#sharknado of kdramas

[bigyikes97]

Triangle, my beloved

This drama was a DUMPSTER FIRE that, in my opinion, crossed the line between just awful into some secret tier of amazing. It's the Sharknado of Kdramas. I have to tell you about this show.

First, the premise was amazing. A better writer could've made it the buzziest show of its season. You see glimmers of greatness all through it. However...

The story was NOT written in advance. It was written episode by episode according to input from online fans. And BOY, the results were INSANE. He loves her! He hates her! We need a love triangle! We're going to forget it happened! We can't figure out how to get him out of jail...so the next episode opens with a 2-year time skip and we move on!!

It was COMPLETELY unpredictable, with flat out continuity errors--I'm talking day/night errors, totally forgetting where characters were, cutting to people in the wrong places, people getting stabbed and left for dead and walking around the next day, the whole shebang. One character even completely forgot that he had very emotionally beaten another unconscious and been charged with "finishing him off" in front of a ring of watching gangsters that afternoon--IT CUT TO HIM STANDING IN HIS KITCHEN PEACEFULLY MAKING DINNER AT NIGHT IN DIFFERENT CLOTHES AND THE OTHER GUY WAS INEXPLICABLY FINE!

At that point, to me, it veered completely into comedy and I couldn't stop watching. The characters were a special highlight to me. Have you ever wanted to see a gangster played by Kim Jaejoong whose lipstick occasionally and unevenly turns distractingly pink or orange in-between takes? Now's your chance.

For Im Siwan's character in particular, it seems they were trying to go for a nuanced villain/anti-hero, but couldn't figure out what they wanted and so swung WILDLY between wanting to learn his family's business from the employee-level up, to wanting to escape, to being just some guy, to wanting to return as a mustache-twirling overlord...it was like a parody, and somehow it hit just the right wavelength of being hilarious. He saved it by apparently approaching each episode as a stand-alone concept and putting his whole heart into each week's iteration of the character. It was like, I don't know exactly what this guy is feeling because he's changed his entire motivation and MO like 3 times in 4 episodes, but boy is he feeling something!

(Also, nobody looked ANYTHING like their promo images. Wardrobe, hairstyles all totally different, it was hilarious.)

Towards the end, flashbacks grew longer and longer as the executives apparently quarreled over what material to include. As the actors started to have other encroaching deadlines because they were going over time, they couldn't execute even the plans they wanted, and the ending was completely in the air even as the final episodes were being filmed. Finally, at the end,

(SPOILER!!!)

A main character died in the first 10 minutes of the finale, from a tiny knife wound and in the arms of a trained emergency responder over an excruciatingly long period of time in which said responder did not do any kind of medical treatment or call an ambulance. Both of the other main characters had taken 5 times the damage of that tiny lil wound and bounced back without a scratch.

(END SPOILER!!!)

I mean for the first three episodes our main man was getting beaten to the point of death, stabbed multiple times and left for dead like every 15 minutes and then walking it off the next day:

so watching this other guy keel over from a tiny little cut was jarring and random to the point that it would've been comedic if all three actors hadn't also been acting with their whole hearts to make you forget the abysmal context and silliness of all that preceded.

Come to find out--that particular decision WAS random!! They had gone so far over time that the actor literally had to fly to France to film another show and so they just killed his character and changed the entire end of the story! Which is honestly just very on-brand for the rest of the show.

If you watch it as each scene by itself, each scene is awesome. If you watch it together? Reverse Gestalt theory!! It's somehow less than the sum of its parts!!! But still? Glorious. Also everyone is gorgeous which is definitely a perk.

To summarize, the process was basically a budgeted improv club on steroids in which everyone did their absolute best to keep pace with the bizarre new twists and act surprised each time the repetitive ones repeated. Vibes: Improv - The Office US - YouTube.

I didn't actually finish it; I think I watched the first 15 minutes of the last episode and then just recapped the end. But honestly? No regrets with the show, it's my favorite worst thing and my go-to for "bad" examples of writing and continuity when I'm tutoring. If you want to see some gorgeous faces and kill brain cells, you must watch Triangle, it's a riot.

(look at all that drama they brought to this dumpster fire! Loved it haha.)