I waited until after the show finished airing to watch it, because honestly, I like to binge watch tv, instead of waiting each week to watch one new episode. Honestly, I somewhat think that I should have made an exception for this. Not because I thought the show was so amazingly good that I could have stuck it out, but because I saw so many good things about it on social media, and when I finally got around to watching it, I went in with such high expectations and I am quite sad that it did not meet them. So maybe my opinion would have different, but now we will never know.

Plot: When looking at a basic synopsis of the show, you are given so little to what the show is actually about. One could argue that the main goal of the show is about finding the gold and getting it out or not. It seemed to be the only reason Vincenzo would flee to Korea in the first place. The show starts with that being the main goal, but very quickly that is pretty much put on the sidelines. At one point or another, I honestly forgot why Vincenzo was even there in the first place, it seemed like he was destined to help the FL bring down the bad guys. Then you are randomly brought back to why he was actually there in the first place, finding the gold, stealing it, fleeing, and becoming rich. The audience gets used to the plot being helping fight bad guys in Korea instead of just getting gold and leaving again. Which would have been fine, but randomly throwing in times when people from Vincenzo’s mafia life in Italia, made those moments seem random. Other than when the antagonists purposely used the Mafia members in hopes of killing Vincenzo, the random bits of Mafia members showing up, I thought did not really add to the story itself.

Character Development: I wish I was shown more character development, in this type of show, where there is very much good vs evil, there would be room for characters to develop and become “mature”, but it was lacking. We are shown small bits of character development, just by certain people changing their actions, but then realizing that they were just faking it all to begin with. Jang Han-Seo, I felt was the only character that had a general change of mind and heart, but he was so wishy-washy about it all. Every time I felt that maybe he had finally grown, he would do something that proved it wrong. If Han-Seo had held all that anger and hatred towards his brother, like he said multiple times, then why was it always back and forth? Why wouldn’t he have realized what he actually wanted earlier on? How many more people had to die, before Han-Seo made his choice? As well as maybe I am looking at it a bit too realistically but look at the people who lived in the Plaza. Before Vincenzo showed up, these people were depicted as normal people just trying to make a living to survive and people not wanting to give up their home for redevelopment in town. How is it that these “normal citizens” are not phased at all when any crime happening in the plaza? Within the very first episodes of the show, Vincenzo throws someone through a window and no questions were asked, no comments made, it was almost as if that sort of thing happens in normal day life. Where was the hesitation from these “normal people”? Wouldn’t have these people called the police or at the very least at least question the whole thing??

FL & ML: Initially, I did not care if the FL & ML had a relationship or not. Of course, the chemistry between the two was present, but the show made it seem like some random thing to throw in, in the mist of all this violence. I was honestly rather thrown off by how easily Hong Cha-Young started to develop feelings for Vincenzo. I say this partly because of their differences in lifestyle, not that someone cannot go out with a member of the Mafia, more what they spoke about before so much violence occurred. The two had a conversation about what it is Vincenzo did when he was in the Mafia fully, whether he had killed people and if he was going to kill people going forward. Vincenzo lied and told her that he had not killed people previously and would not kill people going forward. We are shown dreams/nightmares of the ML killing in the past and then after this conversation, the killing begins. I was generally surprised by how easily Cha-Young was okay with all the killing and torture that Vincenzo used throughout the show. Cha-Young is depicted as a strong independent woman, the type that would not stand down, but very quickly she had a change of mind about the violence.

The Bad Guys: Now we are getting to the villains, Jang Jun-Woo and Choi Myung Hee. These two did a phenomenal job at playing the villains of the show. Honestly, I found myself getting so into the show because of how heated I was at these two. Every time I thought that maybe Vincenzo and team would have things go easily, these two threw something in their path to throw them off. But these were still never good enough to beat Vincenzo, they kept blaming it on the fact that Vincenzo was in the Mafia, but I don’t think that was it. Ultimately, I think that even though they were depicted as evil, strong, and willing to do anything, they were still just weak. Personally, I thought that former prosecutor Choi Myung Hee was more of a villain than Jun-Woo, I hated her character even more than the real head of Babel. She was so self-conceited even more than the psychopath that was the “ultimate” villain. When we learn finally about Jang Jun-Woo’s past, that was the moment I finally started to take him seriously. Before this, he was just some ridiculously angry kid and Myung Hee in her own was telling him what to do, even if he did not notice it. After hearing the past, he was not just some stupid kid, he was a literal psychopath, which in the end added to his character.

Final/e Thoughts: All I wanted for the end was not for them to find the gold or the guillotine file or even for the FL and ML lead to live happily ever after. I wanted the villains to get what they deserved, because at that point justice wasn’t shit, all that mattered was that they would painfully die and that it would hopefully replace all the pain we had gained previously. The one and only character I was sad to see die was Han-Seo, he had finally shown his true colors, but was killed before he even had a chance to be free.