“The Bequeathed” is well worth watching. The acting is fantastic. Its characters are quickly and effectively drawn with compelling backstories. And its production values, with its artistic aspects (cinematography, music, set design, etc.), create the perfect environment for a tense crime drama.

But the script is flawed. Its characters act irrationally, have bizarre motives and possess unrealistic abilities.

I’ll dissect its flaws in the below spoilers’ section. But please don’t read it before watching this drama. The show is relatively short, just 6 episodes. And the journey, with fascinating twists, is incredibly entertaining. But if you know the spoilers, it ruins the experience. (It’s like watching a taped-delayed football game after learning the score.)

Still, analyzing shows is also fun. So enjoy. Then come back to this review to see if my criticisms hold water.

Spoilers/Analysis:
This show is similar to Polanski’s “Chinatown” in style (film noir) and substance (incest, property rights). But, as mentioned, it suffers from unbelievable characters and illogical storylines.

Let’s focus on the main plot and its key characters.

1. Yoon Myung-gil; the property owner. Scheming locals killed Yoon Myung-gil to force the sale of his property, the family burial grounds.
2. Yoon Seo-ha; Myung-gil’s niece. She’s an associate professor whose career is floundering and her marriage is failing. Although she never met Myung-gil, she stands to inherit his property.
3. Kim Young-ho; an emotionally disturbed stranger. He claims to be related to Seo-ha and Myung-gil and seeks title to the property.
4. Yoon Myung-hee; Myung-gil’s sister and Young-ho’s mother. She’s the killer.
5. Choi Tae-song; the hotel owner/mobster. He needs cash to impress his future in-laws.

The problematic issues:

1. The main character, Yoon Seo-ha:
Seo-ha is an Art History assistant professor whose husband is unfaithful and is struggling to navigate the treacherous waters of workplace politics (backstabbing coworkers and an abusive, lecherous boss). A detective provides her with evidence that her husband is cheating on her. When her uncle, Myung-gil, dies intestate, she and her husband stand to inherit his property after the police determine Seo-ha is Myung-gil’s only living relative.

Complications regarding her inheritance arise when a mentally unstable stranger, Young-ho, accosts her at Myung-gil’s funeral, claiming to be the rightful heir. He stalks/terrorizes her.

Seo-ha confronts her husband with evidence of his infidelity and demands a divorce. He demands a share of her inheritance first. He’s killed shortly thereafter.

So, with her life in turmoil, what does Seo-ha do? She considers buying and operating a rundown hotel from a sleazy owner based on the advice of a shifty private eye.

In what universe does this occur? This is simply absurd.

But it gets worse.

2. The hotel owner, Choi Tae-song:
Tae-song needs cash fast. His great money-making scheme is to unload his fleabag hotel at an inflated price to a naïve Seo-ha who will be rich once she inherits Myung-gil’s property.

Really? That’s Tae-song’s solution to his money troubles?

First, why would he think Seo-ha would want the hotel, and would be able to quickly secure the funding? His genius plan to facilitating Seo-ha’s inheritance is – wait for it –to force Young-ho to release his property claim by making him an offer he can’t refuse (beating him up till he signs a quitclaim deed).

How could this plan possibly work? The police are already investigating two murders tied to this property. (Soon there would be three.) Would Tae-song really want to be drawn into a murder investigation?

This gets more outrageous when we learn Tae-song is a mobster with murderous thugs and a crooked lawyer on his payroll. Two things; this revelation means he would be even more motivated to avoid police scrutiny. And second, you don’t have to be a criminologist to know there are simpler ways for a mobster to raise money.

In the end, Tae-song decides to kill both Seo-ha and Young-ho. But with Seo-ha dead he won’t be able to consummate the hotel sale. Sure, the climactic kiln scene was cool, but completely illogical.

Finally, there’s his motivation. Tae-song needs the cash because his daughter is getting married to a doctor and he wants to impress his wealthy in-laws by buying the lad a clinic. Beyond absurd.

3. The killer, Yoon Myung-hee:
This is where the story goes off the rails. Myung-hee is Myung-gil‘s sister. She had an incestuous relationship with their older brother, who is also Seo-ha’s father. Crazy Kim Young-ho is their unregistered/undocumented child.

There are all sorts of problems with this character. In the first episode, the police investigation revealed she was dead. There’s no explanation why they were mistaken?

Second, Myung-hee is a frail septuagenarian weighing no more that 115 pounds soaking wet. This brings into question her feats of strength. How was she able to dump Seo-ha’s husband’s body in the creek? (The coroner stated he was dragged by his collar to that spot.) How did she stuff the hulking detective back in his car? And how did she maneuver an unconscious Seo-ha into her truck, then her cave?

It gets worse. As acknowledged in the show, the person entitled to inherit the property is none other than Myung-hee. That’s right. When Myung-gil dies, as the sole surviving sibling, she gets it all.

Why doesn’t Myung-hee file a claim? Here’s how the show explains it. She suffered humiliation as a child due to disfigurement - a cleft palate. If she revealed her true identity, Young-ho’s illegitimacy would be revealed, subjecting him to ridicule. Apparently killing a few innocent people is preferable to name-calling.

Not only is this a ridiculous calculation, it’s not true. First, revealing her identity would have no impact on Young-ho whatsoever. She could still keep his identity a secret. She gets the property, sells it, and gives him the money. Who would know?

Finally, Even if Myung-hee was successful in her plan to kill Seo-ha and her husband, Young-ho still doesn’t inherit the property. He’s an unacknowledged illegitimate child. He wouldn’t have any claim to a blood relative’s estate beyond that of his biological parents. (Korean Civil Code, 2021.) He has no intestate right any other relative’s property. As such, that land would revert to the state/local village. Myung-hee should have consulted a Korean trust and estates lawyer before going on her meaningless killing spree.

A couple of final problematic issues:

1. The family plot. After being terrorized by estranged family members/lunatics over a parcel of property bequeathed to her by someone she never met, Seo-ha decides to keep it. That makes perfect sense. Because after all, this land holds so much meaning to her – it’s a treasured family legacy; her roots. Apparently, nothing’s more valuable to Seo-ha than those cherished memories of her family and the good times they shared. Yuck.

The underlying message of this show is the exact opposite. When a family is dysfunctional and the relationships are toxic; the best thing to do is to cut all ties. Keeping with the story arc, it should have concluded with Seo-ha dumping the property the second she secured title. (Incidentally, the detective subplot provided the family redemption theme.)

2. The poison. Thallium comes in a medicine bottle. It’s not packaged and shipped in bags that look like sacks of fertilizer, as depicted in the show. And ingesting a gram or two is fatal. The quantity found at the construction site would have killed the entire population of Korea (and cost a fortune).

3. The title. “The Bequeathed” is grammatically incorrect. Bequeath is a verb; e.g. Grandma bequeathed her wedding ring to Mollie.

At a minimum, the show should be renamed “The Bequest.” But that doesn’t really fit either since a bequest is an affirmative act; giving an item to another through a will. Here, Myung-gil didn’t have a will.

The correct title should be, “The Inheritance.”