in every single one of those categories. To put it simply, Hierarchy wishes to mirror the early seasons of the Spanish drama Elite. So much so that I found myself drawing parallels between the two at nearly every corner from set design to characters. Now I'm in no way saying that Elite is heaps and bounds better but I will say Elite took its time with characters and at least for the first few seasons had a plot line to follow (can't say anything past season 4 I stopped watching as it become boring and redundant).

The biggest issue that I found with this show was there was quite literally very little plot just gorgeous actors and gorgeous scenes but nothing of substance. The dialogues felt generic and insignificant and everything kind of felt pieced together. We didn't see characters develop.

The story primarily revolves around 5 characters: Kim Ri-an (the main rich boy), Jung Jae-i (main rich girl Ri-an's ex/gf), Kang Ha (the protagonist?, "revenge" seeking boy), Yoon He-ra (Regina George, Jae-i bff?), Lee Woo-jin (confused very gorgeous, relatively insignificant boy, nice to look at). The main story pretty much only involves the first 3 with the last 2 kind of being there.

Character breakdown:
Essentially Kang Ha makes his way into this hyper-elitist high school as a scholarship kid in order to find justice for his dead twin brother while facing the discrimination of his peers. So to make a long story short he doesn't really do this. Instead, he falls in love with Jung Jae-i and cries. Sure he reported people to the cops and held people "accountable" but honestly this plot line, which is supposed to be the main plot imo, takes a back seat and we get a classic romance where Kang Ha plays the second lead to Ri-an. This would be fine if I cared about the characters. The problem with this whole show is I have no sympathy or affection for any of these characters. The whole cast could have faced a zombie apocalypse and passed away and my reaction would have been welp. Especially Kang Ha. He is the one I am supposed to be rooting for but I don't care enough for him. In fact he frustrated me the most. He repeatedly claims that these people killed his brother but does so little to portray that. There's a scene where Jae-i claims to have killed Kang Ha's brother and by the next scene, Kang Ha is still expressing his love for her. It just doesn't make sense for his character. You play the voice of reason, justice, yet people you like get a pass? Also, there is one scene where he essentially says "Jae-i, you're not like the other people here, you're nicer so I can't hurt you." I'm glad you feel this way but bro why? Because she shows you basic human decency that you could get anywhere else outside of this school? How do you know she actually treated your brother nice huh? Seems to me Kang Ha's ideology mirrors the school's, the same ideology he's been desperately trying to destroy this whole time: people you like or have an affiliation with will get a pass.

Jae-i is so boring she has so much happen to her but not a single reaction she is like a doll with one reaction. All she says is that she wants to protect Ri-an but why? Sure you find comfort in each other but I'm failing to understand why she couldn't have told Ri-an about her pregnancy. Like ya'll are billionaires figure it out. Not to mention earlier in the show it seemed that both families were happy about the potential merging of Ri-an and Jae-i's families. What motivation does Jae-I have to sacrifice herself? What is she protecting him from because his mother seems relatively submissive as long as Ri-an portrays a clean image? Also, I don't like how Jae-i is supposed to be the hand that saves the plebians. All she did was talk to Kang Ha's brother and after seeing him pass decided to help Kang Ha out of guilt. She is not different. She had years to treat the scholarship kids like people. She just feels guilty and is trying to ease that guilt. No better than Ri-an or the rest of the elitists imo.

He-ra was my favorite character. She actually had depth and reasoning to her character. Her motivations were clear and the actions she took made sense. For example, she went after Ri-an romantically not because she hated her friend but because she had to secure her father's business and supplement her inferiority complex. She is also the only one we see develop as a character as she goes from only valuing herself through wealth to eventually understanding the weight of her friendships. Also, the actress for He-ra had the best performance imo.

Woo-Jin was simply there to introduce the killer teacher (the one who actually killed Kang Ha's brother) and serve looks. His whole schtick is that he loves He-ra and can't tell her because He-ra is preoccupied with securing the bag and confessing to Ri-an. Honestly, I was more invested in He-ra and Woo-jin and sympathized with them much more than the other three characters because they felt human and had the potential to grow. The others stayed stagnant.

Overall the plot is predictable, the characters are generic, and the show moves extremely slowly even for only having 7 episodes as opposed to the typical 16. It's something that should be played in the background while you are doing something else. A decent watch to pass the time.

Questions:
Why was Kang Ha's brother recording stuff in the first place?


Things I liked:
-Set design/cinematography: very nice to look and and the shots were unique and fun to look at
-Cast: all are extremely gorgeous, doesn't have much to do with anything but they were gorgeous that's it. I also think they did a pretty decent job for what they were given acting-wise. Especially the Ji Hye-won (He-ra)
-Music: the title song was a bop, will be adding it to my playlist
-Fashion: the outfits were so cute omggg, love the elegant yet classy vibe
-Kim woo-Jin