While I never really fully embraced “Crazy Love,” I still didn’t expect this to be my final judgment of it, all of that potential was wasted, and I am here to rant because of it.

“Crazy Love” started out weak then gained momentum before ultimately crashing down right before my eyes, and the saddest thing about all of this is how easy to avoid this was.

“Crazy Love,” at heart, has a great story, a story that could have become one of the best kdramas in recent memory that explores toxic male lead traits in kdramas and expand on that, but the screenwriter doesn’t seem to know or want to go that route.

So below, I shall go over each plot point I had an issue with and why ultimately I found the drama to be nonsensical.

Note: this will be a spoiler review of the entire drama. This is a subjective review.

The female lead- and lack of respect

One of my biggest issues with “Crazy Love” remained how Kim Jae Wook and Krystal got together. I never understood the justification behind it. This is very shocking since the script is written by a woman who should know the basics of how women think and perceive men around them especially considering the characteristics she set for Shin Ah.

I am shocked this is written by a woman honestly.

Lee Shin Ah might have had her shortcomings but she’s a woman who reached a boiling point and decided to punish Noh Go Jin, with this in mind, it doesn’t make sense to me that she has so little self-respect that she’d end up dating him and sympathizing with him. Not to say women in real life don’t date terrible men, but her characteristics never pointed to her being this type of woman.

Just to recap, Noh Go Jin belittles her daily, he threw stuff in her face all the time and in front of others sometimes, he disrespected her and made her repeat tasks for his own pleasure over minuscule things, he publicly humiliated her in front of a crowd telling her she will never become an instructor because she’s lacking knowing well this was her dream and the reason why she put up with him.

With all of this in mind and with how much the screenwriter attempted to drill this into our memory, it makes no sense that she would end up accepting his love after little resistance. Its as if she was never humiliated or treated badly, its astounding really.

And in episode 15, the screenwriter makes it a point to draw sympathy towards the terrible character of Noh Go Jin as Lee Shin Ah hugs him and speaks about how ‘rough’ he’s had it when almost everything that happened to him was a result of his own actions and terrible personality, directly or indirectly.

He does end up apologizing to her but the screenwriter also frames it as in he only ‘bullied’ her when that was factually incorrect as she demonstrates early and later on in the drama.

This could have been a great character study on why some women gravitate towards toxic men but nothing in Lee Shin Ah’s life points to why she’d ever get with someone like him not unless she’s doing it because he’s hot and/or rich.

Noh Go Jin- all around terrible

Another thing that annoyed me about the discussion around “Crazy Love” was how defensive some fans are. They equate discussions about a fictional character to that of a real human being as if we can’t distinguish between real and fiction, and as if its ever rude to discuss why Noh Go Jin is not a good person, this is not even mentioning all the sympathizers of Noh Go Jin who pat him on the back for doing the bare minimum. Pretty privilege is alive and well.

I like Kim Jae Wook, he’s the reason I persisted in watching this drama despite my complaints. Even with this in mind, I dislike this character because he’s framed as ‘wronged’ when he’s absolutely terrible, and me disliking the character doesn’t mean I dislike the actor.

Being hurt doesn’t excuse hurting others, getting betrayed doesn’t mean you should go around and hurt others unrelated to you. Noh Go Jin was not only a terrible human all around after what had happened to him but also someone who also takes pride in tormenting those around him as if he’s some sort of god because he has a high IQ.

And the screenwriter goes around in weird circles, one moment she’s like ‘look at how terrible he is,’ and the next she’s like ‘oh, isn’t he so pitiful?’ what is it writernim?

This could have been so much better, so much more interesting, you had a wonderful idea about how a human who is deeply flawed gets corrected and you do this, its astounding, really.

Noh Go Jin is such a terrible character he had about six to eight people targeting him at all time. That is in itself an accomplishment. Setting secretary Jo aside who is just crazy, the rest were all a result of his actions one way or another.

And even when he’s hailed for being ‘nice’ by media, its a result of not his own actions but Lee Shin Ah who took revenge on him by donating to charities. I am not saying the secretaries or people who hurt him were justified but if you’re disrespectful and obnoxious, its weird that you’d expect people not to fight back or try to harm you.

The worst of it all is that he’s self-aware, he’s aware he’s mean, he’s aware he’s been disrespectful but he ends up getting rewarded the girl and framed as the victim in the end.

We all go through difficult moments, but it never justifies being mean towards others. His past does make me understand where he’s coming from but its not an excuse, my issue is that his problems were treated as excuses. If everyone who has been hurt went around and behaved like Noh Go Jin, we’re f*cked as a society. You don’t get to dump your toxicity on others who have no relation to what happened to you.

Oh Se Gi’s revenge- no sense my guys

When I was watching the final episodes of “Crazy Love,” I was curious to see if the screenwriter can escape the hole she dug herself in in terms of writing. It didn’t make sense to me that Oh Se Gi, who has been loyal to Noh Go Jin all this time despite everyone hating his terrible character, would suddenly flip so badly.

In a previous conversation he’s had with himself, he says things along the lines of ‘I grew it [the company] with him and now I’ll bring him down.’ This left me under the impression that he’s been thinking this for a long time and waited until he was so high to bring him down.

Then, it turns out he’s only known for like three months. Talk about ruining the entire second half of your show just like that.

It doesn’t make sense that he’s known Noh Go Jin for this long and not known his sister worked with him in the same company. It also doesn’t make any sense that he didn’t know how or why she died or didn’t even bother looking into this. Its so weird that he didn’t come to him with the recording to discuss it with him first. I’d assume if he tolerated him and thought he was soft on the inside, he wouldn’t sacrifice all the hard work they’ve done because of a voice recording.

The other thing that doesn’t make any sense was how his sister committed suicide just like that. The screenwriter offers no introductions, no depth, just that.

His sister could have easily cleared her name, in her scenes, she had no visible signs of distress/mental issues enough to justify killing herself nearly instantly after her boyfriend tells her to take the fall. Its as if she couldn’t prove otherwise in like an hour or so. I wished she took time to explore why his sister committed suicide, not some throwaway lines to help salvage whatever that is left of your script.

This makes the entire justification for Oh Se Gi’s actions dump. How could you have thought of it like that? Seriously, I’d like to know.

Secretary Jo and Na Soo Yeon- also doesn’t make sense

Na Soo Yeon’s character was such a throwaway it was honestly mind-boggling that such a thing even existed. Just how many protagonists do you need?

Na Soo Yeon behaves like a 90s villain choosing to appear so late on in the series but then failing to make any impact with her actions and its so jarring to have watched whatever that attempt at adding filler to the drama was, but thats not even the biggest issue.

“Crazy Love” as a script is drowned with like 5 protagonists with almost no connection at all. Which makes it feel jarring.

Secretary Jo seemed like the screenwriter final and end goal, he was to be the final actual villain, except for the fact that it doesn’t make any sense. Even with Se Gi’s motivations being so flimsy, you can work around and kinda sorta justify them but in the case of Secretary Jo, it just doesn’t add up.

Even if he felt as if the suicide happened because of Noh Go Jin, he sure took time to avenge someone whom he turned his back on. If he had for example stayed by her side and somehow Noh Go Jin was mean to them and ruined them, then I’d get it, but thats not even what happens.

Also, the screenwriter teases how Secretary Jo has the funds and capabilities to harm Noh Go Jin but considering how he was caught for stealing, she fails to follow up on how he reached this point in his career and how he could have even anticipated that working for Noh Go Jin’s ex-lover would bring him closer to tearing him down, thats like magic at this point for everything to align just the way he needed to enact revenge.

And considering how Noh Go Jin was not portrayed as the best person especially early on, it makes little sense how the screenwriter doesn’t use that to justify this, opting to instead make it something so outlandish that it would make Noh Go Jin look nice in comparison. Because you sympathize with someone who is clearly wronged over someone who is suffering the consequences of their actions. The possibilities to have done this right are endless yet this is the outcome we’re left with.

Conclusion

“Crazy Love” had potential and it was getting good towards the second half up until the screenwriter began introducing all those random parts to pad the run time with little effort to make sense of them.

Suspension of disbelief can only work so much but the way she wrote the script is almost insulting to the viewers’ intelligence as if she expects you to roll with whatever she writes ‘just because.’

I feel so bad for Jae Wook and Krystal because I really liked their performances, I felt they deserved better for the amount of effort they put in, the same goes for everyone else involved in this project.

So these are my thoughts on the drama, so what about you guys? did you like the episodes? let me know what you thought in the comment section below.