Alchemy of souls season 1’s downhill trajectory in the second half and that clusterfuck of an ending should have been enough of a hint for us to not continue with season 2.

Oh but most of us did. We so did. And do you know what? S2 actually had a promising start. For what it’s worth, I thought Go Young Jung did a good job with bringing forward a new Naksu who had retained her innocence and wasn’t tainted by all the misery. Jung so Min was a tough act to follow and GYJ did it seamlessly, quickly making us like this cute, sweet, resilient and silently strong woman in love, atleast for a short while.

The usual amnesia, cold man/warm woman angst worked well enough as a guilty pleasure watch in the first, say, three episodes but then… it got real old real fast and you quickly realise:

YOU DON’T WANT A CUTE, SWEET, RESILIENT AND SILENTLY STRONG WOMAN IN LOVE ANY MORE.

No. You want Naksu back. It’s absolutely ridiculous how Hong sisters created this idea of a damaged female assassin with baggage who can be selfish, tough, vulnerable, ruthless and is actually a multi layered character and then spent a season and a half forcing her into the role of a ditzy damsel in distress, constantly in need of saving by oh so strong men.

While her male leads are getting these magnificent and badass grand entrances where they fight a hundred enemies in one go, what does the supposedly powerful female assassin get? A good amount of screen time where she faints, gets hot flashes or enjoys her favourite past time: crying helplessly.

The plot in season 2 is nothing to sing home about. It’s just Jang Uk running circles around the elephant in the room: the identity of Naksu who is traipsing right under his nose.

They just drag and drag and drag that one plot line that by the last episode you really just don’t care at all. The grand reveal is also extremely lacklustre and anti-climatic. It’s like the Hong sisters are making shit up as they go and wing-ing it like their lives depend on it.

The cheap attempts at contrived emotion with the fake deaths, sentimental music and dumb cliffhangers is the height of poor writing.

While the Crown Prince does bring in the comedy and there are a few adorable bromance moments; they are nearly not enough to carry the show on for ten episodes.

I am honestly so offended with the way they dangled the possibility of Naksu owning her skills and showing every one who’s boss in front of me like a carrot and forced me to watch till the end but all I really got was unnecessary pining, a grade school romance, a heroine whose entire purpose is solely to build the hero up and then make herself scarce and Hong sisters displaying how deeply they are entrenched in their own internalised misogyny.

There’s no other way to say it because God forbid, the female lead actually saves the day in even one episode. Blasphemy!

Don’t even get me started on the other potentially powerful female character in the drama “Jin Bu Yeon” who was reduced to little more than an after thought only getting five minutes of mentionable screen time.

So really, going in this show, please don’t expect an actual plot, story line or any sort of meaningful character development because you’ll end up having your intelligence insulted.

Instead, check it out only if you want a mindless watch that serves as a guilty pleasure and is more or less fan fiction in TV form.

Oh and there are some steamy kisses.
Hong sisters really thought they’ll throw in some skin ship as a band aid over the bleeding, torched, infected and full of pus wound that was season 2’s plot.

Make of that what you will.

Enjoy.