Bloodhounds Review: Not the Gut Punch We Wanted

I finished Bloodhounds three days ago, and no kdrama has left me quite as conflicted as this one... Episodes 1-5 were SO GOOD, I binged them in one day and spent the rest of that night talking about how superb the drama was, from the character development to plot pacing. Then I watched episodes 6-8 the next day and the tremendous ABYSS between expectation and reality left me dumbfounded. So much so that I spent a whole sleepless night pondering what went wrong??

Episodes 1-5: 10/10

  • Fantastic acting from the entire cast; first watched WDH in Save Me and was impressed by his character portrayal and nuanced expressions.
  • Plot and character development: tight, consistent, fast-paced. I can't think of another drama in recent memory that managed to set the backdrop so well in the very first episode; we have our protagonists, we've got the conflict, and we know our villain (and we hate him already).
  • Action sequences: LOVE. In an interview with netflix, WDH and LSY talk about how they learned boxing for the drama, and it shows!! The camerawork is also stunning.
  • More on the villain: I loathed Myeong-gil, 100%, completely, whole-heartedly. The hypocrisy, the cruelty, the cold violence in his eyes... I wanted to watch him fall, and I love it when shows make me feel so much.

Episodes 6-8: 3/10

  • My feelings say to give 0 stars because the tonal whiplash was so great starting at around episode 6.5 and the last two episodes were basically a different series (I mean, it pretty much had a different supporting cast...)
  • 3 stars only because they did not kill off Woo-jin and our bromance continued to blossom :')
  • Scenes dragged (drinking scene with Min-Beom), plot felt careless (scanning QR code to access the building??), and there were new characters with zero development (Da-min).
  • On a writing level, I just would not have killed off so many main characters in one episode. After episode 6, I was left emotionally numb. I couldn't even begin to grieve any of the deaths, they had all happened so quickly. It felt like there was nothing left to root for, nothing left to fight for. Then the time jump happened, and it felt like the viewer was supposed to adjust and enjoy the light-hearted moments, but I COULD NOT.

After that very sleepless night, I root-caused the whole downhill trajectory of episodes 6-8 to one illogical moment. Had it not been for that moment, the rest of the plot would have (could have?) stayed on par with the rest of the show. Rather than telling his wife to call the police when Myeong-gil’s men were at the door, Du-yeong should have called Mr. Choi because 1) his buddies are really the only ones who can save him, and 2) his buddies are IN DANGER now that Myeong-gil is onto them. (His decision to contact the police is quite inconsistent with how the characters have been operating. WE ALREADY KNOW THE POLICE IS UNRELIABLE. HE KNOWS THAT. I don't know how many times it was mentioned that Myeong-gil has connections with the police…) That small difference would have changed everything. Neither Yang-jung nor Mr. Choi would have needed to die such senseless, brutal deaths if they had been warned. Duyeong and his wife would still be painful losses that leave the viewers angry and sad, but there would still be hope that the team can regroup.

(Oh, and I know the real-life incident that occurred for them to cut Hyeon-su out of the last two episodes, but the current set-up feels like a lose-lose situation. If they weren't going to replace her entirely, it feels like a pointless exercise to "minimize" her appearance and to ruin the rest of the storyline.)

Also, wouldn’t it have been poetic justice for Myeong-gil to “fall off” (really, be thrown off) the top floor of the hotel, or his precious casino-to-be? It would have given me way more satisfaction as an ending… And if asked about Myeon-gil’s death, everyone would just say, “oh, he jumped off himself from the stress of losing billions in a tax audit.” :)

Anyways, this is what I like to imagine happened, and our happy fight crew is vacationing in Rome together :') What is something that would have made the show better for you?