Even though I did not have high hopes for this drama, I was still disappointed in this series as I’m sure you can tell by my initial gif. I went in with zero expectations, which is more than I can say for Kissable Lips – I had low expectations for that one but was greatly surprised. Unfortunately for Behind Cut, I was let down.
*As always, there will be spoilers*
Onto the summary!
This series is about two guys. Gi Jin aspires to be a famous fashion designer while Yeong Woo is a part-time delivery man who has no idea what he wants to do with his life. Gi Jin is fairly uptight but motivated to achieve his dream while Yeong Woo is very bubbly and cheerful and seemingly content with exactly where he is in life at the moment. One day, these two bump into each other and it’s not the best first meeting. However, Gi Jin sees potential in Yeong Woo and likes his personal color/demeanor. He thinks that Yeong Woo would be the perfect person to model his clothes to sell his brand’s image. With a little bit of persuading, Yeong Woo agrees to be his model which marks the beginning of their friendship turned romance.
That summary sounds like this would be a super cute romance, and for a while, it really was. But once we got to episode 7 (there are only 8 episodes), things shifted and all of a sudden, our couple is apart, no longer speaking to each other, and episode 8 takes place a whole year later. Like…what???
I’m sure you’re thinking, “But Anais, the same thing happened in The Tasty Florida”. But I say NO! The same thing did not happen in TTF. At least not in the same way. In TTF, our couple was apart because one person was going to go find his dad to get some type of closure while the other actually pushed him to go and agreed to wait for him until he returned. Which, he did – one year later.
In Behind Cut, the separation was so abrupt and with absolutely ZERO explanation even when they meet again one year later. It all just left me feeling very unsatisfied and like my emotional investment in the show was toyed with.
Also, there was a freaking love triangle. I’ve gotta do better at picking the kdramas I watch because I am SO DONE with the stupid love triangle trope. I’ve never liked them. Which is unfortunate because the third wheel guy was by far the superior actor out of everyone in the darn series. I can’t say I liked his character that much, but the actor who played him was a good actor.
If you can’t tell by now, this review is going to be all over the place. I usually try to keep my reviews in some type of format, but my thoughts are coming to me a mile a minute, so bear with me if you can.
Starting out, I liked seeing how our couple went from being almost enemies, to friends, to practically boyfriends. Even though the series was short and suffered from time restraints, I still got the feeling that this was supposed to be a slowly developed relationship that blossomed into more, and many of the interactions between the two of them felt very natural, in my opinion.
They were cute together and I liked that this wasn’t a series where men try to hide their sexualities. They were both very open and neither hid the fact that they liked each other, despite the first kiss seemingly coming pretty quickly. For that, I had to keep reminding myself that this is a short series, so their relationship could not visually develop as slowly as I wanted it to. But I did get the feeling that time was passing between the episodes, so that helped.
Anyways. The best character in this whole series was Yeong Woo’s dad. Like seriously, I loved him so much and I loved the relationship that Yeong Woo had with him. He was the comforter, the protector, the shoulder to cry on, the one to talk and laugh and share a beer with. But he was also very hands-off and allowed Yeong Woo to live his own life and explore in order to find out what he wants to do in life. He was great and I loved that Yeong Woo was openly gay and could talk to his dad about his dating life and heartbreaks. I’m sooooo ecstatic that the writers of this show did away with the domineering father trope. Supportive and friendly dads for the win!
As for the third wheel in this god-forsaken love triangle, I will admit that I felt bad for him (even though I forget his name). I knew from the beginning just how much he was in love with Gi Jin but Gi Jin only saw him as a friend and roommate, nothing more. But his character was acted so well, I just wanted him to find someone that could love him back. To see him finally tell Gi Jin that he liked him, then cry when Gi Jin rejects him, ugh…I just felt so bad.
He didn’t do anything wrong, really, and he wasn’t an entirely unlikable character. I just wished there hadn’t been a love triangle because it really didn’t add anything to the story. Had the love triangle been cut out completely and he was simply Gi Jin’s roommate who taught Yeong Woo how to model, the story would still have the same ending.
Something I thought was really weird was that Third Wheel Guy and Yeong Woo were supposed to have some type of history, yet it was never explained?? We see a flashback clip of Yeong Woo crying and Third Wheel Guy somewhat comforting him, but it’s never explained what that scene was or what it meant. We also hear Yeong Woo tell him that he always runs away (alluding to their history together), but still, we don’t get any more explanation.
So, we as the viewers are left to wonder what the heck is going on. Were they boyfriends in the past? Did Yeong Woo like him and get rejected? Was that flashback in high school? How long has it been since they’ve seen each other? We don’t know and we never find out. Boooo.
In the grand scheme of things, their history didn’t matter however, it would have added an interesting layer to the overall story. And plus, if you’re going to introduce something like that, then commit and finish the story! Since we never get an explanation for any of it, it all ended up just feeling like filler and a waste of time. Just like axing the love triangle, this random and supposed history between them, could have been cut and the ending would have still been the same. It really didn’t add anything to the overarching story except the amount of time it took to finish the series.
The worst part of this series was the ending. I hated how after Gi Jin and Yeong Woo finally get what they both want, they just completely ghost each other. Granted, Gi Jin started the ghosting first by ignoring Yeong Woo’s initial phone call. But we never see Yeong Woo try to reach out to him again after that one phone call, and after all this talk of Gi Jin going to New York to get his clothing line started, we never actually get an answer of if he went or not. We see his crumpled plane ticket in the garbage, insinuating that he’s staying in Korea, but he still disappears for a whole year. So, where did he go? We don’t know, and we never find out. Booooo.
We are led to believe that Yeong Woo stops modeling and goes back to being a delivery guy, but when he and Gi Jin finally meet up again, we find out that apparently, he’s still been modeling? And that Gi Jin knew about it? And still never reached out to him?? If the writers thought they could sweep all this under the rug because they ended the series with a kissing scene, they were mistaken.
It was all sooo weiirrddd and even though Gi Jin apologizes for disappearing, especially without saying anything, there was never any explanation of why he did. The two of them basically skirted around the issue and pretended like nothing ever happened. I found this soooo frustrating, especially since I had – and still have – so many questions. I’m genuinely curious as to why the writers went this route for this series. It started off well but with a disappointing ending like this and so many questions left unanswered, I honestly cannot give this series a good rating.
Watch at your own risk.
And one more petty thing that added to my annoyance with this series was the darn theme song. It was awful and it played allllll the freakin time throughout the series. Whoever sang the theme, to put it nicely, their voice was not my favorite. Boooo.
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