Of Swords and Parasols

 Both Good Girls and Killing Eve have their finales during the Sunday of WisCon and I'm torn between "that's so unfair!" and wondering if there will, in fact, be anyone doing anything con-related during the Killing Eve finale, assuming the Concourse gets BBCA.

 Still on the lookout for a WisCon roommate, if anyone else is having last minute issues there.  I have a pplace but it's cramped s hoping something less-cramped comes up.

 One of my regular WisCon roommates is definitely not coming this year and the other is most likely not coming (*weeps in fannish nerd*) and so I am in need of a roommate this year if any of my mutuals are also in need of a roommate, or have extra space in their room.

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Today, JTBC’s SKY Castle made kdrama history by pulling 19.2% ratings, making it South Korea’s highest rated cable drama, after becoming the network’s highest rated drama about halfway through its run, and the second highest rated airing drama, after KBS’s weekend drama, My Only One, which is expected because the KBS weekend drama is always the highest rated airing drama. (Not a slight as they tend to deserve it, just an observation.)


( cut for length, no spoilers )

kdramas:

Feel Good to Die
Hymn of Death
Just Dance
Love Alert
Memories of the Alhambra
Six Flying Dragons
Sky Castle

cdrama:

Age of Legends
Ashes of Love
Rise of Phoenixes

anime:

A Certain Magical Index III
Fairy Tail
Golden Kamuy
Thunderbolt Fantasy

UK:

Death in Paradise


With the exception of 2 kdramas (and I think Index and Fairy Tail? Not sure how many eps these will be), everything is either on hiatus, over, over but I haven't finished it yet, or ending within the next week or two. You'd think I'd be thinking about all the backlog things I could watch instead f wondering what I'll do. (Including starting 3 airing kdramas I've been meaning to start but haven't...who knows when I'll get to that though.)

 

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SBS’s current weekend drama, Miss Ma, Nemesis, is giving me the truly grey middle aged heroine I always knew I deserved, but never thought I’d get. (TVN’s current weekend drama, Room No. 9 gives me something similar, but with a different focus. Also amazing, but a subject for another post that I will hopefully actually make.)



Starring Kim Yun Jin, aka Sun from Lost (and other things) in her first kdrama in 20 years, Miss Ma is very loosely based on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. Nine years ago, a woman was tried and convicted for murdering her daughter. After years of plotting, she escapes prison and, several months later, emerges in a small town called Rainbow Village, living as Miss Ma, a supposed mystery writer who likes to knit in the library and constantly gets pulled into the local shenanigans, sometimes willingly, sometimes less so. Somewhere in the village, she believes, is a witness who saw the person who really killed her daughter.



The framing story is very very loosely based on Nemesis (with, I’ve suspected since the second week, a bit of The Body in the Library tossed in) and is an interesting and successful mix of British small town mysteries and kdrama thriller. The “smaller” mysteries throughout the series follow the general outlines of the Miss Marple book they adapt more closely, and work in bits of the mystery of Miss Ma’s daughter. Miss Ma is joined by Seo Eun Ji, a mysterious young woman, even to Miss Ma, who knows Miss Ma is a fraud but helps her maintain her cover by pretending to be her niece. Meanwhile, Han Tae Kyu, the detective who arrested her 9 years ago, begins to suspect she may have been framed and is reinvestigating the case despite orders not to.



Aside from Kim Yun Jin, Ko Sung Hee (Eun Ji), and Jung Woong In (Tae Kyu), and…a kpop idol whose name I can’t remember ad am too lazy to look up (and who, so far, has a much smaller and less consequential role than the other three, though he’s doing perfectly decent job) the cast is almost entirely made up of quality “that guy” and “that lady” actors in their forties or older. There’s even an ahjumma squad that gets to be a major supporting thing instead of a fun minor thing with maybe one scene an episode. Plus an almost obligatory Gangster With A Heart of Gold. Unsurprisingly given the setup and source material, relationships between women, some negative, but mostly positive, and usually fairly complex, are often the main driving force. The dudes have things to do, but aside from Tae Kyu’s investigation, it’s very secondary to Miss Ma and Eun Ji.



Pretty much everything in the first half of the series (all that’s aired so far) is great, but the real crown jewel is Miss Ma herself. I can’t get too into it without spoilers, but Miss Ma is simultaneously a kind and considerate person and a truly terrible person with messed up ideas about encouraging children and an immense capacity for ruthlessness and, on one occasion, cruelty. Almost every episode, I go “she’s terrible, I love her” at least once. There’s only been one time when “I love her” didn’t follow “she’s terrible.” She’s grey and morally ambiguous in a way we usually only see in Prestige shows with male leads. Except, you know, she’s sympathetic even when awful and isn’t a drug lord or mobster or serial adulterer or rapist or serial killer. (I mean, she might become a killer by the end because the lady is out for blood, but that’s another matter.) It’s very easy to see why Kin Yun Jin thought this character was worth a brief return to kdramas for.